CDs/DVDs
Albums of the Year 2020: Songhoy Blues - OptimismeSaturday, 19 December 2020
If there’s been one thing that has coloured the UK music scene in 2020, it’s been the lack of any type of performance in front of a living, breathing and sweating audience for much of the year. Who was to know back at the beginning of January that... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2020: Cleo Sol - Rose in the DarkFriday, 18 December 2020
Among the glints of light in this overcast year, one particularly bright one has been the state of British soul music. Not just in the sense of good records released, although there’ve been plenty of those – but something significantly deeper: a... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2020: Marius Neset – TributesWednesday, 16 December 2020
This year of all years – surely – we need music which takes us to better, happier places. And the new album from Norwegian-born saxophonist/composer Marius Neset does that. It also gives us a bit more hindsight and context as to what his two... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2020: Melt Yourself Down - 100% YesWednesday, 16 December 2020
I’ll leave it to others, better placed, to unpack 2020’s gruelling impact on so many. But one of its side effects was the elevation, alongside food and television, of recorded music. It became a salve, a focus, a locus of social media blather about... Read more... |
Album: Paul McCartney - McCartney IIIMonday, 14 December 2020
Leave a 78-year-old ex-Beatle locked down for long enough, and this what he comes up with: a sequel to his two previous wholly solo albums, cooked up in his Sussex home studio. The results find the once derided, “Thumbs Aloft” McCartney’s slow... Read more... |
Album: Carrie Underwood - My GiftSaturday, 12 December 2020
I'm sure there's an audience somewhere that will love this Carrie Underwood Christmas croonfest. The people on Pinterest who collect nicely designed Bible quotes, seasonal recipes and images of matching family onesies, perhaps?For those who don't... Read more... |
Album: Dolly Parton - A Dolly Holly ChristmasFriday, 11 December 2020
Think hard. How much schmaltz do you think there is in this album? OK, double that. Now double it again. Nope, you’re still nowhere close. This is the world schmaltz lake with the entire EU cheese mountain forming an island in the middle, all... Read more... |
Album: Calexico - Seasonal ShiftThursday, 10 December 2020
Christmas albums are traditionally, pretty cheesy affairs and Seasonal Shift sees Tex-Mex rockers Calexico join in with the spirit of things, invite a disparate group of friends into the studio and lay the Panela on seriously thick. As well as some... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Le Cercle RougeTuesday, 08 December 2020
Misdirection is at the heart of Le Cercle Rouge. The Buddhist quote that opens Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1970 thriller – "when men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day… they will inevitably come together in the red circle” – is fake, written by... Read more... |
Album: Chris Kamara - ...And a Happy New YearMonday, 07 December 2020
Now this is exactly what I want for Christmas: a beloved fixture of Saturday afternoon TV putting a lounge jazz spin on some festive classics, backed by an 18-piece swing band. …And a Happy New Year is, somewhat implausibly, the second holiday... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The IrishmanSunday, 06 December 2020
The big talking points of Martin Scorsese’s lauded return to the gangster genre, 2019’s The Irishman, were his reunion after 25 years with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, and the state-of the-art “de-aging” process that enabled that pair and Al... Read more... |
Album: The Avalanches - We Will Always Love YouSaturday, 05 December 2020
After a 16-year wait for the second album from Australian sample-stitchers The Avalanches, their third, a mere four years later, feels like a rush release by comparison. We Will Always Love You has been preceded by no fewer than four singles which,... Read more... |
