CDs/DVDs
DVD: Taxi TehranTuesday, 23 February 2016
Taxi Tehran fits neatly into a recent tradition of films set entirely in cars; Jim Jarmusch’s Night On Earth comes to mind, as well as Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten. Initially we’re led to believe that we’re watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary,... Read more... |
CD: Pinkshinyultrablast - GrandfeatheredMonday, 22 February 2016
The second album by Russian shoegazers Pinkshinyultrablast neatly side-steps any language-barrier issues either by submerging their mono-monikered singer Lyubov’s voice into their sea of noise, or ensuring that what is heard could be wordless... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Lizzy Mercier DesclouxSunday, 21 February 2016
Lizzy Mercier Descloux was an early adopter. In 1975, she travelled from her Paris home to Manhattan and saw The Ramones, Patti Smith, Television and the Richard Hell-edition Heartbreakers. Although the first issue of the New York fanzine Punk came... Read more... |
CD: Steve Mason - Meet the HumansSunday, 21 February 2016
The thing about having a very distinctive voice is that it gives the audience something to latch onto. That’s all well and good, but it can also mean people find it easier to hear without listening. As the familiar tones and comfortable cadences of... Read more... |
CD: Anthrax - For All KingsSaturday, 20 February 2016
Back in the crucible of the early Eighties when Anthrax were forged, metallurgists spoke of the Big Four. Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer sounded like War, Famine and Death. Anthrax, from the East Coast, were Pestilence. Musically, the band combined... Read more... |
DVD: BrooklynFriday, 19 February 2016
Colm Tóibín’s work has always eluded the attention of filmmakers. It took Nick Hornby, a writer who knows his way along the obstacle-strewn pathway between page and screen, to effect a beautifully smooth transition of his 2009 novel Brooklyn. The... Read more... |
CD: Wolfmother – VictoriousThursday, 18 February 2016
Wolfmother have made something of a name for themselves over the last decade or so by grafting classic 1970s hard rock moves onto stoner grooves and letting their freak flag fly. Anyone who is keen for more from the same template is going to... Read more... |
DVD: Fixed Bayonets!Wednesday, 17 February 2016
From The Steel Helmet (1951) through The Big Red One (1980), Samuel Fuller has shown more empathy for US Army infantrymen in combat than any other filmmaker, including Oliver Stone. During the making of Fixed Bayonets!, Fuller’s second gripping... Read more... |
CD: Animal Collective - Painting WithTuesday, 16 February 2016
The boisterous trio of Noah Lennox (drums, vocals, samples), David Portner (guitar, samples) and Brian Weitz (electronics, samples) have now released ten albums as Animal Collective. They also work individually under their aliases, Panda Bear,... Read more... |
CD: El Guincho - HiperasiaMonday, 15 February 2016
The career of the Gran Canaria-born musician Pablo Díaz-Reixa seems to work in an accelerated time-frame, speeding through decades and eras as he develops his sound. Though he has always worked with digital technology, his early work sounded archaic... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Paris SistersSunday, 14 February 2016
The Paris Sisters were a look and a sound. Slightly different but still peas in a pod, Albeth, Priscilla and Sherrell Paris united to make often moodily minor-key music always suggestive of angels stamping their feet. Otherwordly. Yet hard-edged.... Read more... |
DVD: The MartianSunday, 14 February 2016
The flip side of the apocalyptic evolution-and-destiny concerns of Prometheus, Ridley Scott's previous foray across the Last Frontier, The Martian is a feelgood take on the theme of space travel. Having landed the first astronauts on Mars in 2029,... Read more... |
