Acoustic Alchemy [Greg Carmichael (nylon guitar), Miles Gilderdale (acoustic and electric guitars), Jay Rowe (keyboards), Gary Grainger (electric bass), Greg Grainger (drums)] with Julian Crampton / Dave Pomeroy (electric bass), Geoff Dunn / Bert Smaak (drums), Berthold Matschat (harmonica), Mario Argandoña (percussion)
Onside Records CDONSIDE04 [16’02”] Producers Miles Gilderdale, Greg Carmichael Engineer/Mixer Klaus Genuit Recorded at Hansahaus Studios, Bonn, Germany
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
Acoustic Alchemy is now into its fifth decade and, still gigging regularly with some 16 studio albums to its credit, has opted for the EP format – familiar to an earlier generation – to release its latest music. Not there is anything at all predictable or routine about what is on offer here.
What’s the music like?
It may be just four tracks, but it certainly plays to the band’s strengths. Back to Back launches the EP in fine style with its perky tune on acoustic guitar; listen out for those brass harmonies on keyboards with a lively break from electric guitar on the outro. More down-tempo without being down-beat, Other People sounds a reflective or even ambivalent note – listen out for the softly dissonant mid-point harmonies – and Alisio (evidently a meteorological term for ‘trade winds’) brings the return of AA reggae-inspired music with its lilting back-beat then nagging rhythmic hooks. By the same token, 8,000 Miles is in a lineage of AA ‘road’ numbers with its fluid drumming and evocation of widescreen vistas through contributions from harmonica or piano, before this fades out (surprisingly?) swiftly as though in anticipation of tracks to come.
Does it all work?
It surely does. With Greg Carmichael and Miles Gilderdale interacting via a familiarity borne of respect, judicious keyboards from relative newcomer Jay Rowe, and the Grainger brothers being a rhythm-section with few equals, all the expected ingredients sound enticingly in place.
Is it recommended?
It certainly is. At a time when all previous notions of what constitutes an album have been left behind, it will be interesting to see what this band has in store as follow-up. Whether a further four-track or maybe even two more EPs, the omens for new AA music could hardly be better.
Wexford Festival Opera announces that one of the world’s most acclaimed operatic tenors, Joseph Calleja, will return to the Wexford stage for the Festival’s 75th Anniversary season, running from 15 – 31 October 2026. The Maltese tenor first graced the Wexford stage in 1998 at the age of 20, at the start of his illustrious career. Calleja will perform the role of Osaka in Mascagni’s Iris on 15, 23, 28 and 31 October, and will also feature in the Festival’s fundraising gala on 17 October alongside fellow opera superstars Ermonela Jaho, Daniela Barcellona, and Giorgi Manoshvili.
The fundraising gala concert, Cróí na Féile (The Heart of the Festival) – takes place at the National Opera House, Wexford, on Saturday 17 October. In what is expected to be a highlight of the 75th season, Ermonela Jaho, Daniela Barcellona, Joseph Calleja, and Giorgi Manoshvili will join forces with the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland, conducted by Daniele Callegari (who first conducted at Wexford Festival Opera in 1998), to perform music by Puccini, Verdi and more.
In Irish, ‘Croí na Féile’ translates to The Heart of Festival (or The Heart of Generosity). It is a phrase used to describe a place, or a person, with a generous heart and represents the warm and welcoming spirit of Wexford that has always been central to the Festival’s identity.
Here, Ermonela Jaho shares her Wexford Festival Opera story:
Ermonela Jaho said: “My first time in Wexford was in 1999. Performing at the Festival felt truly significant. It was an extraordinary school for me, not only as an artist but also as a human being. Many great opera singers had taken their first steps there. Becoming part of that artistic family was very meaningful to me.”
In this video, Joseph Calleja shares his Wexford story:
Commenting on his return to Wexford Festival Opera Joseph Calleja said: “My Wexford story started in 1998 when I was 20 years old and just one year into my professional career. The impact of Wexford Festival Opera on my career has been massive. It is an incredible platform and has been the launchpad for so many great careers. I’m so looking forward to returning this year for the concert, and also to perform on the main stage in Mascagni’s Iris. Come and watch the stars of the next 10, 20, 30 years. See you there.”
Furthermore, we are delighted to announce 14 distinguished Ambassadors who will champion this landmark year. From legendary singers to visionary directors, these artists represent a ‘who’s who’ of the global opera world and share a connection to the Festival. They will champion this milestone year and celebrate the Festival’s unique mission of presenting forgotten or rarely performed works. The Ambassadors are Juan Diego Flórez, Joseph Calleja, Ermonela Jaho, Sinead Campbell Wallace, Claudia Boyle, Mariangela Sicilia, Celine Byrne, Daniela Barcellona, Aigul Akhmetshina, Paula Murrihy, Giorgi Manoshvili, Michele Mariotti, David Pountney, and Damiano Michieletto. Some Ambassadors credit the Festival as being the springboard for their global careers, having first graced our stages before going on to conquer the world’s greatest opera houses. We are honoured to have their support as they share why this milestone year is simply unmissable.
The 75th Wexford Festival Opera will run from 15 – 31 October 2026. Priority booking opens for Friends of the Festival on 22 April with general booking opening on 6 May. Full programme will be available on wexfordopera.com from 26 March.
Wexford Festival Opera would like to acknowledge and thank The Arts Council, Wexford County Council, Fáilte Ireland/Ireland’s Ancient East and the Festival’s Friends, Sponsors, and Donors for their invaluable and continued support.
On Friday, the Pink Floyd guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour turned 80. I was fortunate to see him live at the Royal Albert Hall in 2006, so wanted to pay appreciation in the form of a favourite memory, a performance of Comfortably Numb with ex-bandmate Rick Wright:
Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie by Alexander Larman New Modern 2026 (hardback 432 pages, ISBN: 9781917923446)
Reviewed by John Earls
On 25 June 2004 David Bowie suffered a near-fatal heart attack whilst on stage in Scheeßl in Germany. Alexander Larman begins his absorbing new book Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie by contemplating what might have happened had Bowie died in 2004 and what this might have meant for his reputation.
Bowie had been in the middle of a comeback following a much-praised Glastonbury headlining performance in 2000 and had released the albums Heathen (2002) and Reality (2003). Whilst something of a bounce back from the embarrassment of his late 1980s output, Reality wasn’t his best work nor would it have been an appropriate memorial to such a great artist who would chiefly be remembered for his outstanding achievements of the 1970s and early 1980s.
Of course, Bowie didn’t die in 2004. He went into a period of retirement and recovery and came back with The Next Day album in 2013 and the exceptional Blackstar album, which was released on 8 January 2016, Bowie’s 69th birthday. Two days later Bowie died of liver cancer.
In a bid to challenge the common marginalisation of a significant chunk of Bowie’s latter-day career, Larman presents this book as “the pensive B-side to the triumphant A-side of his heyday”. It is an illuminating delve into this particular chapter of Bowie’s life. Comprehensively researched and drawing on many interviews and reviews of the time, it also features some important and revealing original contemporary interviews. Not least of these are those with Reeves Gabrels – “the man who would become [Bowie’s] most consistent, and important, collaborator throughout the 1990s” and the pianist Mike Garson, who first worked with Bowie in 1972 and played on many of his albums and tours, who gives some insightful and moving contributions.
The book is mostly structured in chronological order starting with the much-derided Tin Machine project whereby Bowie was a member of the four-piece band formed in 1988. Larman has already reminded us in his prologue of Jon Wilde’s infamous 1991 review of the second Tin Machine album which concludes, “Hot Tramp! We loved you so. Now sit down, man. You’re a fucking disgrace”.
We are also reminded of Bowie’s rather mocking appearance with Tin Machine on Terry Wogan’s BBC TV show in August 1991 – Wogan is reported to have subsequently said that Bowie was the most difficult interviewee he’d encountered. But if Tin Machine is one of the most scorned parts of Bowie’s career, for Larman it was “important for both introducing him to [Reeves] Gabrels and for, in Bowie’s estimation, whetting his almost blunted purpose and teaching him how to be a rock star again”. From here the book takes us through his next phase including the making of Black Tie White Noise (1993) which saw Bowie reunited (less than happily) with Nile Rodgers who had co-produced the hugely successful Let’s Dance album (1983).
The Bowie on Screen chapter looks at Bowie’s film activity in this period including playing Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat (1996) and a small part in Martin Scorcese’s Last Temptation of Christ (1988). I was particularly intrigued to discover that when Scorcese was toying with a biopic of George Gershwin, Fred Astaire suggested before his death in 1987 that Bowie was the sole actor who he would allow to play him (Astaire) on screen. This chapter also contains an example of some of Larman’s teases as, in one of a number of Bowie lyric references, he says of Gunslinger’s Revenge (1998) that “the film, unfortunately, is a saddening bore”.
In the chapter on Bowie’s fine art activities, he has the delicious line “It is the prerequisite of every wealthy middle-aged man to have his own boutique publishing business”. This refers to Bowie founding 21, a small fine art publisher that published the book Nat Tate: An American Artist, 1928-1960 by William Boyd, which had a New York launch in Jeff Koon’s studio on 1 April 1998. However, no such artist exists and the hoax was exposed a week later in a gossip column in the New York Herald Tribune. The chapter also covers Bowie’s own exhibition New Afro / Pagan and Work 1975-1995 (1995) – largely pilloried by the critics – and his time on the board of the Modern Painters publication (which he had also written for).
There are also sections on some of Bowie’s other non-musical ventures including the launch of the internet service provider BowieNet in 1998 and the selling of ‘Bowie Bonds’ in 1997, giving investors a share in Bowie’s future royalties for 10 years.
But it is the music that is foremost and Larman walks us through the albums and tours from Tin Machine until Bowie’s “wilderness years”. I was grateful to be reminded of how good the much neglected The Buddha of Suburbia (1993) is and to revisit the best bits of Toy (posthumously released in 2021 but recorded in 2000). I also enjoyed slightly rubbing up against Larman’s own evaluation of some of the albums – I’m not quite as enthusiastic as he is about Outside (1995) or as scathing of Earthling (1997), but these are mostly marginal differences and his general assessments are sound and well argued.
One of the most touching passages of the book concerns a BBC Radio One interview Bowie did with Mary Ann Hobbs in New York on 7 January 1997 to mark his 50th birthday. Questions and tributes from celebrities are presented and subject to banter and then we get a “sudden, fleeting insight into the real, unvarnished David Bowie”. The cause of Bowie’s unguarded few minutes is a recorded personal message from Scott Walker which leaves Bowie speechless before he admits: “You really got me there, I’m afraid…He’s probably been my idol since I was a kid. That’s very moving.” You can hear it for yourself on the internet.
The closing chapters cover Bowie’s extraordinary return to the limelight that was the January 2013 release Where Are We Now with its remarkable and somewhat unsettling video, the subsequent album The Next Day, the opening of the David Bowie Is exhibition at London’s V&A Museum and the theatre musical show Lazarus (premiered in 2015) written with Enda Walsh and directed by Ivan van Hove. The song Lazarus from the show features on Bowie’s final album Blackstar (2016) and was to be the last Bowie single released during his lifetime. The astonishing video made for the track was released on 7 January 2016, three days before Bowie’s death.
Blackstar is the culmination of opinions about Bowie’s albums converging back into universal acclaim. It is unquestionably a masterpiece and all the more incredible knowing the circumstances in which it was made.
Larman acknowledges in a final Bonus Track postscript that he did not have access to the Bowie archive at the David Bowie Centre at the new V&A Storehouse East in east London which opened in September 2025 whilst writing the book. One can only imagine what difference it might have made. Nonetheless, his book is a welcome and original contribution to a less explored period in Bowie’s career and its significance.
by Ben Hogwood picture courtesy of United Archives
Last week we learned the sad news of the death of Hungarian pianist and conductor Tamás Vásáry, at the age of 92.
More details about Vásáry’s accomplishments can be found in an obituary at Classical Music Daily
Vásáry made many fine recordings as a pianist, with his exploits in Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov especially noteworthy, while as a conductor he enjoyed nearly a decade with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, yielding imaginative albums looking at the music of Respighi, Honegger and Martinu.
Arcana.fm 