CDs/DVDs
CD: Admiral Black – PhantasmagoricThursday, 17 November 2011
You’ve got to love the “I Can Only Give You Everything” riff. Admiral Black do and base their “Got Love if You Want It” around an inverted version on their debut album. Cheese-wire fuzz guitar pulses, Bo Diddley drums bash and a wheezy organ, well,... Read more... |
CD: Scratch Massive - Nuit de RêveWednesday, 16 November 2011
Scratch Massive sound from their name as if they should be a very dodgy hip-hop outfit. They are not. Instead, French duo Maud Geffray and Sebastien Chenaut are a music-based art unit who have worked on sonic projects with Karl Lagerfeld,... Read more... |
DVD: L’amour fouTuesday, 15 November 2011
“I tell myself that I have created the modern woman's wardrobe,” declares Yves Saint Laurent during the press conference that opens L’amour fou. Hubris, but the trouser suits, safari jackets and Mondrian dresses he created did – in other... Read more... |
CD: Radio Slave - Works! Selected Remixes 2006-2010Monday, 14 November 2011
If there's one electronic sub-genre that is not worth approaching blind it's “tech-house”. Since the late Nineties, it has tended to be the most functional and generic of club soundtracks, a steady, decadent plod, all clean lines and predictable... Read more... |
CD: The dø - Both Ways Open JawsSunday, 13 November 2011
It’s pronounced doh, like Homer Simpson’s favourite exclamation. Although The dø aren’t yellow cartoon characters, they edge towards the caricature with songs like “Gonna be Sick!” and “Smash Them All (Night Visitors)”. Their art pop has a slight... Read more... |
CD: Snow Patrol - Fallen EmpiresSaturday, 12 November 2011
I remain bemused when bands such as U2 or Coldplay announce they are “going experimental” and are greeted as if they might be. The correct response is: “No, you’re not, you’re as alternative as avocado in a prawn cocktail rather than lettuce.” So... Read more... |
DVD: Witchfinder GeneralFriday, 11 November 2011
Witchfinder General, along with The Wicker Man, has latterly been claimed as a pinnacle of a peculiarly British style of film. “Weird Britain” is a default description. It’ll do fine for these unsettling, intense horror films which draw from the... Read more... |
CD: Kami Thompson - Love LiesThursday, 10 November 2011
“I’d had five years of being really, really fucked around personally. That’s definitely where the songs come from.” Kami Thompson’s five years of being fucked around is good for us listeners though. You want to say thanks to all the horrible guy(s)... Read more... |
CD: Etta James - The DreamerWednesday, 09 November 2011
The Dreamer is the relatively low-key swansong from one of soul’s greatest divas, a mountain of barely restrained power, who inspired and influenced several generations of singers. Why some musicians survive lives of excess and others don’t is... Read more... |
DVD: HammettTuesday, 08 November 2011
Wim Wenders’ fictionalised Dashiell Hammett biopic, the first of his six American films, was a critical and box-office failure, which, along with Francis Ford Coppola’s equally damned Vegas musical One From the Heart, brought down Coppola’s Zoetrope... Read more... |
CD: The Fall – Ersatz GBMonday, 07 November 2011
“My friends don't add up to one hand,” intoned Mark E Smith on his 1988 album Frenz Experiment. Maybe not, given his legendary propensity for dramatically falling out with band members, but his albums now add up to considerably more than a single... Read more... |
CD: Hedvig Mollestad Trio – Shoot!Sunday, 06 November 2011
Fusion is a pretty difficult word to deal with. Miles Davis's Bitches Brew might have inspired a raft of jazzers to embrace rock, but an awful lot of the crossover that followed – like prog rock – became the musical equivalent of the love that dare... Read more... |
