CDs/DVDs
Album: Janelle Monáe - The Age of PleasureWednesday, 07 June 2023
There’s been a good deal of discussion on “the socials” about how much Janelle Monáe’s sexy image is a new thing or a big deal.Casual viewers, still stuck on the suit-wearing image with which she crashed into public consciousness in 2010, have acted... Read more... |
Blu-ray: LaurinTuesday, 06 June 2023
Mario Bava and Dario Argento are cited as key influences on Robert Sigl’s debut feature Laurin (1989). British viewers will also be reminded of the series of MR James ghost story adaptations broadcast by the BBC in the 1970s; a glimpse of a murdered... Read more... |
Album: Foo Fighters - But Here We AreMonday, 05 June 2023
In 1995 Dave Grohl returned with a new project and album, called Foo Fighters, following the death of Nirvana band-mate and close friend Kurt Cobain. Given his close connection with Kurt, and his avoidance of the media spotlight, this new album was... Read more... |
Album: King Krule - Space HeavySaturday, 03 June 2023
At first, I misread the title of the lead single “Seaforth” from King Krule’s fourth album, Space Heavy, as “Sea Froth”. It felt like a fitting title, combining the watery motif that runs through all of Archy Marshall’s music with a grimy image... Read more... |
Album: Dream Wife - Social LubricationFriday, 02 June 2023
Five years ago, breaking dry January a few days early, I joined a throng of folks amongst the merch boxes and strip lights of Rough Trade East to see Dream Wife. The London-based trio has come a long way since those small-scale shows in the backroom... Read more... |
Album: Baxter Dury - I Thought I Was Better Than YouThursday, 01 June 2023
This is a slight album in terms of length (under half an hour) but not in emotional insight. It’s absolutely haunting. Here we have the characteristic all-consuming melancholy that oozes from Baxter Dury but without the menace of Prince of... Read more... |
Album: Rufus Wainwright - FolkocracyWednesday, 31 May 2023
"This album is almost like a recorded birthday party and birthday present to myself. I just invited all the singers that I greatly admire and always wanted to sing with." So says Rufus Wainwright, a brilliant and compelling performer – and one, you... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Conquest of EverestTuesday, 30 May 2023
Studio Canal’s restored print of the 1953 documentary The Conquest of Everest is so sharp, so clear that initially it’s hard to believe that we’re not watching a studio reconstruction. Skies, snowscapes and sunlit uplands glow; it’s only in the... Read more... |
Album: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Council SkiesMonday, 29 May 2023
Council Skies was created in Noel Gallagher’s new studio, partly during lockdown, an attempt to reconnect with where he came from, Manchester, as per its cover art. It’s not an exercise in nostalgia (except insofar as everything either Gallagher... Read more... |
Album: Bob Dylan - Shadow KingdomSaturday, 27 May 2023
Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom first crossed our paths in July 2021, his first streaming event, and coming little more than a year after the garden of unearthly delights that was Rough and Rowdy Ways. To enter this kingdom, you were given a key code... Read more... |
Album: Shirley Collins - Archangel HillFriday, 26 May 2023
Mount Caburn is east of Lewes in Sussex. Shirley Collins’s stepfather used to call it Archangel Hill. The site of an Iron Age hill fort, it was defended with a ditch during the Roman and Saxon periods. In World War II, a gun emplacement was... Read more... |
Album: Arlo Parks - My Soft MachineThursday, 25 May 2023
On a recent podcast, poet and producer Arlo Parks admitted, “Music is definitely a place where I put the softest part of myself and push it out into the ocean.” This shouldn’t come as a surprise if you spent time with her Mercury prize-winning debut... Read more... |
