CDs/DVDs
DVD: Classic BergmanThursday, 07 June 2012
Only one of the five films in Artificial Eye’s selection is palpably a classic, a turning point in Ingmar Bergman’s early career. It’s flanked by curiosities spanning 11 of the master’s 59 years as a film-maker – two of them flaunting the beginner’s... Read more... |
CD: The Beach Boys – That’s Why God Made the RadioWednesday, 06 June 2012
“We’re back together, easy money”. For anyone feeling a wee bit cynical about The Beach Boys' reunion, that lyric – from “Spring Vacation” – is likely to push them towards full-blown contempt. Although That’s Why God Made the Radio is defined by... Read more... |
DVD: The Queen on Tour/A Royal OccasionTuesday, 05 June 2012
BOAC, BEA, and Britannia: the recent past is so near and yet so far. All have now disappeared from the national consciousness but, in these two DVDs, the flagship planes of the British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways appear... Read more... |
CD: Neil Young and Crazy Horse - AmericanaMonday, 04 June 2012
Ever since their original collaboration on 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Neil Young and Crazy Horse have made music that sounded as old as the hills. Primitive and funky, they reduce rock to its raw materials, without flash or frills or... Read more... |
CD: Dexys - One Day I'm Going To SoarSunday, 03 June 2012
Bob Dylan talked, after his 1966 motorcycle crash, about having to learn to do consciously what he once did instinctively. That quote kept popping into my head as I listened to One Day I’m Going to Soar, the fourth Dexys album and their first for 27... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Everything But The Girl, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, WITCHSunday, 03 June 2012
Everything But The Girl: Eden, Love Not Money, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, IdlewildJasper ReesCan it really be nearly three decades since the release of Eden defined the quintessential bedsit sound? Everything But The Girl are somehow ageless, a... Read more... |
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... |
