CDs/DVDs
Reissue CDs Weekly: John Carpenter, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Replacements, Steve Miller BandSunday, 14 October 2012
John Carpenter: Halloween II/Halloween IIIKieron TylerPeople celebrate Halloween in different ways, but the arrival of these reissues of the soundtrack music to two John Carpenter horror films is enough to put pumpkins, cut-out bats and capes... Read more... |
CD: Leona Lewis - GlassheartSaturday, 13 October 2012
Leona Lewis has a whole new look: all mouse-brown hair, sullen expression and the oddest-looking facial jewellery since Kate Nash misappropriated the bindi in the video she made to accompany “Underestimate The Girl”. It really doesn’t suit her.... Read more... |
DVD: Benjamin Britten and His FestivalFriday, 12 October 2012
Tony Palmer’s first film was originally slated to be directed by Humphrey Burton. Palmer stepped up at short notice, quickly gaining the confidence of Britten and Peter Pears – neither of whom, it later transpired, really wanted to be filmed at all... Read more... |
CD: Bat For Lashes – The Haunted ManThursday, 11 October 2012
To paraphrase Shakespeare, when albums featuring strident, post-feminist "I am woman hear me roar" naked cover sleeves come, they come not in single spies but in battalions. I'm not so sure about the motives of Christina Aguilera, but the recent... Read more... |
CD: Donald Fagen - Sunken CondosWednesday, 10 October 2012
Donald Fagen's fourth solo album arrives 30 years after his first one, The Nightfly, though there can be no doubting that it's the work of the same artist. The quizzical chord sequences, supple instrumental interplay and teasingly cryptic lyrics... Read more... |
DVD: BeautyTuesday, 09 October 2012
There’s little beauty of any conventional kind in this tale of the hidden queer - "gay" would have associations of a very different world - life of South African patriarch François (Deon Lotz) imploding. He falls for Christian (Charlie Keegan... Read more... |
Just in From Scandinavia: Nordic Music Round-Up 5Monday, 08 October 2012
A lot has blown in since the last Scandinavian round-up. The most recent releases sifted here include singer-songwriter intimacy, various forms of electropop, several shades of jazz experimenta, joyous dance-pop and some distinctly non-Scandinavian... Read more... |
CD: Ellie Goulding - HalcyonMonday, 08 October 2012
Styles and innovations in music, as in all the arts, change incrementally over time. Suddenly we can find ourselves in an unrecognisable landscape. Things moved on when we weren’t paying proper attention. Sometimes this is due to a wave of game-... Read more... |
CD: Martha Wainwright - Come Home to MamaSunday, 07 October 2012
Motherhood doesn’t always bring out the best in singer-songwriters. On the album Aerial Kate Bush, for instance, sings “luverly luverly luverly Bertie…you give me so much joy/ and then you give me more joy”. Yeuch. So when I heard that recent mum... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: B B King, Steve Winwood, The Doors, Loving on the FlipsideSunday, 07 October 2012
B B King: Ladies & Gentlemen…Mr B.B. KingKieron TylerOne of the stranger manifestations of U2’s Eighties fascination with the iconography of American music was “When Love Comes to Town", their collaboration with B B King. As a single, it... Read more... |
DVD: Moonrise KingdomSaturday, 06 October 2012
Who are Wes Anderson’s films actually for? They can be read as wistful visits to the confusing domain of childhood or kids’ movies full of droll turns from Hollywood stars. Moonrise Kingdom, which tells of a pair of damaged runaways who find solace... Read more... |
CD: Tame Impala – LonerismFriday, 05 October 2012
Despite the fact that this month marks the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ first single, the focus on the Fabs right now is as much on their 1967 psychedelic folly Magical Mystery Tour. The arrival of Tame Impala’s second album seems... Read more... |
