CDs/DVDs
Album: Deep Throat Choir - In Order To Know YouWednesday, 01 December 2021
Although it’s indirect, the overall feel of In Order To Know You points to where jazz and soul meet – a space analogous to that occupied by The Rotary Connection, Seventies Curtis Mayfield, Neneh Cherry, the early Camille and the warmer end of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Out of the BlueTuesday, 30 November 2021
In an era when toxic masculinity has become a clichéd accusation to throw at any portrait of men behaving macho, it’s fascinating to revisit Dennis Hopper’s 1980 movie Out of the Blue.Years before his performance as the sinister Frank Booth in... Read more... |
Album: Arca - KICK ii / KICK iii / KICK iiiiSaturday, 27 November 2021
Alejandra Ghersi – Arca – is one of the most influential musicians on the planet in the last decade. Even aside from working with huge names like Björk and Kanye West, her ultra-detailed, high drama, electronic abstractions have set the pace for a... Read more... |
Album: Justin Adams & Mauro Durante - Still MovingFriday, 26 November 2021
Adams has long been Robert Plant’s guitarist in bands including the Sensational Space Shifters, as well as working with fellow Space Shifter Juldeh Camara in the band JuJu. He is steeped in American Blues as well as its West African and Desert Blues... Read more... |
Album: Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit - Georgia BlueThursday, 25 November 2021
Jason Isbell is a bigger noise on the other side of the Atlantic than he is in the UK but his last three albums have, nonetheless, bothered the middle-regions of the British album charts. He’s built a critically lauded career with his band The 400... Read more... |
Album: Nell & The Flaming Lips - Where The Viaduct LoomsWednesday, 24 November 2021
Initially, it’s about the voice. Thirteen seconds into the first track, it arrives: close-to disembodied, delivering lyrics as if they were a psalm, yet still melodic. Just over a minute in, there’s a shift into an ascending-descending chorus. The... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Belleville RendezvousTuesday, 23 November 2021
Why Les Triplettes de Belleville was rechristened Belleville Rendevous in the UK is one of several questions left unanswered by this reissue. Along with what happened to French director Sylvain Chomet’s animation career, which seems to have fizzled... Read more... |
Album: Sunn O))) - Metta, Benevolence - BBC 6 Music: Live on the Invitation of Mary Anne HobbsMonday, 22 November 2021
Like most of the best things in life, it cannot be denied that the music of Sunn O))) is an acquired taste – and most certainly not for the faint hearted. Crushing and apocalyptic soundscapes dominate their largely instrumental drone metal, which is... Read more... |
Album: Adele - 30Saturday, 20 November 2021
For those of you who didn’t think it was possible for Adele to up her stakes in the game of soul-baring, think again. Her first album in six years is here and it is as raw as it is rowdy, as searing as it is silk, as relatable as it is enjoyably... Read more... |
Album: Elbow - Flying Dream 1Friday, 19 November 2021
A poet I know once went to a boarding school to deliver an open class on poetry. Part of the day consisted of the children producing poems of their own, which their guest teacher then looked over and discussed with them. Almost every one was about... Read more... |
Album: Deap Vally - MarriageThursday, 18 November 2021
Deap Vally’s debut album, Sistrionix was a breath of fresh air for the heavy blues rock end of the musical spectrum when it was released in 2013. Feminist anthems, like “Gonna Make My Own Money” and “Creeplife” blasted out like artillery salvos and... Read more... |
Album: Willie Nelson - The Willie Nelson FamilyWednesday, 17 November 2021
The Outlaw meets Jesus, at least on CD. The Willie Nelson Family finds The Red Headed Stranger singing some of country-gospel’s most celebrated songs, including Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light”. It’s his second album of 2021 – the first, That’s Life... Read more... |
