Writing about music is like dancing about architecture
The 2007 classic album finally appears on streaming services ***** Lasse Hoile's striking cover image for Fear of a Blank Planet Within Porcupine Tree's canon of ten studio albums, their 2007 album Fear of a Blank Planet has a similar status to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon within the Pink Floyd catalogue, a …
Continue reading "Album Review – Fear of a Blank Planet by Porcupine Tree"
***** A dangerous journey through a magical forest Recreation is released on 4 September 2020 on the Bedroom Community label Manchester Collective were last heard playing in public on 14 March (see review here) the final date of their Cries and Whispers tour. It may be a little while before we are able to enjoy …
Continue reading "Review – Manchester Collective: Recreation"
A melancholy disco masterpiece ***** Love you to bits is the seventh studio album by No-Man the long-running collaboration between Steven Wilson former frontman of Porcupine Tree and now a solo artist, and singer Tim Bowness. The band was formed in the late 1980s and signed to the label that also featured Björk, and for …
Nicky Spence as Manolios with the Chorus of Opera North, The Greek Passion © Tristram Kenton Opera North The Lowry, Salford Saturday 16 November 2019 A visually striking production of a topical drama **** ‘The poor are always with us’. So are refugees, and Martinů’s message in his opera the Greek Passion is both topical and timeless. The …
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 …
**** 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 …
Continue reading "Album Review – Ms Amy Birks: All That I Am and All That I Was"
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 …
Continue reading "Review – Manchester Collective: Cries and Whispers"
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 …
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 …
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 …
