John Shand Posts

May 6, 2025 / Theatre Reviews

IRL

KXT on Broadway, April 30 6/10 At a time when the madness and lies of electioneering bedevils us, IRL could almost seem sane. It’s not. I doubt that even a Trumpet of Patriots policy meeting could be crazier. If you can imagine As You Like It crossed with texting argot,…

May 1, 2025 / Album Reviews

Ghosts between Streams (Earshift) 8.5/10 As the title might suggest, Tom Avgenicos’ Ghosts Between Streams suite is a dialogue. Most baldly, one side of that dialogue is an improvising quartet and the other a string quartet. More profoundly, one side constitutes a modern pastorale, evoking nature rather than rurality, and…

April 22, 2025 / Features

Many recording artists release a second album, but few do it at 97. For Noel Balfour, his love of music keeps him going. Well, not just going: he looks 25 years younger than his age when we meet at Andy Busuttil’s Hazelbrook studio, Blue Mountains Sound, where Balfour has just…