CDs/DVDs
CD: Linkin Park - One More LightMonday, 22 May 2017
On its release, Linkin Park's recent single, the ironically titled "Heavy", caused outrage among fans. It wasn't so much the warbling vocals, as much as the total reversal of the band's customary controlled rage. Some took to writing mock obituaries... Read more... |
CD: The Charlatans - Different DaysSunday, 21 May 2017
Notwithstanding the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays’ underwhelming reunions, it comes as something of a shock to realise that the Charlatans are the last men standing of the early 80s Madchester scene. Bringing elements of acid house into indie pop,... Read more... |
CD: Shitkid - FishSaturday, 20 May 2017
Finally, a new band that lives up to a fine name and great cover art. Then again, Shitkid do a whole lot more than that. Their music sounds like the antithesis of contemporary chart-pop, which is refreshing, but even better, also doesn’t do the... Read more... |
Blu-ray: My Life as a DogFriday, 19 May 2017
My Life as a Dog is a bittersweet coming-of-age yarn which took Sweden and the art cinema circuit by storm on its release in 1985. Anton Glanzelius plays Ingemar, the 12-year-old narrator with a pixie-faced charm; his mother has TB and is exhausted... Read more... |
CD: Miles Mosley - UprisingThursday, 18 May 2017
From a residency at a low-key Hollywood piano bar, jazz fusion collective The West Coast Get Down has seemingly launched a global takeover of jazz. First, saxophonist Kamasi Washington went stellar; currently four other members of the group are... Read more... |
CD: Lisa Knapp - Till April Is Dead: A Garland of MayWednesday, 17 May 2017
I’ve long cherished south London folk singer Lisa Knapp’s Hunt the Hare - A Branch of May EP, released in a limited edition in 2012, so to have Till April Is Dead: A Garland of May come in the full bloom of May is a charm indeed. It is her third... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: La La LandTuesday, 16 May 2017
We’ve had the pre-release hoopla. We’ve had the gruellingly inevitable backlash. We’ve had, as an additional sideshow, the brief interlude when it was this year’s best picture at the Academy Awards, until it wasn’t. The time has now come for La La... Read more... |
CD: Oumou Sangaré - MogoyaMonday, 15 May 2017
Contemporary music from Mali hovers delicately (and creatively) between purist tradition and more or less successful attempts at making things more attractive to a younger and worldwide audience. Oumou Sangaré’s first five albums for the British... Read more... |
CD: Jane Weaver - Modern KosmologySunday, 14 May 2017
As if listening in on the heart of a robot, it begins with a throb over which a disembodied voice sings as a classic motorik rhythm kicks in. The song, “H>A>K”, perpetually builds and then abruptly ceases. It ends with “I Wish”, where a folky... Read more... |
CD: Harry Styles - Harry StylesSaturday, 13 May 2017
“Harry's new album is F*CKING INSANE!” tweeted Father John Misty recently, setting the expectation bar very high for a collection that, sources close to the former One Direction member had indicated, would be “deeply personal” (or, at least, as... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: MelodyFriday, 12 May 2017
Nostalgia is dangerous; return to your childhood haunts and what was huge is now tiny, what once was magical at the movies is now mundane. Luckily this is not the case with Melody (also known under a distributor-enforced title as S.W.A.L.K.),... Read more... |
CD: Pumarosa - The WitchThursday, 11 May 2017
That Pumarosa’s single “Cecile”, a Breeders-channelling monster, is not on their debut album says everything about their confidence. The 10 songs on The Witch have the heft of rock music, but also a more-ish femininity, both in the vocal department... Read more... |
