CDs/DVDs
Thomas H. Green
Steve Mason has been impressively blunt about the inspiration behind his fifth solo album. “To me, this record is a massive “Fuck you” to Brexit and a giant “Fuck you” to anyone that is terrified of immigration,” he’s said, “Because there is nothing that immigration has brought to this country that isn’t to be applauded.” Thus, these 12 songs are riven not only with lyrical pith but also sounds borrowed from an international sound palette.The combination leavens his anger with the spiritual uplift of righteous protest. Mason has always been creatively restless, right from when the Beta Band Read more ...
Cheri Amour
The Raincoats are one of those revered names that I never believed I would witness live. (See also: Hole, Elastica and, until their last UK tour, extraterrestrial kooks the B52s). But in late 2019, there was a surge of activity from the godmothers of post-punk as founding members Gina Birch and Ana da Silva came together for a string of shows.And so it was, flanked by three of my favourite women, I stood in Glasgow’s Mono watching the cult group come together again. "Feminist Song" has been a regular in the band’s live set since but now finds its recorded home on Birch’s highly anticipated Read more ...
Guy Oddy
“What are the odds that we live in a simulated world where nothing is real?” ask the Death Valley Girls on their new album, Islands in the Sky. It’s a question that a fair few other people are probably asking themselves these days – and, with the way things are going, hoping it might be true.Islands in the Sky is no dystopian misery fest, though. Far from it. Instead, upbeat bubblegum psychedelic pop tunes rub shoulders with woozy and spaced-out vibes in a heady brew of dayglow grooviness that is aimed straight at the hips. In fact, as with 2020’s Under the Spell of Joy album, Islands in the Read more ...
Mark Kidel
Another box-set from the BFI full of Bergman treasures, from core catalogue classics such as Fanny and Alexander (1982), Cries and Whispers (1972), Autumn Sonata (1978) and Scenes from a Marriage (1973) to less well-known films such as After the Rehearsal (1984) and From the Lives of Marionettes (1980).There are no comedies here – late mid-life brought out the full darkness of the Swedish director’s palette – although Fanny and Alexander both delights and shocks as it combines a characteristic lightness of touch, including a much-loved farting uncle and a child’s eye view of adult rituals, Read more ...
Nick Hasted
“He won’t get far on hot air and fantasy,” Jonathan Pryce’s cruel bureaucrat huffs, as Baron Munchausen (John Neville) bests besieged city walls in a balloon sewn from a half-ton of knickers. “I hope this movie expands people’s ideas of what is possible,” Terry Gilliam countered of this symptomatic creation, based on the absurdly tall tales of the titular, fictional 18th century nobleman.Though forged from a chaotic shoot, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) isn’t the folly of reputation, but one of Gilliam’s most finely wrought fantasies, embodying the power of imagination and Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Ageing boppers may bristle at the idea of a dance album where the average track length is three minutes. Yet this, Sonny “Skrillex” Moore’s first solo album since his debut nine years ago, is the most groove-based thing he’s done. It’s certainly a long way from its predecessor, 2014’s Recess, which came as the EDM and commercial dubstep waves were really cresting in the States and – while its tracks were actually slightly longer – really pushed the high-spectacle, instant gratification hyperactivity of those styles to the limit, together with noisiness fitting with his previous life as a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Orbital, one of the great electronic dance acts, had a run of albums during the 1990s that encapsulate that decade in the UK (at least, for those willing to ignore the historical revisionism around tired, retro-tastic Britpop by the same media "arbiters of taste" who invented it).Those five albums remain gorgeous. The run came to an end with the flabby The Altogether album in 2001, featuring a vocal by David Gray among other unlovable things. Their latest album, though, is their first to feature a welter of guest vocalists. It could have been a disaster, but it’s not.The 21st century has seen Read more ...
Graham Fuller
If post-war baroque cinema had been a school or movement rather than a style, its male icon would have been Anton Walbrook. Before Max Ophüls cast the suavely menacing Austrian actor as the master of ceremonies in La Ronde (1950) and as King Ludwig I in Lola Montès (1955), he starred as a German soldier who sells his soul for success at cards in the chilling supernatural drama The Queen of Spades (1949).The year before Walbrook had played Lermontov in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. His Herman in The Queen of Spades is another gimlet-eyed obsessive, but Walbrook knocked Read more ...
Guy Oddy
During the Dark Ages, it wasn’t unusual for people throughout England to raise the prayer “From the fury of the Northmen, deliver us, O Lord!”. Over a thousand years later, with the release of Geordie rockers Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs’ new album, it will be no surprise to hear the same cries from chart-pop lovers of a nervous disposition.Land of Sleeper is fuelled by some mighty sonic thunder and lightning, a place where its pummelling power is fully capable of laying waste to eager ear drums with feral grooves and air raid siren-like guitar solos. It really is wild stuff and is Read more ...
Joe Muggs
Antwerp band dEUS – built around the core of Tom Barman and Klaas Janzoons – started out as a very interesting band. They fully leaned into the anything-goes sector of 90s music where the likes of Beck, Beastie Boys, Björk, Moloko and Super Furry Animals kicked away genre fences and got their weird on.Later, they got a bit Big Indie, with big, sweeping, widescreen songs that put them closer to Doves and Elbow and guaranteed them nice festival slots. Significantly less interesting, but packed with accomplishment and emotional heft, and definitely deserving of ongoing success.Now, though, over Read more ...
Cheri Amour
I’ll admit it. When I first saw that noughties indie rockers Bloc Party would be supporting Grammy award-winning emo stars Paramore on their Spring stadium tour, it seemed like a perplexing choice. But, four minutes into hearing the return sounds from the Nashville natives and the crossover is palpable. Former single "The News" is just as sharp as Kele Okereke’s helicopter blades when it comes to cutting up the indie dancefloor.The record – which marks Paramore’s sixth album to date - builds on the sparkling pop of its predecessor. Not surprising given it’s the first to be made with the Read more ...
Tom Carr
It would seem that we’ve been overdue a dose of that awkward teens years nostalgia as all three of Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and their UK Emo/Pop-punk counterparts You Me At Six come back bearing new, angst infused music.For You Me At Six, their career so far has been forever attached to that unmistakable genre, yes, but to their credit they’ve always strived to expand their sound and develop as a band. To label them as the pre-eminent UK emo group doesn’t quite give them the right credit or tell the whole story.Although reliably successful on tour, after their first three albums propelled them Read more ...