tue 05/12/2023

New releases on CD & DVD

Album: Neil Young - Before and After

Liz Thomson

Down memory lane, taking us back some six decades to the Buffalo Springfield, the latest Neil Young album's almost 50 minutes of continuous music, each song segueing into the next.

Album: Shirley Hurt - Shirley Hurt

Kieron Tyler

The realisation that Shirley Hurt is the name assumed by Canada’s Sophia Ruby Katz for recording helps explain why her debut album is so oblique. As well as the cloaked identity, what seem initially to be direct songs cleaving to familiar musical forms have winding structures which don’t end up where they seem to be heading. Similarly, the lyrics are tough to parse.

Album: Ghost Woman - Hindsight Is 50/50

Guy Oddy

Ghost Woman’s 2022 self-titled album and this January’s swift follow-up Anne, If were both fairly laidback and spaced out affairs, with echoes of...

Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern

Thomas H Green

A deathless trend in pop is taking great songs, slowing them down, doing orchestral versions, or rendering them raw acoustic. This, ostensibly,...

Album: Peter Gabriel - I/O

Graham Fuller

Some 28 years in gestation, Peter Gabriel’s eighth studio album of wholly original songs – his first since 2002’s Up – will delight his fans and top...

Blu-ray: King and Country

Graham Fuller

The class war rears its ugly head on the Western Front in Joseph Losey's bleak classic

Album: Harp - Albion

Kieron Tyler

The exquisite comeback of former Midlake mainstay Tim Smith

Album: Catrin Finch & Aoife Ni Bhriain - Double You

Tim Cumming

Divine harp-and-violin duets focused on the folklore of bees

Album: Take That - This Life

Thomas H Green

The national treasure trio don't have enough tunes to counteract the bland production

Album: Joe Jackson - Joe Jackson Presents Max Champion in What a Racket!

Graham Fuller

A note perfect music hall pastiche with a potent whiff of modernity

Album: Abigail Lapell - Lullabies

Thomas H Green

Canadian singer takes a short, sweet, somnambulant sojourn

Blu-ray: Pearls of the Deep

Graham Rickson

Poetic, witty anthology film, a 'manifesto for the Czech New Wave'

Album: Kurt Vile - Back to Moon Beach

Ellie Roberts

Recycled riffs and covers are an enjoyable listen

Album: Matt Berry - Simplicity

Kathryn Reilly

Berry writes for TV - but not in the way you'd think

Album: Rockstar - Dolly Parton

Liz Thomson

An indulgence, but who would begrudge her?

Album: Lucidvox - That's What Remained

Kieron Tyler

Russian quartet’s instantly captivating second album

Album: Madness - Theatre of the Absurd presents C'Est la Vie

Thomas H Green

A tuneful, witty, melancholy and dynamic state-of-the-nation address

DVD/Blu-ray: 23 Seconds to Eternity

Thomas H Green

Collection capturing the berserk, exhilarating vision of music-art mavericks The KLF

Album: Smoke Fairies - Carried in Sound

Guy Oddy

Intimate tunes from alt-folkie duo bring some gentle magic

Album: PinkPantheress - Heaven Knows

Harry Thorfinn-George

TikTok phenomenon levels up on confident debut album

Album: Bad Boy Chiller Crew - Influential

Thomas H Green

Self-made Bradford bassline house mavericks come unstuck

Album: Bas Jan - Back to the Swamp

Kieron Tyler

Bankers, road signs and a witch inspire arty and idiosyncratic band’s fourth album

Album: Cat Power Sings Dylan - The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert

Katie Colombus

An alluring version of the infamous gig that pays homage to a musical hero

Album: TONN3RR3 x BIKAY3 - It's a Bomb

Mark Kidel

Hear the forest spirits speak, filtered through electronica

Album: David Holmes - Blind on a Galloping Horse

Guy Oddy

Belfast DJ and producer says his piece on a tattered and frayed UK

Blu-ray: After Hours

Graham Rickson

Martin Scorsese's excruciating but delicious black comedy returns

Album: Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee - Los Angeles

Guy Oddy

Old Goths hold an inventive mirror up to the City of Angels

Blu-ray: Pandora's Box

Graham Fuller

Was Louise Brooks's dazzling showcase anti-Semitic?

Album: Mayssa Jallad - Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels

Kieron Tyler

Bold yet accessible Lebanese concept album

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