CDs/DVDs
Album: Neil Young and Crazy Horse – BarnWednesday, 08 December 2021
Neil Young’s ornery spontaneity has resulted in a remarkable number of mediocre songs. His sketchy 21st century has conjured audacious sonic conceits – the jazzy sparseness of Peace Trail, or the plastic-sounding live album Earth, both 2016 –... Read more... |
Album: Neil Young and Crazy Horse – BarnWednesday, 08 December 2021
Neil Young’s ornery spontaneity has resulted in a remarkable number of mediocre songs. His sketchy 21st century has conjured audacious sonic conceits – the jazzy sparseness of Peace Trail, or the plastic-sounding live album Earth, both 2016 –... Read more... |
Album: Various Artists - A Damaged Christmas Gift For YouTuesday, 07 December 2021
Christmas albums can traditionally be slippery beasts with a whole host of quality control issues. This is not unlike the compilation albums that also make an appearance at this time of year, with one or maybe two previously unreleased tracks, which... Read more... |
Album: SJS - The Unlikely EventMonday, 06 December 2021
Just as love's downward spiral can deconstruct a lover's sense of self, so SJS's plangent post-modern prog deconstructs itself as it ebbs and flows toward gorgeous but muted crescendos.On the band's second album The Unlikely Event, lovely ... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Le SamouraïSunday, 05 December 2021
Jef Costello, the lone contract killer in Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967), carries out the murder of the boss of a night club. We see how meticulously he has prepared for it, including the construction of an airtight alibi involving precise... Read more... |
Album: Madmess - RebirthSaturday, 04 December 2021
Madmess are a Portuguese power trio who are based in London. Muscular and (mostly) instrumental stoner rock is their thing, which may not be particularly original but with the volume turned up appropriately, their schtick is pretty transcendental... Read more... |
Album: Paul Weller - An Orchestrated SongbookThursday, 02 December 2021
It’s a far cry from his beginnings in a tight, no-frills power-pop-post-punk three piece, that’s for sure. Last May, Paul Weller took to the stage with guitarist Steve Craddock, a smattering of guest vocalists and the BBC Symphony Orchestra to... Read more... |
Album: DJ Harrison - Tales From the Old DominionThursday, 02 December 2021
The Californian label Stones Throw has long specialised in inseparably folding together the most profound and most wilfully foolish Black American music. And that is truer than ever on these 17 tracks from Virginian singer / songwriter / producer /... Read more... |
Album: Deep Throat Choir - In Order To Know YouWednesday, 01 December 2021
Although it’s indirect, the overall feel of In Order To Know You points to where jazz and soul meet – a space analogous to that occupied by The Rotary Connection, Seventies Curtis Mayfield, Neneh Cherry, the early Camille and the warmer end of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Out of the BlueTuesday, 30 November 2021
In an era when toxic masculinity has become a clichéd accusation to throw at any portrait of men behaving macho, it’s fascinating to revisit Dennis Hopper’s 1980 movie Out of the Blue.Years before his performance as the sinister Frank Booth in... Read more... |
Album: Arca - KICK ii / KICK iii / KICK iiiiSaturday, 27 November 2021
Alejandra Ghersi – Arca – is one of the most influential musicians on the planet in the last decade. Even aside from working with huge names like Björk and Kanye West, her ultra-detailed, high drama, electronic abstractions have set the pace for a... Read more... |
Album: Justin Adams & Mauro Durante - Still MovingFriday, 26 November 2021
Adams has long been Robert Plant’s guitarist in bands including the Sensational Space Shifters, as well as working with fellow Space Shifter Juldeh Camara in the band JuJu. He is steeped in American Blues as well as its West African and Desert Blues... Read more... |
