CDs/DVDs
Album: 137 - Strangeness OscillationsThursday, 25 July 2024
Something of a jazz supergroup this one: with drum virtuoso, the ubiquitous Seb Rochford, Jim Bar of Get the Blessing, Adrian Utley – formerly of Portishead, a prolific collaborator and producer, but with a heart rooted in jazz, and sax and flute-... Read more... |
Album: The Very Things GXL - Mr Arc-Eye (Under a Cellophane Sky)Wednesday, 24 July 2024
Back in the mid-80s, a group of lads from Worcestershire, who’d previously been known as the Cravats, were putting an exceedingly strange spin on the post-punk sounds of the time.“The Bushes Scream While My Daddy Prunes” and “Mummy You’re a Wreck”... Read more... |
Album: Kevin Fowley - À Feu DouxMonday, 22 July 2024
“Ne pleure pas, Jeannette” is a version of the 15th-century French song "La pernette se lève." It tells the story of Jeannette, whose parents want her to marry into the gentry or royalty. She, however, is in love with Pierre. He is in prison. She... Read more... |
Album: Deep Purple - =1Saturday, 20 July 2024
Ever since their 2013 album Now What?! hard rock veterans Deep Purple have been on a roll, both creatively and commercially. They’ve seemed a revitalised force. An album of covers aside, their output since has also sold/streamed multitudes. Not bad... Read more... |
Album: Slowly Moving Camera - Silver ShadowFriday, 19 July 2024
With a title track that sounds like the theme tune of the best TV series of your life – only it doesn’t exist yet – and some star guest jazz players joining the core trio of Dave Stapleton, Deri Roberts, and Elliot Bennett, Slowly Rolling... Read more... |
Album: Lava La Rue - StarfaceThursday, 18 July 2024
Two of the biggest trends in 21st century pop culture today have been “poptimism” – broadly, the idea that pop as such is as serious and worthy of analysis as any other artform – and a kind of everything-everywhere-all-at-once telescoping of past... Read more... |
Album: The Raveonettes - Sing…Wednesday, 17 July 2024
Indie rock duo the Raveonettes add an ethereal touch to 10 popular songs in their latest album, made up entirely of covers. Sing…, which features renditions of tracks by Gram Parsons, the Everly Brothers, the Cramps, Buddy Holly, and the Velvet... Read more... |
Album: Orange Goblin - Science Not FictionMonday, 15 July 2024
Orange Goblin have been flying the flag for exuberant biker rock for the best part of a generation. Yet, somewhat incredibly, their latest and 10th album, Science Not Fiction may come to be viewed as a career high for these hard rock lifers.Coming... Read more... |
Album: Chris Cohen - Paint a RoomSaturday, 13 July 2024
Paint a Room is idiosyncratic, but it is an absolute joy. Accessible too. Permeated with a summery vibe, its 10 songs glisten like the surface of lake catching the setting sun’s rays. There’s a lightness, a buoyancy which instantly fascinates.Chris... Read more... |
Album: Catherine Russell and Sean Mason - My IdealFriday, 12 July 2024
Voice and piano. The combination can have a simplicity, a conversational freedom, a rightness about it, as it does here. “My Ideal” (Dot Time), with its eleven songs from the early days of jazz up to the 1950s, is already being placed alongside... Read more... |
Album: AJ Lee & Blue Summit - City of GlassThursday, 11 July 2024
In the world of popular music, tangential connections to success are profile-raising. They offer an immediate connection to an artist. It is beholden on me, then, despite not knowing it when I first enjoyed this album, to mention that rising Grammy... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Merry-Go-Round (Körhinta)Wednesday, 10 July 2024
There’s a lot to unpick in Zoltán Fabri’s 1956 film Merry-Go-Round (Körhinta). Take leading man Imre Soós’s disarming resemblance to a young Peter O’Toole, and a central love story which plays out like a Hungarian take on Romeo and Juliet with some... Read more... |
