CDs/DVDs
Album: Fred Hersch - Silent, ListeningMonday, 22 April 2024
The previous solo piano solo album from Fred Hersch, one of the world’s great jazz pianists, was called Songs from Home, released on the New York indie jazz label Palmetto Records towards the end of 2020. Silent, Listening, released this month on... Read more... |
Album: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department: The AnthologySaturday, 20 April 2024
Taylor Swift’s unfathomable ability to articulate human emotion shines as brightly as ever in her latest double album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. The 31 track collection combines the gentle melodies of previous albums folklore and... Read more... |
Album: Jonny Drop • Andrew Ashong - The Puzzle DustFriday, 19 April 2024
As I sat down to write this review, the sun came out. It was a salutory reminder of the importance of context: where I’d previously thought “mmm, that’s pretty nice”, now it was more “mmmmmmm, that’s pretty niiiiiice!” That’s not just a suble... Read more... |
Album: Pearl Jam - Dark MatterThursday, 18 April 2024
Thirty years, and over 75 million copies sold. It’s been a long journey from Nineties Seattle for Pearl Jam, the grunge era icons fronted by Eddie Vedder's commanding vocals.Pearl Jam have since carved out a legacy as one of the most... Read more... |
Album: Paraorchestra with Brett Anderson and Charles Hazlewood - Death SongbookWednesday, 17 April 2024
Death Songbook is, says Charles Hazlewood, founder, artistic director and conductor of Paraorchestra, an album of “music which is about death, or the death of love, about loss, about anxiety.” Suede’s Brett Anderson, on board for this endeavour,... Read more... |
Album: EMEL - MRAMonday, 15 April 2024
At a time when conflicts in the Middle East are reaching fever pitch, Emel Mathlouthi represents hope. Her new album MRA, is titled for the Arabic word for “woman” and was created entirely by women, as in, every single person involved with it at any... Read more... |
Album: A Certain Ratio - It All Comes Down to ThisSaturday, 13 April 2024
After a long period of relative inactivity, the last five years has had A Certain Ratio getting the bit between their teeth, trying out new sounds and releasing new tunes at a rate not seen since the early 1980s. It All Comes Down to This is their... Read more... |
Album: Maggie Rogers - Don't Forget MeFriday, 12 April 2024
For the past almost two years, Maggie Rogers has taken an unexpectedly special place in my heart and musical tastes. Upon reviewing her previous album, Surrender, because of the difference in style and sound to my usual tastes I was caught... Read more... |
Album: Lizz Wright - ShadowThursday, 11 April 2024
Lizz Wright has established herself, over a number of steadfastly excellent albums, as one of the very best vocalists of her generation. Not so long after a gripping live album recorded in Berlin Holding Space (2022), her latest offering shines with... Read more... |
Album: Shabaka - Perceive its Beauty, Acknowledge its GraceWednesday, 10 April 2024
Gal Beckerman’s 2023 book The Quiet Before makes a plea that if ideas, revolutionary or otherwise, are to grow, there needs to be a retreat from “our current cacophony”. And if there is one artist who is truly living out that principle in his... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Happy End (Šťastný konec)Tuesday, 09 April 2024
Happy End’s big draw is its central conceit, that of a convicted murderer narrating his life story backwards from the guillotine to the cradle. Made in 1967 by Oldfřich Lipský (1924-1986), renowned as a director of off-beat comedies, you wonder how... Read more... |
Album: Nia Archives - Silence is LoudMonday, 08 April 2024
At 24, Bradfordian Nia Archives has already clearly marked out her musical territory.While many of her Gen Z contemporaries have embraced the rave, jungle and drum’n’bass sounds of the early-mid 1990s, she’s done it more wholeheartedly than most:... Read more... |
