CDs/DVDs
Album: Kendrick Lamar - Mr Morale & the Big SteppersSaturday, 14 May 2022
Kendrick Lamar is so breathlessly revered it’s sometimes hard to pull apart what’s going on in his records. It’s sometimes felt like he might become the rap game Radiohead: exploratory, aware, hugely technically accomplished, endlessly thematically... Read more... |
Album: Dubstar - TwoFriday, 13 May 2022
Dubstar didn’t really fit the niche where the 1990s put them. Signed to Food Records, original home of Blur, they were lumped in with Britpop but their music was always closer to the thoughtful electronic pop of Saint Etienne, and they also had –... Read more... |
Album: Van Morrison - What's It Gonna Take?Thursday, 12 May 2022
The mystifying chasm between Van Morrison’s personality and music became total with last year’s Latest Record Project Volume 1, as masterfully sung, textbook R&B rolled under biliously paranoid words. This 28-song more than double-album was... Read more... |
Album: Florence + the Machine - Dance FeverWednesday, 11 May 2022
The title of Florence + the Machine’s fifth album, Dance Fever is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s unlikely that it will ever come to soundtrack anyone losing themselves and their inhibitions on the dancefloor. In fact, it’s unlikely that many will feel... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Round MidnightTuesday, 10 May 2022
Among the plentiful bonus items in this Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Round Midnight, the last one is a surprise. It shows Dexter Gordon in his prime, back in 1969.He’s doing the thing for which, purely as a jazz musician, he’s best known. We see... Read more... |
Album: The Waterboys - All Souls HillMonday, 09 May 2022
This album starts with an unfortunate sound. Its title track begins with the kind of drum loop that rock bands from U2 on down adopted in the early 1990s having heard Massive Attack and Happy Mondays and deciding that they were going to get on the... Read more... |
Album: Emeli Sandé - Let's Say For InstanceSaturday, 07 May 2022
Around a decade ago, Scottish singer Emeli Sandé appeared during a golden time for original female songwriters. On well-wrought, richly-inhabited songs such as “My Kind of Love” she quickly established herself as a characterful performer able to... Read more... |
Album: Congotronics International - Where’s The One?Friday, 06 May 2022
The album title ‘Where’s the One?’ is the question that often cropped up during the album’s creation. That’s to say, ‘the One’ is the opening beat of each bar that the western rock musicians often had trouble locating in the rich, complex brew of... Read more... |
Album: Arcade Fire -WEThursday, 05 May 2022
When the pandemic closed in, Canadian experimental indie rock troupe Arcade Fire were on the cusp of heading into the studio to record their new album. COVID had other plans. But rather than pause, the husband and wife duo of Win and Regine... Read more... |
Album: Kate Rusby - 30: Happy ReturnsWednesday, 04 May 2022
Not quite 50 and already Kate Rusby has notched up 30 years on the professional stage, an anniversary marked by a new album featuring newly recorded favourite songs from across her career on which “the Barnsley Nightingale” is joined by an array of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Escape from LATuesday, 03 May 2022
Fifteen years after John Carpenter scored a massive box-office hit with his ingenious low-budget sci-fi thriller Escape from New York (1981), he was given a free rein to make Escape from LA. Unfortunately, unlimited access to extras... Read more... |
Album: Soft Cell - Happiness Not IncludedMonday, 02 May 2022
When Soft Cell first caught the imagination of the nation it was a time of hope, opportunity and change. One of the first bands to bring technology to the top of the charts, they seemed to herald a new age after the grey years of the Seventies. They... Read more... |
