CDs/DVDs
DVD/Blu-ray: Property Is No Longer a TheftFriday, 24 March 2017
This is the Italian cinema Berlusconi suppressed. Elio Petri directed broadsides between the crossfire of the Sixties and Seventies’ Years of Lead, as fascists, communists and ill-defined fifth columns brought ideological violence to rock gigs and... Read more... |
CD: Goldfrapp – Silver EyeThursday, 23 March 2017
Silver Eye is Goldfrapp’s seventh long-player in an 18-year career that has taken in electronica sounds of all stripes. It sees the duo make a stab at melding together the club-friendly electropop and the witchy rural folk-noir sounds of their... Read more... |
CD: Jethro Tull - The String QuartetsWednesday, 22 March 2017
On Jethro Tull's classic "Songs from the Wood" Ian Anderson promised "all things refined". And refined the band certain has been. Musically educated, too. For 40-odd years they have specialised in baroque rock and minstrel ballads all served up... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Multiple ManiacsTuesday, 21 March 2017
The two words cut to the chase. The cast play, or actually are, maniacs. There are lots of them. Multiple Maniacs also nods to the title of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 1964 proto-gore movie Two Thousand Maniacs! John Waters’ 1970 second full-length film... Read more... |
CD: Yasmine Hamdan - Al JamilatMonday, 20 March 2017
Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan founded Beirut’s groundbreaking 1990s electro-duo Soapkills with Zeid Hamdan – the first Middle Eastern electro band to garner a cult following across the Arab world. More recently she featured in Jim Jarmusch’s 2013... Read more... |
CD: Judy Collins - A Love Letter to Stephen SondheimSunday, 19 March 2017
Judy Collins was one of the great folk icons of the 1960s, competing for the spotlight with Joan Baez. Where the latter was instrumental in bringing Bob Dylan to wide prominence, the former was crucial in putting Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen on... Read more... |
CD: The Jesus and Mary Chain - Damage and JoySaturday, 18 March 2017
Listening to the Jesus and Mary Chain’s first album of new material in 19 years is like meeting up with an incorrigible old friend. Maybe there are a few more wrinkles and grey hairs but the original spirit is most definitely still there. Fuzzy,... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Finding ForresterFriday, 17 March 2017
It’s strange to think that Sean Connery is still out there somewhere, aged 86. But this 17-year-old Gus Van Sant cousin to the director’s Good Will Hunting remains the great Scot’s penultimate film (Sam Mendes pulled back from the Skyfall cameo that... Read more... |
CD: Zara Larsson - So GoodThursday, 16 March 2017
For many, music is simply background, blurring tinnily from phones, sense-candy to “Like”, swipe and scroll alongside Pokemon and Snapchat. Music is content, filling digital space in the same way Polyfilla fills dents in walls. Zara Larsson... Read more... |
DVD: ResetWednesday, 15 March 2017
The curious thing about Reset, the documentary that tracks the making of a new ballet by Benjamin Millepied at the Paris Opera Ballet, is that it clearly had another agenda. Millepied, a Frenchman nicely named for his profession, was a left-field... Read more... |
CD: Conor Oberst - SalutationsTuesday, 14 March 2017
Conor Oberst's 2016 LP, Ruminations, was seen by many as both a triumph and milestone. A triumph because of the acclaim it attracted; and a milestone because it finally packed the emotional punch the singer-songwriter had been promising for years.... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Creeping GardenMonday, 13 March 2017
The creative, organisational and intellectual properties of slime mould are outlined in loving detail in Tim Grabham and Jason Sharp’s engaging documentary The Creeping Garden, though even this peculiar organism seems a little colourless when... Read more... |
