sun 24/08/2025

CDs/DVDs

DVD: The Vampire Lovers

The powers at Hammer Films were right if they thought they were getting a horror flick to titillate straight men when they made The Vampire Lovers. Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith agreed to do partially nude scenes and wore décolletage gowns...

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CD: Primal Scream – Chaosmosis

Primal Scream might reasonably be referred to as elder statesmen of rock‘n’roll these days, and 30 years or so since first getting together, it would be fair so say that they’ve tried a few different music genres on for size. There's been gentle...

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CD: Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker

The opening track of Leonard Cohen’s new album says it all: the hum of a spine-chillingly eerie male choir, joined by the throb of an irresistible bass line. We're in for a slow joy-ride through the depths of the underworld. In “You Want It Darker...

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DVD: Shooting Stars

Twenty-five-year-old Anthony Asquith didn’t call the shots on the silent movie that launched his distinguished directorial career, but the screenplay he co-wrote with JOC Orton included elaborate scenarist notes that told his designated co-director...

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CD: Blancmange - Commuter 23

Neil Arthur is on a mission. He was once one half of Blancmange, the British synth-pop band most famous for middle-sized hits of the early 1980s, songs such as “Don’t Tell Me” and “Living on the Ceiling”. He has been the group’s sole member since...

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CD: Tonight Will Be Fine - Elephant Island

DJs and techno producers doing “real music” doesn't always inspire the greatest of confidence: they often seem in thrall to other musicians, blind to what makes their own music special, or afraid to take the risks they would with their electronic...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Charlatans

Music is no exception to the rule that history is littered with winners and losers. In commercial terms, however they are looked at, San Francisco’s Charlatans were losers. They issued just one single in 1966 and a belated album in 1969. While the...

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CD: Emmy the Great - Second Love

The answers, for the listener curious as to whether Emmy the Great’s Second Love fared any better than her first (it’s the title of her 2009 debut as much as any reference to the songwriter’s psyche), do not emerge until its final track. “Once I was...

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DVD: Something Different/A Bagful of Fleas

The expectation that late means great is one embedded deeply in our culture: that the consummation of creative endeavour finds its peak towards life’s conclusion, with experience assimilated into a rich finale. These two films from the very start of...

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CD: Jeff Buckley - You and I

Jeff Buckley, who died much too young, only made one studio album, Grace. Part-channelling his sweet-voiced father Tim, and part-exploring a strand of rock that was both dangerously wild and exquisitely sophisticated, it was a revelation and a...

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CD: Soulwax – Belgica (Original Soundtrack)

Read the track listing of Belgica and you might assume that this soundtrack is a compilation featuring 15 different artists from a wide variety of musical genres. In fact, it has been written and produced in its entirety by Belgian experimentalists...

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CD: Kano - Made In The Manor

Ten years after his debut album, the former N.A.S.T.Y Crew MC from East Ham has produced a distinctly British album. It’s probably his best yet. Kano has skirted the fringes of mega success and previous albums have been criticised for chasing hits...

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