CDs/DVDs
CD: Bitch 'n' Monk - we are peering overThursday, 18 August 2016
Bitch ‘n’ Monk is a duo of London singer and guitarist Heidi Heidelberg and Colombian flautist Mauricio Velasierra. They make work of uncompromising novelty - dense but exhilarating collages of soaring vocals, restless guitar and intricate,... Read more... |
CD: David Brent & Foregone Conclusion - Life on the RoadWednesday, 17 August 2016
“I don’t really care about reviews because if someone slags it off, they’ve missed the joke. How can they slag off a fictional character? It’s win-win. It’s pain-free. It’s bulletproof – commercially and critically.”Ricky Gervais there, talking... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: A Kind of LovingTuesday, 16 August 2016
In John Schlesinger’s A Kind of Loving (1962), draughtsman Vic (Alan Bates), still reeling from a drunken binge and a fight with his typist wife Ingrid (June Ritchie) and her mother (Thora Hird), staggers into the railway station of their grim... Read more... |
CD: Lisa Hannigan - At SwimMonday, 15 August 2016
Water has featured prominently in Lisa Hannigan’s work since striking out solo on 2008’s Mercury-nominated Sea Sew: water that caresses and relaxes; water that turns deadly and drowns. The water in At Swim is the water that the singer finds herself... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Heartworn HighwaysSunday, 14 August 2016
Although Heartworn Highways was a unique document of a collection of country singer-songwriters who had rejected the Nashville establishment in favour of following their own paths, hardly anyone saw the film after its completion. Initially titled... Read more... |
CD: Blossoms - BlossomsSunday, 14 August 2016
If you’re still searching for a summer soundtrack, look no further. Blossoms will make you want to immediately take a road trip around Devon, cruising at sunset, musing over easygoing lyrics and having a bit of a hum while appreciating a good... Read more... |
CD: Dolly Parton – Pure and SimpleSaturday, 13 August 2016
“I may not be pure, but I’m as simple as they come,” says Dolly in the press release, by way of explanation for this latest collection. In fact, she’s neither, which is just as well – a certain pretence is a crucial part of her act. What makes these... Read more... |
DVD: The Shop on the High StreetFriday, 12 August 2016
There will surely be no end to the debate as to how any work of art can approach treating the Holocaust, and its depiction in cinema, with the great immediacy of that form, has always been especially problematic. Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos’s 1965 film... Read more... |
CD: Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife 2Wednesday, 10 August 2016
The duo of Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi – aka 21- and 23-year-old Tupelo Mississippi brothers Khalif and Aaquil Brown – are the epitome of everything that is baffling to ageing hip hop fans. Whisked from obscurity as teenagers by superstar producer Mike... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: AkenfieldTuesday, 09 August 2016
Peter Hall’s 1974 film depicts English village life when its roots still ran deep, with generations sunk often unwillingly into the same soil. Based on Ronald Blythe’s 1969 bestseller Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village, Blythe and Hall – both... Read more... |
CD: Ryley Walker - Golden Sings That Have Been SungMonday, 08 August 2016
Despites odd dives into atonal sound-colour, Ryley Walker’s third album shares much with the catalogue of Island Records circa 1971 and the more edgy Elektra singer-songwriter albums from around 1969. Not that it sounds dated. The daisy-fresh Golden... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jerry RossSunday, 07 August 2016
A two-bar flurry of guitar lays the table for a skip-along beat, handclaps, and an arrangement and melody akin to Martha and the Vandellas’ March 1964 single “In my Lonely Room”. This though was not a Motown production and did not tell the story of... Read more... |
