MARIA DUARTE, FIONA O’CONNOR and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Savage House, Enzo, Madfabulous, and Erupcja
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‘For us, it’s an endless journey’
Jazz virtuoso PAT THOMAS talks to Chris Searle about his never-ending pursuit of sonic invention with Black Top
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
“HE NEVER stopped discovering, never played the same tune in exactly the same way twice,” pianist and electronics virtuoso Pat Thomas told me recently at a 120th birthday tribute to Duke Ellington.
The same could be said of Thomas himself who, though as free and experimental as any musician around, has roots deeply grounded in jazz tradition.
When you hear the duo Black Top live — Thomas playing in tandem with vibraphone and xylosynth pioneer Orphy Robinson — you marvel how far from the tradition the pair and their improvisations can move. Their explorations seem to orbit all musical genres.
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