Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Mesmerically soothing soundscapes
GEORGE FOGARTY highly recommends the Darbar Festival at the Barbican
VIRTUOSOS: Ramana Batachandran and Sabir Khan
[Rehmat Rayatt/Barbican]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
Sabir Khan and Ramana Batachandran
The Darbar Festival
Barbican Centre
DARBAR is a musical scale within the classical Indian tradition, used as a basis for ragas, improvised pieces of music around a melodic framework.
But it refers also to the overall tradition and heritage of the music, a heritage the Darbar festival has now been bringing to London for 16 years.
The festival was founded in memory of Gurmit Singh Ju Virdee, a master tabla teacher born in the Punjab, and raised in Kenya, who moved to Southall in the 1970s where he would teach tabla classes to as many as 50 students at a time, before eventually settling in Leicester.
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