Pardoner, the San Francisco-based indie rock band, has returned with their fourth album, Peace Loving People, and it’s a fantastic display of their evolving sound and songwriting prowess. Building upon the foundation they laid on last year’s excellent Came Down Different, Pardoner delivers a collection of songs here that continues to push boundaries, experiment with…
Disney on Ice is always wonderful family entertainment, but 100 Years of Wonder is the best yet. What a fabulous, engaging show it is – so warm, friendly and inviting. There were seven in my party on opening night, with the youngest being four. The look on her face throughout said it all. She was like the…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 23 June 2023. Portugal. The Man are back after a brief hiatus with a new record titled Chris Black Changed My Life, the follow up to their global hit record Woodstock. PTM have set a personal standard to “change…
Cinderella, like you have never seen her before. She’s an activist who refuses to be pushed around. She has strong views about the crown and its lack of action in addressing the needs of the people who are struggling to make ends meet. She is out to change that narrative. While all this seems to be driven by the…
There’s a determined, purposeful up-tempo feel on Jenny Lewis’ fifth solo project, the aptly titled Joy’All. It’s as if the former child actor and former Rilo Kiley singer has decided that little is gained by holding on to past harms when you can “follow your joy’all.” But she’s not living in denial either. In the…
An eclectic comedian and singer with a working-class style and a potty mouth, MJ Wilson sets us up for a show about love … and horses. With a pleasant, mellifluous voice, he proceeds to warble Elton John’s Your Song. Changing tone, he makes light of what he calls his “dribbling” and speech impediment (which I couldn’t hear)….
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 16 June 2023. The fifth full-length studio album from the UK four-piece was conceptualised by Django Django co-founder and powerhouse Dave Maclean, buzzing on ufology as “a way to go beyond”, to bring new voices, new rhythms, new experimentation…
Following its success last winter, a new, gorgeous exhibition of colour and creativity returns to the Royal Botanic Gardens this year. The after dark experience that is Lightscape features a stunning array of large-scale, colour-changing, illuminated sculptures. All but two are fresh designs. Back to captivate anew is last year’s piece de resistance, Winter Cathedral, and the…
Two new and very different works, each lasting just under an hour, constitute the opening of the 2023 ballet season in Melbourne for The Australian Ballet. Named Identity, in a nutshell it is contemporary dance versus traditional ballet. While there were elements of both that I admired, I felt there was too much repetition in the first,…
When Sam Jones’ documentary, Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed, dropped earlier this year, music fans not only got an inside look into the making of the 2020 release from Jason Isbell and his band The 400 Unit, Reunions, but we also witnessed the tensions as the singer-songwriter struggled to get the words of…
