Awesome April music part 1: Basia Bulat returns to Leeds

Two years on from her last visit, Basia Bulat returned to Leeds touring her new album Good Advice. On Record Store Day no less (16th April). Yet another good beer venue - this time she played Headrow House. Good Advice is a bigger sounding album, in many ways, than Tall Tall Shadow, so understandably Basia wanted to tour it with a band. The efficient option, as it transpired, was to have her support band as her backing band.

The Weather Station (trio led by Tamara Lindeman) played a 30 minute set to a small and rather chilly audience (maybe Headrow House had forgotten the heating....). The Weather Station has a big-open-space instrumental sound (I definitely heard the soundscapes reminding me of looking at Ontario's landscape from the train); whilst Tamara seems to be a pretty respected songsmith, 30 minutes was too short a time to get into her lyrics. They were, however, much more engaging than the support from 2014.

Basia and backing musicians played a shorter set than in her 2014 trip. Whilst the musicianship was all excellent, with a good vibe (plenty of laughing and joking between songs) we felt that the balance was a bit off-kilter: Basia's vocals seemed a bit swamped by the instrument set-up. Maybe it was calculated for a larger space than Headrow House - I wonder if it feels odd or weird to go from playing sell-out halls in Canada (such as Toronto's Massey Hall) to playing for 100 people?

In possession of a spangly gold cape (containing her magic powers!) Basia and co started with a selection of big-sounding songs: Let Me In, Long Goodbye, La La Lie, Heart Of My Own, Five/Four.

The second section of the set was my favourite: Basia along with her autoharp. The treats in store were: Paris or Amsterdam, Gold Rush, In The Night. In comparison to the foot-stomping album version of Gold Rush, the solo autoharp rendition was amazing - I was almost in tears. None on this evening, but apparently In The Night had been the impetus for the only mosh pit so far a a Basia Bulat gig....

Rounding off the evening we heard Good Advice, Wires, Someday Soon and Infamous. No encore - but having heard a few quips about the excellence of the NHS, there were a few illnesses and injuries.

A pretty fun evening, but for all the magic capes, this show didn't have the spellbinding-ness of Basia's 2014 solo show.

Angela Hewitt Week, 14th-20th May 2012

I just received information from a friend about Angela Hewitt Week in Ottawa, 14th-20th May as declared by Mayor Jim Watson. Ms Hewitt is performing with Chamber Players of Canada on Friday 18th May; there will also be An Afternoon With Angela Hewitt on 20th May at the National Arts Centre hosted by the Canadian Friends of the Trasimeno Music Festival .

Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .

The Venezuelan maestro comes to Cardiff

A highly anticipated evening of entertainment for M and I, we headed to St Davids Hall to see the conductor of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel , conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra . Highly entertaining, too, and the place was pretty full, though possibly not sold out. We had anticipated the first piece to be Antonio Estevez' 'Mediodia en el llano', but a last minute change meant the first work was (I believe - the posters up in the venue were rather short on info!) Berlioz' Roman Carnival. Initially we may have been a tad disappointed but the replacement work was excellently peformed, cue many smiles. Unfortunately, the smiles soon evaporated, as the second, and for us, least interesting piece, was Mozart's Piano Concert No.17 K453 with Emanuel Ax on piano. M described Ax as mellow, I described him as dull. That may be because neither of us are really into Mozart, but compared to previous visits to St Davids Hall to see pianists Noriko Ogawa and Freddy Kempf, we really...

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