CDs/DVDs
DVD/Blu-ray: Dance CrazeTuesday, 04 April 2023
"We’re not just a dance band, we’ve got things to say.” Pauline Black, lead singer with The Selecter, succinctly pins down what made the era of 2-Tone Records so important to the British music scene at the end of the 1970s.A consortium of bands... Read more... |
Album: Josephine Foster - Domestic SphereMonday, 03 April 2023
On Domestic Sphere, Josephine Foster’s guitar and voice are joined by clacking crickets, a flock of sheep and wailing cats recorded in La Janda in southern Spain. There are also Colorado and Tennessee's birds and frogs. Foster’s great-... Read more... |
Blu-ray: A Woman KillsSunday, 02 April 2023
May 1968. As France’s Fifth Republic shook, radical director Jean-Denis Bonan divided his time in the Paris streets between filming protests and the fictional hunt for a cross-dressing serial killer. A Woman Kills lay unfinished and forgotten till... Read more... |
Album: boygenius - The RecordFriday, 31 March 2023
Maybe you’ve heard the Native American parable about the two wolves. An old Cherokee’s grandson is grappling with internal tensions; self-hatred and self-aggrandising. For Phoebe Bridgers, one-third of indie supergroup boygenius (usually styled with... Read more... |
Album: The Zombies - Different GameThursday, 30 March 2023
There’s something charmingly unassuming and humble about The Zombies. Nowadays their 1968 second album Odyssey and Oracle regularly figures in all time greatest albums lists, but it was a flop at the time and its reputation grew through a gradually... Read more... |
Album: A Certain Ratio - 1982Wednesday, 29 March 2023
1982 is only A Certain Ratio’s third album this century but it’s one that’s brimming with funky vibes that are more than enough to get anyone on their feet and dancing with a big smile – not that it doesn’t have plenty to say about the state of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Kamikaze HeartsTuesday, 28 March 2023
Last month’s Storyville: Sex on Screen (available on BBC iPlayer) was a slick, speedy (and repetitive) canter through the history of the sexual exploitation of women in Hollywood. It had star names like Jane Fonda, many references to the #... Read more... |
Album: Sissoko Ségal Parisien Peirani - Les ÉgarésMonday, 27 March 2023
This is an enchanting album which brings together four outstanding musicians, brilliant in their own right, but also adept at the kind of collaboration in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.The distinguished cellist Vincent Ségal... Read more... |
Album: Leveret - FormsSaturday, 25 March 2023
Ten years ago, three leading young English folk musicians got together in a room and swapped some tunes – Rob Harbron, whose English concertina graced the likes of The Remnant Kings and Emily Portman’s albums; melodeon player Andy Cutting, a three-... Read more... |
Album: Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean BlvdFriday, 24 March 2023
Compared to her peers, Lana del Rey is mightily prolific. This is her eighth album since her breakthough 11 years ago (her ninth in total). Her last album appeared 15 months ago. There’s still much she wants us to hear. Did You Know That There’s a... Read more... |
Album: Depeche Mode - Memento MoriThursday, 23 March 2023
Depeche Mode’s Andy “Fletch” Fletcher, who died in May last year, was generally held to contribute to the dynamic of the band more than the music. The only member of the band without songwriting credits, his contribution as peacemaker and “... Read more... |
Album: Black Honey - A Fistful of PeachesWednesday, 22 March 2023
There’s a disconnect on the third album by Brighton rockers Black Honey. The music is rousing post-grunge indie rock, tuneful, full of vim, but the lyrics speak of someone deeply troubled. The mood is, perhaps, best summed up by “Rock Bottom” which... Read more... |
