tue 03/06/2025

CDs/DVDs

CD: Noisettes - Contact

They’re best known for soundtracking a car advert with “Don’t Upset The Rhythm” - a song so preposterously catchy it’ll be stuck in your head by the end of this sentence - so you could be forgiven for trying to write the Noisettes off as a one-hit...

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CD: Paul Van Dyk - Evolution

Berlin’s Paul Van Dyk has remained in or around the top ten of DJ Magazine’s defining annual poll of the top 100 DJs in the world for at least a decade, occasionally making the number one spot. Unlike all others in the current top 20, however, he’s...

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DVD: North Sea Texas

Bavo Defurne’s North Sea Texas is a more than distinguished addition to the coming-of-age film genre, catching the painful moments of approaching maturity. Set in a Sixties provincial seaside town in Belgium, the poignancy of 16-year-old hero Pim...

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CD: The Orb feat. Lee "Scratch" Perry - The Orbserver in the Star House

The available evidence suggested both these artists were well past their sell-by date. The Orb were early Nineties titans of mischievous narco-ambience but haven’t made a decent album in years, even when they worked with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour...

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CD: Bloc Party – Four

Bloc Party's fourth album comes after a lengthy break during which various members did various things with varying degrees of success. Most notably vocalist Kele Okereke pursued a more synth-based, dance-flavoured direction with mixed results. There...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Ride, Juliette Gréco, Krzysztof Komeda, Priscilla Paris

Ride: Going Blank AgainKieron TylerWhen Oxfordshire’s Ride arrived in the shops via Creation Records, they were the sonic little brothers to label-mates My Bloody Valentine. But their second album, 1992’s Going Blank Again, ploughed its own path,...

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CD: The Darkness - Hot Cakes

The Darkness are back, and predictably, as they inch towards serious rock’n’roll, they also tourette tic a little preposterousness. “Every Inch of You”, which opens the album, sees Justin Hawkins filling his lungs and screaming “suck my cock". It...

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DVD: Elles

Elles promises much. Małgorzata Szumowska, from Poland, is an engaged, serious film maker. 33 Scenes from Life (2008), which won a Locarno special prize, had an edgy, bohemian authenticity to it, and looked with wry east European melancholy at the...

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CD: Owl City - The Midsummer Station

Stumbling across the perfect pop hit must be its own kind of curse. It’s been two and a half years since Owl City’s “Fireflies” shot its way into the charts, seemingly from nowhere. With its lush, quirky melodies and wistful, lovelorn lyrics, Adam...

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CD: Jessie Ware - Devotion

Although the Eighties revival has now been going on for longer than the actual Eighties, it shows no sign of abating – to the point where maybe it would be more sensible to refer to it as a tradition or a palette of techniques rather than than...

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DVD: Separation/The Other Side of Underneath

Although the collaboration between Jane Arden and Jack Bond was truly two-way, their films were wholly driven by a female perspective. They also evolved from Arden’s explorations into the nature of self and how external forces affect that. Yet...

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CD: Ry Cooder - Election Special

Ry Cooder is an unpredictable quantity. He’s a prickly, opinionated old coot who doesn’t seem the type to pass a night in the pub with. He’d probably not get your jokes and moan about the Rolling Stones nicking his songs. His musical output is...

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