New releases on CD & DVD
Album review: Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis & Karine Polwart – Looking For the Thread
Monday, 20 January 2025
It’s been five years since the last studio album by the inestimable Mary Chapin Carpenter, the lyrical and intimate The Dirt and the Stars, recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, the second of two projects with producer Ethan Johns released towards the end of the first lockdown. One of the delights of that grim period was Capenter’s weekly livestreams from her Virginia farmhouse, Angus the Golden Retriever a frequent on-screen presence.
Album: Larkin Poe - Bloom
Saturday, 18 January 2025
The Lovell sisters Rebecca and Megan can be heard supporting Ringo Starr on his new album of country songs, while at the same time their seventh album hits the shelves, and with some heft and punch, too, on the raw strength of the scuzzy guitar-led opener, “Mockingbird”. As raw-edged guitar ballads with big choruses go, it’s a strong opening account for a duo who have delivered fine albums stirring together a pungent one-pot meal of Southern rock, electric blues and Americana.
Album: Kele - The Singing Winds Pt. 3
Friday, 17 January 2025
Of the big UK indie bands of the 00s wave, Bloc Party were always the most austerely art-rockish. Where Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Franz Ferdinand all...
Album: The Weather Station - Humanhood
Thursday, 16 January 2025
Four of Humanhood’s 13 tracks are short, impressionistic mood pieces. Between 48 seconds and just-over a minute-and-a-half long, they mostly lack...
Album: Ethel Cain - Perverts
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Ethel Cain’s Perverts is a dark and experimental follow-up to her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter. It takes listeners on a haunting journey through...
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Album: Moonchild Sanelly - Full Moon
The rising South African sex'n'beats whirlwind is on ripe dancefloor-friendly form |
Album: Lambrini Girls - Who Let the Dogs Out
Politically-savvy hardcore punk rock with a Riot Grrrl flavour |
Album: Franz Ferdinand - The Human Fear
Indie rockers' sixth album may not live up to their iconic debut but is no less striking |
Album: Bridget Hayden and The Apparitions - Cold Blows The Rain
Classic folk songs are given a desolate new setting |
Album: Snoop Dogg - Missionary
A 30-year reunion which fails to pleasure |
Blu-ray: The Hop-Pickers
Ground-breaking and colourful Czech musical |
Albums of the Year 2024: Chihei Hatakeyama & Shun Ishiwaka - Magnificent Little Dudes Vol. 1
A wonderful meeting of minds |
Albums of the Year 2024: Mk.gee - Two Star and the Dream Police
US singer-songwriter’s debut really hits the spot |
Albums of the Year 2024: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Wild God
Muscular emotion and mystery in redemptive big music |
Albums of the Year: Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown
Mature songs for trying times |
Albums of the Year 2024: Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology
A casual masterpiece that keeps getting better |
Best of 2024: Blu-ray
The pick of the year's releases: films spanning decades, continents and genres |
Albums of the Year 2024: Katherine Priddy - The Pendulum Swing
One of the great British folk-acoustic albums of the decade |
Albums of the Year 2024: Everything Everything - Mountainhead
The Manchester art-rockers seventh album illustrates their unmatched creative vision |
Blu-ray: Hitchcock - The Beginning
A box set shows how Alfred Hitchcock embraced the sound revolution – pathologies intact |
Albums of the Year 2024: Samara Joy - Portrait
From Grammy triumphs to sonic odysseys: nine of the year's most transcendent jazz albums |
Albums of the Year 2024: Mercury Rev - Born Horses
An exploration of inner space, freeze-dried electronica, French nursery rhymes and more |
Albums of the Year 2024: Kneecap - Fine Art
The music sector finely emerges from the long shadow of Covid with a bumper year |
Blu-ray: Three Wishes for Cinderella
Witty, engaging Czech fairy tale with an appealingly feisty heroine |
Albums of the Year 2024: Meemo Comma - Decimation of I
A concept album from the perspective of an infected planet provides succour and sustenance |
Albums of the Year 2024: Amelia Coburn - Between the Moon and the Milkman
An array of albums that have set 2024 alight for this writer |
Album: Ajukaja & Mart Avi - Death of Music
Estonian electronica duo enter a domain where nothing is explicit |
Album: Ben Folds - Sleigher
Folds’ nuanced originals are much better than the by-numbers seasonal covers |
Album: The Unthanks - In Winter
An atmospheric Northumbrian folkie Christmas |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
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Album review: Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis & Kari...
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Album: Larkin Poe - Bloom
The Lovell sisters Rebecca and Megan can be heard supporting Ringo Starr on his new album of country songs, while at the same time their seventh...
A Complete Unknown review - how does it feel?
Being unknowable has been almost as much of a preoccupation for the erstwhile Robert Zimmerman as writing songs. Previously on film he has played...
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The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. But in Love Life, Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s...