Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 27th November 2007
There’s an assumption that as one ages, one’s level of naivete diminishes in proportion to a newly expansive cynicism.
There is also the assumption that a semester spent studying the unwieldy Old English tongue and pondering Grendel’s choice of the northern fens over, say, Ibiza as a backdrop for his second coming, would ready any reviewer for the blood-marinated joys of the most significant surviving Old English poem rendered in IMAX 3D Digital.
And then there is the timeless adage: “To assume makes an ASS out of U and ME.” That guy is right. My Old English tutor was wrong.
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 26th November 2007
Osh10’s self-titled debut album runs the gamut of their evocative powers, gradually winding down from a headstrong kick-off to a fragile mortality.
Following vocal harmonies channeling a post-Women’s Lib Andrews Sisters, we are aurally pinballed through the teasing, chameleonic vocals of Aimee Chapman and bounced back on Mike MacGregor’s spine-bending bass line. A scuttling riff in the opening track may have rewired my cerebral cortex; any evidence of misfiring synapses in the following paragraphs is hereby excused.
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 19th November 2007
Becky Fox, Allure album launch, The Famous Spiegeltent, Melbourne, 2pm Sunday 18 November
Having already cast an anticipatory ear over Becky Fox’s second album, the expectations were lofty as I settled into a steamy Spiegeltent on this heat-slowed Sunday afternoon. It was about to get steamier.
Allure, a jazz collection clad in the finest Parisian couture, is billed as “a glorious French indulgence” of Fox’s passion for contemporary interpretation of classic French music. It seemed fitting, then – puns aside – that upon entry into the debauchery-friendly surrounds of the Spiegeltent, we should have been regaled with notorious French culture shock-absorber Serge Gainsbourg’s Couleur Café. A hard act to follow, but Fox grasped the baton unflinchingly. (more…)
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 31st October 2007
Grainger Quartet – Gypsy Echoes, Tuesday 30 October 2007, Collins St Baptist Church, Melbourne.
Though named after the Australian composer, Grainger Quartet’s spirited Melbourne outing, with guest artist Paul Dean, roamed rather further than an English Country Garden. (more…)
