CDs/DVDs
Mark Kidel
Toumani Diabaté is the uncontested star of the Malian kora, but his Bamako neighbour Ballaké Sissoko is a close rival. His natural modesty, reflected in the coolness of his musicianship, has prevented him from acquiring the international status of Diabaté, but what he lacks in worldly ambition is amply compensated by an unassuming yet heart-warming spirituality.At Peace is in some ways a sequel to Chamber Music, the award-winning album Sissoko made with the versatile French cellist Vincent Ségal. Ségal, the producer of the new CD, has avoided merely serving up Vol. 2. This time around, the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Marcos Valle: Marcos Valle/Garra/Vento Sul/Previsão do TempoIn 1968, having already done time in Sérgio Mendes & Brazil 66, Marcos Valle was selling bossa nova and samba to America, appearing on The Andy Williams Show in a blazer and roll neck. By the year’s end he was back in Brazil, which at the time was ruled by a fully-fledged dictatorship. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil would go into exile but Valle wilfully chose the opposite path. His music and appearance changed: the former moving away from popular Brazilian styles and incorporating outside influences; the latter becoming Read more ...
bruce.dessau
"Gonna shake the house," rasps Mark 'E' Everett on "Bombs Away". It is the first track of his tenth album and it certainly sounds like a statement of intent. Everett has often come across as something of a gloomy rock and roll runt in recent years, but this time around the worm appears to be turning and he ain't taking any cotton-pickin' nonsense any more.It is pleasing to note that the lyrics definitely have a gutsy, defiant optimism about them, albeit alongside Everett's usual misery: "watching the death of my hopes", he sings on the Johnny Cash-tinged, countrified sob story "On the Ropes Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Dagenham MC Devlin, who initially made a name for himself on the London grime scene, has often been called the British Eminem. This would, at first appear, to be a rather trite assessment, down to his being a talented white guy at the heart of a black scene, but on further inspection it holds a certain amount of water.The 23-year-old’s second album, following 2010’s amusingly titled Bud, Sweat and Beers, showcases pop suss, a tendency towards the operatic, a theatrical sense of self-mythologising melodrama, and dense, aggressive, pithy verses interspersed with melancholic, melodic choruses. Read more ...
Mark Kidel
Joe Wright’s screen adaptation of Tolstoy’s giant of a masterpiece, scripted by Tom Stoppard, takes a big risk that pays off: the many-layered late 19th-century novel is stripped to its bare bones with astonishing brio. He sets most of the story in a theatre, playing with the illusion created by a proscenium arch and the mirrored worlds of audience and stage. On paper, the whole thing sounds absurdly gimmicky, but Wright has a feel for both literature and cinema and his translation of a cherished classic into a piece of dazzling film works wonders with a genre that often drains literary Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Thao Nguyen is a versatile lady. Nearly two years on from her blissful, tUnE-yArDs-produced collaboration with indie songwriter Mirah, this third album with her own band the Get Down Stay Down brings her back to her exuberant, experimental roots. From the title track’s bouncy rallying cry to the softly-spoken duet with Joanna Newsom at the album’s mid-point, We The Common would be a boundary-pusher for most acts. For Nguyen, it’s just another day at the office.Inspired by her first visit to Valley State Prison through her involvement with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, “We The Read more ...
peter.quinn
Truly an ensemble cast, the Wayne Shorter Quartet's playing on Without A Net - marking Shorter's return to Blue Note Records after 43 years - fuses disparate elements into something transcendent and utterly original. From the slow burn of “Myrrh” to the searching, high-velocity romanticism of “Starry Night”, two of six new Shorter compositions featured, the album takes small group music-making to another dimension. The uniquely collegial four-way dialogue has been developed since the quartet - Shorter plus pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade - first assembled Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Poetic restraint dominates Ligy J. Pullapally’s 2004 Kerala-set lesbian drama The Journey (Sancharram). Based on a true story of a relationship between two young women that ended in one's suicide (a conclusion that’s left open in the film), its opening symbol is a butterfly, and flight would indeed be the only escape for its schoolgirl heroines.It would be away to a city from the small town - which looks rural and idyllic, centred around the school from which both girls are due to graduate - where social pressures dictate that conventional family life must be adhered to. When the slow- Read more ...
joe.muggs
There are so many people ready to hate pop-rock-dubstep crossover band Modestep, and no wonder. They are good looking young men, taking what they want from whatever styles are around them, without any regard for cool or hipness. They make a massive racket full of screeching and crashing noises blended with cheesy melodies, which seems pretty much aimed at attracting girls and getting boys throwing themselves around like fools. They are, in short, everything old people have always hated about young people's music.If you want to hate them too, it's not difficult: there are some very crap bits Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
On first play No Selfish Heart, the solo debut from The Phantom Band’s stately baritone Rick Anthony, sounds a world away from the sonic experimentation often played out in the singer’s work elsewhere. Take the time to listen closely, however, and a collection that seems to take its cues from traditional folk songwriting reveals itself to be far more complex: beautiful, menacing and darkly comic.While it’s not uncommon for such solo efforts to be several years in the making, No Selfish Heart has had an even longer genesis than most - with some of this material from Anthony’s ‘Redbeard’ alter- Read more ...
bruce.dessau
Biffy Clyro's sixth album certainly wins in the value for money stakes. Opposites is a double album clocking in at 78 minutes which finds the Kilmarnock trio developing their big, expansive sound and getting to grips, both lyrically and musically, with their arena-bestriding status. It is bold, brash and exciting in places, but it also feels as if it is continuing the process of smoothing over the rough edges which made the band so interesting when they first emerged in the early noughties.It is easy to dismiss Biffy as part of the genus Hotelus Tidyupus – that well-mannered literate Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
Director Ira Sach's autobiographical tale of Erick and Paul's 10-year relationship shows the passion and destruction that can occur in any relationship. Here, we follow the decade of ups and downs that happen between documentary filmmaker Erik (Thure Lindhardt) and his attorney boyfriend Paul (Zachary Booth) as drug addiction takes its toll.Shot in crowded city spaces and cafes, the drama closely follows Sachs' own relationship with literary agent Bill Clegg (whose memoir was published last year). What may shock is how lives can be changed by a chance meeting on the way to the subway. Sachs, Read more ...