John Shand Posts

January 17, 2018 / Album Reviews - Archive

CONFLUENCE (Bamboozle Music) 8/10 The first vibraphone notes tinkle like wind chimes in the lightest summer breeze, while a shaker mimics an insect. Soon enough other sounds – breath through a trumpet, swelling cymbals, electronics, a chattering snare – darken the mood. A groove emerges that only amplifies the sense…

January 14, 2018 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

What were they thinking? STC’s production of Jonathan Biggins’s Talk, a play partially about truth in the media, arrived just as the Trump regime had opened the sluices on its deluge of lies. Good timing! But the play, about a lunar-right shock-jock (John Waters), felt like an extravagantly extended sketch…

December 26, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

 BLUE MAQAMS (ECM) 9.5/10 Is this the year’s finest release? It is two decades since the great Tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem last collaborated with jazz musicians on the timeless Thimar. That was with John Surman and Dave Holland, and now Holland returns to the fold in company with drummer…