D’Angelo, On tour
In the context of R&B artists who are pop stars, D’Angelo is an oddity. A writer and producer as well as a performer, he is seemingly driven only by his muse, happy to take five years between albums (debut Brown Sugar and Voodoo) or even 14 (Voodoo and current album Black Messiah). Talk about worth the wait, though. Recorded with musicians including Roots drummer Questlove and Pino Palladino, 80s king of the fretless bass, Black Messiah is an electrifying, sophisticated, raw and socially engaged piece. It’s been a confusing trip to get here, with his 2012 tours suggesting that an album called James River was imminent, but when a perfectionist such as this rush-releases an album because of current events (specifically the incidents in Ferguson, Missouri), you can understand how keenly he feels his work has something to say.
JR
The War On Drugs, On tour
At a US festival last year, unfortunate circumstances led the War On Drugs to drown out a set by singer-songwriter Mark Kozelek. His vituperative reaction (composing a song that called them “basic, John Fogerty rock”) has led to an amusingly public war of words. So far, Kozelek is ahead on points, but you’d have to say in the wider war the Philadelphian band is winning. Writers of working-man’s rock in a psychedelic U2 vein, the band are finding a larger audience but, as current album Lost In The Dream proves, that’s not at the expense of occasionally mixing things up.
JR
FKA twigs, London
Tahliah Debrett Barnett is an artist enjoying a double life. On the one hand, she’s the consummate leftfield British R&B performer. On the other, she’s right at the heart of the mainstream agenda: a big story in the celebrity world of Mail Online. As her record confirms, twigs is promising to be something akin to the Kate Bush of her generation. Her subject matter (bedroom mistrust and reconciliations; romantic betrayals) is uncompromising. Her voice, meanwhile, contrives to take it all to another more chilly and thoughtful place, a kind of libidinous religious music. No wonder people from all sides of the church want to get involved.
Roundhouse, NW1, Thu & Fri
JR
Earth, On tour
Dylan Carlson’s Earth have been blasting mega-riffs into cathedrals of sound for more than two decades. A pioneer of doom-laden drone rock, Carlson’s history takes in a friendship with Kurt Cobain, a serious drug problem and a long-running research project on the occult. Earth have gone through many lineup changes (there were very few long-term members during the 90s) but have stabilised in recent years, with this tour featuring cellist Lori Goldston, drummer Adrienne Davies and Don McGreevy on bass. Operating around a tripartite set of principles: slowness, loudness and length, Earth give you the feeling of staring into an endless black hole. Time collapses and the heavy density of the sound exerts a gravitational pull. Amid a larger tour, the group play five UK dates with support from Oakland electronics-and-percussion improv duo Black Spirituals.
JA
Zhenya Strigalev, London
The young Russian saxophonist Zhenya Strigalev knows plenty about the languages of contemporary music, and as a New York/London emigre, plenty about English too; but “fear” doesn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. Strigalev is a wild player who doesn’t flinch from hurling himself into uncharted terrain. Simultaneously, he’s devoted to a very disciplined jazz language: bebop. He’s also a composer and bandleader of ambitious vision, bringing together international supergroups to play his brooding Russian dirges, flat-out 1960s-style hard bop (his uptempo playing often recalls giants such as Jackie McLean or Art Pepper) with 21st-century New York twists, free improv, heartfelt ballads and hip-hop. Strigalev launches his latest album, Robin Goodie, with this gig, performed with his talented transatlantic band Smiling Organizm, including trumpeter Alex Sipiagin and pianist Liam Noble.
Ronnie Scott’s, W1, Wed
JF
La Vida Breve & Gianni Schicchi, On tour
In 2004, Opera North presented eight one-act pieces, shown in double bills that switched around as the production went on tour. Among them, one stood out: Christopher Alden’s staging of Manuel de Falla’s La Vida Breve, which he set in the down-at-heel Spain of Pedro Almodóvar’s movies and transformed into a biting and gut-wrenching piece of theatre, full of brilliantly realised detail. Eleven years on, its impact still lingers, and it’s great news to discover that Opera North hasn’t forgotten it either. Alden has been invited to revive the show, pairing it with a brand-new production of Puccini’s supreme comedy Gianni Schicchi. As Salud, Anne-Sophie Duprels is the tragic central character in La Vida Breve this time, with Jesús Alvarez as Paco, the man who deceives her. Meanwhile, Christopher Purves takes the title role in Schicchi, and Jennifer France gets to sing one of Puccini’s most famous arias.
AC
