"The cords of all link back...strandentwining cable...
"Hello...put me on to Edenville... aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one"
Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 4:39PM Woodenbox have been a real discovery for me this year, with wonderful live sets at the Great Escape and Heb Celt Fest. Their second album is now imminent and this taster (thanks for the link Heb Celt people) suggests great things. Play it loud.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 10:12PM 
I was going to review a tremendous Other Lives gig at Brighton's tiny Audio last night, but Alexis Petridis has beaten me to it in The Guardian here... five stars fully deserved.
Opener Abi Wade also deserves a mention. A really striking solo-singer-songwriter-cellist... and there's not been many of them since Arthur Russell showed the way. But she's striking in another sense, hitting her cello with sticks for percussion, as well as bowing and picking at the strings. Have a look at the video here.
Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 9:20PM 
An astonishing performance by Gillian and Dave at the Brighton Dome last night, opening their European tour, following the release of Gillian's first album for eight years, 'The Harrow and the Harvest' - as well as the first Dave Rawlings Machine release.
They play uncannily well together: Gillian laying down a rock-solid platform on her Gibson (or occasional banjo) with Dave spinning off at remarkable and unmistakable tangents on his distinctive antique f-hole-of-a-make-I-didn't-recognise (Epiphone?). He's not a grandstander in any way, and all is in service of the song - but this is like a jazz gig in the way that the audience repeatedly breaks into spontaneous roars and applause when another solo ties itself in beautiful knots before unravelling miraculously and parking on a sixpence in time for the next verse. And the voices - spot on, supportive harmonies. These two are a unit.
A delayed and somewhat - by their standards - muted opening was explained a few songs in: Dave had tripped climbing the final staircase on the long walk from the dressing room ('...it was in France...', '...we came through the Eurotunnel...') and landed heavily on his arm in protecting his precious guitar. They didn't know if it was going to work properly: well, it did - and I hope it's not too sore today. (I draw a veil over the shouts of 'Spinal Tap!' from the audience when difficult journeys from dressing room to stage were mentioned. G & D ignored them too...)
Over two hours of glorious music, mixing tracks from the new album with old classics and some judicious covers, with not the slightest sign of a weak link. I think it's only time before fine new songs like 'The Way That It Goes' ('She was busted, broke and flat/ had to sell that pussy cat') and 'Tennessee' ('I had no desire to be a child of sin/ and then you went and pressed your whiskers to my chin') have implanted themselves them as firmly in my brain as the indisputably extraordinary 'Elvis Presley Blues' and 'Revelator' - both gloriously present and correct last night.
And the covers? No Neil Young this time, sadly. But a lovely 'Billy' from Dylan's Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid soundtrack and a shivers-down-the-spine-astounding take on the Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit'. And then a trip back to O Brother, Where Art Thou? for a final encore of 'I'll Fly Away'.
Welcome back: don't leave it so long next time.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 10:09AM 
The upcoming Bridge School Concerts set is something of a mixed bag, as you'd expect - but the video here of REM and an impressively bearded Neil playing 'Country Feedback' has real class. Michael Stipe in wonderful voice and looking decidedly starstruck; Neil doing his thing as if he'd been playing with them for years; Peter Buck generously standing back and laying down a ringing wash of chords...
You can hear the whole collection here, and of course it's all in aid of a very worthy cause.
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 7:27AM A packed autumn gig schedule has got underway with Brighton club sets from two festival favourites earlier in the year:
Ahab played the Latest Bar on the 22nd and were great. They were in fine voice; their playing is tight and they can always find another gear to lift a strong song higher; and they're very funny and engaging. A nice chat with mandolinist Luke Price afterwards. Still at an early stage in their career, with just two EPs to their name - which I strongly recommend you pick up - they asked the sound man at one point how many songs they had left 'we're only asking because we don't know many'. I hope they can continue in this vein as they, inevitably, get bigger.
Ahab, Cloud Control