New releases on CD & DVD
Blu-ray: La Dolce Vita
Tuesday, 19 October 2021
One of those films weighed down by a considerable reputation, La Dolce Vita (1960) is rarely taken as seriously as it should be. From the very first sequence in which a figure of Christ sails across Rome’s skies, suspended from a helicopter, a sensational image that summed up the spiritual bankruptcy of the time, until the last when an innocent and beautiful girl smiles quizically in close-up, this is a deeply moral film.
Album: Young Thug - Punk
Monday, 18 October 2021
From underground curiosity to cult icon, now label head and superstar, Atlanta’s Young Thug has continued to reinvent himself, as well as rap at large, for the better part of a decade. After being announced over two years ago, his new album Punk is finally here.
Album: Jarvis Cocker – Chansons d’Ennui Tip-Top
Saturday, 16 October 2021
Wes Anderson and Jarvis Cocker do 1960s French pop – this frothy confection couldn’t be any more “art school” if it were smoking a gauloise in a...
Album: Coldplay - Music Of The Spheres
Friday, 15 October 2021
Chris Martin has talked, not for the first time, of this finally being the Coldplay era of “no rules or fear”. Swedish pop producer Max Martin (The...
Album: Finneas - Optimist
Thursday, 14 October 2021
This record is a heck of a metatextual experience to listen to. In releasing his debut album, 24 year old Finneas O’Connell is attempting to step out...
Album: Pokey LaFarge - In the Blossom of Their Shade
Pokey's lockdown escape |
Blu-ray: The Lighthouse (Mayak)
Subdued, elegiac meditation on wartime life in the Caucasus |
Album: Santana - Blessings and Miracles
Latin Jazz pioneer hampered by a surfeit of brilliant guests |
Album: James Blake - Friends That Break Your Heart
Our James Blake-phobic reviewer has to admit the singer's latest has much to admire |
Album: The Courettes - Back In Mono
Garage rock revivalists go-go girl group crazy |
Album: Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
The Geordie stadium singer-songwriter unleashes fury while maturing his sound |
Album: Ministry - Moral Hygiene
Uncle Al raises a battle flag against the US political right-wing |
DVD/Blu-ray: Another Round
Thomas Vinterberg's superbly ambivalent drama about drinking in Denmark |
Album: Efterklang - Windflowers
The Danish art-poppers balance the tension between reserve and forthrightness |
DVD/Blu-ray: Maigret - The Complete Series
Entertaining, idiomatic Simenon adaptation, brilliantly cast |
Album: BADBADNOTGOOD - Talk Memory
Jazz/hip-hop mavericks' psychedelic voyage has a Hollywood ending |
Album: Vangelis - Juno to Jupiter
The septuagenarian electronic don maintains his course to the stars |
Album: The Specials - Protest Songs 1924 - 2012
Raw, spirited covers set featuring well-chosen songs of dissent and satire |
Album: Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga - Love for Sale
A new Tony Bennett album...at 95 |
Blu-ray: Johnny Guitar
Nicholas Ray's operatic Western gets the revival treatment |
Album: Catherine Graindorge - Eldorado
Ambient reflections on lockdown and death |
Album: Black Dice - Mod Prog Sic
Twenty-three years into their career, the raw electronic trio get to the hub of things |
Album: Amon Tobin - How Do You Live
Perennial electronic wizard pushes yet further into unexplored, sometimes loud, always compulsive terrain |
Album: Nao - And Then Life Was Beautiful
The soulful singer goes for a more organic musical approach on her third album |
Album: Lindsey Buckingham - Lindsey Buckingham
A lovely reckoning with ambiguity, loss and Fleetwood Mac by their exiled leader |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Servant
Downton Abbey goes to hell: Dirk Bogarde captures the first of the three Losey-Pinter collaborations |
Album: Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic
Willgoose and Wrigglesworth celebrate Berlin |
Album: Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner's Mind
An intriguing album of music inspired by film |
Album: Lil Nas X - Montero
For better or worse, the Georgia-born star brings consistency to an extraordinary array of sound |
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Blu-ray: La Dolce Vita
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