New releases on CD & DVD
Album: Neil Young - Before and After
Monday, 04 December 2023
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
Saturday, 02 December 2023
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
Friday, 01 December 2023
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
Thursday, 30 November 2023
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
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
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
The class war rears its ugly head on the Western Front in Joseph Losey's bleak classic |
Album: Harp - Albion
The exquisite comeback of former Midlake mainstay Tim Smith |
Album: Catrin Finch & Aoife Ni Bhriain - Double You
Divine harp-and-violin duets focused on the folklore of bees |
Album: Take That - This Life
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!
A note perfect music hall pastiche with a potent whiff of modernity |
Album: Abigail Lapell - Lullabies
Canadian singer takes a short, sweet, somnambulant sojourn |
Blu-ray: Pearls of the Deep
Poetic, witty anthology film, a 'manifesto for the Czech New Wave' |
Album: Kurt Vile - Back to Moon Beach
Recycled riffs and covers are an enjoyable listen |
Album: Matt Berry - Simplicity
Berry writes for TV - but not in the way you'd think |
Album: Rockstar - Dolly Parton
An indulgence, but who would begrudge her? |
Album: Lucidvox - That's What Remained
Russian quartet’s instantly captivating second album |
Album: Madness - Theatre of the Absurd presents C'Est la Vie
A tuneful, witty, melancholy and dynamic state-of-the-nation address |
DVD/Blu-ray: 23 Seconds to Eternity
Collection capturing the berserk, exhilarating vision of music-art mavericks The KLF |
Album: Smoke Fairies - Carried in Sound
Intimate tunes from alt-folkie duo bring some gentle magic |
Album: PinkPantheress - Heaven Knows
TikTok phenomenon levels up on confident debut album |
Album: Bad Boy Chiller Crew - Influential
Self-made Bradford bassline house mavericks come unstuck |
Album: Bas Jan - Back to the Swamp
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
An alluring version of the infamous gig that pays homage to a musical hero |
Album: TONN3RR3 x BIKAY3 - It's a Bomb
Hear the forest spirits speak, filtered through electronica |
Album: David Holmes - Blind on a Galloping Horse
Belfast DJ and producer says his piece on a tattered and frayed UK |
Blu-ray: After Hours
Martin Scorsese's excruciating but delicious black comedy returns |
Album: Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee - Los Angeles
Old Goths hold an inventive mirror up to the City of Angels |
Blu-ray: Pandora's Box
Was Louise Brooks's dazzling showcase anti-Semitic? |
Album: Mayssa Jallad - Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels
Bold yet accessible Lebanese concept album |
latest in today
Kin, BBC One review - in Dublin's not-so-fair city
Folklore tends to depict Dublin as a convivial and picturesque city, with a bar on every corner full of revellers on wild stag weekends, but that’...
Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra, Smith, Voces8 Centre...
There’s a game called Whamageddon, where people see how deep into December they can go without hearing “Last Christmas”. I’m like that, but with...
Dreaming and Drowning, Bush Theatre - dense and intense mono...
Kwame Owusu’s 55-minute one-hander does...
Infinite Life, National Theatre review - beguiling new comed...
A sun deck with seven pale-green padded loungers is the latest setting for the latest...
Rodelinda, The English Concert, Bicket, Saffron Hall review...
If ever a marriage was made in heaven, it would have to be the one between Lucy Crowe’s beleaguered Queen Rodelinda and Iestyn Davies’ King...
£1 Thursdays, Finborough Theatre review - dazzling new play...
It’s 2012 and the London Olympics might as well be happening on the Moon for Jen and Stacey. In fact, you could say the same for...
First Person: Natalia Franklin Pierce, Executive Director of...
Despite my double-barrelled surname (my parents weren't married when I was born – so I was given both their names), a career within contemporary...
Album: Neil Young - Before and After
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...
Music Reissues Weekly: Myriam Gendron - Not So Deep As A Wel...
Myriam Gendron's debut album Not So Deep As A Well was originally released in 2014 by Feeding Tube, a US label run by...
Powell and Pressburger: In Prospero's Room
There’s a thread of bright magic running through British...