CDs/DVDs
CD of the Year: Rustie - Glass SwordsMonday, 19 December 2011
If 2011 was the year when dance music's natural tendency to fragmentation was taken to extremes, this album was the one that bound those fragments together into one demented but scintillating vision. Russell Whyte – Rustie – comes from a very... Read more... |
CD: Carole King - A Christmas CaroleSunday, 18 December 2011
Readers in America might be perplexed. Stateside, A Christmas Carole hits the streets as A Holiday Carole. Play spot the difference by comparing the images above and below. It’s not the only disconnect on offer. King is Jewish, so a Christmas-themed... Read more... |
CD: Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler - This is ChristmasSaturday, 17 December 2011
This is an unexpectedly wonderful album. A five-star rating might seem a bit much but then judging music in the same way as sport or exams is a bit crap anyway. So let’s say 5/5 compared to other Christmas albums and, yes, this is at the very summit... Read more... |
DVD: Super 8Friday, 16 December 2011
In JJ Abrams’s retro sci-fi Super 8, a group of budding film-makers are terrorised by a mysterious creature. With credible camaraderie and poignant performances from its young leads, it’s as much about growing up and the thrill of first-time film-... Read more... |
CD: Kate Rusby - While Mortals SleepThursday, 15 December 2011
Christmas albums are often a time to forget about the other 11 months of the year and get stuck into some festive silliness. Not for Kate Rusby. On this, her second volume of carols inspired by the South Yorkshire tradition, she’s still doggedly... Read more... |
CD: The Wurzels - The Wurzels Christmas AlbumWednesday, 14 December 2011
In truth this probably deserves one star rather than two but it’s all about expectations, isn’t it. A Yuletide outing from the professional bumpkins who hit big in 1976 with "I've Got a Brand New Combine Harvester", replete with a dopey-eyed cartoon... Read more... |
DVD: Tales From EuropeTuesday, 13 December 2011
Nightmarish images abound. There’s a giant plastic fish. There are several scary beards and the world’s most unconvincing bear costume. Often cited as one of the most unsettling of children’s entertainments, The Singing Ringing Tree is reissued by... Read more... |
CD: She & Him – A Very She & Him ChristmasMonday, 12 December 2011
There are plenty of recent examples of videogenic movie stars embarking on questionable musical pursuits, from Keanu Reeves to Scarlett Johansson, to name two whose rhythmic careers should have been throttled at birth. Zooey Deschanel, Hollywood's... Read more... |
CD: Lulu Gainsbourg – From Gainsbourg to LuluSunday, 11 December 2011
Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991. His son Lulu was five at the time. Dad and son shared the given name Lucien. Now, they share more than that. On the confounding, unsatisfying From Gainsbourg to Lulu, Gainsbourg junior tackles 16 of his dad’s classic... Read more... |
CD: Slow Moving Millie - RenditionsSaturday, 10 December 2011
Even if you haven’t heard of Slow Moving Millie, aka Amelia Warner, there’s a 99 per cent chance that if you reside in the UK and have access to television, you’ll have heard her sing. The 29-year-old’s cover version of The Smiths’ “Please Please... Read more... |
DVD: The Cranes Are FlyingFriday, 09 December 2011
The Cranes Are Flying begins with the literal rush of young love, as Boris and Veronica skip down a street, giddy with endorphins. They could be infatuated young Americans in the rock’n’roll year of its making, 1957. But this is Moscow in 1941, as a... Read more... |
CD: Bill Wells – LemondaleThursday, 08 December 2011
Scotland’s Bill Wells is hard to pin down. Although ostensibly a jazz pianist, boundaries don’t concern him. He’s played with Aidan Moffat and Isobel Campbell. In 2009 he made the GOK album with Japan’s Tori Kudo (who records as Maher Shalal Hash... Read more... |
