Muse, On tour
A big band with big ideas, today’s Muse are much like a progressive rock group of the pre-punk era. Heavy concept albums, amusing artwork, preposterous stage conceits, a pomposity beyond parody – and also doing very nicely, with no concessions made. One of the first groups (along with Coldplay) that could be called “post-Radiohead”, Muse have never tried to be play nice, win friends or go pop. Instead, their strategy has been to become progressively more monumental, their music growing in complexity and mass, like a glowering black fortress in a sci-fi film.
JR
Kiran Leonard, On tour
It can’t be easy being a musical prodigy. By the time he was 18, Kiran Leonard already had an impressive catalogue, a profusion of styles and a growing reputation. Here was a young man who could play most instruments, sing in an impressive fashion and hold an audience with lengthy digressions on the meanings of his songs. Which path, however, should he take? To judge by his recent Grapefruit album and its predecessor Bowler Hat Soup, he has not felt any pressure to decide, veering between batty psych, lo-fi tinkering and passionately delivered songs. It’s an interesting mix, and Leonard at times comes over like a one-man Mystery Jets, on the cusp between psychedelia and quirk. It’s likely, though, that he’ll find a decent audience for another of his modes: that of a post-rock Jeff Buckley.
JR
Jennylee, London
From their spiky post-punk starting point, US band Warpaint changed musical states from solid to liquid to – with their eponymous dream-pop album of 2014 – more like a gas. It’s something that seems to have provoked an equal and opposite reaction from the band’s bassist/singer Jenny Lee Lindberg, who last year released her debut solo album as Jennylee, Right On! A return to less vaporous work, the record finds her making substantial indie rock, inspired by the chilly glissandos of the Cure and feral noise of Sonic Youth. While this might suggest some of the ghostliness of Warpaint has been lost, fans will be pleased that their tribal momentum and sense of surprise remains, as Lindberg pilots her band through dynamic tonal changes.
JR
U.S. Girls, On tour
U.S. Girls is just one girl, an American living in Canada called Meghan Remy. Her strain of off-kilter synthpop, with a reedy singing style, was eventually noticed by illustrious underground label 4AD. Previous to that she had a pedigree in deeper experimental circles, having released a number of albums, seven-inch singles and CD-R editions on DIY and noise labels including Siltbreeze (home to New Zealand no-technique group Dead C) and Dylan Nyoukis’s Brighton-based Chocolate Monk. From those scratchy, spectral beginnings, writing squally and awkward songs for an almost-broken four-track, her sound has evolved into something altogether silkier. It was a shift that seemed particularly successful on last year’s Half Free, which sashayed in silk robes compared to the skewed lurching of her equally enigmatic early recordings.
Oslo, E8, Tue; Bungalows & Bears, Sheffield, Wed; The Deaf Institute, Manchester, Thu
JA
Partikel, Lowestoft & London
Originally a London sax, bass and drums trio with a distinctive mix of standard-song jazz and terse improv, Partikel expanded last year to showcase one of UK jazz’s most unusual and overlooked originals in Benet McLean, a modest master as eloquent on violin as he is on piano. The group’s new String Theory repertoire combines Duncan Eagles’ free-jazz drive and smokey sax atmospherics with imaginative arrangements and edginess from a strings ensemble, showcasing Benet’s tonal boldness and improv sharpness. This week, Partikel play as a quartet with McLean in Lowestoft and as a septet with a four-piece strings section on a talent-packed Brit jazz triple bill in London. The lineup also features acclaimed young trumpeter Laura Jurd’s new Dinosaur quartet and trumpeter and composer Henry Spencer’s similarly eclectic Juncture, a rising-stars outfit formed at the Guildhall School Of Music.
Milestones Jazz Club, Lowestoft, Sun; Ronnie Scott’s, W1, Thu
JF
Principal Sound, London
At the time, Morton Feldman’s death in 1987 attracted relatively little attention. Then, Feldman was seen as an important member of the postwar New York avant garde, but also as just one of a number of contemporaries who had followed in the footsteps of John Cage. That has changed over the last 30 years and Feldman’s importance in 20th-century US music is now recognised; he is widely regarded as one of its greatest figures. If any excuse is needed to programme his extraordinary works, then the 90th anniversary of his birth provides one. The Principal Sound festival takes its name from Feldman’s only piece for organ, but includes not just his own works but music by composers who have been influenced by or admired him, including Jürg Frey and Horatiu Rădulescu. The real treat comes in the final concert, with a rare performance of one of Feldman’s longest and most celebrated scores, the bewitching trio For Philip Guston.
St John’s Smith Square, SW1, to Mon
AC
