South African Music Magazine
Once in a long while an album is released that sounds like nothing yet imagined in the vast, shimmering worlds of music. Sandro Perri’s ‘Impossible Spaces’ is such an album. Consisting of seven sonic dream-walks, the album reimagines music’s grammatic possibilities, without ever sounding like an experiment. Its phrases, the sleight-of-hand of its musical syntax, Read More »
Vieux Farka Toure’s once-off Jozi gig last weekend reminded the revelers of the range and exotic palette of African music. And of the universality of rhythm. Most everyone in the crowd was smilingly excited at the prospect of seeing the gifted guitarist, and son of legendary Ali Farka Toure, live. Opener Bongeziwe Mabandla’s act was Read More »
When Catherine Bush was thirteen years old she was already versed in the language of piano, and in the old pump organ kept in the shed of the family’s sprawling, East Wickham farm. She had already authored dozens of songs, some of which – including hit ‘The Man with the Child in his eyes’– would Read More »
Since their debut as late-Eighties Punk-Rock teens gone ballistic, and subsequent success as Punk’s Nineties poster boys, Green Day have been howling, rolling mascaraed eyes, and thrashing out power-chords for far longer than anyone might’ve predicted. These kids have been around for near a quarter century! The secret to their enduring appeal is sprinkled throughout Read More »
The return of Aerosmith producer Jack Douglas (who helmed fan favourites Toys in the Attic and Rocks), and guitarist Joe Perry more-than-hinting at a return to their 70’s sound, set the bar of expectation high for the band’s first new material in 11 years. Following a hit-and-miss 80’s Aerosmith came back to power again during Read More »
If The Great Apes never decided to make up and befriend humming Destiny, at least this studio recording (and, I can imagine, dozens of concert bootlegs) would give testimony to a band that roared tall and bliksemed heavy. The album kicks off with The Great Apes signature Human Machine Wild Animal Mountain, all slovenly grandeur Read More »
(The mysterious tale of how I shouted)New ‘Way down South I know a girl who is blind/ She walks alone along a lonely highway each day/ She dreams that one day a man will pull up in a car/ He’ll open up the door; she’ll climb in and he will say:/ “Hey babe, whatcha know? Read More »
With her fulsome American vocal chords, and Americana stylings, it comes as a surprise to find out Tailor is as local as Mrs. Balls. Her artist name, too, is a deflection, or rather re-flection. Upon securing free license with her record deal (the suits don’t meddle with her muses) she cast herself Tailor, to celebrate Read More »
“The more I take/ The more I give/The more I got/The more I live…” On Dylan’s vaulted new album, he makes sure you know his place, and yours, in the grand order of things: “I pay in blood,” he confesses, “but not my own…” Reviewing an album by Dylan, in the wake of the man’s canonized canon, Read More »
The wonderful thing about asking a single question of our core writing team is that I never know what I am going to get back and this month’s little poser certainly surprised me. Let me first elaborate on what the full question was that I asked. Tribute bands (or Shows) vs. Cover bands. When is Read More »
