John Shand Posts

September 28, 2020 / Album Reviews - Archive

WHIRLPOOL (Alister Spence Music) 8/10 One note, and then the options are limitless. When the music’s working, the improviser’s mind is ablaze with possibilities, making microsecond decisions about which of these to pursue, usually to sustain the thread of what is already being heard in the head – or sometimes…

September 24, 2020 / Features - Archive

She was used to hearing classical or pop music humming from the cream-coloured Bakelite radio that hunched on the Whangarei kitchen’s Formica bench. But on this particular afternoon her 13-year-old ears heard something new. She recognised the song, East of the Sun, yet after the melody the band seemed to…

September 23, 2020 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Downstairs at Avalon, August 29 8/10 That the band’s name means to blow softly already says much. The Persian culture, ravaged by the 1979 Iranian revolution, was one of poetry not only in words, but in music. Since moving to Australia Hamed Sadeghi has given us glimpses of this culture…