MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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High Rise Estate of Mind, Battersea Arts Centre/Touring
Music, poetry and storytelling give powerful voice to a generation's fears about London's housing crisis
Driving force: Conrad Murray
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
THIS year’s Homegrown festival at Battersea Arts Centre is dubbed Occupy and High Rise Estate of Mind lives up to that insurgent billing to thrilling effect.
The hour-long ride is broken up into short, sharp bursts which switch between the deeply personal “real world” moments of the four performers and a dystopian narrative of a wealth-segregated tower block, clearly influenced by JG Ballard’s 1975 novel High Rise.
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