New releases on CD & DVD
Album: Ghost Woman - Hindsight Is 50/50
Friday, 01 December 2023
Ghost Woman’s 2022 self-titled album and this January’s swift follow-up Anne, If were both fairly laidback and spaced out affairs, with echoes of Beak’s free form motorik grooves and the Byrds’ pastoral psychedelia.
Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern
Thursday, 30 November 2023
A deathless trend in pop is taking great songs, slowing them down, doing orchestral versions, or rendering them raw acoustic. This, ostensibly, reveals their genius and/or brings them a new audience. Rarely, it can work, as on Johnny Cash’s final albums, but usually it simply renders sonic perfection as bland, naff slop. Such is the case with Trevor Horn’s latest.
Album: Peter Gabriel - I/O
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
Some 28 years in gestation, Peter Gabriel’s eighth studio album of wholly original songs – his first since 2002’s Up – will delight his fans and top...
Blu-ray: King and Country
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
British anti-war films inspired by “the war that” failed “to end all wars” include Oh! What a Lovely War, The Return of the Soldier, A Month in the...
Album: Harp - Albion
Monday, 27 November 2023
After leaving Midlake while recording their fourth album, Tim Smith said he was pursuing music under the name Harp. That was in 2012. Smith had been...
Album: Catrin Finch & Aoife Ni Bhriain - Double You
Divine harp-and-violin duets focused on the folklore of bees |
Album: Take That - This Life
The national treasure trio don't have enough tunes to counteract the bland production |
Album: Joe Jackson - Joe Jackson Presents Max Champion in What a Racket!
A note perfect music hall pastiche with a potent whiff of modernity |
Album: Abigail Lapell - Lullabies
Canadian singer takes a short, sweet, somnambulant sojourn |
Blu-ray: Pearls of the Deep
Poetic, witty anthology film, a 'manifesto for the Czech New Wave' |
Album: Kurt Vile - Back to Moon Beach
Recycled riffs and covers are an enjoyable listen |
Album: Matt Berry - Simplicity
Berry writes for TV - but not in the way you'd think |
Album: Rockstar - Dolly Parton
An indulgence, but who would begrudge her? |
Album: Lucidvox - That's What Remained
Russian quartet’s instantly captivating second album |
Album: Madness - Theatre of the Absurd presents C'Est la Vie
A tuneful, witty, melancholy and dynamic state-of-the-nation address |
DVD/Blu-ray: 23 Seconds to Eternity
Collection capturing the berserk, exhilarating vision of music-art mavericks The KLF |
Album: Smoke Fairies - Carried in Sound
Intimate tunes from alt-folkie duo bring some gentle magic |
Album: PinkPantheress - Heaven Knows
TikTok phenomenon levels up on confident debut album |
Album: Bad Boy Chiller Crew - Influential
Self-made Bradford bassline house mavericks come unstuck |
Album: Bas Jan - Back to the Swamp
Bankers, road signs and a witch inspire arty and idiosyncratic band’s fourth album |
Album: Cat Power Sings Dylan - The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert
An alluring version of the infamous gig that pays homage to a musical hero |
Album: TONN3RR3 x BIKAY3 - It's a Bomb
Hear the forest spirits speak, filtered through electronica |
Album: David Holmes - Blind on a Galloping Horse
Belfast DJ and producer says his piece on a tattered and frayed UK |
Blu-ray: After Hours
Martin Scorsese's excruciating but delicious black comedy returns |
Album: Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee - Los Angeles
Old Goths hold an inventive mirror up to the City of Angels |
Blu-ray: Pandora's Box
Was Louise Brooks's dazzling showcase anti-Semitic? |
Album: Mayssa Jallad - Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels
Bold yet accessible Lebanese concept album |
Album: James Blunt - Who We Used to Be
And the gloop just keeps on coming |
Album: The Kills - God Games
The pair retrace their steps back to a signature strain of rollicking rock |
latest in today
Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Lyric Theatre review - adult panto del...
Mischief Theatre set themselves a big challenge when they evolved their brand of knowing slapstick. And not just about how to destroy...
Queendom review - an LGBTQ+ performance artist takes to the...
It takes a brave or a foolhardy person to walk the streets wearing almost nothing but barbed wire and platform shoes, especially when the occasion...
Album: Ghost Woman - Hindsight Is 50/50
Ghost Woman’s 2022 self-titled album and this January’s swift follow-up Anne, If were both fairly laidback and spaced out affairs, with...
The House of Bernarda Alba, Lyttleton Theatre review - dazzl...
Rebecca Frecknall opened 2023 with a youthful, visceral, and brutal Streetcar Named Desire at The Almeida; she ends it with...
Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern
A deathless trend in pop is taking great songs, slowing them down, doing orchestral versions, or rendering them raw acoustic. This, ostensibly,...
Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime, Charles Court Opera, Jermyn Str...
This is the show that launched a thousand puns, mostly ancient-Greek-oriented, and just as many corny rhymes, all delivered with high energy and...
Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, Wigmore Hall review - cham...
Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Piano Quartet was astutely described by his student Benjamin Britten as “Brahms tempered with Fauré”, so it made...
Album: Peter Gabriel - I/O
Some 28 years in gestation, Peter Gabriel’s eighth studio album of wholly original songs – his first since 2002’s Up...
A Christmas Carol, The Old Vic review - older, wiser, and ye...
Familiarity has bred something quite fantastic with the Old Vic Christmas Carol, which is back for a seventh season and merits ringing...
Boat Story, BBC One review - once upon a time in Yorkshire
It was as long ago as January last year that the prolific Williams brothers,...