CDs/DVDs
Album: Rag'n'Bone Man - Life by MisadventureThursday, 06 May 2021
Rory Graham was always stoically familiar with life’s knocks. With a stage-name inspired by Galton and Simpson’s fatalistic family tragicomedy Steptoe and Son, and an underground hip-hop career hinterland in Sussex and London, this big 30-something... Read more... |
Blu-ray: RawTuesday, 04 May 2021
Raw opens with a bang, a distant figure on a remote country road stepping out in front of a car, causing it to crash into a tree. What’s really happened isn’t made clear until we’re well into French director Julia Ducournau’s 2016 feature. Part... Read more... |
Album: Squid - Bright Green FieldFriday, 07 May 2021
It seems fitting that Brighton, a city of youth culture and protest, is the starting point for a band like Squid. Their debut album Bright Green Field is a real statement: musically complex, energetic and entirely made up of new material. This... Read more... |
Album: Van Morrison - Latest Record Project Volume 1Wednesday, 05 May 2021
If you want to understand the psychic harm that prolonged lockdown can do to a man, then take a listen to Van Morrison's new 28-song set. Actually, you don't need to listen, the song titles say enough: “Where Have All the Rebels Gone?”; “Stop... Read more... |
Album: Ziúr - AntifateMonday, 03 May 2021
It’s funny how the most high tech music can sound very traditional. In the case of producer / instrumentalist / occasional singer Ziúr, it’s the tradition of her hometown of Berlin that is expressed in her whirrs, clangs and mutated voices. Here –... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Chalk GardenSunday, 02 May 2021
Enid Bagnold’s 1955 English play The Chalk Garden, a Broadway hit before it opened in the West End, is usually described as a comedy because of Bagnold’s acerbic dialogue and droll appreciation of intricate employer-servant dynamics. If most of the... Read more... |
Album: Sufjan Stevens - ConvocationsSaturday, 01 May 2021
Sufjan Stevens is not only prolific, multi-talented and wide-ranging in his experimentation, but he never fails to make interesting work. He’s undoubtedly one of the giants of American contemporary music. His originality and creative risk-taking... Read more... |
Album: Martial Solal - Coming YesterdayFriday, 30 April 2021
“Thank you. I think I’ve told you everything. I do have a couple more tunes, but I’ll hold them back for next time – I don’t want to bore you, it’s better that you leave here serene. A nice chord like this. (plays F major first inversion). A... Read more... |
Album: Marianne Faithfull & Warren Ellis - She Walks in BeautyWednesday, 28 April 2021
Let’s get this clear from the off, Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis’s new album is not an artistic statement on a par with her classic 1979 album Broken English. Nor I suspect, was that ever the aim. Instead, it’s a vanity project that consists... Read more... |
Blu-ray: To Sir, with LoveTuesday, 27 April 2021
To Sir, With Love is a very loose adaptation of ER Braithwaite’s autobiographical novel. Reflecting on his experiences as a teacher in London’s East End in the late 1940s, Braithwaite’s commentary (one of two provided here) advises us that “as you... Read more... |
Album: Teenage Fanclub - Endless ArcadeMonday, 26 April 2021
A few hurdles need jumping before grappling with the essence of Teenage Fanclub’s 11th album. Endless Arcade is their first without bassist and founder member Gerard Love. He, alongside Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley, was one of the band’s... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: County LinesSunday, 25 April 2021
The website of the National Crime Agency offers the following definition of County Lines: “[it is] where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries (although not exclusively), usually... Read more... |
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