Latest Issue

Rethinking Opera

Christopher Fox

If we want new opera to relate to our twenty-first century experience, we must return to first principles, says Christopher Fox

The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson

Peter Rosser

The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson, Edited by Mark Fisher, Zero Books, Hampshire, England

Don’t Upset the Rhythm

Matthew Jordan

When innovative music is seen as a moral threat to society

Obair le Déanamh

Breandán Ó hEaghra

Breandán Ó hEaghra hears the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland in New York

A Whole New Thing

Alice Echols

Alice Echols tells the forgotten story of the daring, cross-racial experimentation that happened across rock, funk and disco during the 1970s.

From the 1950s until the 1980s, Franco Luambo Makiadi and his TPOK Jazz orchestra profoundly shaped the sound of African music across the continent, and subsequently the popular music of the world through artists such as Paul Simon and Talking Heads. Yet Franco is little known outside Africa and his 1,000 compositions are hardly represented on recordings. Now just over twenty years since Franco’s death in 1989, Kasongo Musanga tells the story of ‘The Sorcerer of the Guitar’, from whose shadow Congolese music is still emerging.