CDs/DVDs
joe.muggs
One of the more interesting developments of this decade is a blurring around the edges of modern soul music: almost a complete dissolution, in fact, of the boundaries of R&B. From the hyper-mainstream – Drake, The Weeknd, Future – via Solange, Frank Ocean, Blood Orange and Sampha, to fringe experimentalists like Atlanta's Awful Records, international Afro-diasporic collective NON and UK one-off Dean Blunt, R&B is being remade as dark, unpredictable and unsettling.It's into the weirder, gloomier end of this territory that Bristol trio Jabu fit with discomfiting comfort. They come out Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Nina Simone once famously declared all artists to have a duty to reflect the times in which they live. This a philosophy that has saturated the careers of all the members of Prophets of Rage during their times in such iconic bands as Public Enemy, Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine. So, it should be no surprise that the Prophets of Rage debut album is a muscular sonic push back against the so-called alt-right and the entrenched injustices of the American Way.“Living on the 110”, “Strength in Numbers” and “Fired a Shot” all rail against western capitalism and they’re quite a heady brew Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Hot on the heels of his furiously original sci-fi noir, Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich cranked out this film adaptation of Clifford Odets’s tortured play about tortured artists in venal Hollywood. The Big Knife doesn’t wholly escape its stage origins – most of the action takes place in one Bel Air living room – but Aldrich makes the most of his camera angles and wrings considerable dynamic energy from his cast.Jack Palance plays Charlie Castle, a charismatic movie star living a life of luxury. We meet him boxing in the back yard of his palatial Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The one-time drummer of the Beatles is all about peace and love. Even when he takes to YouTube to tell his fans to stop writing to him, he does so with peace and love. All you need, it would appear, is love. And peace. But mainly love – and more of it, if at all possible. For his 19th studio album, Ringo Starr's original intention had been to make a country album in Nashville. Judging by “So Wrong For So Long” and “Don’t Pass Me By” – the only country numbers here – everyone dodged a bullet when he decided to invite a few mates round for a knees-up instead. Of course, being a former Read more ...
Russ Coffey
When, in 2006, Yusuf announced his return to music, speculation was rife as to how he might now sound. At first, the music felt gentle and touchy-feely. Then came 2014's Tell 'Em I'm Gone – a strutting, blues record full of attitude. More exciting than either of these new musical directions, though, were those odd moments where Yusuf offered a glimpse of his old, wistful self. It gave hope that one day he might record another full-on Cat Stevens album. And here it is.The Laughing Apple consists of three new songs and eight re-interpretations of forgotten tracks from the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Gary Numan famously has a devoted fanbase. For this album he had a live video feed that allowed them, for a small fee, to watch him in the studio, working on it from conception to completion. Unlike any of his peers from the post-punk years, he draws new young fans to his contemporary releases. His 21st century career has seen him growing more and more gothic, heading far into industrial-electronic Nine Inch Nails territory, albeit with his own twist. He is many leagues away from the pristine synth-pop that made his name circa 1979-81.Numan’s last few albums have grown progressively more and Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
James Scott’s filmography is wide-ranging, including the 1982 short film A Shocking Accident, based on the Graham Greene story, which won an Academy Award the following year, and other works on social questions. But these documentaries, several supported or commissioned by the Arts Council, concentrate on the visual arts.The longest, Every Picture Tells a Story, is a 1983 biopic based on the early life of his northern Irish father, William Scott (1913-1989) who moved from Scotland to Enniskillen as a teenager, studied art in Belfast, then went on to London and a vastly successful career. The Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Dedicated To Bobby Jameson is Ariel Pink’s 11th album in almost 20 years and his first since 2014’s prog-pop pom pom. However, anyone expecting a mid-career lurch into the mainstream from LA’s musical magpie is going to be sorely disappointed. Jumping stylistic caverns between songs and sometimes even several times within them, Pink pulls on a rainbow of sonic styles with bit of Eighties electropop here and bit of lo-fi power pop there among other colours and a hefty dose of whatever Todd Rundgren’s been drinking over the years throughout. All while ruminating about the life of Bobby Jameson Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Nick Mulvey’s 2014 debut album First Mind may be one of the century’s best so far. Album number two, then, has the critical bar set high. On that opening record, the ex-Portico Quartet singer-songwriter majored in complex-yet-simple songs that wove intricate Latin/classical-flecked guitar work with electronic tones and a sense of wide-eyed openness. Wake Up Now initially seems to be travelling a similar path, but soon proves to be marinated in African feeling and have its scope set more cosmically. It is a lovely album and a match for its predecessor.In a cynical age, where irony is king, Read more ...
Saskia Baron
This is a timely rerelease of the 1963 version of the William Golding novel, coinciding as it does with the debate about a planned remake with an all-female cast. Peter Brook’s adaptation sticks closely to the original text: according to a fascinating interview with editor/cameramen Gerard Feil that features as an extra here, there was no script as such. Rather the director would read the book with the cast in the evening, work out the dialogue for the next day, and shoot the resulting scenes with several cameras.It’s a striking technique, not quite cinema verité or improvisational drama Read more ...
joe.muggs
With the wind behind them, the San Francisco-founded band Deerhoof are one of the greatest live experiences you can have. Two decades since their first album, they still have a relentlessly experimental hunger for sonic surprise, mixing extraordinary virtuosity with an indie/punk directness, love of infectious melody and natural surrealism, which all together makes every moment of their shows full of ideas but also thrilling on an immediate sonic level.It's tough to bottle something so predicated on spontaneity, and given years of studio experience the Deerhoof sound has naturally been Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Close your eyes and be transported. Not just to Greenwich Village, New York and America’s west, but to Copenhagen, Belfast and Swansea, from whence Dylan Thomas – dedicatee of “The Sparrow of Swansea” – set out on his adventures. The album was recorded in Austin, Texas, and the spirit and the sound of such country music greats as Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins and Roy Orbison permeate the music.Russell is an architect of “Americana” and his mighty fistful of albums includes a series of folk operas, including the much-lauded Rose of Roscrae. His songs have been recorded by Cash, Doug Sahm and Read more ...