Music – Reviews Archive

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to experience the precise but full-blooded playing of Australia’s Slava Grigoryan in trio with US guitar magus Ralph Towner and German jazzman Wolfgang Muthspiel. At the time I was reminded of a particular beauty inherent …

Imagine if your favourite bar band – the one you see swaggering and rocking at your local most Saturday nights – won some fabulous lottery. And with that money they could mount the most amazingly huge and perfectly produced show they could conceive. The venue …

The debut album by Sydney’s electronic duo Flight Facilities, Down to Earth, dropped on October 24 and I gave it a spin this week. Known to me mainly for their groovy remix of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”, my ears were going in with no other preconceptions. …

In my early twenties, I lived in a flat with my (much hipper) cousin David. The music that wafted from his room was an education in itself. To my Glam-rock gilded ears the exotic and alien sounds of jazz and Prog were …

Whirling dervishes may not commonly be associated with the baroque chamber repertoire, but the versatile Brandenburg Orchestra invited a troupe from Southern Turkey to tour Australia as part of its project to explore the musical traditions of other cultures across the 16th, …

If classical saxophonist Amy Dickson’s new album was a Hollywood movie it would be set in the 1960s on the Mediterranean and its leading lady would be lounging by the pool in a long gown with her hair done and a cocktail …

Words and music. Iconic Australian songwriter Richard Clapton has celebrated 40 years of writing and making music with the simultaneous release of his autobiography together with a three CD (plus DVD) set. Iconic is a lazy word, overused in the relentless sales …

Willow Beats may not defy genres but they certainly use them as decoys. With references to alchemy, the primal elements and soundscapes rich with ocean and forest sounds, you’d be forgiven for calling them New Age, until the breaks, heavy vocal modulation …

Queensland musician Ben Craven describes himself as a cinematic progressive-rock singer-songwriter-performer-producer. But internationally he is regarded as a true Prog Lord. His last album – Great and Terrible Potions – was entirely created, performed and recorded by Craven. Great and Terrible Potions …

Only in a few rare cases do teen angst-ridden high school bands make it out with any success (sorry the ‘Liquid Coma’ of my past). The Cactus Channel is one such rarity. Starting out when they were 16, this ten-piece “cinematic soul” …