CDs/DVDs
Album: Rufus Wainwright - Unfollow the RulesMonday, 06 July 2020
After Unfollow the Rules: The Paramour Session and the #Quarantunes “robe recitals” comes the album: Unfollow the Rules, no longer stripped back (though everything's relative) but in all its pomp and glory. It’s Rufus Wainwright's ninth collection... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Tokyo Story / The Flavour of Green Tea Over RiceTuesday, 07 July 2020
Yasujirō Ozu’s The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice and Tokyo Story were released in 1952 and 1953 respectively. Tokyo Story regularly features in critics' Top 10 lists and was voted Best Film of all time in a 2012 poll of film directors in Sight... Read more... |
Album: The Jayhawks - XOXOSaturday, 04 July 2020
If one song best captures the overall mood of XOXO, it's the Beatles-meets-country strains of "Living in a Bubble". The punchy lyrics offer a timely warning about the effect of 24-hour news. The real impact, however, comes from the gentle, acoustic... Read more... |
Album: Polly Scattergood - In This MomentFriday, 03 July 2020
A decade ago, Polly Scattergood was Mute Records’ newest, most-likely-to signing and, while she never crossed over like similar unconventional female artists of the period (Bat For Lashes, St Vincent, Anna Calvi, etc), she has a developed a cult... Read more... |
Album: Willie Nelson - First Rose of SpringWednesday, 01 July 2020
Listening to Willie Nelson’s latest album is like pulling on a pair of beloved beat-up cowboy boots. The declarative vocal over simple guitar, a touch of Hammond, a plaintive harmonica and then one of those characteristic country music key changes…... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Criss CrossTuesday, 30 June 2020
Criss Cross is a superbly taut film noir, a 1949 drama that unfolds with the inevitable downward spiral of ancient tragedy. Its doomed characters are prisoners of a hopeless struggle for freedom, caught in the web of their transgressive desires.... Read more... |
Album: Paul Weller - On SunsetMonday, 29 June 2020
One of the songs on Paul Weller’s excellent new album – only similar to his previous one True Meanings (2018) in that once again he's gently treading new ground – is called “Equanimity”. The title sums up the quietly joyful and relaxed tone of the... Read more... |
Blu-Ray: Laughter in Paradise, The Green ManSunday, 28 June 2020
Laughter in Paradise (1951) and The Green Man (1955) have plenty of incidental pleasures, even if neither film is quite the classic you hope it will be. Both have starring roles for Alastair Sim and his protégé George Cole – Sim’s lugubrious... Read more... |
Album: Sparks - A Steady Drip, Drip, DripSaturday, 27 June 2020
Apparently a freaky, brilliant novelty in 1974, Sparks have proved eternally invincible: the synthpop duo template, glam and disco avatars, chasing the pop grail across the globe as their latest mode hit the local chart mark. Lightly worn resilience... Read more... |
Album: HAIM - Women in Music Pt. IIIFriday, 26 June 2020
If the title of their third album alludes to the lazy assumption of female-fronted as a musical genre, HAIM’s revenge is to try a little bit of everything, while never sounding anything less than themselves. Women in Music Pt. III elevates the... Read more... |
Album: Nadine Shah – Kitchen SinkThursday, 25 June 2020
Why don’t you have children? Why aren’t you married? Why don’t you own your own home? Why are you a failure? These are the societally enforced questions that, as a 34-year-old woman, Nadine Shah finds inescapable. Much like the rest of us. When... Read more... |
Album: Khruangbin - MordechaiWednesday, 24 June 2020
There’s a moment halfway through Khruangbin’s latest album that succinctly sums up the melting-pot model this band have made their own. It’s “Pelota”, a Spanish-influenced song, based on a Japanese film, played by a Texan three-piece with a Thai... Read more... |
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