CDs/DVDs
Album: Permafrost - The Light Coming ThroughMonday, 07 October 2024
While it does get very cold in the north of Norway, it’s likely that Permafrost’s chosen name reflects a fondness for Howard Devoto’s post-punk outfit Magazine as much as it does their home country’s environment. “Permafrost” was a track on Magazine... Read more... |
Album: Goat - GoatSaturday, 05 October 2024
With the Pagan festival of Mabon and the Autumnal Equinox only just past us, it seems appropriate for Scandi psychedelic rockers, Goat to provide a soundtrack of celebration as we head towards the colder months. And, as expected, Goatman and his... Read more... |
Album: Coldplay - Moon MusicFriday, 04 October 2024
From the very first chords of "Yellow" in 2000, Coldplay have been an ever present at the summit of popular music's hierarchy. Their uncanny knack of crafting sickly sweet melodies and soundscapes that dig deep and stay with you, willingly or not,... Read more... |
Album: Caribou - HoneyWednesday, 02 October 2024
Dan Snaith’s career has been a joyous thing to watch. Almost a quarter of a century the Canadian started out as Manitoba (soon renamed to Caribou) making a giddy mixture of dreamy ‘60s psychedelic pop, glitchy electronica and then cutting-edge dance... Read more... |
Album: The Smile - CutoutsTuesday, 01 October 2024
The Smile’s second album Wall of Eyes, released in January, is a thrillingly discomfiting album by Radiohead alumni Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner. It has a coherent mood and flow, a great screw-the-musicbiz... Read more... |
Album: Lady Gaga - HarlequinSaturday, 28 September 2024
Lady Gaga has made clear this is not her official new artist album. It’s a side project, inspired by Harley Quinn, the nom-de-chaos of the Arkham Asylum inmate she plays in Todd Phillips’ much-anticipated sequel Joker: Folie à Deux. The original... Read more... |
Album: Ezra Collective - Dance, No One’s WatchingFriday, 27 September 2024
Ezra Collective were faced with a challenge. The quintet needed to follow up from their achievement in winning the Mercury Prize in 2023 with Where I'm Meant To Be. That was a remarkable moment in itself, ending a 31-year drought during which a jazz... Read more... |
Album: Jaz Karis - Safe FlightThursday, 26 September 2024
The enduring good health of UK soul – the fact that we are treated to a continual stream of great records by the likes of Jorja Smith, Children of Zeus, Cleo Sol / SAULT, Maverick Sabre, Joel Culpepper, Yazmin Lacey, Ego Ella May, Michael Kiwanuka... Read more... |
Album: Van Morrison - New Arrangements and DuetsWednesday, 25 September 2024
It begins with a superb rendering of his 2018 song “Ain’t Gonna Moan No More”, on which Van is joined by the mellifluous voice of Kurt Elling, and which was recorded alongside the other duets on the album in 2018 and 2019.It then winds through a mix... Read more... |
Blu-ray: IkiruTuesday, 24 September 2024
Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (To Live) begins with an X-ray photo of the central character’s cancer-ridden stomach, a man described by the narrator (an uncredited Kurosawa) as someone “drifting through life… we can’t say that he is really alive at all…”.... Read more... |
Album: Alan Sparhawk - White Roses, My GodMonday, 23 September 2024
White Roses, My God isn’t a Low album. It couldn’t be. Mimi Parker, Alan Sparhawk’s wife and partner in Low, died in November 2022. And despite Low’s many musical twists and turns, Sparhawk’s public return to music sounds nothing like any of Low’s... Read more... |
Blu-ray: CrumbSunday, 22 September 2024
Robert Crumb puts America’s racist, misogynist Id on paper with self-implicating obsession. Terry Zwigoff’s 1995 documentary on the underground cartoonist and his even further out family is reissued as the channels for such purging, pungent art have... Read more... |
