Entertainment

By Holly Carter, Music Reporter Last weekend Asaf Avidan played two shows at The Islington Assembly. Asaf is an Israeli singer-songwriter currently signed to the record label Polydor. He is well known for performing as part of Asaf Avidan & The Mojos but in 2012 he decided to focus more on his solo career which saw the release of live album Avidan in a Box. Throughout his career he has performed alongside and supported legendary musicians such as Bob Dylan,...

By Harry Bedford Multiculturalism is as much a part of the fabric of London as Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge and that gloried Ferris wheel that resides downstream. In many ways London is a miniature version of the world and all its cultures, so luckily for us we don’t have go far to experience things that would usually require a several-hour flight. Comptoir Libanais is a new chain of chic cafes dotted around the capital that deliver the taste of Lebanon...

By Harry Bedford, Entertainment Editor The civil rights movement and popular music were married together back in the 1950s and 1960s. Artists such as Sam Cooke singing 'A Change is Gonna Come’ and Bob Dylan singing ‘The Times they are a-changing’ were hugely significant at the time. So it makes sense that a musical, set in Memphis, about the integration of black and white culture would work. Memphis tells the story of the over-confident, under-educated young white man Huey, played...

Tomorrow sees the 2014 Mercury Prize awards. This prestigious music prize is awarded to best album of the year released in the UK and Ireland. Previously won by such artists as The Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and Franz Ferdinand and was won last year by James Blake. Spotify has created the official Mercury Music Prize Playlist of this year's nominees. Have a listen below.

By Chris Tate, Music Reporter A lot has changed in the last six years. For Jackson Browne, things are all too similar to how they were 50 years ago. Love, hate and conflict has always dominated his music, and his latest offering, Standing in the Breach, touches on all these points. It seems all too easy for an experienced artist to slip into the retirement era of their music. Where there was once hits and inspiration, there sits uninspiring album...

By Chris Tate, Music Reporter On Friday morning I switched on Radio 2, my usual morning ritual, to hear the new single by Take That. It will mark their first release as a trio since Jason Orange left little less than a month ago. This got me thinking. Is it really Take That? Can they justify releasing a new album under that name? Then I thought a little more, can you really blame them? Bands all over the world are...

Jack Peat reviews Hold Your Own by Kate Tempest  Poetry is a multi-faceted literary tool that releases the human in us. It pulls at our heart strings, exposes our insecurities and showcases our inner self in the rawest way possible. I've watched some remarkable biographical films, read some wonderful autobiographies, memoirs and obituaries, but the transformations portrayed by Kate Tempest through the poetic eyes of a mythical character is the first account of a life I actually felt. Hold Your Own...

By Harry Bedford, Music Editor Si Cranstoun was given a recording contract earlier this year at the age of 39 after two decades of working the London music scene. Despite the singer-songwriter - from Caterham, Surrey - working the scene for 20 years, he actually sounds like he has come to the charts 60 years too late. His soul style is much more akin to the likes of Jackie Wilson and The Drifter than anyone else today. Nevertheless his optimistic,...

John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He even wrote a fairy tale. He loved to express the connection between nature, art and society. In the course of his deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. Ruskin first came to widespread attention in defence of the work of J. M. W. Turner in which...