1980s
Thomas H. Green
The Specials were era-defining, making this a hugely anticipated album for many. On paper they’ve released a bunch of albums since the Eighties but their discography is misleading. Encore is their first major work in decades. It’s a big ask for it to match their iconic status, akin to when The Stooges and Kraftwerk reappeared with new music decades after their legendary prime. It succeeds in places but does not – and, of course, never could – match the impact of their early work.On their first two albums The Specials brilliantly embodied the unfettered possibility of a vital and uniquely Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A compilation on which Philip Glass and Terry Riley rub shoulders with Controlled Bleeding and Smegma is going to be interesting. Throw in Data-Bank-A, Dog as Master, NON and Suicide, and it becomes clear what’s striven for is an all-encompassing overview of something particular rather than a miscellany of random names included as attention-grabbers.Over its four CDs, Third Noise Principle explores the world described by its lengthy sub-title as Formative North American Electronica 1975–1984, Excursions in Proto Synth pop, DIY Techno, Noise & Ambient Exploration. It’s the follow-up to Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Over the last decade or so, there have been a couple of noticeable trends in broad-based, popular music that have segued from mild irritation to disfiguring infection. The first is the fey cover version, the awful balladification of perfectly good songs with the sole purpose of shifting units of plastic crap come Christmas. The second is the idea that club music would be a more profound experience were you to bolt on a full orchestra. This has resulted in the emergence of a kind of rave Glyndebourne for aspirational arseholes who did a pill once in 1994 – a night they Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Time and a transfer haven't been kind to this well-meaning but surface-thin revival of Coming Clean, the 1982 Kevin Elyot play that is surely more poignant than is ever apparent here. Two summers ago, much the same cast found a better-calibrated way into this portrait of gay life, love and loss in a first-floor Kentish Town flat. Back for an encore engagement, the four-person company seem to be playing to an invisible laugh track as if awaiting a TV sitcom spin-off of the same material. It's not just the facial tics and busy posturing that quickly grate. More damaging is the feeling that Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Dallas writer-director Yen Tan has brought 1985 back to stylistic basics, and the resulting resolute lack of adornment enhances his film’s concentration on a story that achieves indisputably powerful, and notably reserved emotion. Independent cinema through and through, it’s economical in every sense and thrives on excellent all-round performances.Tan’s drama of family relations, set at the moment when the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic was gradually becoming clear to Middle America, takes us back three decades, and there’s a similar feel to the visual style that he and his cinematographer ( Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
When Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won their ice skating gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics in 1984, notching up an all-time record score which included 12 perfect sixes, it looked like a real-life fairytale. The Nottingham-born duo had dragged themselves up from their working-class origins and day jobs – Torvill in an insurance office and Dean in the police force – and seared themselves into history and a delirious nation’s affections with their innovative dance to Ravel’s Boléro.Happily, this biographical film (it admitted that it was “a fictionalised account of true events”) Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The time of giving is here and what better presents than great slabs of lovely vinyl; sounds that bring joy to all. Our last theartsdesk on Vinyl of the year is packed with boxsets and reissues as well as a couple of seasonal bits. From a Shrek picture-disc to Kate Bush's entire back catalogue to Los Angeles’ latest alt-tronica, there are more music flavours here than even Santa can claim (having been to his crib, we can assure Santa’s vinyl collection is pretty limited, with the exception of a wall of Doom Metal). So, theartsdesk on Vinyl wishes you a top 2019 and every good thing for the Read more ...
Owen Richards
(Warning: spoilers ahead) For a brief 15 minutes, this was the biggest story in America: three boys, identical in looks, discovering each other at the age of 19. Edward “Eddie” Galland, David Kellman and Robert “Bobby” Shafran were all adopted from the same agency, but had no idea they were triplets. They were on the front cover of every magazine, guests on every talk show, and even had a cameo in Desperately Seeking Susan. They talk the same, dress the same, smoke the same – it’s amazing!Then, as quickly as it came, the attention disappeared, but this was only the beginning of their story. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The famous names on Kreaturen Der Nacht: Deutsche Post-Punk Subkultur 1980–1984 are Christiane F., Die Haut, Malaria! and Mania D. Committed collectors of German post-punk and those who there at the time might be familiar with Ausserhalb, ExKurs or Leben Und Arbeiten. In eschewing DAF, Die Krupps, Der Plan, Einstürzende Neubauten, Liaisons Dangereuses, Holger Hiller, Palais Schaumburg and Die Tödliche Doris, this deep-digging compilation paints a picture of German music from the first half of the 1980s as stimulating as it’s unfamiliar.Kreaturen Der Nacht collects 16 tracks by 16 bands/ Read more ...
Chris Harvey
There was barely a black-clothed, white-faced Numanoid in sight in the packed auditorium of the Royal Albert Hall as Gary Numan made his first ever appearance at the Victorian concert hall. His fans appear to have left that kohl-eyed look behind them as they’ve aged over the four decades since he first broke into the charts with Tubeway Army, but their love for him seems undimmed.Black might have looked a little out of place anyway as the electronic pop pioneer and his band loped on stage looking like a cross between extras from Mad Max: Fury Road and refugees from the desert planet of Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Enough hyping! This month, without further ado, let’s head straight to the reviews…VINYL OF THE MONTHLOR Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (Lo Records)With Public Service Broadcasting’s The Race for Space making a noise only three years ago (and First Man doing the rounds at the cinema), who’d have thunk there was an appetite for more moon landing-based electronica. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t, but Belfast DJ-producer LOR has gone for it anyway, with a deliciously warm and quirky two sides of technotronic goodness. A lunar orbit rendezvous is the process by which astronauts travel from their Read more ...
Owen Richards
If a Queen biopic called for drama, scandal and outrage, then Bohemian Rhapsody spent its fill in production. Several Freddies had been and gone, rumours swirling about meddling band members, and then director Bryan Singer’s assault accusations caught up with him. In a way, it’s impressive the film came out so coherent. However, coherence does not mean it's good. Is the film as bad as some are making out? Well, yes and no.We meet Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek, completely at one with the great one) working at Heathrow Airport, all buck teeth and flamboyant outfits. But he’s not yet the confident Read more ...