Saturday 30 April 2011

This week's new live music

Fucked Up, On tour

Not a band for orthodoxy of any kind, Fucked Up are a punk rock band doing anything they can to avoid being a punk rock band. There's a certain frisson of danger to their live shows, but elsewhere, whether it's the long songs, or the painstaking invention of a guru-cum-management figure called David Eliade (the band's equivalent of the Who's Tommy), the group treat their existence as a kind of magical alternate reality. So what kind of record could be more fitting for a punk band to make than a rock opera? They released a "soundtrack" called David's Town for Record Store Day, in which they emulate tropes of British punk. To come, though, is the full Monty: David Comes To Life, in which a man seeking to stay without sin, decides to kill himself. A heavy concept, a heavy record ? but all worn very lightly by this continually interesting group.

White Rabbit, Plymouth, Fri, touring to 12 May

John Robinson

Pharoah Sanders, On tour

Like his fellow American sax radical Ornette Coleman, Farrell "Pharoah" Sanders spent much of his early career being told he couldn't play by people who thought they knew better. A ferociously powerful tenor saxophonist from Arkansas who has always approached music as the building and sustaining of a transcendental mood rather than theme-and-variations on tunes jazz has so often been, Sanders emits an elemental roar that is one of the most distinctive sounds in the music. Since the acid-jazz boom of the early-90s, he also found himself reinvented as a purveyor of hypnotic dancefloor soul-jazz anthems, and enjoyed the unexpected new attention immensely. He's one of the highlights of the weekend's Cheltenham Jazz Festival, which also features bassist Dave Holland's Overtone Quartet, Andy Sheppard, Tord Gustavsen, Django Bates, Kit Downes and many more.

Town Hall, Cheltenham, Sat; Band On The Wall, Manchester, Sun; Ronnie Scott's, W1, Mon to Wed

John Fordham

Katy B, On tour

For all its urban alienation and heavy manners, dubstep isn't afraid of pop ? and increasingly, the reverse is also true. The latest graduate of the BRIT school, and featured singer on Magnetic Man's Perfect Stranger single, Katy Brien hasn't strayed very far from that which she feels most affinity with: dance music. Certainly, her debut album On A Mission has a certain credibility operating on the production side, but there's also a lot to be said for the way she sings her songs. She might seem a little Dido-like and expressionless at first, but it's Katy's appealing lack of showiness that's ultimately her strongest feature.

O2 Academy Bristol, Sat; Millennium Music Hall, Cardiff, Sun; Manchester Academy, Wed; The Arches, Glasgow, Thu; The Other Rooms, Newcastle upon Tyne, Fri

JR

Bill Callahan, On tour

On new LP Apocalypse, Bill Callahan makes another of the kind of dry and subtle observations that have characterised his career so far. The American singers and songwriters who defy most convention, he notes ? Kris Kristoffersen, Mickey Newbury, Johnny Cash ? are also those with military backgrounds. Perhaps Callahan, whose parents worked for the US government at a UK Air Force base, is implying he's part of that lineage ? and as time goes on, it's hard to deny it. Country artist? Singer-songwriter? No label fits Callahan, who has in his time encompassed lo-fi experiments and critical acclaim as Smog, and now three albums under his own name. He's becoming like a feature of the American landscape: the further he sinks in the soil, the craggier he becomes, the more valuable his insights into it. A certain degree of discomfort accompanies him live, but the pains he takes are undoubtedly worth it.

Central Methodist Hall, Manchester, Fri, touring to 10 May

JR

Diana Torto/John Taylor, London

A 2009 Kenny Wheeler album, featuring the innovative trumpeter with Italy's Colours Orchestra, was also an intimation of the talents of Italian singer Diana Torto, a performer with the accuracy, tonal purity and improvisational flexibility of the UK's Norma Winstone, who sounds like a major influence on her. Winstone's former partner, the sweepingly skilful pianist John Taylor, displayed a comparable sensitivity to Torto's talents on Wheeler's ventures, and showcases the connection in this Wigmore Hall recital. As an unmannered lyrics singer and as an improvising-instrument, Torto is the real deal, and listening to Taylor in just about any context is revelatory.

Wigmore Hall, W1, Fri

JF

Nico Muhly: Seeing Is Believing, Manchester & London

At the end of June Nico Muhly's Two Boys reaches the stage at London Coliseum. The fact that it's a joint commission between English National Opera and the Met in New York is a pretty good measure of how quickly this young New Englander has established himself. Ahead of this, Muhly's concerto for electric violin Seeing Is Believing appears in Manchester and London. The soloist is Thomas Gould, for whom Muhly wrote the piece in 2007. At the Bridgewater Hall Gould's playing it with the Manchester Camerata; in London it's included in the second of two concerts by the Aurora Orchestra, built around Muhly and his musical interests. The first programme includes Motion, a recent work inspired by Orlando Gibbons, alongside Schubert, Mahler and Britten, while Ives, Adams, Couperin and Byrd share the stage with Muhly's concerto in the second.

Royal Northern College Of Music, Manchester, Sat; Kings Place, N1, Thu & 7 May

Andrew Clements


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/30/this-weeks-new-live-music

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