MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
Latest editorial
Twilight in the Crypt
Glasgow Cathedral Festival 2021
Explore in concert
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
Explore Ensemble
(with Lotte Betts Dean):
Suspended Animation
THE second concert of the Glasgow Cathedral Festival was an incredibly moving and hypnotic affair. The two composers Lawrence Dunn and Catherine Lamb have been ascending to stardom at a rate of knots, so to have the chance to have a dedicated performance in the mysterious magic of the cathedral crypt was already the makings of a wonderful night.
Dunn’s Sentimental Drifting Music did exactly what it said on the tin, but thanks to his skills as composer never drifted into new age cliches. Moments of completed “cadences” would fall away while the crypt rang out with the lingering tones.
Lamb’s Parallaxis Forma had the joy of a most professional and profound British premiere, with the star, Lotte Betts-Dean, showing her skills and prowess with the fewest of tones.
More from this author
BEN LUNN draws attention to the way cultural expressions of solidarity with Palestinians in the UK are being censored by Israeli-sponsored lawfare
BEN LUNN reports from a new music festival in New York, and singles out a breathtaking composition that protests directly against femicide in Mexico
The centenary of his birth is a chance to assess the remarkable combination of Marxism, activism and modernism in the works of Luigi Nono
As the debate around voluntary euthanasia returns, we now have some seriously disturbing evidence from those places where it has become recently legalised to convince us that Britain is not ready, argues BEN LUNN
