CDs/DVDs
CD: Patti Smith - BangaSaturday, 02 June 2012
At the age of 65, you would be forgiven for thinking that punk rock high priestess Patti Smith has every justification for winding down (the odd eccentric covers collection to keep the kids amused aside, of course). Indeed, her actions of the past... Read more... |
DVD: The ArtistFriday, 01 June 2012
What, honestly, is left to say about The Artist? For better or worse, Michel Hazanavicius' warm, wry, subtly audacious love letter to silent cinema dominated conversation, headlines and awards ballots for a good three months, during which time... Read more... |
CD: Ultravox - BrilliantThursday, 31 May 2012
A few years ago the ultimate in post-modern bollocks appeared – Guilty Pleasures, a club night built around the notion that tepid crap from yesteryear is brilliant. So let’s go dig Toto, Go West, Andrew Gold, Dr Hook, any old toe jam. Of course,... Read more... |
CD: Jagwa Music - Bongo HotheadsWednesday, 30 May 2012
This Tanzanian crew of eight youngsters play a galloping bongo-led music called “Mchiriku” that spews torrentially from the speakers, exhausting your reviewer after just the first couple of songs. Perhaps if the arrangements and instrumentation had... Read more... |
DVD: Island of Lost SoulsTuesday, 29 May 2012
Island of Lost Souls might be from 1932, but its release on DVD verifies that it’s one of the freakiest, most disturbing films made. This adaptation of H. G. Wells’s Island of Dr Moreau is dominated by Charles Laughton as the eponymous Doctor.... Read more... |
CD: Regina Spektor - What We Saw From The Cheap SeatsMonday, 28 May 2012
It's been six years since Regina Spektor released Begin to Hope, a festival-friendly breakthrough album with a poppy sheen that easily loaned itself to mobile phone network marketing campaigns and the like. Six years then since the Moscow-born Bronx... Read more... |
CD: Public Image Ltd - This Is PiLSunday, 27 May 2012
Lydon is currently having a slight return. I caught PiL’s gig at Heaven a few weeks ago (featured as a bonus DVD disc on the deluxe edition of This Is PiL and reviewed elsewhere on theartsdesk). I wasn’t expecting much. Lydon, once the edgy heart of... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Sandy Denny, Kevin Coyne, France GallSunday, 27 May 2012
Sandy Denny: Sandy (Deluxe Edition), Like An Old Fashioned Waltz (Deluxe Edition), Rendezvous (Deluxe Edition)Graham FullerSandy Denny completists unable to drop a thousand to acquire the now scarce 2010 19-disc box set can fill their collections... Read more... |
CD: The Hives – Lex HivesSaturday, 26 May 2012
Don't be fooled by the top hat and tails that they've got, The Hives is still the dirtiest garage band on the block. The high velocity Swedish quintet's fifth album marks a change in sartorial terms, as anyone who spotted vocalist Howlin' Pelle... Read more... |
DVD: Sherlock Holmes - The Hound of the BaskervillesFriday, 25 May 2012
We in the UK have much enjoyed our contemporary Sherlock Holmes recently, courtesy of Cumberbatch et al. It’s amazing to think that, at the height of the Cold War, Soviet television was bashing out TV versions of the Holmes stories. And they were... Read more... |
CD: Paloma Faith - Fall to GraceThursday, 24 May 2012
The songs here that work are lush treats which hit the buttons they’re aiming for. The ones that don’t are a bit stinky. The two varieties are divided about half and half. Difficult to score out of five, that, hence the neutral three. Job done.More... Read more... |
CD: Rumer - Boys Don't CryWednesday, 23 May 2012
Boys Don’t Cry is a collection of flawless reinterpretations of songs originally performed by men by the honey-voiced singer known as Rumer, whose million-selling debut Seasons of My Soul chalked up high-profile admirers and a clutch of award... Read more... |
