CDs/DVDs
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... |
CD: Hieroglyphic Being - The Disco's of ImhotepSunday, 07 August 2016
Sia, Mo, Adele, Lukas Graham and Coldplay. Those are artist names that speak of a general desire to make their owners accessible to the mainstream. Hieroglyphic Being is not that kind of name and the music he makes is equally abstruse. He’s called... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: DheepanSaturday, 06 August 2016
One of European cinema’s most dynamic storytellers, Jacques Audiard chose to follow his iconoclastic romance Rust and Bone and remorseless prison drama A Prophet with a film addressing Europe’s refugee crisis. The no less searing... Read more... |
CD: The Moles - Tonight's MusicFriday, 05 August 2016
After 20 or so years the Moles are back. Great news, one imagines, for fans. Others may be a little nonplussed about their identity. A quick recap then. During the early Nineties the band catalogued the lo-fi adventures of quirky Aussie psych-rocker... Read more... |
CD: Dinosaur Jr - Give a Glimpse of What Yer NotThursday, 04 August 2016
In an age where things change at a lightning pace, where we are programmed for progress, touchstones are crucial. There’s a need for something we can rely on to remain solid, unchanging and free of the burden of momentum. The noise produced by... Read more... |
CD: Wild Beasts - Boy KingWednesday, 03 August 2016
In the early 2000s, a club called Trash in London, run by DJ Erol Alkan, introduced a wave of indie teenagers to the joys of electronic music, giving them a way into club culture that was all theirs and not beholden to the superstar DJs of the acid... Read more... |
DVD: The Girl KingTuesday, 02 August 2016
The story of Queen Christina Vasa of Sweden has been told in opera, novels and on stage. It was first addressed by cinema in 1933 when Greta Garbo played the title role in Rouben Mamoulian’s Queen Christina. Liv Ullmann then took the part in 1974’s... Read more... |
CD: The Amazing - AmbulanceMonday, 01 August 2016
A Venn diagram connecting the diffuse, distanced and drifting, The Amazing's Ambulance is hard to latch onto. Its first five tracks are etiolated cousins of the Midlake of Antiphon, while also calling to mind Sydney dream-popsters The Church... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Simple MindsSunday, 31 July 2016
As the album featuring Simple Minds’ first Top Twenty single, “Promised You a Miracle”, 1982’s New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) was aptly titled. After the success of the next single “Glittering Prize”, it hit number three in the album charts. Five... Read more... |
CD: Marsheaux - Ath.LonSaturday, 30 July 2016
Right now we’re at the heart of the silly season. In mid-August no-one releases albums (it’s the same in January). Here at Disc of the Day we’re screaming for something decent to review. But, no, microscopic bands choose to hold their albums back... Read more... |
DVD: Mapplethorpe - Look at the PicturesFriday, 29 July 2016
America is a country that has always thrived on dramatic battles between "good" and "evil", God and the Devil. Demonising may have Puritan roots, but it remains a particularly American obsession. The photographer and artist Robert Mapplethorpe,... Read more... |
CD: Sonzeira – Tam Tam Tam ReimaginedThursday, 28 July 2016
Little-known Brazilian arranger José Prates created the music recorded on Tam...Tam...Tam...! in the early 1950s to accompany a touring dance show. When the show toured Europe in 1958, the tracks were released as an album. So obscure is Prates today... Read more... |
