CDs/DVDs
DVD: The Broken Circle BreakdownFriday, 29 November 2013
A fascinating and heart-breaking relationship is charted through cross-cutting flashbacks (a technique recently used in Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, which this film has a lot in common with), which hint at future happiness and sorrow. In this... Read more... |
CD: One Direction - Midnight MemoriesThursday, 28 November 2013
Oozing like “liquefied sucrose,” whilst offering “a Ritalin-buzzed rictus of happiness” was how theartsdesk described One Direction’s 2012 offering, Take Me Home. That, however, was a year ago, and a year is a long a time in the life of a heavily... Read more... |
CD: bEEdEEgEE - Sum/OneWednesday, 27 November 2013
New Yorker band Gang Gang Dance have been one of the odder acts of the past decade. Presented as a kind of hippie multimedia collective, they were among the earliest non-UK adopters of the sonics of grime and dubstep, which they wove in alongside... Read more... |
DVD: Pussy Riot - A Punk PrayerTuesday, 26 November 2013
Access and trust are the key issues facing any documentary director, especially when the film concerned touches on questions that arouse controversy in society. It’s a long time since I've seen a work that achieved so much on those two fronts as... Read more... |
CD: Juliette Gréco – Gréco Chante BrelMonday, 25 November 2013
The songs of Jacques Brel and Juliette Gréco are old friends. She has revisited them many times since she began performing with Brel’s former accompanist, the pianist Gérard Jouannest, in 1968. Brel and Jouannest had worked together since 1958.... Read more... |
CD: Gary Barlow - Since I Saw You LastSunday, 24 November 2013
Like his sometime nemesis Robbie Williams it’s all too easy to dismiss Gary Barlow as lame mainstream tosh. In fact, that’s not such a bad idea. Let’s do that. Job done.Those who wish for more might like to check the next pageAlternatively…Like his... Read more... |
CD: Rebecca Ferguson - FreedomFriday, 22 November 2013
Rebecca Ferguson’s first album, Heaven, blew in like a summer breeze in the freezing winter of 2011. What made the Liverpudlian’s debut stand out was not so much the quality of her voice – although it was undeniably big and infectious – but... Read more... |
DVD: GaslightFriday, 22 November 2013
That Thorold Dickinson (1903-84) directed only nine features can be attributed to the British film industry's mistrust of the intellectual left-wing cineaste and union activist – and his own distaste for making pablum. That he didn't make 30... Read more... |
CD: Livity Sound - Livity SoundWednesday, 20 November 2013
The past year or two have seen a staggering return to popularity of house and techno music in the UK. For the first time since the mid-1990s, records which have grown steadily through club play over many months are breaking through into the charts... Read more... |
CD: Hannah Georgas - Hannah GeorgasWednesday, 20 November 2013
There’s something in the vocal delivery that calls for comparison to countrywoman Leslie Feist - a subtlety, an unreal-ness - but on her third, self-titled album Canadian songwriter Hannah Georgas has honed a sound of her own. What could easily have... Read more... |
DVD: ClochemerleTuesday, 19 November 2013
Clochemerle is the very odd one out in Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s scriptwriting career. It was their only adaptation, from Gabriel Chevallier’s 1934 comic novel set in the titular Beaujolais small town a decade before, and their only step away... Read more... |
CD: Jake Bugg - Shangri-LaMonday, 18 November 2013
I have always found Bob Dylan immensely irritating, so it stands to reason that the music of folk rocker Jake Bugg, who is often compared to the poetic Sixties icon, should evoke a similar reaction. At a time when British rock is on the wane, this... Read more... |
