LED MUSIC VISUALIZER BESPECKLES YOUR BEDROOM

When it comes to wall-mounted ornamentation, get ready to throw out your throw-rugs and swap them for something that will pop so vividly, you’ll want to get your eyes checked. To get our eyes warmed up and popping, [James Best] has concocted a gargantuan 900-RGB-LED music visualizer to ensure that our bedrooms are bright and blinky on … Read more

Ensemble Modern/Benjamin review – exhilarating, terrifying new music

 Edgy and painfully urgent … George Benjamin conducts Ensemble Modern. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian George Benjamin’s pair of concerts with Ensemble Modern, presented under the auspices of the Wigmore Hall, were split between the hall itself and the Roundhouse. Both featured Benjamin’s own music. In the first, there were also works by Cathy Milliken, Christian Mason and Luigi Dallapiccola, … Read more

High-octane to unplugged: the best in this week’s traditional music

A special evening of poetry and traditional Irish music presented by Stephen James Smith and Macdara Yeates as part of MusicTown 18. The evening features artists, poets, Stephen James Smith, Felispeaks, John Cummins and musicians Eithne Ní Chatháin (Inni-K) Eoghan ó Ceannabháin (Jiggy, Aon Teanga) and Macdara Yeates, in an intimate, unplugged performance. Building on … Read more

Gathering Traditional Festival, Bríd Harper – the best trad music this week

With a raft of concerts, céilídhe, sessions and storytelling as well as set dancing, singing and instrument masterclasses, The Gathering boasts an enviable programme. Tonight, Scottish duo, Ali Bain and Phil Cunningham, will share top billing with the drum-tight trio of Máirtín O’Connor, Cathal Hayden and Seamie O’Dowd in the INEC Acoustic Club, while in … Read more

Eastern Electrics house music festival returns to Morden Park

Tickets are on already on sale for next summer’s Eastern Electrics music festival which returns to Morden Park. The all-day techno and house music festival, on August 4, will be in its ninth year and will feature seven stages of underground DJ’s and urban acts including Ministry of Sound, Skreamizm, Defected In the House and … Read more

Jason Isbell on Modern Country: ‘Most of That Stuff Is Real Bad Music’

A few years ago, Jason Isbell was an ex-member of Drive-By Truckers, playing clubs and drinking way too much whiskey. Now, the Alabama native is headlining venues like Baltimore’s 19,000-seat Merriweather Post Pavilion while turning out sharp country-rock story-songs. (John Mayer has called him “the best lyric writer of my generation.”) Isbell’s new album, The Nashville … Read more