Formed in Glasgow, Nightshift has been active for five years. The collective has experienced line-up changes and released two albums prior to Homosapien. Their 2021 album Zöe and a compilation tape, Made of the Earth, marked their previous outputs. The current lineup includes Chris White moving from drums to guitar, Eothen Stearn on vocals and…
When British author E.J. James released his erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey in 2011, it titillated an excited throng of readers. The frenzy returned four years later with the release of the Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Hollywood film, starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. The subject was, of course, the unusual relationship between a young…
Love, loss and laughter are potent and enduring in composer William Finn’s (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) Elegies. Based around the importance of community, Elegies is a song cycle, namely a series of songs that hang together thematically, rather than through a narrative thread. Having said that, attendees at a regular, all male…
Slick, Cirque Bon Bon is a lively and most entertaining showcase of the circus arts. Its very funny front man is an ardent fan of Queen and Freddie Mercury. In fact, the music (and spot lighting) in this production are among its many highlights, led by a gifted cast of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, contortionists and…
Fans of Midnight Oil – one of Australia’s hardest rocking and most political bands who refused to compromise – will want to check out this informative and revealing documentary. They may not learn anything particularly new here, but they will certainly enjoy the music and the memories from their four-decade career. The Oils were formed…
The “wow” factor is significant in The Great Moscow Circus Extreme, which introduces a number of a dare devil acts I’d never seen before in circus. There is much to savour, delight in and marvel at. From hilarious clowning, high flying aerialists and two-wheel tricksters to spectacular trampolining, pole heroics and springboard spectacle – it is all…
Am I an ABBA fan? You betcha. I love what they created. I adore their songs and their harmonies. And while the closest thing we are likely to see to them performing together again is the hologram concert ABBA Voyage, there is something mighty special in town. I refer to a dedicated choir established by ABBA The…
A divertimento is a light piece of music, written just to amuse. But it’s a slightly incongruous title for Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar’s portrait of the conductor and composer Zahia Ziouani, because the film tackles some pretty heavy themes. To use a current term, this is an “origin story”; telling how a teenage Ziouani went from the…
The unmissable nighttime visual spectacle Lightscape has returned to the Royal Botanic Gardens for a third winter with a reimagined trail and new installations. It is a glorious exhibition of creativity, featuring a stunning array of large-scale illuminated sculptures, many colour-changing. More than that, trees are lit up, there is fire, fog and projections along the two-kilometre…
Music like, I dare say, you have never seen it performed before. An hour-long pulsating beat, complete with athleticism, instruments struck and strummed outside the norm, treadmill vocals and wild cheering from the bleachers. There’s also a commentator and a highly enthusiastic cheerleader who, too, breaks the conventional mould (in fact, the whole performance piece does). All…
