I'm not very consistent in collecting reviews,
so this selection is a little idiosyncratic.
Some are for my albums, some for my multi-media music pieces,
some for collaborative projects and some for my time as a violinist with
The Hidden Cameras.
The music is as melancholic as it is splendid: ‘there is grief there, but it’s also an affirmation of life in the face of it' ... Shoures Soote serves as a requiem for his brother.
Peter van Cooten - Ambienblog
2024
Empire of a Faun Imaginary balances in a permanent in-between, between anguish of the end, and poetry... Simone Mousset creates a universe ... where moments of grace ... coexist with disturbing dissonances, notably through the chiselled, rigorously crafted voice work.
Belinda Mathieu- Sceneweb
2023
Absolutely gorgeous.
Richard Chartier - Le Brâme du Cerf au Crépuscule
2016
Unhurried and ethereal ... the music reminds me of the work of The Stars Of The Lid (later A Winged Victory For The Sullen).
Which is one simple and effective argument to recommend you to check out this album!
Peter van Cooten - Ambient Blog
Le Brâme du Cerf au Crépuscule
2016
Droning Beauty.
Richard Chartier - Stilled
2017
Jamie McCarthy ... whose sweeping, drone-like chords take inspiration from cloud formations. Their epic, richly textured tones added weight and lent gravitas ...'
Alexandra Gray in Everything Theatre
Orrow Amy's Bell's The Forecast , 2018
Bell is also an attractively limber mover with a command of body language both gestural and space-embracing. What's exciting, too, from a theatre-making perspective is how she and her collaborators – principally composer/sound designer Jamie McCarthy and artist/dramaturg Hetain Patel – are playing with and pushing at the possibilities of what a performance can be. They're thinking outside many boxes here.
Donald Hutera - The Forecast
Edinburgh Festival 2019
Jamie McCarthy’s ... electronica as abrasive as rush hour
and affecting as empty streets at dawn.
Frieze
'If The Route ...' by Beatrice Gibson and Jamie McCarthy
2007
Created in collaboration with ten Knowledge students and involved enacting their daily ‘calling over’ tests –
whereby novitiate cabbies recite routes to each other –
to the accompaniment of four improvising string players.
Opening with rapid-fire solo voices (‘Rolls Road to St Martin’s Theatre: leave by Humphrey Street right Old Kent Road comply Bricklayers Arms roundabout …’), the calls gradually layered over each other, until joined by long, arcing string notes – dramatic counterpoints to the alert recitations of the vocalists.
Frieze
'If The Route ...' by Beatrice Gibson and Jamie McCarthy
2007
A remarkable fusion of video, lighting, design, music, voice and theatre where all parts were given equal focus … the lasting memory is of … awesome music produced by heavenly instruments and voices.
Jane Dawson - The Convention of Angels Part1: Lucifer at Queer up North festival Manchester, 1996
McCarthy’s composition stands at that brave interface of the past and future, as it opens up so many possible avenues of interpretation. Whilst it has undeniable relevance to the here and now, WAKE is not afraid to challenge your preconceptions of what that actually is. Exciting, interactive theatre.
Amy Walker - Musical South Magazine
Wake at the ICA, London, 1996
The super humans of choice, they’ve got it down. It’s working when it’s not working, in fact it’s working better when it’s not working ... Perhaps this is because it’s in the ‘not working’ that we get to witness modified impulse at its best, an infectious craft of clever tact. There is something so fascinating in watching the process of active decision making. They offered their thoughts generously, to witness their fuck-ups and fluke harmonies that probably weren’t fluke, to create a place of exciting tension. What struck hardest was that they allowed the space for time. Time to run with a thought until it just about dies in order to challenge the dimensions of their capacity for trust. For me, this is the moment of tingly admiration. Trust in themselves and one another ... Group is a purposeful word here and sort of makes me realise that even if decisions are being made individually, it is a group responsibility, or trust, for the greater good of their fluid hybrid being, ‘Neat Timothy’. And how neat Timothy is.
Improv-ish Thoughts Posted on March 17, 2015
Eve Stainton on The Return of Neat Timothy
at The Place, London
I am familiar with Joanna Young’s strong choreographic language from having seen her Re-creating Pengwyn and Army of Me, and I was fascinated to see the way she has taken this into her cross-artform collaborative work with composer Jamie McCarthy …
… Here’s a question – did Jamie McCarthy’s often mesmeric soundscape influence the choices I made about what I looked at and how I moved about the room? Possibly. It may well have contributed to the feeling I had of (what I imagine to be) womb-like comfort for some of the time. It may subsequently have triggered me to focus on Belinda Neave moving through the room. Nonetheless, I felt that this was a remarkably open experience.
Cath Barton – Wales Art Review -
Don’t Think About a Purple Daisy
The Dance Centre, Pen Y Pound, Abergavenny, 28 November 2015
DooCot’s Peacock inhabits a bleak world full of fleeting love and prejudices, savagery and misunderstandings. Some brief respite … was offered by … Jez Dolan and Jamie McCarthy – who created an aural backdrop both funny and surreal, strung together by McCarthy’s torch songs which were downright spine-tingling.
Nicola Barker – Peacock - The Observer May 1994
The set was constructed as a series of peaks it seemed to me – highlights including frantic renditions of ‘B-Boy’ and ‘The Little Bit’. And a particular joy to watch is barefoot violinist Jamie McCarthy who sways, swoops and leaps throughout.
Folly of Youth - The Hidden Cameras - Deaf Institute, Manchester 21st March 2010
Jamie McCarthy’s enthusiastic fiddle playing, always a highlight of their shows, remains undiminished
Adam Elmahdi - The Hidden Cameras
St. Leonards, Shoreditch, London
March 2010
Gleich neben dem Frontman spielt sich Teufelsgeiger Jamie McCarthy in Rage.
Stefan Strasser - The Hidden Cameras - Feierwerk, München, 13. April 2010
Jamie Mccarthy, der "platterte" Violinist, war neben dem Sänger Gibb der Auffälligste. Er verliert sich unmittelbar in der Musik und musste obacht geben, dass er mit seinem Bogen im wilden Tanz niemanden aufspießte. Sehr virtuos sein Spiel, sehr freundlich seine Gesten, wie überhaupt der Kontakt der Band intra- und interpersonell beispiellos war.
The Hidden Cameras - Metropolitain, Traunstein – 6th September 2008