CDs/DVDs
CD: Money – The Shadow of HeavenWednesday, 14 August 2013
“It’s a shame God is dead” sings Jamie Lee on “So Long”, the opening track of his band Money’s debut album The Shadow of Heaven. With a melody rooted in gospel and a musical backdrop ecstatically imbued with the grace of the devotional rather than... Read more... |
DVD: Berlin 36Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Sporting dreams and the Second World War are both bottomless narrative mines. German-Jewish high-jumper Gretel Bergmann’s attempt to compete in the German team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics unites these genres, but it’s no Hitler-era Chariots of Fire.... Read more... |
CD: Riot Jazz Brass Band - SousamaphoneMonday, 12 August 2013
When I used to work for the much-missed Face magazine, there was a phrase regularly used, only half in jest: “three things is a trend”. Which means that, unlikely though it might sound, hip hop marching bands are now a trend in leftfield club music... Read more... |
CD: Asking Alexandria - From Death to DestinySunday, 11 August 2013
I write as a listener and concerned citizen. It's 2013, the legends of dad rock are facing the death squad: no liquids, no solids, no chance, baby. There's something dead in the water and a new breed is feeding on the remains. Welcome to Deathcore,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Eddie Noack, The Dictators, The Allman Brothers, Clifton ChenierSunday, 11 August 2013
Eddie Noack: Psycho – The K-Ark and Allstar Recordings 1962–69Eddie Noack’s 1968 single “Psycho” was virtually unknown until Elvis Costello released his cover version in 1981. By that time, Noack had been dead for three years. After its resurrection... Read more... |
CD: Pokey LaFarge - Pokey LaFargeSaturday, 10 August 2013
It’s one thing to sound like an oldster recording back in the Twenties, Thirties and Forties, it’s quite another to look the part. In the half-century rise of gym body hegemony and homogenous Barbie’n’Ken facial aspirations, normalcy of human... Read more... |
DVD: The Sun in a NetFriday, 09 August 2013
There’s black-and-white style aplenty in Štefan Uher’s The Sun in a Net, an elliptical look at a youthful boy-girl relationship that intermingles with a whole range of themes left open for the viewer’s interpretation. Heralding the better-known... Read more... |
DVD: BlancanievesThursday, 08 August 2013
Snow White in silent Seville is glib shorthand for director Polbo Berger’s tasteful Blancanieves, a beautiful, quirky take on the recognisable fable. Nicely shot and well cast, this silent melodrama, shot in black and white, is not sweetness and... Read more... |
CD: The Polyphonic Spree - Yes, It's TrueWednesday, 07 August 2013
This is a buoyant, likeable album but – to be dismal and pessimistic – maybe the moment has passed for The Polyphonic Spree. This would be a shame as they’re more interesting than 90 per cent of the wannabe guitar pop stars out there. However, a... Read more... |
CD: Glen Campbell - See You ThereTuesday, 06 August 2013
Since the announcement that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s, the music industry has splashily paid tribute to Glen Campbell: a big celebration at the Country Music Awards, a lifetime achievement Grammy. Campbell himself went out on the road to make... Read more... |
CD: Mike Gibbs + TWELVE play Gil EvansMonday, 05 August 2013
Think of the ingredients you look for in a great jazz record – inspired, exploratory improv, the complete reinvention of standards, ear-catching arrangements, sonorities you've never heard before – and this new big band recording from Mike Gibbs... Read more... |
CD: Pure Bathing Culture – Moon TidesSunday, 04 August 2013
The prettiest-sounding album so far this year, the glistening Moon Tides evokes the ghostly atmosphere of The Cocteau Twins and the intimacy of Eighties melancholia fashioned by Liverpool’s Black. But it’s more than a revivalist album, since it’s... Read more... |
