Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Hope and Social – Sleep Sound (alternative rock)

    Hope and Social – Sleep Sound (alternative rock)

    I remember at school my art teacher exhorting the class to stop drawing tiny pictures in the corner and to cover the page with bold strokes, to step out and give voice to whatever it was we wanted to express. Well, there are no bushels on top of Hope and Social’s light: they fill the… Read more

  • Fresh Like Dexie – Step In The Sun (funk rock)

    Fresh Like Dexie – Step In The Sun (funk rock)

    Fresh Like Dexie are funky. Very funky. I’ve been a fan of funk since I first heard Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters and the Parliafunkadelicment Thang in my late teens, and I devoted a lot of time after that to studying the music, so I have some idea whereof I speak.Funk can sound pretty busy to the… Read more

  • Monday Musings: Advice For Bands – How To Annoy Me And Lose My Interest

    Monday Musings: Advice For Bands – How To Annoy Me And Lose My Interest

    I write this blog; I also write reviews for two excellent websites, the music magazine eBurban and very wonderful independent bands’ resource Live Unsigned. Doing these things requires me to find out about various bands and musicians, listen to their music, get a handle on where they’re coming from, and communicate with them. None of this… Read more

  • Fernando’s Kitchen at The Junction, Cambridge, 19 May 2011 (world fusion)

    Fernando’s Kitchen at The Junction, Cambridge, 19 May 2011 (world fusion)

    There are not many completely independent bands that can pack out a venue the size of The Junction (which is not huge, but it’s a substantial venue); and a smaller subset of those which perform something as commercially challenged as ‘world music’. Fernando’s Kitchen are playing a good game (admittedly with a strong hand), and… Read more

  • Alun Vaughan – The Kindness Of Strangers (solo bass)

    Alun Vaughan – The Kindness Of Strangers (solo bass)

    The long standing association between the solo bass release and a meaningless display of rippling technical muscularity is thankfully receding into history. It’s reasonable that it should have come about: to play something that is more agile and melodic than the traditional low thump of a bassline requires rather more application on a bass than… Read more

  • Big Block 454 – Bells & Proclamations (folk-funk/ psychedelic rock)

    Big Block 454 – Bells & Proclamations (folk-funk/ psychedelic rock)

    Big Block 454, named for a 1970 Chevrolet engine, are one of the oddest bands I’ve encountered in a while. They are creatively out there, full of weird sounds and transgressive stylistic collisions, and yet they are, to me at least, accessible, pleasing, and decidedly danceable. Apparently they’ve been around a long while: well, it’s… Read more