Chance The Rapper, London & Manchester
Acid Rap, the 2013 mixtape that took promising Chicago MC Chance The Rapper to a wider audience, managed to continue in the tradition of psychedelic hip-hop, being part puerile, part extremely creepy. An MC with an undoubtedly impressive vocabulary but a slightly annoying persona – he sometimes comes off like a smart alecky high-school student – he definitely does better when he surrenders to the possibilities of the music that he’s working with. Smug dork and soulful music head is a tough equation to balance, but it’s something he continues to explore on his new album Surf.
Wireless festival, N4, Sun; Electric Brixton, SW2, Mon; The Ritz, Manchester, Wed
JR
AC/DC, Glasgow & Dublin
Rock Or Bust isn’t just the name of AC/DC’s new album, it’s an operational philosophy. When their singer Bon Scott died in 1980 they immediately got a new one – and made their best-selling album Back In Black. When it was announced that founder member Malcolm Young had dementia and was retiring from active duty, they called up his nephew Stevie and built a new album on the foundation of old demos. Still, when drummer Phil Rudd was last year arrested for a colourful range of charges including methamphetamine possession, it looked as if something might finally have arisen to throw the band off its stroke, but evidently not. That’s the unstoppable nature of their music all over, too: since their commercial resurgence in the mid-1990s, the band’s might has been a given, playing the hits to the millions who want to hear them. You either get on that bus, or get run over.
Hampden Park, Glasgow, Sun; Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Wed; touring to 4 Jul
JR
Burt Bacharach, On tour
In a time when songwriters “looked like dentists”, Burt Bacharach was cut from a different cloth: he wrote staggering melodies and married a movie star. Such is the defining paradox of Bacharach’s career. Though he exuded glamour, his chief fame is as a background figure: as a producer, conductor and (with lyricist Hal David) songwriter of canonical 1960s classics for Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones. In spite of a major chink in his armour (he is no singer), Burt has never let his front-of-stage ambitions rest. Some 50 years ago, when he was a mere 37, there were solo hits. In the last few years, meanwhile, he has reappeared with an autobiography and a reinvigorated live schedule and shows no sign of being done. Easy listening, yes, but with a lust for life.
JR
Marisa Anderson, Bristol & Glasgow
Marisa Anderson’s guitar playing is something special. Checkpoints are the US folk tradition, American primitive playing in the finger-picking lineage of John Fahey, with perhaps an edge of the electric rock ramblings of Neil Young. It’s is a heavy cargo of cultural baggage that she’s carrying. Anderson’s instruments are guitar and lap steel, and to British ears her style seems straight outta the dustbowl; her sound (no singing, just softly spoken intros about dream-like swimming holes and the eternal Elizabeth Cotten) thickened with electricity and a scratchy, overdriven tone as she swings from pure plucked ballads to hard’n’fast Delta romps.
Cafe Kino, Bristol, Wed; Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, Fri; touring to 6 Jul
JA
Marcos Valle, Glasgow & London
Fresh from Glastonbury, the prolific bossa nova composer and dynamic pianist-singer Marcos Valle brings to Glasgow and London the kind of vivacious show that keeps on confirming his appeal for dance audiences and cool-jazz loungers alike. One of the best-loved Brazilian successors to the Antônio Carlos Jobim and Carlos Lyra generation, Valle has written over 500 songs since his emergence in the early 1960s. His So Nice (Summer Samba) was a massive hit, and his 70s work bridging jazz, samba, prog rock and electronics subsequently made him a success on the acid-jazz scene. Though lucrative TV work diverted him from the spotlight for some years, Valle found new listeners through a more contemporary sound in the 1990s. These gigs are likely to be frenetic affairs, with long-time vocal partner Patricia Alvi in a sparky lineup featuring trumpeter Jessè Sadoc, bassist Kevin Glasgow and drummer Renato “Massa” Calmon.
Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, Sat; Ronnie Scott’s, W1, Sun
JF
Britten-Pears Orchestra, Aldeburgh
In 1956, Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears visited Bali, where Britten became fascinated with gamelan, thanks to the music’s shimmering textures and the sense of movement involved. On his return, Britten incorporated the sound world of the gamelan in his new ballet, The Prince Of The Pagodas, and it would haunt his music to the end of his life. The final concert of this year’s Aldeburgh festival takes a close look at that aspect of Britten’s music. Oliver Knussen’s programme with the Britten-Pears Orchestra ends with a suite from The Prince Of The Pagodas, and begins with McPhee’s Tabuh-Tabuhan. In between, there is Gunther Schuller’s Seven Studies On Themes Of Paul Klee.
AC
