The Guide: music: Gwilym Simcock & Friends London: James Arthur On tour: Fortuna Pop! Winter Sprinter London: Strauss's Voice Manchester: Alan Barnes Stratford-upon-Avon, London: Artrocker New Blood festival London

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: John Robinson John Fordham Andrew Clements
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 04.01.2014
• Subjects: Simcock, Gwilym; Stratford, Alan Barnes
• ISSN: 0261-3077

The famous Duke Ellington contention that the only meaningful categories of music are good and bad seems planted deep in the DNA of UK pianist-composer [Gwilym Simcock]. He really does seem to flow freely across genres without noticing the joins, and for these two King's Place concerts he curates a typically wide-ranging programme featuring artists he admires. Thursday's gig launches young Austrian composer Johannes Berauer's Vienna Chamber Diaries, (with Simcock joining in on piano), while Friday's show previews Simcock's new Instrumation album with help from the exciting French saxophonist Celine Bonacina. For several years now this fixture, curated by durable indie label Foruna Pop!, has done a fine job of illustrating the steady demand for stout-hearted, fresh-faced guitar music. And that's what, over an intelligently programmed four nights, it does again here. These nights find surprising nuance in coy guitar strumming; only the rather wet Herman Dune (who headline the second night) revert to what you'd call "type". Elsewhere there's plenty of variety with the Swedish Smithsiness of Cocoanut Groove and the September Girls' (pictured) garage rock. Best of the lot is the feisty electric clanging of Joanna Gruesome. jr