Nick Cave, On tour
Nick Cave is one of those people who can feel alone in a crowd. Although billed as “solo” shows, which would be no bad thing, these are actually a bit different: gigs featuring Cave accompanied by four people, a slimmed-down version of the Bad Seeds. Cave has by now almost bored himself writing classic love songs, but recent experimental work such as his 2013 album Push The Sky Away has found him dismantling his process and discovering a modern way to write moving songs. Which is the way a ballad works all over: it can take you apart, but it can also put you back together again.
JR
Mobb Deep, On tour
As their big street anthem of 20 years ago, Shook Ones, had it, there’s “no such things as halfway crooks”. Certainly Prodigy and Havoc, the duo who make up Mobb Deep, don’t just talk it, but walk it too: Prodigy has only recently emerged from prison on a firearms charge, a period marked also by a serious falling-out with his fellow rapper. So it is with the pair’s music: while they are possibly best known here for featuring on Outta Control, a UK top 10 hit for 50 Cent a decade ago, they are far better heard on their own uncompromising terms. As with Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep’s best work, such as their The Infamous album, recounts criminal life as a Spartan code, accompanied by eerie atmosphere and pounding drums. Only the strong survive and, accordingly, The Infamous has been recently reissued with additional gritty material; so naturally it’s this rather than their club tunes which will likely dominate here.
JR
Only Real, On tour
Pretty much alone among one-man bands, Niall Galvin – the 23-year-old west Londoner who is Only Real – actually sounds like a proper band. As heard on songs such as his arguable standout Cadillac Girl, it’s a fairly primitive indie group in the vein of Swim Deep, the picture mildly complicated by the fact that Galvin’s delivery is often a slack quasi-rap. In truth, he’s a bit of a curious proposition, recalling both the self-consciously cool likes of King Krule on one hand, and the unselfconsciously mainstream pop of Just Jack on the other. Clearly, the thinking is that Only Real will effortlessly vault between the two positions in the manner of Jamie T, winning a huge audience while keeping his hardcore onside. While his debut album Jerk At The End Of The Line hints that his tunes can take him there, his rather introverted live show suggests he’s reluctant to appear nakedly ambitious.
JR
Tectonics Festival, Glasgow
French composer Eliane Radigue is a grand dame of electronic music. A pioneer who started out as an assistant with Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, she composes hypnotic unfolding drone pieces with fine, rich textures. Now in her 80s, she composes largely for acoustic instruments. Exciting then, that new pieces from her Occam series will be performed at Ilan Volkov’s Tectonics festival in Glasgow, played by cellist Charles Curtis, harpist Rhodri Davies, Robin Hayward on microtonal tuba, and Dafne Vicente-Sandoval on bassoon (Grand Hall, 2 & 3 May). On the louder end of the festival’s lineup is industrial noise Brummie and Godflesh founder Justin K Broadrick, who shares a bill with German saxophone colossus Peter Brötzmann (Old Fruitmarket, Fri), plus a late gig with Mayhem frontman, Sunn O))) collaborator and Hungarian black metal vocalist Attila Csihar playing with turntablist Mariam Rezaei (Old Fruitmarket, Sat).
JA
Kurt Elling, Cheltenham
Kurt Elling came to the jazz world’s notice in the mid-1990s, when his resonant tenor voice, improviser’s imagination and bold choice of material announced a newcomer fit to rank with the technically adventurous likes of Jon Hendricks or Mark Murphy; the Washington Post went as far as to venture that “no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or interesting”. In one of the most high-profile gigs of the 2015 Cheltenham jazz festival, Elling will share the stage with UK vocalists Clare Teal and Anthony Strong, as well as the BBC Concert Orchestra led by Guy Barker, in the Sinatra tribute that the singer first explored four years back.
Big Top, Fri
JF
Król Roger, London
Karol Szymanowski was one of the composers on the edges of musical modernism in the first decades of the 20th century. He’s best known, in this country at least, for his heady, highly coloured orchestral works. But the piece that is arguably his most substantial achievement is the opera Król Roger. Perhaps the greatest of all Polish operas, it has had very few performances here; this new staging at Covent Garden is the first ever by the Royal Opera. Set in 12th-century Sicily, and with a libretto co-written by the composer himself, Król Roger is a story of the conflicts between intellect and instinct, and between the cultures of east and west. It’s not an especially dramatic scenario, but it is one that gives Szymanowski scope for sumptuous orchestral effects and richly chromatic harmonies. The Royal Opera production will be conducted by Antonio Pappano, with Mariusz Kwiecień in the title role.
Royal Opera House, WC2, Fri to 19 May
AC
