CDs/DVDs
Album: Elephant9 - Arrival Of The New EldersMonday, 01 February 2021
Arrival Of The New Elders is unlike anything Norwegian trio Elephant9 have done before. Previously, their jazz-prog mélange was as full-on as it could be. Attacking, hard and heavy. Now, a previously unfamiliar pensiveness has been revealed.While... Read more... |
Album: Femi Kuti and Made Kuti - Legacy+Saturday, 30 January 2021
Fela Kuti and Afro-Beat have achieved a kind of joyous immortality: his son Femi and his grandson Made keep the flame of Nigerian agitprop and party-music ablaze, with a pair of albums (Stop the Hate by Femi, and For(e)ward by Made) that both, in... Read more... |
Album: The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm WarningsFriday, 29 January 2021
The title is in keeping with those of previous portentously handled albums from the Montréal art-rockers. There was their breakthrough 2007 set The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse and 2010’s The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night. The latter’s... Read more... |
Album: Goat Girl - On All FoursThursday, 28 January 2021
South London all-female post punkers, Goat Girl caused a bit of a splash with their self-titled debut album and early, belligerent tunes like “Scum” back in 2018. Now, however, is time for its follow-up and, unfortunately On All Fours is indelibly... Read more... |
Album: Steve Hackett - Under A Mediterranean SkyWednesday, 27 January 2021
Never have the early months of the year felt more cruel. Escape is what we all yearn for – from home, from ourselves and our shrunken lives. Never has music been more important to us and, over the last few days, I’ve had Steve Hackett’s new... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: RelicTuesday, 26 January 2021
Relic's deliberate drabness hits home first; set in Victoria, Natalie Erika James’s modern horror shows us a grey contemporary Australia, a place bleached of all colour. We first see Kay and her daughter Sam (Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote,... Read more... |
Album: Arlo Parks - Collapsed in SunbeamsMonday, 25 January 2021
“Hope”, from the debut album by 20 year old London singer-songwriter Arlo Parks, has a perfect chorus for these times. Blissed piano chords, lazy funk beats, lusciously upbeat synth dreaminess, and on top of it all, her sweet, airy voice offering... Read more... |
Album: Bicep - IslesSaturday, 23 January 2021
Bicep's second album fufills the promise of the first, released in 2017 to wide acclaim. Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar, friends since childhood from the city of Belfast, draw inspiration from Chicago house, Detroit techno, Italo disco and... Read more... |
Album: Wardruna - KvitravnFriday, 22 January 2021
Norway’s Wardruna have proved to be an unlikely international musical success, both within Scandinavia and further afield, since releasing their 2009 debut album Runalijod – Gap Var Ginnunga. In this time, Einar Selvik’s Norsemen have managed to... Read more... |
Album: Eminem - Music To Be Murdered By Side BThursday, 21 January 2021
Becoming a has-been is Eminem’s main raw material now, the rocket-fuel for his rhetorical flights. He was a folk-devil 20 years ago, then a prescription drug-zombied recluse, then a huge comeback pop star. Extending that third act has been hobbled... Read more... |
Album: Cerys Matthews, Hidden Orchestra & 10 Poets - We Come From The SunWednesday, 20 January 2021
In such a somnolent time We Come From The Sun is an awakening – the immediacy and presence of poetry urging you to listen, and pay attention to the beauty of now. For her latest album Cerys Matthews selected 10 poets to record their work and... Read more... |
Blu-ray: LibertéTuesday, 19 January 2021
Catalan director Albert Serra’s interest in late 18th century France is well established – his previous film was The Death of Louis XIV – but the title of his new one has precious little to do with the triadic revolutionary slogan that swept away... Read more... |
