DANNY WIDDICOMBE One Note At A Time ( Futurfonic Records) THERE’S BEEN A DELAY in responding to this album on my part, but I’m pretty sure Danny Widdicombe will be relaxed about my tardiness, for three reasons. Working backwards, number three is that one of the key players here in the band being called The Wand'rin’ Stars, is a local country legend in pedal steel player Michel Rose, a Mauritian – yes, one of us. And I can confirm that as well as our parents loving old schoo

Some people are terrors, some days are horrors, but the beautiful is still there if you look. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN More things of beauty in hundreds of playlists from me can be found at Spotify.

“I had to make something out of the devastation, make art out of it, make beauty out of it." Grace Woodroofe SO, YEAH, HI GRACE. It’s been a long time since your last album, the one that came with celebrity endorsement (Heath Ledger, who pulled her into his orbit), serious backing (Ben Harper, who produced), and a beckoning future (the sort of career dreamt of but almost never seen). More than a decade actually. Had much on? You could say that. Try an amour fou that became un

Hello ladies ... Don Walker. Photo by Stuart Spence Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence. Each time, he will dig out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculous, personal or historical but it will be inspired by a photo I

"Cate Le Bon was not common." Photo by Ravyna Jassani CATE LE BON CASS MCCOMBS Vivid Live, Sydney Opera House, May 31 WHILE THE TICKET indicated otherwise, this was not strictly speaking a Sunday night pairing. Cass McCombs played first, yet nothing suggested this was an opening act, more the first of two shows in the Joan Sutherland Theatre; nothing was said in either show to suggest a connection or reflection, just a similar shaped set-up much more forward on this stage t

Why would you want to be anywhere else, listening to anything else? CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Plenty of other action in hundreds more playlists I've made. Seek me out at the evil empire Spotify.

Tom Dowse and Florence Shaw. Photo by Mikki Gomez DRY CLEANING Vivid Live, Sydney Opera House, May 29 THIS IS A BAND WITH SPECIFIC, identifiable personalities. Not the musicians themselves – I don’t know them; I’ve just listened to them, so don’t go basing a dating profile on what would be my ignorant say-so – but the music, the way these instruments are being played, the message conveyed in the cracks between the people and the space between the notes. And these “personali

MATT BERNINGER Vivid Live – Sydney Opera House, March 28 WHEN MATT BERNINGER STEPPED down into the audience, dipping in and out of rows to share the microphone, hold heads close to his, clamber over to stand on the back of seats, and reach out metaphorically and literally to anyone – this “quiet company” that was anything but quiet now – who could see or reach him, it felt like an unbreakable, deeply-rooted connection. “It takes an ocean not to break,” he sang. We sang. But

"Freedom is everybody's job." Brian Jackson (left) & Yasiin Bey (right). Photos by Ravyna Jassani THE MUSIC OF GIL SCOTT-HERON Presented by Brian Jackson and Yasiin Bey Vivid Live. Sydney Opera House, May 27 YOU CAN SEE the bones – actually, to be fair, a good bit of the flesh too – of a special show in this tribute to the work of poet/proto-rapper/singer/activist Gil Scott-Heron. The flaws obvious here, in particular an awful sound mix, are not insurmountable, and the potent