Music – Reviews Archive

Cloud Control celebrated Australia Day by claiming two spots in Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown plus performing a joyously fun, free set in The Rocks. The indie rock quartet headlined the First Fleet Park Stage, against the iconic backdrop of Sydney Harbour and …

“There are only two kinds of people in this world,” Nina Ferro tells me. “There are men and there are women.” Taking to the stage alongside her exceptional band at Sydney’s 505 on Monday 13 January, songstress Nina Ferro launched her soulful …

Treat yourself — that’s the motto of Sydney’s Donny Benét. This year’s Sydney Festival has done just that and has suggested that we all do the same by getting down to the Spiegeltent to kick-start our weekends this January. Donny Benét is …

A crowd of more than 50,000 fans showed up to Bon Jovi’s sold out Because We Can tour at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium last Saturday night. Their set list comprised over two hours of powerhouse ballads and blue-collar rock hits that catered to all audiences, …

To say Emma Pask has had a busy year is somewhat of an understatement: the 36-year-old scatted her way on to season 2 of The Voice Australia; made a very special friend in none other than Ricky Martin; was signed to Universal Music; …

My six-hour journey to this year’s Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues is punctuated only by roadkill and the land itself, burnished and charred by bushfire. The trees lie out eerily by the roadside, black and skeletal, topped by amber leaves. After …

In my desperation to see Foals I was willing to travel abroad, and so booked tickets to their show at Le Zénith in Paris where the Oxford quintet are performing as part of Festival Les Inrocks, a series of live music nights …

Renowned for their frolicsome take on what could be misjudged as fustily antique Renaissance and Baroque music, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra has found soul mates in Ensemble La Chimera, an Argentine group formed by lutenist Eduardo Eduez to celebrate a fusion of …

From Tom Waites to Claude Debussy, 31-year-old Australian classical saxophonist Amy Dickson’s musical tendencies are as far reaching as dusk is from dawn. Dickson’s latest offering, titled Dusk and Dawn, is a stylish reworking of classical, jazz and popular tunes including Chopin’s “Nocturne”, Bellini’s …

Whenever I hear the saxophone used in classical orchestral music – after years of digging the instrument in jazz and rock with all its attendant growls, snarls, bleeds and honks – it sounds like a completely different instrument to its earthier-music sibling. Its …