CDs/DVDs
CD: Mark Lanegan Band - GargoyleMonday, 17 April 2017
The extent to which Gargoyle counts as a Mark Lanegan or Mark Lanegan Band album is debateable. The entire musical backings for six of its ten tracks were created in Tunbridge Wells by former Lanegan support band member Rob Marshall and made their... Read more... |
CD: Maximo Park - Risk to ExistSunday, 16 April 2017
It's easy to presume that the early ‘00s indie boom just fizzled away. Not so. Many of those bands have had successful albums reasonably recently. The Fratellis? Check. The Wombats? Check. The Kooks? Check. Maximo Park’s last album, 2014’s Too Much... Read more... |
CD: Be Myself - Sheryl CrowSaturday, 15 April 2017
My ears are doing the time warp. If I close my eyes, I'm in high-heeled jelly shoes, wearing silver lipstick, and with my hair in Bjork buns – back when a satin slip dress over a T-shirt was cool as opposed to vintage. The first track of Sheryl... Read more... |
DVD: CrimsonFriday, 14 April 2017
After watching the grim Crimson, it’s impossible not to feel grubby and perplexed. Grubby, as this is a catering-size example of squalid exploitation cinema. Perplexed, as its plot is senseless, the charisma-free acting so inept that the cast may as... Read more... |
CD: Sharon Shannon - Sacred EarthThursday, 13 April 2017
Sharon Shannon’s not yet 50 – and she’s been performing for more than 40 years, joining a band at home in County Clare when she was eight and touring the US with them at 14. Since then she’s worked with an impressive array of artists, from the... Read more... |
CD: Barry Adamson - Love Sick DickWednesday, 12 April 2017
Barry Adamson has forged an impressive solo career since the soundtrack-without-a-film of Moss Side Story in 1988. His epic cinematic noir sounds have absorbed blues, jazz, rock and a myriad of other musical designs along the way and Love Sick Dick... Read more... |
DVD: Slaughterhouse-FiveTuesday, 11 April 2017
“I never saw anything like it,” declares Billy Pilgrim in wonderment. “It’s the Land of Oz.” He has just seen Dresden’s splendour from the train carriage into which he and other American prisoners of war are crammed en route to the city. They’ve... Read more... |
CD: Ulver - The Assassination of Julius CaesarMonday, 10 April 2017
The Frankie Goes to Hollywood of “Two Tribes”. Talk Talk. Stadium-era Depeche Mode. Laibach. a-ha’s aural dramas “Stay on These Roads” and “Manhattan Skyline”. “New Year’s Day” by U2. These are the musical building blocks of Ulver’s The... Read more... |
CD: Phronesis - The BehemothSunday, 09 April 2017
While this is a big beast of a record, it’s one that’s surprisingly light on its feet. Consisting of Danish bassist Jasper Høiby, British pianist Ivo Neame and Swedish drummer Anton Eger, anyone who’s familiar with Phronesis knows that metric shifts... Read more... |
CD: Future Islands - The Far FieldSaturday, 08 April 2017
The Far Field is the fifth album from Baltimore synth-poppers Future Islands, and the first since that performance on Letterman. In case you aren't familiar, a quick recap: the band were performing their single, "Seasons (Waiting on You)" when... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: One More Time with FeelingFriday, 07 April 2017
“But when did you become an object of pity?” Nick Cave asks himself. Brighton’s streets have become an obstacle course of concerned strangers and acquaintances, in the arms of whom he may find himself collapsed, crying. Such indignity was his grief’... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: LudwigThursday, 06 April 2017
No-one has ever matched costume drama to psychological depth quite like Luchino Visconti. Much of it has to do with what Henry James termed a "divided consciousness": as a nobleman who became a communist in World War Two and was relatively open... Read more... |
