CDs/DVDs
CD: JÆ - Balls and Kittens, Draught and Strangling RainWednesday, 16 February 2011
There is a certain kind of Northern European songcraft that's difficult for we genre-crazed music journo sorts to categorise. The active components are a musical stew of late-night cabaret blues, oddball jazz-classical instrumentation, a smidgeon... Read more... |
DVD: The IllusionistMonday, 14 February 2011
Sylvain Chomet’s hand-drawn animation of a previously unproduced Jacques Tati story is a delight in every way, in which the French film-maker pays homage to the great man by making him the illusionist of the title. He is unmistakably Tati - all... Read more... |
CD: Zwischenwelt - Paranormale AktivitatSunday, 13 February 2011
The Detroit electro-techno duo of James Stinson and Gerald Donald aka Drexciya never gave away their secrets easily. Almost completely anonymous and never photographed during their 10-year existence – which ended with Stinson's 2002 death after a... Read more... |
DVD: Upstairs DownstairsFriday, 11 February 2011
When it was broadcast over Christmas the jury was split on Upstairs Downstairs. Some were spitting with rage at the temerity inherent in the idea of revisiting 165 Eaton Place (though the street exteriors, it's revealed on the DVD documentary, were... Read more... |
CD: Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You WillWednesday, 09 February 2011
It's quite funny to hear a rock band with a reputation for sounding like the inside of an aeroplane engine making something that's just gorgeous. But, even with its grimly jokey title, and silly offhand track titles like “You're Lionel Richie”, that... Read more... |
CD: Toro Y Moi - Underneath the PineTuesday, 08 February 2011
A lot of hum and crackle about hypnagogic pop has passed through the ether in the last 18 months, much of it concerned with Toro Y Moi. Coined for a small raft of mainly American musicians that recast half-remembered pop from their youths, the... Read more... |
DVD: Police, AdjectiveMonday, 07 February 2011
Katalin Varga was one of the finest films at the 2009 Berlinale. Directed by British auteur Peter Strickland, it was filmed, beautifully, in Romania: a heartbreaking story about rape, it was all, and really only, about the catastrophically... Read more... |
CD: Aurelio Martinez - Laru BeyaSunday, 06 February 2011
This is one of the most eagerly awaited albums of the year, at least in world music circles. And for impeccable reasons. It is brilliantly produced and joyously sung; it swings with a rare soulfulness and conveys a sense of the Garifuna community.... Read more... |
DVD: Winter's BoneSaturday, 05 February 2011
The timely arrival on DVD of Winter’s Bone as it heads for the Oscars ceremony gives a fresh chance to dwell on the film’s unshowy riches. Jennifer Lawrence plays 17-year-old Ree whose father has disappeared, leaving her to care for an invalid... Read more... |
DVD: The TownThursday, 03 February 2011
The Town narrowly missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, and revisiting it on DVD I reckon it was hard done-by. True, it's possible to pigeonhole it under Heist Thriller, but it's a particularly fine one, and it's much more besides.... Read more... |
CD: Teddy Thompson - BellaThursday, 03 February 2011
It seems amazing that this is Thompson Junior's fifth album, and it's evidence that perseverance pays. Earlier in his career, Thompson radiated a sort of flaccid indecisiveness, but that has been replaced here by a quiet confidence, perhaps... Read more... |
CD: James Blake - James BlakeWednesday, 02 February 2011
James Blake's "Limit to Your Love" was a bolt out of the blue at the end of last year, perhaps even a quantum leap in soul'n'bass culture in the same way that Massive Attack or Roni Size once were. This fact was swiftly acknowledged in various New... Read more... |
