CDs/DVDs
Album: Squid - CowardsSaturday, 08 February 2025
Brighton band Squid are not in the business of straightforward. Combining jazz chops with a sensibility that’s at once post-punk, prog and avant-garde, their music is wilfully tricksy. Yet it does groove, upon occasion, it does funk. Tunes do pop in... Read more... |
Album: Rats on Rafts - Deep BelowFriday, 07 February 2025
Deep Below’s first track is titled “Hibernation.” “A winter breeze blows through my mind,” intones a colourless, dispirited male voice. The ensuing lyrics are similarly bleak. “Trying to warm myself with the memories you’ve left behind, Deep inside... Read more... |
Album: Hifi Sean & David McAlmont - TwilightThursday, 06 February 2025
It was only six months ago that Hifi Sean and David McAlmont released their Daylight album. A fine disc of summery dance pop that was enough to put the spring in anyone’s step.Now, however, it’s time for the comedown and its soundtrack, the... Read more... |
Album: Biig Piig - 11:11Wednesday, 05 February 2025
Is there such a thing as a boundary between pop and alternative any more? The presence of strange characters like Chappell Roan, Billie Eilish and Lola Young in the mega mainstream suggests not – and so does trajectory of Jessica Smyth aka Biig Piig... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Stray DogTuesday, 04 February 2025
Kurosawa’s 1949 thriller probes post-war morality in a Tokyo whose ruins and US occupation mostly remain just out of shot, in a heatwave causing mistakes and madness. The theft of callow detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune)’s police pistol on a... Read more... |
Album: Inhaler - Open WideMonday, 03 February 2025
You could be easily forgiven for thinking that the young indie rockers, Inhaler, would stick to the formula that has already served them so well for album number three. The Dublin lads had soared to success with their first two albums, seeing them... Read more... |
Album: Guided By Voices - Universe RoomSaturday, 01 February 2025
Tireless rockers Guided By Voices confidently play with sound throughout Universe Room, their eighteenth album in 10 years. Experimental in nature, it consists of 17 short tracks that take you through a non-cohesive sonic journey. It’s fun to listen... Read more... |
Album: The Weeknd - Hurry Up TomorrowFriday, 31 January 2025
The Weeknd is a global megastar, one of the biggest music sensations of the age. Last year, his compilation, The Highlights, was the second best-selling album in the world, and he has 27 songs with over a billion streams on Spotify, which is a... Read more... |
Album: Cymande - RenascenceThursday, 30 January 2025
When you’ve achieved the truly sublime, trying to recapture it can be bittersweet. Cymande, for the mere three years they existed in the early 1970s, were one of the very best bands on the planet: a unique mixture of Rasta spirituality and African-... Read more... |
Album: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Purple BirdWednesday, 29 January 2025
Somewhat astoundingly, The Purple Bird is Will Oldham’s album number 21 using his Bonnie “Prince” Billy alias. A fine set of alt country tunes, recorded in Nashville and largely co-written with producer David Ferguson, it also happily suggests that... Read more... |
Album: Gary Kemp - This DestinationMonday, 27 January 2025
If I’d listened to this blind, I would have absolutely no idea who it was by. This isn’t the voice I remember on those Spandau backing tracks. In fact, it’s a sound straight from mid-80s soft rock. If that makes you feel queasy, step away now.... Read more... |
Album: Ludovico Einaudi - The Summer PortraitsFriday, 24 January 2025
Nine billion streams a year. That’s the sheer scale on which the music of Ludovico Einaudi reaches audiences. The Italian, who will be 70 this November, is courteous and genial in person – I interviewed him in Montreal a couple of years ago – but is... Read more... |
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