CDs/DVDs
CD: LUMP – LUMPWednesday, 30 May 2018
Ignore the associations that come with the name LUMP - this record is as far from leaden, dull and heavy as you can get. A dreamy, itchy collaboration between folk musicians Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay of Tunng, LUMP features vocals and... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Intimate LightingTuesday, 29 May 2018
From the way that Czech director Ivan Passer remembers the genesis of this, his 1965 debut feature, in the 2006 interview that comes with this Second Run rerelease, Intimate Lighting happened practically by accident. A scriptwriter friend had put an... Read more... |
CD: Jennifer Warnes - Another Time, Another PlaceMonday, 28 May 2018
Many will remember Jennifer Warnes as the backing vocalist on a mighty handful of Leonard Cohen albums, and from his touring bands – she was on the 1972 and ’79 European jaunts. The latter was in support of Recent Songs, mocked at the time for its... Read more... |
CD: Oneohtrix Point Never - Age OfSaturday, 26 May 2018
Everything on this record changes shape. One moment in “RayCats” Far Eastern instrumentation is being glitched beyond recognition, then suddenly it sounds like something from a relaxation tape. “Same” shimmers and twists between 20th century avant-... Read more... |
CD: Morcheeba - Blaze AwayFriday, 25 May 2018
Their ninth album should please Morcheeba fans. Take the song “Find Another Way”, for example. It rolls in like a haunted breeze, an acoustic/twangy combination preceding front-woman Skye Edwards, one of the sweetest-sounding vocalists in pop, and... Read more... |
CD: Snow Patrol - WildnessThursday, 24 May 2018
Few bands divide opinion quite like Snow Patrol. Their fans see their slow, intense anthems as cathartic friends. Others - myself included - tend to regard their music as an insidious, dreary presence. As Nicky Wire (of the Manics) once put it, "the... Read more... |
CD: Chvrches - Love Is DeadWednesday, 23 May 2018
When bands move to the US, some find themselves drawn into the commercial machine; when Scottish band Chvrches crossed the Atlantic, they were targeting direct assimilation from the start. Recorded with mega-producer Greg Kurstin, the band are... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: CocoTuesday, 22 May 2018
The brightness and colour are deceptive; at its heart, Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina’s Coco is an affecting reflection on death, remembrance and the redemptive power of music, dressed up as a frenetic and gag-stuffed Disney comedy. I’d place it... Read more... |
CD: Gretchen Peters - Dancing with the BeastMonday, 21 May 2018
Gretchen Peters arrived in Nashville in the late eighties from Bronxville, New York, where she was born, and Boulder, Colorado, where she grew up. Within a decade she was writing songs for some of the biggest names in country music, among them... Read more... |
CD: Caroline Rose - LonerSunday, 20 May 2018
Loner’s opening track “More of the Same” lyrically tracks being at a party where “everyone’s well dressed with a perfect body and they all have alternative haircuts and straight white teeth.” It triggers a flashback to schooldays when it was, indeed... Read more... |
CD: Judith Owen - redisCOVERedSaturday, 19 May 2018
When a 49-year-old Welsh jazz’n’folk singer decides to make it her business to cover songs ranging from Drake’s “Hotline Bling” to Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling”, most people’s immediate reaction would be to advise her to leave well... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The PostFriday, 18 May 2018
Spielberg’s prequel to All the President’s Men was filmed at speed, and aimed squarely at the press-hating Trump, not the late Tricky Dick. This contemporary intent is already fading. What remains is the director’s second return, after Munich, to... Read more... |
