Walking Dark (Edition/Planet) Reviewed April, 2012.  Jazz spawned the drum-kit, and all the music’s subsequent developments have been accompanied by revolutions in playing the instrument. Now conceptual and technical innovations at the kit are actually kindling new directions jazz may take. You can hear it happening locally almost every time that Simon Barker plays. Among […]

Far Flung (Rufus)  Some may jump in the ocean and swim, and others may board an aircraft and fly, but fundamentally we are lumbering land-based creatures. That is why art that allows us, even for a moment, to be other than we are is invaluable.  The music of Sydney’s Alister Spence Trio has gradually assumed […]

La Sublime Porte  (Alia Vox/Fuse)  Reviewed March, 2012. Apparently our children think yoghurt grows on trees, so they are probably some distance from knowing that the product originally came from Turkey. The systematic debasement of Muslim culture – of the non-yoghurt variety – from within by extremists and without by propagandists means we know too […]