Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Top Topic tribute
PETER MASON enjoys a great line-up celebrating eight decades of the radical record label
PIC CAP Celebrating: Martin Carthy, Marry Waterson, Eliza Carthy and Lisa Knapp Pic: Tom Howard/Barbican
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
Topic Records 80th Anniversary
Barbican, London
TOPIC, the oldest independent record company in the world, was founded in 1939 by the Workers Music Association under the wing of the Communist Party of Great Britain and had its first release in 1939 with Paddy Ryan’s The Man That Waters the Workers’ Beer.
Shortly after, the second world war broke out and most of its activity stopped. But since the end of that conflict, Topic has been delivering handsomely on its pledge “to use popular music to educate and inform and improve the lot of the working man.”
Although the label has had its troubles over the years, all currently seems well and this two-hour 80th anniversary bash, well constructed under the musical direction of Eliza Carthy — a Topic artist since 1997 — brought together an impressive line-up of musicians in celebration of that happy circumstance.
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