CDs/DVDs
CD: Red Axes - The Beach GothsMonday, 28 August 2017
It’s telling that, on their 2014 debut LP, Ballad of the Ice, Dori Sadovnik and Niv Arzi covered Bauhaus’ epic proto-gothic ode “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. The 1979 single, with its incessant shuffle, dubbed-out tape delay and post-punk guitars, straddled... Read more... |
CD: Hannah Peel - Mary Casio: Journey to CassiopeiaSunday, 27 August 2017
The brass band/electronica interface is not a seam which musicians have previously mined regularly. Or, for that matter, at all. Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia is probably – nothing else springs to mind – the only album teaming pulsing analogue... Read more... |
CD: Liars - TFCFSaturday, 26 August 2017
Across their 17-year career, Liars have become renowned for both their genre-jumping and for making good music wherever their stylistic tent is pitched. With founding member Aaron Hemphill leaving the Los Angeles band on amicable terms earlier this... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: J'AccuseFriday, 25 August 2017
Abel Gance’s remake of his 1919 classic was a worthy but overwrought attempt to avert World War II, which by 1938 was already a fait accompli. In their comparative sombreness, King Vidor’s The Big Parade (1925) and Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the... Read more... |
CD: Queens of the Stone Age - VillainsThursday, 24 August 2017
Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme recently declared that, while recording Villains, his intention had been to redefine the band's old sound. His recent work with Iggy Pop, he said, had recharged his imagination and now he wanted to make... Read more... |
CD: Joan Osborne - Songs of Bob DylanWednesday, 23 August 2017
Dylan aficionados will get the cover art reference immediately: one of Elliott Landy’s celebrated Woodstock photos, taken in 1968. Joan Osborne, Grammy nominated “no-nonsense Dylan” (New York Times) interpreter, is wearing neither hat nor guitar on... Read more... |
CD: Dälek - Endangered PhilosophiesTuesday, 22 August 2017
One of the stranger things about popular music is how unwilling most are to crossbreed and experiment. Surely that’s where the real kicks are? Most seem to prefer ploughing ruts that were overfamiliar 10, 20, 30, even 40 years ago. Either that or... Read more... |
CD: Iron and Wine - Beast EpicMonday, 21 August 2017
Iron and Wine’s songs sweet melancholy songs are instantly recognisable, as if their principal author Sam Beam inhabited a parallel universe of the American imagination, a slightly whimsical and yet soulful territory, in which the extremes of hope... Read more... |
CD: Portico Quartet - Art in the Age of AutomationSunday, 20 August 2017
It seems quite a shock to consider that it’s now 10 years since Portico Quartet’s breakthrough album Knee-Deep in the North Sea was released to much acclaim and a Mercury Prize nomination for its melding of jazz, ambient electronic and minimalist... Read more... |
CD: Mogwai - Every Country's SunSaturday, 19 August 2017
Mogwai’s ability to create both frighteningly intense and gorgeously understated compositions has led to them being one of post-rock’s most celebrated and accessible bands. In recent years, they’ve increasingly become known for their unnerving and... Read more... |
Blu-ray: RoninFriday, 18 August 2017
There are three bravura scenes in Ronin that merit the price of acquisition. Two of them are French car chases, one along the twisting alleys of Nice, the other through the tunnels and up the wrong side of the carriageway in Paris. It’s a mark of... Read more... |
CD: Man Duo - OrbitThursday, 17 August 2017
True to their name, Finland’s Man Duo are male and there are two of them. The better-known half is former Helsinki tram driver Jaakko Eino Kalevi. Born Jaakko Savolainen – the Kalevi nods to his home country’s epic tale, The Kalevala – his long solo... Read more... |
