CDs/DVDs
Album: Saint Etienne - I’ve Been Trying To Tell YouFriday, 27 August 2021
Rather than being retrospective, I’ve Been Trying To Tell You is about retrospection. The distinction is crucial as Saint Etienne’s follow-up to 2017’s Home Counties arrives 30 years on – to the month – from their debut, 1991’s Foxbase Alpha. Their... Read more... |
Album: Toyah - Posh PopWednesday, 25 August 2021
Toyah, always a one-off, has been a surprise star of the COVID-19 lockdowns. Her YouTube Sunday Lunches, kitchen-filmed cover versions with her husband, King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, have been celebratory shared moments, jaunty, unlikely, silly,... Read more... |
Album: The Bug - FireMonday, 23 August 2021
There’s now been a fair amount of music produced in reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic and most of it has contained at least a suggestion of hope for the future. The Bug’s new album? Not so much.Fire – the third record in a triptych that began with... Read more... |
Album: Kurupt FM - The Greatest Hits (Part 1)Thursday, 19 August 2021
People Just Do Nothing is a mockumentary BBC TV series, now ended, about fictional Brentford pirate radio crew Kurupt FM. It’s also a comedy based entirely on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, in that the humour derives from the worldview of all the key... Read more... |
Album: Shaun Ryder - Visits from Future TechnologyWednesday, 18 August 2021
For a man who didn’t know the alphabet until the age of 28 (apocryphally – it was probably 26), Ryder’s lyrical dexterity is remarkable. He only discovered that he had ADHD and dyslexia at the age of 40, having been addicted to heroin for 20 years... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The PawnbrokerTuesday, 17 August 2021
The shadow of the Holocaust and the horror of the camps haunts literature and the cinema: from The Reader to The Night Porter, from Schindler’s List to Son of Saul. For some, the subject was beyond authentic representation – and perhaps only a... Read more... |
Album: Alabama 3 - Step 13Monday, 16 August 2021
It’s almost 25 years since Alabama 3 unleashed their “sweet, pretty country acid house gospel music” on an unsuspecting world with Exile on Coldharbour Lane – one of the finest records of the late 20th Century. 12 albums later and with their first... Read more... |
Album: Standing in the Doorway - Chrissie Hynde Sings Bob DylanSaturday, 14 August 2021
The release into a world in lockdown of Bob Dylan’s first original album in almost a decade caught everyone by surprise last year. Rough and Rowdy Ways drew widespread and universal praise. Its coming was heralded by a single, “Murder Most Foul”, a... Read more... |
Album: Maarja Nuut - HingedFriday, 13 August 2021
Hinged ends with “Moment,” a vaporous mood piece where a reflective voice lightly floats over and weaves between two, three-note keyboard arpeggios, occasional Gamelan-style percussive interjections and odd bubbling sounds. “Moment of clarity” are... Read more... |
Album: Jungle - Loving in StereoThursday, 12 August 2021
The UK is currently in the middle of a jazz, funk and soul renaissance. Homegrown, grassroots talent is producing an abundance of glorious music both retro and forward facing, in a way not seen since the combined influence of Soul II Soul and the... Read more... |
Album: Patricia Barber - CliqueWednesday, 11 August 2021
Do we undervalue artists who are just consistently good... who know what it is that they do exceptionally well? Singer/pianist Patricia Barber sings and plays songs her own thoughtful way. She and her regular band have a Monday night residency at... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Running Against the WindTuesday, 10 August 2021
There’s much to enjoy in Running Against the Wind: Jan Philipp Weyl’s contemporary Ethiopian epic is a visual treat, with excellent performances from its two young leads. And how often do we get to see a film in Amharic with English subtitles?We... Read more... |
