Rat Boy, On tour
There was a time when Rat Boy was simply Jordan Cardy, a young man from Essex. His early songs such as Sign On (recounting what it’s like to be “young, dumb, living off Mum”) established the Rat Boy tone pretty well: a bit Jamie T, a bit Mike Skinner and also a little bit Just Jack, leaning perhaps more towards the populist end of amiable lo-fi MCing than gritty social realism. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though that may be why Rat Boy possibly makes more sense not as a one-man show, but when he operates as part of a fairly tight touring indie band. This isn’t exactly a proposition with a unique vision ready-established – like, for instance, the Arctic Monkeys. Rather, Rat Boy and his crew seem to be an inverse of the young Blur. They were Essex tunesmiths with nothing much to say. Rat Boy, on the other hand, has some things on his mind, but is still looking for a melodic direction.
Truck festival, Oxford, Sat, Latitude festival, Blythburgh, Sun; Boston Music Room, N19, Fri
JR
Rosanne Cash, On tour
“Mature work” doesn’t sound like the most exciting thing to get involved with, suggesting the accompaniment of pipe and slippers. In fact, records made after 30-odd years of work can be among an artist’s very best, dispensing with superfluous production frills and focusing instead on what they’ve come to realise is most important. Such was, say, Robert Plant’s Raising Sand, and so indeed is Rosanne Cash’s The River & The Thread. Written with her producer husband John Leventhal, it takes Cash back to the American south, a place not only of the country music and rock’n’roll channelled by her father Johnny Cash, but also of blues and gospel. Country heavyweights such as Kris Kristofferson are on board, but the overall impression is a punchy and direct record, informed by deep history but ready to take on the modern world.
JR
Tinariwen, London & Malmesbury
One consequence of the jihadist uprising in northern Mali has been to force rock music underground. If a sense of the rootless had already attached itself to the haunted blues of Tinariwen, a longstanding Tuareg band of the region, that feeling now seems to have been overtaken by events: one guitarist captured, the rest of the group escaping to America. As far as their most recent album, 2014’s Emmaar, goes exile in California has been a productive experience. The band’s previous album, Tassili, featured hip luminaries such as Nels Cline. Emmaar does too, but alongside their usual minimal swing is a heavy, dolorous vibe.
Fairfield Halls, Croydon, Thu; Womad, Charlton Park, Malmesbury, Fri; touring to 25 Jul
JR
Nozinja, London & Manchester
Nozinja, AKA musician, label head and talent scout Richard Mthethwa, is the South African producer behind Soweto street-dance movement Shangaan electro. The poster boy for the style and its prime mover, Mthethwa responded to dancers’ desire for faster music, pushing beats to hyper-velocity. Shangaan electro races at a breathless 180BPM: a super-charged fusion of 1990s Kwaito music and elements of US house with a heavy hand on the speed slider, so that rhythms run cartoonish rings around clipped marimba and vocal samples. Standing back isn’t an option, and neither are uncomfortable shoes; and no Nozinja show is complete without an entourage of at least two dancers in signature orange boilersuits, masks and skirts.
JA
Irakere, London
The Cuban band Irakere were waking UK audiences up to jazz-influenced makeovers of the island’s irresistible dance grooves at least a decade before Buena Vista Social Club, and with this return to Ronnie Scott’s (their London home back in the 1980s) they celebrate 40 years of their ebullient existence. Pianist Chucho Valdés returns with a new 10-piece lineup to ignite the ensemble’s famous chemistry of US jazz, rootsy Cuban grooves, rock and classical forms with the kind of bravura that brings the most cooled-out jazz crowds to their feet. Valdés is liable to quote from all manner of songs at will, unleash glittering runs that ripple the length of the keyboard, veer into bebop classics, descend into bass-note harangues, or leap into clamouring trills while his gargantuan left hand marches huge chords back and forth. The latest Irakere incarnation is likely to raise the roof.
Ronnie Scott’s, W1, Mon to 25 Jul
JF
Glyndebourne Opera: Saul, Lewes
The last new production at Glyndebourne this summer is also the most unpredictable. The staging of Handel’s Saul marks the company debut of Australia-born director Barrie Kosky, a major figure in European opera but relatively little known in the UK. In fact, British audiences will get another chance to sample Kosky’s work when his much-praised production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute comes to Edinburgh next month (Festival Theatre, 27 to 30 Aug). But before that it’s his take on Handel’s English-language oratorio that’s the centre of attention, promising a “baroque nightmare world”. The title role is sung by Christopher Purves and Ivor Bolton conducts.
Glyndebourne Opera House, Thu to 29 Aug
AC
