New releases on CD & DVD
CD: Oliver Way - From The Shadows
Monday, 23 April 2018
There’s a regular problem with techno albums. The DJ-producers who make them are usually so deeply embedded in club techno that when it comes to making a long-form collection, leaving the dancefloor and showcasing variety, they’re incapable. What, to them, sounds like a sonic adventure, to the rest of us sounds like a series of four-to-the-floor bangers that, after a couple, grows quickly monotonous, however good they’d have sounded at 3am in strobe-strafed Belgian warehouse darkness.Holland-...
CD: Willie Nelson - Last Man Standing
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Willie Nelson turned 85 at the end of April, a few days after releasing his latest album and a rare set of self-penned new songs, Last Man Standing. “I don’t want to be the last man standing,” he sings slyly on the shuffling, restless opener, “Oh wait a minute, maybe I do…” Last man standing? In several key contexts, that’s exactly what he is.
DVD/Blu-ray: Bergman's The Magic Flute
Friday, 20 April 2018
Opera on film's most magical offering, better by some way than Joseph Losey's cinematically tricksy Don Giovanni, at last makes it to Region 2 in...
CD: Dylan Carlson - Conquistador
Thursday, 19 April 2018
Ambient metal outlier and leader of the mighty Earth, Dylan Carlson’s new solo album is the soundtrack to an imaginary western, based on the true...
CD: Jenny Wilson - Exorcism
Wednesday, 18 April 2018
Exorcism begins with a track titled “Rapin’”. Its lyrics tell of a late night walk home during which the drunk protagonist is sexually assaulted. “...
Blu-ray: Andrey Zvyagintsev - The Return / The Banishment
The first two films from the Russian master of the human abyss |
CD: Mark Peters – Innerland
The former Engineer turns cartographer on a simple yet articulate instrumental journey |
CD: Glymjack - Light the Evening Fire
Singer-songwriter Greg McDonald's new folk project is a well-conceived treat |
CD: Neil Young + Promise of the Real - Paradox
Weak soundtrack album lets Neil Young down |
DVD: Blood and Glory
Rare film in Afrikaans dramatises the birth of Springbok rugby in a brutal British internment camp |
CD: Manic Street Preachers - Resistance is Futile
The Welsh rockers' 13th album is philosophical and exciting |
CD: National Jazz Trio of Scotland - Standards Vol.IV
Scottish alt-jazz institution Bill Wells continues his explorations |
DVD/Download: Lies We Tell
Uneven but brave attempt at Yorkshire noir |
CD: Laura Veirs - The Lookout
Assured 10th album from the American singer-songwriter |
DVD/Blu-ray: An Actor's Revenge
Japanese fascination in stage story told with overlapping plot strands, distinctive doubling |
CD: Brazilian Girls - Let's Make Love
Back with a bang (and a few whimpers) |
CD: Kylie Minogue - Golden
Nashville reinvention for the People's Princess doesn't sit well |
CD: The Damned - Evil Spirits
UK punk first wavers prove they still have plenty in the tank |
CD: Fenne Lily - On Hold
Rising singer has a striking voice that may be the making of her |
CD: Sonido Gallo Negro - Mambo Cósmico
Healing energies from Mexico |
CD: Eels - The Deconstruction
Acoustic tenderness gets lost amongst middle-of-the-road musical wanderings |
Blu-ray: Derek Jarman Collection, Vol One 1972-1986
Voyage through an alchemical universe: the magical realm of a flawed English genius |
CD: Owen Broder - Heritage
Americana meets modern jazz in collection of striking originals and inspired reworkings |
CD: Napalm Death - Coded Smears and More Uncommon Slurs
Midlands grindcore war machine still firing on all cylinders after all these years |
DVD: Queerama
A glorious film reclamation of Britain’s troubled gay past |
CD: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Sometimes Just the Sky
Thirty years' worth of pearls from the Mary Chapin Carpenter jewel box |
CD: Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker - Seedlings All
Songs of emotional maturity from the art-folk duo |
CD: The Longcut - Arrows
Noughties indie sensations return from a decade away hoping to reclaim their throne |
CD: Daphne & Celeste - Daphne & Celeste Save the World
Unexpectedly off-the-wall comeback album from pop girls of yesteryear |
latest in today
Westworld, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - big trouble in sy...
Some critics complain that Westworld is too complicated for its own good, and you can see their point. Even on a basic level, it’s an...
Flo and Joan, Soho Theatre review - sisters in satirical har...
Flo and Joan are sisters (Nicola and Rosie Dempsey, their stage names being borrowed from their nan and her sister) and you may have recently seen...
LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - incandescent swansongs by Mah...
Why would any conductor resist Mahler's last great symphonic...
The Woman in White, BBC One review - camp Victoriana
The BBC excels at a very particular kind of drama,...
Ed Byrne, Touring review - the perils of modern fatherhood
Ed Byrne is a worried parent. Thankfully his two young sons are hale and hearty, but he is concerned he may be...
Wang, RSNO, Oundjian, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - percuss...
Featuring two Russian composers, the two halves...
Martin Gayford: Modernists & Mavericks review - people,...
Back in the early Sixties Lucian Freud was living in...
Reissue CDs Weekly: New York Dolls
Playing Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom on 8 September 1974, the New York Dolls opened their first set of the evening with three cover versions....
Ibragimova, Tiberghien, Wigmore Hall review – light, bright...
The Brahms violin sonatas make a perfect spring evening recital. The Second and Third were...