Reviews & features: Music, Issue 635

Music hitlist

The best music from the festival

The Bang Bang Club, David Byrne, Dub Syndicate, The Edge, Rough Cut Nation, Rough Cut Nation, Shooglenifty, The Stranglers, Time(less) Machine

Ludus Baroque

Indulging in Alexander’s Feast

His fame these days may be mainly due to his commanding role as conductor of The Really Terrible Orchestra, but there is a much more serious side to Richard Neville-Towle’s pursuits with a baton. Having founded the baroque chamber orchestra, Ludus…

Libera

Boys in fine voice

Think English choirboys and centuries of choral tradition in vast cathedrals spring to mind. Libera is somewhat different. The South London boys, aged seven to 16, who make up the internationally chart-topping group, would rather think of themselves as…

Eilidh Steel and Mark Neal

Double dunt of local folk talent

While performers and musicians jet into the capital this August ready to ply their trade amongst the city’s myriad venues, Edinburgh-based folk duo Eilidh Steel and Mark Neal are broadening their horizons by embarking on a European sojourn instead. But…

Baptiste Trotignon

Sometimes the setting is everything, and for one of the real Edinburgh Jazz Festival highlights this year, the programmers have taken the ingenious step of putting French pianist Trotignon in the hallowed environs of Rosslyn Chapel. Trotignon has shown…

Lola: The Life of Lola Montez

Biographical flamenco drama

During the 19th century, Irish-born Lola Montez plied a career as an unlikely Spanish dancer across Europe, Australia and the US while bedding the likes of King Ludwig I of Bavaria along the way. Her story is one of scandal and celebrity. ‘Lola is a…

Man versus machine: Sambor Dudzinski

The Polish musician is gearing up for his Fringe debut. He meets Anna Docherty

‘I sing, but I’m not a singer; I play piano, but I’m not a piano player; I act, but I’m not an actor,’ says Polish conceptual artist, Sambor Dudzinski. By way of alternative explanation he simply says: ‘I am timeless.’ And he’s not being deliberately…

Rough Cut Nation

Music meets art uptown

Gallery gigs are ordinarily bespoke, underground shop-front affairs that flaunt their art-rock credentials like billy-o. The renovation of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery has allowed some of that DIY spirit to mess up its normally plush interior…

Dub Syndicate

Sci-fi wall wobblers

Anyone who witnessed former Pop Group vocalist Mark Stewart with ex-Sugarhill house band The Maffia play Edinburgh last year with seminal producer and On-U Sound head honcho Adrian Sherwood manning the controls will probably still be wondering where on…

Barbara Morrison

Ebullient and expressive jazz singer

Los Angeles-based singer Barbara Morrison has been a popular visitor to Scotland in recent years, and settles in to a Fringe residency via a couple of outings within the Jazz Festival programme. Raised in Michigan, she has an ebullient, wise-cracking…

Shooglenifty at the Fringe - Keep on Shooglin’

When Shooglenifty burst onto the Scottish folk scene in the early 90s playing their radical new take on traditional music-meets-club culture (quickly dubbed ‘acid croft’), their impact was enormous. According to co-founder Garry Finlayson, there was no…

Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestra

Burns meets big band jazz

The second of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival Orchestra’s two concerts turns from familiar ground with Duke Ellington into rather more uncharted waters. Robert Burns has been even more ubiquitous than usual in the course of this 250th anniversary year, but…

Tuning in: music's influence on theatre

Miles Fielder asks what inspires theatre-makers to create plays based on popular music

The Fringe always arrives with a ready-made soundtrack composed of musicals, opera and gigs as well as the tuneful accompaniments to theatre shows, to say nothing of the raucous racket generated morning, noon and night by street performers. This year…

Out of the bag - Dead Cat Bounce

They may have upset everyone at Mo Mowlam’s memorial gig but Dead Cat Bounce are now flying high

If you’ve never actually met rock’n’roll sketch band Dead Cat Bounce, you could be forgiven for thinking that these guitar-wielding Dubliners occupy a place so far ahead of the curve that they’re on the outermost tip of the zeitgeist’s serrated edge.

A-Team - The Musical

Pity the poor fool who misses out on scoring a ticket to this musical version of the legendary 80s TV adventure series about a quartet of ex-crack commandos-turned-mercenaries. So, can Faceman hold a tune? How are Hannibal’s harmonies? What’s BA’s…