ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
Nubya Garcia 5 stars
Barbican London
Nubya Garcia’s debut EP, Nubya’s 5ive, released in 2017, combined the tough breakbeats of London’s urban music scene with the dynamic sensibility of her jazz forebears, and established her place as one of her generation’s leading jazz musicians.
Three years on, and her much-anticipated debut album pushes this same combination into yet more accomplished and innovative territory. It is an album, she told the New York Times recently, focused on the themes of “personal power, collective power, collectivism,” and this is her first concert since its release.
CHRIS SEARLE urges you to listen to two new albums by the US Indian pianist VIJAY IYER
PETER MASON thrills to the sound of south London-born Yussef Dayes, and the galaxy of musicians drawn into his orbit
CHRIS SEARLE recommends a new album featuring Pat Thomas and Ahmed, and marvels at the tempestuous power of a live performance
WILL STONE witnesses an experimental piano concerto inspired by the work of a young Jewish victim of the Nazis


