John Shand | Music & Other Spheres Posts

January 31, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent, January 16 9/10 It flares up like a sudden tongue of flame as when a fire catches in the dark. Were it light rather than sound you’d shield your eyes from its glare, and if suffering is the human condition, Amy Sacko’s singing is the soundtrack. Hers…

January 28, 2018 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

Reginald Theatre, January 13, until January 26 7.5/10 Long before its practitioners came up with the wretched notion of purporting to represent reality, theatre did something infinitely more magical: it obliged its audiences to use their imaginations. In this lay-everything-out-on-a-platter era it sounds improbable, I know, but if most contemporary…

January 24, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Carriageworks, January 12 7/10 For some parents, neighbours and other musicians sharing a room with 100 electric guitarists might seem like a singularly cruel form of torture. But then Rhys Chatham’s three-part, 75-minute A Crimson Grail hardly realises most preconceptions of how the instrument tends to be used. Bent-string anguish,…