CDs/DVDs
Reissue CDs Weekly: PowderSunday, 04 January 2015
Powder: Ka-Pow! An Explosive Collection 1967–68It’s an instantly familiar sound. Crescendo follows crescendo, and power chord follows power chord. For The Who, “I Can see for Miles” was the apex of this style. But this is not The Who. Instead... Read more... |
Album of the Year: Jane Weaver – The Silver GlobeSaturday, 03 January 2015
2014 has seen a fair few late lunges for the line in the race to be my best album of the year (a contest fought more for prestige and honour than hard cash in all honesty). I’m a mild-mannered sort, and hate disappointing the recording artists... Read more... |
DVD: Night MovesFriday, 02 January 2015
Stories of outsiders set in the Oregon wilds, the recent independent films directed by Kelly Reichardt are quiet, unhurried, and sparing with incidents. Their minimalist lyricism and sympathy for nature in the face of ruinous civilisation is the... Read more... |
Album of the Year: Morrissey – World Peace Is None Of Your BusinessThursday, 01 January 2015
Morrissey went beyond parody years ago. Titles on his 10th solo album such as "Kick The Bride Down The Aisle” or “Earth is the Loneliest Planet” could easily come from a Buzzfeed spot-the-send-up list. But barge your way past this initial obstacle... Read more... |
Album of the Year: Zara McFarlane - If You Knew HerTuesday, 30 December 2014
It’s the subtlety of this album that gets you, stealthily, like an intoxicating vapour, until you wonder what your listening world was like before you encountered its heady, narcotic pulse. It seems a shame to get all musicological about a sound... Read more... |
DVD: His Girl FridayTuesday, 30 December 2014
His Girl Friday is funny. Very, very funny. It is also crammed with cutting verbiage as sharply delivered as the moves of a complex pas de deux. Yet another no-frills appearance of the 1940 film on home video is not a surprise as – despite being a... Read more... |
Album of the Year: Beck - Morning PhaseMonday, 29 December 2014
Some say the albums that endure the longest are those that comfort us in our dark nights of the soul: LPs such as Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks and Joni Mitchell’s Blue. So what’s an artist to do when he’s outgrown the intensity of youth and the peaks... Read more... |
Album of the year - Band of Brothers by Willie NelsonSunday, 28 December 2014
You’d have to go back almost 20 years, and to 1996's Spirit, to name a Willie Nelson album with more than one or two original new songs. The nine for Band of Brothers was a real cause for celebration. He may be 81, he may not fly over to perform in... Read more... |
Album of the Year: Pepe Willberg – Pepe & SaimaaSaturday, 27 December 2014
Finland’s album of the year, the number one, gold-selling and best-of-2014 poll-topper Pepe & Saimaa, has barely registered elsewhere. Probably not a crime but a damn shame nonetheless as the album, released in May, is undoubtedly an all-time... Read more... |
DVD: LucyFriday, 26 December 2014
This has been Scarlett Johansson’s defining year. Previously seeming a slightly dazed, limited beauty, she bravely abandoned her comfort zone in Jonathan Glazer’s gruelling and strange Scottish s.f. vision Under the Skin, then had her biggest hit... Read more... |
Album of the Year: Roddy Frame - Seven DialsThursday, 25 December 2014
Far too many years ago, Roddy Frame – masquerading as Aztec Camera – took his first bow with an album of wonderfully vital pop songs. High Land, Hard Rain was jaunty with youth but somehow freighted with musical wisdom, the fruit of ingesting a... Read more... |
Album of the Year: Leonard Cohen - Popular ProblemsWednesday, 24 December 2014
Leonard Cohen, grand rabbi of poetry and the blues, turned 80 this year, and like a perfectly matured brandy, he only gets better and better. On his most recent European tour, he managed to combine an atmosphere of deep and communal spiritual... Read more... |
