Steven Wilson is known as ‘The most successful British musician most people have never heard of’. So how did I find him? Steven Wilson copyright Kscope In February 2009, Steven Wilson did something uncharacteristically violent; he destroyed five iPods. He shot the first one, smiling ‘wow’ when he hit it first time, but sensibly wearing …
Album Review – Ms Amy Birks: All That I Am and All That I Was
**** Achingly beautiful music in troubled times In those distant days before the world was gripped by the hands of a virus that forced us all into lockdown, I was on my way back home on a train from London. I was doing some research on my laptop into the Prog Rock band Porcupine Tree …
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Review – Manchester Collective: Cries and Whispers
Manchester Collective The White Hotel, Salford Saturday 14 March 2020 Everything they touch turns to musical gold ***** Dmitri Shostakovich This was a concert for troubled times. Manchester Collective's Managing Director, Adam Szabo thanked us for braving the weather and the virus. He said that this performance, the end of a short tour, would be …
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Review – Britten The Turn of the Screw
Opera North The Lowry, Salford Wednesday 11 March 2020 A superbly creepy staging of Britten's masterpiece ***** Sarah Tynan as the Governess and Nicholas Watts as Peter Quint ©Tristram Kenton The small scale of the forces involved in Benjamin Britten's 1954 opera was evident when the whole cast came on stage at the end to take …
Review – Red (1974) by King Crimson
John Wetton, Bill Bruford and Robert Fripp Part III of How I learned to listen to King Crimson King Crimson's 1974 album Red is a challenging listen, partly because it refuses to be categorised. It's progressive rock, heavy rock, proto-metal, jazz, contemporary classical, full of terrible beauty and actual beauty. The musicianship is of the …
Review – Dream Theater
Celebrating 20 Years of Scenes from a Memory Dream Theater SEC Armadillo, Glasgow Sunday 23 February 2020 A stunning stage show with virtuosic guitar playing **** The Armadillo in Glasgow somehow seemed appropriate for a stage set that began with futuristic images of robots on the big screen, revealing some of their innards just as …
Review – Thrak (1995) by King Crimson
Part II of How I learned to listen to King Crimson My own response to King Crimson is one of quiet terror Robert Fripp, Die Zeit, May 1995 In King Crimson...there was always a call for a sense of a threat of impending doom. Bill Bruford, Auditory Illusions, BBC Radio 4 2019 In 2019, I heard that King Crimson …
How I learned to listen to King Crimson
A huge compression of grinding guitar riffs and stupefying bass, only upstaged on occasion by drumming that reminds me of the time my pet frog was squashed by seven falling refrigerators. Paul Ferguson, Amazon Review of Thrak by King Crimson, February 2003 I hope Paul’s frog survived. In case you are wondering whether Paul liked the album, …
Review – Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites
RNCM soloists, chorus and orchestra RNCM Manchester Saturday 14 December 2019 A stunning staging of Poulenc's emotional opera **** This was the final performance of the RNCM's staging of Poulenc's opera, Dialogues des Carmélites, set in a Carmelite monastery during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. It's a deeply religious work appearing towards …
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Review – Devin Townsend and Haken
Devin Townsend Haken (support) Albert Hall, Manchester Tuesday 10 December 2010 Devin Townsend ***** Haken **** A deluge of Biblical proportions hit central Manchester in the early evening on Tuesday. Devin Townsend promised us a brief escape from torrential rain and the torrent of political uncertainty outside. Haken stood proud, two of them poised like …
