MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Slipping through the net
Chilly Gonzales’ music is interspersed with much thoughtful and comedic storytelling and philosophising, writes GEORGE FOGARTY
BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Chilly Gonzales and Jarvis Cocker at the Albert Hall
[Wim Knuts] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Chilly Gonzales
Royal Albert Hall, London
CHILLY GONZALES is a unique artist who has always managed to plough his own furrow. Dropped by his record label in 2004 after handing them a solo piano album (in complete contrast to the dancefloor rap they had signed him for), he went on to release it independently, whereupon it became his bestselling album to date.
He has remained independent ever since, leaving him free to experiment and change direction as he sees fit — often in the middle of a song, as it happens.
His latest album, Gonzo, throws down a self-therapising gauntlet to his fellow musicians, posing the stark question: can you be as arrogantly vulnerable; fearlessly iconoclastic and recklessly genre-busting as this, and still rock the party — all in one go?
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