Gladys Knight – The ‘Empress Of Soul’ and seven times Grammy winner is coming back to the UK for a series of special concert dates in June 2022. Starting on the 18th in Manchester, the 9-city tour concludes with two nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall on June 29th and…

Those Winter Sundays Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I…

Are you a Sinner or a Saint? asks Oklahoma composer Kitt Wakeley on the back cover of this instrumental album. It is hard to categorise what area of music the album fits into as it crosses so many genres including rock, electronic dance music and even parts of classical music. Famed guitarist…

The name Ed Cosens might be familiar to you due to the Sheffield guitarist being a member of Reverend and the Makers. Cosens describes himself as a singer, songwriter, producer, part-time brewer, husband and father. He has just released his new album Fortunes Favour. I spoke to Ed about the new…

Everest Once it was Chomolungma, Mother Goddess of the Earth, a face whose veil rarely lifted, its whiteness the White Whale’s. Now it’s like Elvis near the end, a giant in a soiled jumpsuit, blank, useful for percentages, a sheet from which the music’s fled. In ‘Everest’, his award-winning poem of overcooked ambition and ecological despoliation, David Wilson’s two…

Glad To Be A Dalek I'm not your average Dalek, you know the sort I mean, all bent on domination; giving vent to all that spleen. I like to think I'm different from other Dalek crew, who keep emotions hidden while exterminating you. I don't agree with killing, with plans to subjugate. The Universe is lovely and I find it hard…

Regular readers of my scribblings may have stumbled across my recent review of A Swim in A Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. Ostensibly a book written for writers to benefit from its playful technical musings and acutely mined insights, but one of equal value for any reader interested…