CDs/DVDs
CD: Miles Mosley - UprisingThursday, 18 May 2017
From a residency at a low-key Hollywood piano bar, jazz fusion collective The West Coast Get Down has seemingly launched a global takeover of jazz. First, saxophonist Kamasi Washington went stellar; currently four other members of the group are... Read more... |
CD: Lisa Knapp - Till April Is Dead: A Garland of MayWednesday, 17 May 2017
I’ve long cherished south London folk singer Lisa Knapp’s Hunt the Hare - A Branch of May EP, released in a limited edition in 2012, so to have Till April Is Dead: A Garland of May come in the full bloom of May is a charm indeed. It is her third... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: La La LandTuesday, 16 May 2017
We’ve had the pre-release hoopla. We’ve had the gruellingly inevitable backlash. We’ve had, as an additional sideshow, the brief interlude when it was this year’s best picture at the Academy Awards, until it wasn’t. The time has now come for La La... Read more... |
CD: Oumou Sangaré - MogoyaMonday, 15 May 2017
Contemporary music from Mali hovers delicately (and creatively) between purist tradition and more or less successful attempts at making things more attractive to a younger and worldwide audience. Oumou Sangaré’s first five albums for the British... Read more... |
CD: Jane Weaver - Modern KosmologySunday, 14 May 2017
As if listening in on the heart of a robot, it begins with a throb over which a disembodied voice sings as a classic motorik rhythm kicks in. The song, “H>A>K”, perpetually builds and then abruptly ceases. It ends with “I Wish”, where a folky... Read more... |
CD: Harry Styles - Harry StylesSaturday, 13 May 2017
“Harry's new album is F*CKING INSANE!” tweeted Father John Misty recently, setting the expectation bar very high for a collection that, sources close to the former One Direction member had indicated, would be “deeply personal” (or, at least, as... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: MelodyFriday, 12 May 2017
Nostalgia is dangerous; return to your childhood haunts and what was huge is now tiny, what once was magical at the movies is now mundane. Luckily this is not the case with Melody (also known under a distributor-enforced title as S.W.A.L.K.),... Read more... |
CD: Pumarosa - The WitchThursday, 11 May 2017
That Pumarosa’s single “Cecile”, a Breeders-channelling monster, is not on their debut album says everything about their confidence. The 10 songs on The Witch have the heft of rock music, but also a more-ish femininity, both in the vocal department... Read more... |
CD: Jim Jones & The Righteous Mind - Super NaturalWednesday, 10 May 2017
To call Jim Jones a punk-blues dynamo is something of an understatement. Having already fronted three epic bands since the mid-Eighties in Thee Hypnotics, Black Moses and the Jim Jones Revue, he’s now ready to unleash the debut album by his latest... Read more... |
Blu-ray: TampopoTuesday, 09 May 2017
This is a very welcome 4K digital restoration of Juzo Itami's extremely tasty Japanese comedy from 1985. Nobuko Miyamoto plays Tampopo ("dandelion" in Japanese), a widowed café owner with a small son. She dishes up bowls of ramen noodles to... Read more... |
CD: Juana Molina - HaloMonday, 08 May 2017
Flawlessly uniting atmosphere and melody is challenging. Especially so when creating music is approached unconventionally and with the desire to be individual. Having set her bar high, Juana Molina triumphs on all counts, again proving herself as a... Read more... |
CD: Ryuichi Sakamoto - asyncSunday, 07 May 2017
The first solo album in eight years from legendary musical innovator Ryuichi Sakamoto resonates with misfire and melancholy - unsurprisingly, when much of that time has been dedicated to a battle against throat cancer. The organ, Bachian fugues, and... Read more... |
