CDs/DVDs
DVD: TempestFriday, 30 December 2011
That’s Tempest, not The Tempest. It’s not the only thing askew with Julie Taymor’s visit to Shakespeare’s island of exile. Prospero has become Prospera, the banished Duchess – rather than Duke – of Milan. Taymor has transfigurative form, so much so... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Bon Iver - Bon IverThursday, 29 December 2011
The albums that work their way under your skin are few and far between. The second CD by Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, is one of those earworm-laden offerings that leave you wanting for more and haunted by seductive phrases and catchy tunes. There is... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't KnowWednesday, 28 December 2011
This was the year I finally fell in love with Laura Marling’s music. I liked her first two albums well enough, but I couldn't quite shake the feeling that the endless chorus of critical hosannas was more about what people wanted her to be than what... Read more... |
DVD: The Skin I Live InTuesday, 27 December 2011
From his early establishing hit which located them on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Almodóvar has always displayed an obsessive interest in the inner world of women – mothers, daughters, wives, girlfriends. That obsession takes a striking swerve... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys!Monday, 26 December 2011
The Mercury-winning Seldom Seen Kid was a truly formidable recording to follow. And when the metronomic beat of extended play opening track "The Birds" kicked in on Build a Rocket Boys! I thought about giving Elbow the elbow. There was a little too... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Metronomy - The English RivieraSunday, 25 December 2011
Even in a bumper year for Xmas albums there comes a point where you really don’t “wish it could be Xmas every day”. After the third helping of turkey, and feeling like a cracker that has been well and truly pulled, it’s only natural to long for a... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Motörhead - The World is YoursSaturday, 24 December 2011
There were other contenders for my favourite album of 2011. Nicolas Jaar’s electronic odyssey Space is Only Noise certainly pushes towards imaginative sonic frontiers in ways nobody could accuse Motörhead of doing, and The Death Set, bratty... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Berlin Philharmonic Horn QuartetSaturday, 24 December 2011
Mozart: Piano Concertos no 6, 8 and 9 Angela Hewitt (piano), Orchestra da Camera di Mantova (Hyperion)This first volume in Angela Hewitt’s projected Mozart concerto series deserves praise for featuring three early pieces, instead of starting... Read more... |
DVD: Kill ListFriday, 23 December 2011
Filmed and acted with suffocating intensity, Ben Wheatley’s second feature (after 2009’s Down Terrace) is a macabre mutation of horror and crime thriller. Stripped so bare exposition-wise that it’s jolting and intentionally enigmatic, Kill List is a... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Lykke Li – Wounded RhymesThursday, 22 December 2011
It could have been Fleet Foxes’s Helplessness Blues, or maybe The War on Drugs’s Slave Ambient, but this is the one that keeps being returned to. Lykke Li’s Wounded Rhymes kept forcing its way to the top of the pile, insisting it had to be heard.... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi - RomeWednesday, 21 December 2011
Recorded in the Eternal City by Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton and Italian composer Daniele Luppi as a self-financed labour of love, the widescreen orchestral luxuriance and sheer craft of Rome made it one of the most accomplished and darkly romantic... Read more... |
DVD: Q / Mademoiselle ChambonTuesday, 20 December 2011
Two French films, both exploring the nature of the erotic charge and its impact on characters whose well-being is off balance. One leaves things mostly unsaid, with its leads barely expressing what’s hanging in the air. The other leaves nothing... Read more... |
