CDs/DVDs
Albums of the Year 2022: Beyoncé - RenaissanceMonday, 02 January 2023
When asked what I wanted for Christmas this year, my response was mostly that I just want to drink Baileys out of Lindt bunnies and dance in my socks in the kitchen. Y'know?More specifically though, it's Beyonce's Renaissance that I... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Maggie Rogers - SurrenderSaturday, 31 December 2022
Flick through my 2022 Spotify Wrapped playlist and those who know me best won’t be surprised by what they find. Architects, the UK’s preeminent metal group who grapple with progressing their sound further on the classic symptoms of a broken spirit... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Dina Ögon - Dina ÖgonFriday, 30 December 2022
Some of what’s nourishing the debut album by Sweden’s Dina Ögon is evident. A Bossa Nova jazz-pop essence evokes Brazil’s Quarteto em Cy. There’s a trip-hop undertow. Vocal lines bring to mind Free Design. Less easy to pinpoint is a melodic... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Fontaines DC - Skinty FiaThursday, 29 December 2022
This is not a rehash of my Skinty Fia review, but smoke from the same grate.Asbury Park, New Jersey, 5 October – we've driven down from NYC to see Fontaines DC play hopefully most of their blistering third album at the Stone Pony venue. Bruce... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Something in the DirtTuesday, 27 December 2022
Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson deal in the modern eerie and truly weird, placing relationships under supernatural pressure with unsettling empathy. Where genre-schooled peers such as Ti West and Adam Wingard splice post-slacker, naturalistic... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Janis Ian - The Light at the End of the LineMonday, 26 December 2022
One of popular music’s greatest songwriting talents released her final album back in January. The Light at the End of the Line was Janis Ian’s first album of all-new material in 15 years, and it was planned as a stage-setter for her swan-song tour,... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Ghost Stories for Christmas, Volume 1Sunday, 25 December 2022
The BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas series first consisted of eight short films broadcast between 1971 and 1978, five of which were adaptations of short stories by MR James.Shot on 16mm film instead of videotape, most were directed by documentary... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Lizz Wright - Holding SpaceSaturday, 24 December 2022
Bolivian marching powder, sexual violence, fraud. As the actions of the present kakistocracy edged ever closer to that of a lost Brian De Palma film script, it was to music that we turned once again for beauty and the best of humanity.With stunning... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Sault - Untitled (God), Today & Tomorrow, 11, Earth, AIIRFriday, 23 December 2022
It’s always hard to choose one album to spotlight come the annual Best Ofs, and 2022 has given us an extraordinary embarrassment of riches to choose from – the bountiful bastard…January brought with it a small but perfectly formed under-the-radar... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Rokia Koné and Jacknife Lee - BamananThursday, 22 December 2022
I am a sucker for Malian singers. I have been ever since I made a couple of films there at the end of the 1980s. According to ancient tradition, the jalis, and other singers have a mission: to open the hearts of those who hear them, and to fill them... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Goat - Oh DeathWednesday, 21 December 2022
2022 was, without any shadow of a doubt, the year when live music once again managed to provide an arena for music lovers to come together for shared magic and the occasional joyous evening after the main wave of Covid had passed us by. A place for... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2022: Arctic Monkeys - The CarSaturday, 17 December 2022
I hate Alex Turner. Ever since he and his spotty crew upended my rather dull existence in 2005 (courtesy of not entirely legal streaming services) I have been in his thrall. But everyone loved Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not ... Read more... |
