CDs/DVDs
CD: Iggy Azalea - Survive the SummerSaturday, 04 August 2018
In basic creative terms of the ingredients that make it up, this is not a bad record. Hip hop production is in extraordinary period right now, and the six tracks on this EP have the best production that money can buy: woozy, narcotic, digitally... Read more... |
DVD: WesternFriday, 03 August 2018
Men in a wilderness, uneasy interaction with the locals, a horse… German director Valeska Grisebach’s third feature Western certainly does not lack the staples of genre that her title suggests. But there’s a vulnerable heart to this tale of cross-... Read more... |
CD: The Proclaimers - Angry CyclistThursday, 02 August 2018
A sight every music fan should see and hear once is The Proclaimers playing Scotland. Around 18 years ago I saw them play a giant marquee at the T In The Park Festival. It was like a rally, a roaring wall of joyful fanaticism (on which note, their... Read more... |
CD: Dee Snider - For the Love of MetalTuesday, 31 July 2018
In recent years there’s been an explosion in feminised self-empowerment anthems, perhaps best epitomised by Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” (This is my fight song/Take back my life song/Prove I'm alright song). For those in need of a masculine... Read more... |
CD: Bansangu Orchestra - Bansangu OrchestraMonday, 30 July 2018
This gloriously feel-good album offers irresistibly catchy hooks, a myriad of musical influences handled with an unruffled ease, plus a communicative power that thrills at every turn.Penned by the orchestra's MD and co-founder, multi-instrumentalist... Read more... |
CD: Echo Ladies – Pink NoiseSunday, 29 July 2018
It starts with countdown to cacophony. A well-indicated pathway to absolute and total sensory overload. It’s calculated, clear and concise. The succinctly titled “Intro” hits like a sucker punch you never saw coming because it was never on the cards... Read more... |
CD: Jah Wobble - Dream WorldSaturday, 28 July 2018
He's known for his myriad collaborations – Public Image Ltd, Primal Scream, The Orb, The Edge, Can, all the way through to recent work with singers PJ Higgins and Hollie Cook – but Jah Wobble really deserves attention in his own right. A cosmic... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Peter RabbitFriday, 27 July 2018
That this Peter Rabbit took more money in the UK than Disney's sublime Coco is a tad depressing. I know I’m no longer a member of the film’s target demographic, but I can imagine many under-tens being underwhelmed by Will Gluck’s family comedy... Read more... |
CD: All Saints - TestamentThursday, 26 July 2018
As far as All Saints aficionados will be concerned, 17 years after they originally split they’ve pulled the dream team back together. Not only is regular “fifth member”, producer/songwriter K-Gee Gordon on board, but for two songs so is producer... Read more... |
CD: Skadedyr - Musikk!Wednesday, 25 July 2018
In spirit if not musical style, Musikk! shares chromosomes with late-Sixties ESP-label mavericks like Cro Magnon and Octopus, as well as The Residents of Meet the Residents, early This Heat and the Rock in Opposition collective. Sun Ra is in there... Read more... |
DVD: That SummerTuesday, 24 July 2018
The meanderings and bickerings of an extraordinary mother and daughter as they roam or lounge around a semi-derelict house and overgrown garden on Long Island have become a cult since the 1975 release of Albert and David Maysles' documentary Grey... Read more... |
CD: Breathe Panel - Breathe PanelMonday, 23 July 2018
Signed to FatCat records and purporting to create music that “recalls thoughtful days spent outdoors”, Breathe Panel’s self-titled album could easily be lost in the thriving soft-psych scene that seems to have set itself up in the south of England.... Read more... |
