Reviews & features: Music

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• Cut the Carbon rally Soweto Kinch, local hobbit Billy Boyd, Harry Potter snogger Katie Leung (pictured) and musician Amy MacDonald are part of a star-studded line-up at the Edinburgh leg of this Christian Aid-run rally to raise awareness of…

Trad on the Tyne 31 Aug - 2 Sept features Daimh, Siobhan Miller and Wendy Stewart

2012 Trad on the Tyne will Steele the Show on the small festival circuit

Recently shortlisted for the Scottish Event Awards - BestSmall Festival, Trad on the Tyne (31 August - 2 September 2012) is a festival of music and plenty more! A festival feast in more ways than one; the programme includes last year’s Celtic…

Tinchy Stryder to take over the HMV Picture House

The East London grime boy done good, and Third Strike is on its way

If Tinchy Stryder’s second long-player, Catch 22, saw him vault the grime underground and snare the pop mainstream (number one hits, collaborations with N-Dubz and a Sugababe, the best-selling UK solo artist of 2009), you wonder what level of stardom…

Scotrail announce expanded Edinburgh Festival 2012 train timetable

Additional night services to Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and North Berwick

New late-night train services to and from Edinburgh will make it easier for those outside the city to visit the 2012 festival. In Glasgow, there will be a Fringe box office at Queen Street station from July 27. Tickets bought online in advance can be…

Programme for the Edinburgh International Festival 2013 puts artists and technology centre-stage

Tod Machover, the Wooster Group and Oper Frankfurt among the EIF programme highlights

A crowd sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with…

Hey, Piano Bar Lady!

Musical comedy taking it back to 80s New York via New Zealand

New Zealand singer Linn Lorkin is perched at her keyboard, tousled red hair, whimsical expression and billowing patchwork dress suggesting she’s quite the eccentric dame. Now in its second year at the Fringe, her one-woman biographical show is a…

First raft of shows from 2012 Edinburgh Fringe programme

Stewart Lee, Jimmy Carr, Rhod Gilbert and more to appear at Fringe 2012

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has revealed around 60 shows to take place at this year's event in August. The announcement comes weeks before the full line-up announcement on Thu 31 May. Comedy shows form the bulk of the latest show announcements…

An overview of the 2010 Edinburgh Festivals and their directors

What to expect from Edinburgh in August

Nowhere does a festival quite like Edinburgh, and even with the film folk having long moved out of August, there is more than plenty going on for lovers of art, literature, comedy, theatre, kids entertainment, music, dance and military displays. The…

Madness frontman Suggs tells life story at 2012 Edinburgh Fringe

20 fascinating facts about the 80s superstar

1 His real name is Graham McPherson. 2 He was born on 13 January 1961 in Hastings (‘on a stormy night’, according to the man himself), the only child of William Rutherford McPherson, who left home shortly after his son was born and was never heard…

Edinburgh's Beltane Fire Festival marks 25th anniversary

Carnival of fire and light with roots in mythology

2012 marks the 25th anniversary of Edinburgh’s Beltane festival. Over 12,000 revellers are expected to attend the event on Calton Hill as the Beltane Fire Society marks the passage from Spring into Summer. This Carnival of Fire and Light takes place on…

Folk at the Pleasance

An enjoyable variety of folk music in a relaxed and intimate setting

This folk session is led by a tentative, yet somehow regal Sophie Ramsay, who in her flowing red dress and tumbling brown hair resembles a folky Kate Bush. After a soft introduction the Scottish songstress performs two songs, the first a melancholic…

Meow Meow – Feline Intimate

The post modern showgirl delivers a unique type of cabaret

With more purr than a panther, divine diva Meow Meow slinks back to this year’s Fringe with her unique brand of kamikaze cabaret kitsch. With sell-out shows around the world and the likes of David Bowie on her fan list, Meow Meow’s hypnotic performance…

Well, It's Woody

Seamless cabaret night with a programme to savour

Edinburgh legend BBC Pink Tent guest while singing aficionado Woodstock Taylor lures you into a packed piano bar to enjoy an eclectic mix of song, instrumental music, spoken word and comedy. This rather enigmatic lady arrives in dark glasses and hat…

The Les Cloechards – Dirty But Nice

Part-time hobos rock the stage with bizarre but brilliant takes on old classics

These jokers, who seem French but are actually German, apparently – (their name is an amalgamation of three languages, but essentially means ‘The Tramps’) - have got their show’s subtitle just about right: They are very dirty, and they’re also quite…

The Lost Fingers - Lost in the 80s

Skillful gypsy jazz paired up with an inspired choice of cover versions

‘We’re kinda known for taking cheese and making it better,’ declares one of Québécoise gypsy-folk interpretation trio The Lost Fingers (they’re named after Django Reinhardt’s disappeared digits), although not everyone might go along with their…

Lach: Up The Anti!

Witty rock and roll renditions from the legendary NY anti-folker

Think of one man. Add in that he’s masterfully strumming a guitar, singing with a deep, gravelly vocal or producing a commendable Bob Dylan impression. Then factor in that, despite an on stage humility, he’s kind of a New York legend. Enigmatic…

7x7th Street

Interactive sounds sculptures create a musical promised land

Seven and seven is, well, a very magic number indeed in Jean Pierre Muller's walk-through collaboration with musical icons including Robert Wyatt, Nile Rodgers, Archie Shepp and Terry Riley. Free-associating ideas based around the number seven (days a…

Ravi Shankar - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Mon 22 Aug

A mesmerising show of classical Indian music as part of 2011 EIF

Ravi Shankar crossed over into popular culture with his associations with various 60s musicians, working with and/or influencing the likes of The Beatles, The Kinks and The Byrds. Going on to play at iconic festivals such as Woodstock and The Monterey…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Steve Pretty

He of the Perfect Mixtape discusses music vs comedy and proper Fringe preparation

By 30th July, any sensible Fringe performer would either already be in Edinburgh getting some early promo done, or locked away in a rehearsal room, honing their show, perfecting that topical gag or getting that new set piece extra zingy. So why, last…

Liberace: Live From Heaven

Edinburgh Festival show features piano man playing at the Pearly Gates

In cabaret, what turns a concert into theatre is the hook that hangs the tunes together. Hanging squirming from this particular hook is Liberace (reincarnated in Bobby Crush) as he plays for his immortal soul. We join the sequined piano man after his…

The National - Matt Berninger interview

US band set for Edinburgh gig as part of 2011 UK tour

The National‘s Matt Berninger has a way with a tear-jerking lyric. However, as he tells David Pollock, the release of album High Violet has ushered in good times for the Ohioan band. That, and Obama getting elected.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

Chicago fusion of jazz, hip hop and funk

This nine-piece comprising eight horns and a drummer are not what you might expect at the Jazz & Blues Festival.

Doc Brown: Rapper turned stand-up hits Edinburgh

Unfamous rapper turned on to comedy by big sister Zadie Smith

Rapper geek turned stand-up Doc Brown has always felt like an outcast despite moving in some rarefied media circles. Claire Sawers discovers that he’s fine talking about his famous author sister. For now …

Jon Fratelli returns to his roots and lines up Edge Festival show

Former Fratelli's frontman is solo and ready for the next chapter

For many it came as a bolt from the blue when much-loved Glasgow trio The Fratellis announced in April that they were to split. It was a break ‘for now’, they claimed, but following their frontman’s ventures into markedly different territory with…

A child in time

Growing up in Sudan's civil war, Emmanuel Jal is still trying to put his past behind him

Emmanuel Jal likes to relax after a hard day’s work by watching some TV. He may be 29 years old, but is a big fan of Tom and Jerry cartoons, animated films like Ice Age and Madagascar, or some all-out action, along the lines of Troy. ‘I loved that…