CDs/DVDs
DVD/Blu-ray: I Am Not a WitchSaturday, 20 January 2018
Rungano Nyoni’s debut feature premiered at last year’s Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, and immediately marked the Lusaka-born, Wales-raised director down as a figure to watch. Putting her film into any category is more challenging, though, with... Read more... |
CD: The Fiction Aisle - Jupiter, FloridaFriday, 19 January 2018
The third album from Thomas White under his Fiction Aisle moniker is a match for its delicious, under-heard predecessors. White remains best known for his output with The Electric Soft Parade and Brakes but the prolific Fiction Aisle (three albums... Read more... |
CD: Tune-Yards - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private LifeThursday, 18 January 2018
Growing up with the music of David Bowie is probably not the best grounding for being a music critic because it raises expectations unreasonably high for every other adventurous musician one happens upon. When I first heard the intense, bordering-on... Read more... |
CD: First Aid Kit - RuinsTuesday, 16 January 2018
With the tragic passing of Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, I've been thinking a lot about the importance of the soundtrack to youth. I spent days wailing along to "Ode to My Family", raging out to "Zombie" or bouncing around the local... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Hounds of LoveTuesday, 16 January 2018
Hounds of Love is the latest in a long line of small-budget Australian horrors “based on true events” – it must be something about the heat. However, stellar performances and a refreshing depth in characterisation make this thriller stand apart from... Read more... |
CD: Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - The Age of AbsurdityMonday, 15 January 2018
Many hard rock aficionados say that Motörhead’s greatest work was all with the “classic” line-up of Lemmy, drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor and guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke (who died last week aged only 67 - this review was written before that... Read more... |
CD: The Limiñanas - Shadow PeopleSunday, 14 January 2018
The Limiñanas are considered something of a musical jewel across the Channel but, like many fine mainland European bands before them, have been somewhat criminally ignored in the UK over their nine-year career. In a just world and with the wind... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Cat o' Nine Tails/PhenomenaSaturday, 13 January 2018
Dario Argento’s Suspiria was confirmed as one of horror’s great fever dreams on its 40th anniversary re-release last year. The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971) and Phenomena (1985) are lesser book-ends of the director’s peak period, when his global genre... Read more... |
CD: La Féline - TriompheFriday, 12 January 2018
As a prime example of high-end Gallic art-pop, Triomphe pushes the right buttons. The mid-tempo opening cut “Senga” sets the tone. A motorik rhythm and a shuffling counterpoint are complemented by bubbling bass guitar, insistent single note guitar... Read more... |
CD: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Wrong CreaturesThursday, 11 January 2018
Five years might not, at first, seem like a long time between albums, certainly when you consider that even tectonic shift left the Avalanches in its wake while they were creating Wildflower. But a lot has happened to Californian indie rockers... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Alice in the CitiesWednesday, 10 January 2018
“With that film I became a filmmaker,” Wim Wenders remembers in one of the extras accompanying this new release of his 1974 Alice in the Cities. More importantly, it’s the one that convinced him that he wanted to be one. His third film after... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: DetroitTuesday, 09 January 2018
Detroiters razed sections of their own city as surely as Rome did Carthage, during five summer days in 1967. It took, amongst others, the 101st Airborne – victors at the Battle of the Bulge, then just back from Vietnam – to crush America's worst... Read more... |
