The Brighton Festival is fully under way with its brilliant programme of theatre, comedy, art, dance, talks, debate, cabaret and music, music music. CMU's sister publication, ThreeWeeks, is covering it all, and you can check the coverage at http://www.threeweeks.co.uk, with music reviews here each day in the CMU Daily. Look, here are some now:
Einzigartig: Live Art Music Song
Mr Eugene & Nickova
This show can at best be described as mixed, for whilst it began with an extremely interesting and innovative performance, it was steadily downhill from there. This opening consisted of paint being splattered onto a canvas fitted with a contact microphone accompanied by a violin. This produced results which were both visually and aurally stimulating, as well as being truly Einzigartig, that is, unique. However, despite this promising start, what was to follow was largely an embarrassing attempt at either musicality or sexuality. Nickova's performance at least held a fair amount of feather boa and fake beard fuelled charm, but Mr Eugene's efforts were enough to make me cringe and fall asleep in my chair all at once.
Caroline Of Brunswick, 10, 17 & 24 May, 8:00pm, £6.00 (£5.00), fringe pp49.
tw rating 2/5
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Shooglenifty
Komedia
Globetrotting Scottish band Shooglenifty played their long-awaited Brighton debut last night to a delighted audience with former Swamptrash fiddler Angus Grant leading the band in a very confident and exciting performance. Their music took us around the world starting with a western highland "jig in the brain", with flamenco and samba rhythms influencing some of the sexier tracks. Fusing the sound of traditional acoustic instruments such as fiddles and guitars with the lilt of more exotic ones such as the electric banjo and the mandolin, and incorporating some interesting samples, they produced sonic patterns which were very intriguing, and Celtic dance rhythms which were difficult to resist. Brightonians were jigging tirelessly for the entire set and everyone was agreed, we'd just love to have them back!
Komedia, 11 May, 9:00pm, £12.00 (£10.00), fringe pp27.
tw rating 5/5
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Nick Pynn's Box of Acoustic Delights
Roundhill Music
Nick Pynn's solo performance at the intimate Bom-Bane café last night was both dynamic and breathtaking. This celtic-king of string instruments and renowned 'Devil's Fiddler' - the name of his 1996 worldwide commercial release - charmed the audience with a devilish mixture of traditional folk and electro-acoustic innovation. In a performance which featured a beautiful self-made dulcimer, electric and acoustic guitar, and violin, Pynn's delightful melange kicked off with 'Bad Tooth', a fiddle number dreamt during a bout of toothache, and included such Pynn originals as 'Steam Train' and 'The Brightest Star'. Live-sampling all manner of sounds from the singing rim of wine glasses to the slap and shuffle of a deck of cards, Pynn transformed the warm basement of Jane Bom-Bane's into a magical music-box.
Bom-Bane's Cafe, 11 and 12 May, 9:00pm, £7.00 (£5.00), fringe pp26.
tw rating 4/5
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