★★★ Welsh sextet #CVC bring their lively Seventies-flavoured pop frollicking to the south coast Concorde2 Brighton Thomas H Green reviews theartsdesk.com/new-music/cvc-…

★★★★ Drama and emotional power from The Hallé's new principal conductor #KahchunWong : The Bridgewater Hall meets a musical communicator in Faure and Arnold via Ben Parry Robert Beale reviews theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

★★★★ Seeking magic in a war: 'relatively upbeat' #Nezouh looks on the dreamier side of Syrian strife says James Saynor theartsdesk.com/film/nezouh-re…

★★★ An admirable attempt to catch the magical groove that helped us through lockdown: #BassMidsTopsAndTheRest 🛸🫠 on #DuaLipa 's new album #RadicalOptimism theartsdesk.com/new-music/albu…

A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer: an extract from Iain Sinclair's new book #PariahGenius CHEERIO Publishing on Soho's misanthrope photographer John Deakin theartsdesk.com/books/extract-…

★★★★ 15 songs of soaring notes, bonkers lyrics, intensely technical yet mellifluous vocal skills, butt-shaking beats and unforgettable melodies: awesome singer-songwriter #Sia comes into her own Katie Colombus (She/Her) reviews #ReasonableWoman theartsdesk.com/new-music/albu…

★★★★★ Quirky-wonderful programme ending in an award: Guildhall School of Music & Drama Gold Medal 2024, Barbican Centre reviewed by David Nice theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

★★★★ Impassioned agit prop drama #LaughingBoy Jermyn Street Theatre highlights the plight of people with learning disabilities writes Saskia Baron theartsdesk.com/theatre/laughi…

★★★★★ #MITSKI mitski @TheUsherHall - Cool and quirky, yet deeply personal - Miranda Heggie enjoys a stunningly produced show from one of #pop ’s truly unique artists theartsdesk.com/new-music/mits…

'Touched by the seasons, by day and night, the mystic in nature, and loves lost and found' ★★★★ #EYE - DARK LIGHT - New band from MWWB MammothWeed singer #JessicaBall prove worthy of what came before, says Thomas H Green New Heavy Sounds - theartsdesk.com/new-music/albu…

★★★★ THE DREAMERS - #Bertolucci revisits May '68 via intoxicated, transgressive sex, lit up by the debuting @EvaGreen - review by Nick Hasted - now on Icon Film Blu-ray theartsdesk.com/film/blu-ray-d…

★★ MINORITY REPORT Lyric Hammersmith Theatre - #PhilipKDick ’s #sciencefiction short story fares far better on screen than in this adaptation from #DavidHaig - ‘ill-judged sci-fi’, says Demetrios Matheou theartsdesk.com/theatre/minori…

‘Sheer pleasure in sound-making is palpable’ ★★★★★ The Jesus and Mary Chain - GLASGOW EYES - A remarkable Indian summer for East Kilbride's finest, saluted by #BassMidsTopsAndTheRest 🛸🫠 theartsdesk.com/new-music/albu…

'The role of the curator is surely to respect the past, not to reinvent it to suit their own agenda' - A masterful review from Sarah Kent on #Expressionists Tate, packed with history and detail... And what on earth was @OlafurEliasson doing relighting a #Kandinsky ?

★★★★ @NadineShah SWG3 - Loudly dancing the night away: the songstress offered both a commanding voice and an almost overwhelming sound, says Jonathan Geddes theartsdesk.com/new-music/nadi…

★★★★ Jean-Guihen Queyras @Philharmonia Masaaki Suzuki Southbank Centre - #Japan 's #Bach maestro flourishes in fresh fields, says Boyd Tonkin, as he explores #Beethoven #Schumann and #Dvořák with genial elegance and precision theartsdesk.com/classical-musi…

★★★★ Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) twostrangersmusical Criterion Theatre - A Brit & a New Yorker struggle to find common ground in a lively new British #musical that gets the tenets of the genre just right - ‘rueful and funny’, says Jane Edwardes theartsdesk.com/theatre/two-st…

The Warsaw Middlesbrough 14th September 1977 / Joy Division Manchester 28th September 1979 LP is a thrilling live document of one of Britain’s greatest bands (Joy Division, Joy Division Central). A mandatory purchase. I’ve looked at it today for @theartdesk: theartsdesk.com/new-music/musi…

Singing as smooth as the top of a kitten's head. A Dream is all we Know is the new The Lemon Twigs LP. Out on Captured Tracks through Prescription PR. I’ve looked at it today for @theartdesk: theartsdesk.com/new-music/albu…

'even when he’s singing about loneliness, fear and alienation, or waspishly picking out others’ narcissism, it’s with a sense that there is love and connection to be discovered somwhere out there.'

🤧🖤