CDs/DVDs
Lisa-Marie Ferla
“I think the Muppets hit a new low.” “Yeah, and his first name’s Cee!” In the hierarchy of Statler and Waldorf’s cutting put-downs it’s more of a turkey than a Christmas cracker, but Cee Lo’s Magic Moment was never supposed to be subtle. The album’s cover art features the soul star, clad in a pink fur coat, playing Santa in a convertible Rolls Royce driven by reindeer and drawn by three white horses. If you peer closely enough, you’ll notice that among the gifts falling from the back of the car are copies of Cee Lo’s previous three albums. That the star has chosen a bombastic pop number based Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Zombie Flesh Eaters was at the heart of the early Eighties’ video nasty furore. Pilloried without being seen, it was cast as revolting and shocking, and subsequently banned from release. This pin-sharp, definitive restoration of Lucio Fulci’s 1979 over-the-top zombie fest isn’t going to suddenly elevate it to classic status, but it does show it to be good, workmanlike exploitation cinema of the highest calibre. Nothing in it is unwatchable, even if a few scenes are mildly disgusting.Fulci, a journeyman working in Italian cinema since the late 1940s as a writer and director, was commissioned Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It would be a fool who came to any Christmas album sternly expecting radicalism and the pushing of sonic frontiers, and an even bigger fool if they expected the same from one by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. Christmas albums revel, for the most part, in idealised nostalgia and ritualised celebration but, since it’s now de rigeur for anyone to have a go in this area, the deluge increasing each year, it seems reasonable to hope for a few twists to keep us interested. We don’t get them from Travolta and Newton John.The pair, who reached superstardom with Grease in 1978, reunited when it Read more ...
Jasper Rees
An album full of tunes you’ve been hearing all your life needs to be adept at reinvention. Cerys Matthews has already proved that she has a gift for repackaging the familiar in her enchanting Tir, which anthologises much loved Welsh folk songs and hymns. But then in that intoxicating voice, which breathily suggests both sweetness and transgression, she has just the instrument for sprinkling a fresh coat of fairy dust over, in this case, children’s carols.The pleasure of Baby, It’s Cold Outside: Christmas Classics from Cerys Matthews is also partly in the arrangements. There’s a distinct tinge Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Although Anthony Mann is best known for the five James Stewart Westerns (and one apiece starring Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper) he directed during the 1950s, it was the dour film noirs he made during the previous decade that made his name. Like Mann’s T-Men, Raw Deal, He Walked by Night, and Border Incident, Railroaded! (1947) was written by John C Higgins, whose pacey, violent stories owe much to the pulps.The opening is particularly impressive for being low key. A heist on a beauty parlour that’s a front for a gambling racket goes wrong when a cop is murdered by the masked robber (John Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s got to be difficult making a Christmas album. Not only are there all the preceding offerings which must weigh heavily, there’s the practical issue that it has to be completed way before any seasonal release date. For those choosing to make one, Christmas must be summoned early. The frosty, reflective mood created has to feel genuine even if the sun is blazing. With the seemingly effortless Tinsel and Lights, Tracey Thorn has made an album that suits any season. Its gentle pensiveness isn’t just for Christmas.Although Tinsel and Lights draws its songs from a raft of writers, it’s a Read more ...
theartsdesk
Herbert: Bodily Functions (Special Edition)Thomas H GreenMatthew Herbert is an electronic polymath whose career is fascinating whether you’re a fan of his music or not. Currently he’s working hard resurrecting the BBC’s iconic music and sound effects unit, the Radiophonic Workshop, and he’s recently released an album (as Wishmountain) sampling the top ten best-selling items in Tesco’s, while also having time for the odd Björk collaboration and the occasional tour wherein pig parts are cooked on stage in an anti-consumerist sonic performance art extravaganza. In short, Herbert has grown into Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although he has been recording since 2005, it was his 2011 album, Felt, which set Nils Frahm apart from the ever-swelling tide of modern classical minimalists. It was so intimate, so subtle, it felt almost like it shouldn’t be shared. The follow up has that same sense of peeking in on some private act, but it feels less uncomfortably illicit. On Screws, Frahm’s piano is naked, with nothing intruding.Even so, the story of how this album came to be made is distracting. In a fall from his bed, Frahm broke his thumb and decided to record one composition a night over nine nights, each played with Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
A little-known fact about reality, seldom touched upon by quantum physicists in recent years, is that there’s a wormhole between Manchester in September 1981 and the far western Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don in the present. This would seem to be the only explanation for Motorama. Their sound has been transported intact directly from the era of producers such as Martin Hannett, a deliciously warm amalgam of early New Order and The Chameleons with a honey-sweet trimming of Orange Juice’s pop sensibility (although, admittedly, the latter hailed from Glasgow, the curveball in this theory). Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Although it's impossible to place yourself in the shoes of audiences seeing these other-worldly short films at the dawn of the 20th century, the reaction they provoke now cannot be that different. Delight, surprise and then amazement. These films were meant to be magical, and remain so. Taking 19th century theatre in all its forms, capturing it on film and making it even more unreal with hand tinting and editing resulted in a unique strand of cinema.Fairy Tales collects 25, chronologically sequenced, films made by the Pathé Frères between 1901 and 1908. Most are feéries, or fairy films, but Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Even before listening to the third instalment of Green Day’s 2012 trilogy, it’s hard not to feel generously disposed towards it. Not only has poor Billie Joe recently had a stint in rehab, but after three quick-fire back-to-basics albums, few could deny their current work ethic is impressive.There are, of course, others who refuse to join in the enthusiasm. Many accuse the California punks of being middle-aged fraudsters with pantomime songs. But what’s so wrong with 40-year-olds singing teen anthems? Surely, the issue is quality, not age. Some have suggested, after the the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Theo Keating – AKA DJ Touché - has been creating club-functional tunes for over twenty years. His most high profile moment was as half of The Wiseguys whose song "Ooh La La" was unavoidable in the late Nineties, both in nightclubs and on TV ads. Nowadays he has a secure career on the global DJ circuit, grounded in his eclectic taste and turntable skills developed as a teenage B-boy, but he appears restless, always exploring new areas. His Black Ghosts project with ex-Simian singer Simon Lord, loosely based around the theoretical intersection of dance music and horror films, never came to much Read more ...