CDs/DVDs
Russ Coffey
Over the years Weezer’s greatest skill has surely been to stimulate the inner schoolboy in us. Who, for instance, could deny hits like “Beverley Hills” paint a charming and cheeky picture of being young and nerdy? The thing is, though, Rivers Cuomo and friends are now in their forties with little sign of growing up. How then should they continue? The press release says that Everything will Be Alright in the End is more “complex and layered”. But unfortunately it sounds like a paler version of business as usual. Only the lead single “Back to the Shack” reasonably Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Black Widow: SacrificeIt wasn’t John Lennon’s fault, but things weren’t the same after the “bigger than Jesus” scandal of 1966. Pop music had been connected to religion in a way slightly edgier than Cliff Richard or the Salvation Army's The Joystrings' happy celebrations in song. The doors were now open to a darker take on faith.The Rolling Stones waxed about evil in 1968’s “Sympathy for the Devil”. The B-side of the same year’s “Jumpin' Jack Flash" was "Child of the Moon", which referenced Aleister Crowley’s magical novel Moonchild. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s “Fire”, with its “ Read more ...
Joe Muggs
The last thing I remember of my 40th birthday party this year is propping up a bar with a few similarly middle-aged men, discussing whether Kate Bush's comeback shows were as worth getting excited about as Prince's recent comeback shows. It was most enjoyable, and – I feel – age-appropriate, to boot, but somewhere among the slurred repetitions there was the kernel of something serious about music fandom, especially as you and your favourite artists grow older.Particularly with musicians as totally individualist as Kate Bush and Prince, there is a strange combination of gambling and religious Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Art-student rock sounds like a terribly dated concept, but listening to This Is All Yours for the first time, it suddenly feels very relevant. This is music of the broadest cultural horizons, that takes in global influences, but can’t resist the desire to shock, sometimes just for the sake of it.There are warm, folksy songs like “Warm Foothills”, piano and acoustic guitar and strings dancing around lyrics of touching sensuousness, alongside an eerie, electro-tinged folk hymn, “The Gospel of John Hurt”, about the actor with an alien bursting from his stomach. The touchingly obtuse falsetto Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The Vaselines were originally one of a slew of bands that came out of the mid- to late-80s’ Shambling/C86 scene. Characterised by low production values and low commercial expectations, their Dum-Dum album and a couple of EPs made little impression on Planet Pop and the band split. Then along came Kurt Cobain – who declared the band’s mainstays, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, his “favourite songwriters in the whole world” and recorded three of their songs with Nirvana. Kelly and McKee’s songwriting royalties swelled accordingly and, after a couple of false starts, the Vaselines finally Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
There was a time, around 25 years ago, when Inspiral Carpets’ psyche-eyed cow logo, accompanied by the motto “Cool as Fuck”, was ubiquitous on tee-shirts. Along with the Charlatans, they represented the second tier of the “Madchester” movement, trailing behind Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses. Unlike the preposterously revered Roses, however, Inspiral Carpets’ music has drifted out of the radio-played heritage rock canon.This is a shame. Inspiral Carpets touted a rather different sound from Manchester’s slew of “baggy” also-rans. Not for them a pastiche of Clyde Stubblefield’s “Funky Drummer Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The name of Czech director Karel Zeman is far less-known in the English-speaking world than it deserves to be. He began working during World War Two, establishing a name for himself in the rich Czech animation school (and proving a later influence on that movement’s master, Jan Švankmajer), and thus is a decade or two earlier than that country’s celebrated New Wave cinema movement of the 1960s. His later work often combined animation with the feature format in distinctive, and different way: among his fans is Terry Gilliam, who has acknowledged Zeman’s influence, especially in his treatment Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Though advertised as a heartfelt and autobiographical work, U2's 13th studio album tells you far more about the state of the music industry than it does about the intimate inner stories of the musicians. Tying the album release to the launch of Apple's iPhone 6 merely reinforced the view that U2 is no longer a band, more an offshore corporation, and was bound to strike many people as a desperate ploy from an outfit struggling to stay meaningful. Humiliatingly, many iTunes users have been so enraged by finding Songs of Innocence landing uninvited in their libraries that Apple have had to Read more ...
Mark Kidel
Leonard Cohen has always been, first and foremost, a poet. His thoroughly grounded mix of Vedanta, Zen and Jewish mysticism places him in a class apart. He is both rabbinical high priest and consummate entertainer. As he’s never traded on borrowed African-American sex-and-swagger or matinée idol charisma, age hasn’t made him in any way ridiculous. He carries his gravitas lightly, not least because his deft way with words keeps us delicately poised between revelation and unknowing.From the seductive drag of “Slow”, Cohen’s call to deceleration, to the redemptive Hallelujah call of “You Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sun Ra and his Arkestra: In the Orbit of RaUp till his death in 1993, the space-fixated jazz bandleader, composer, musician and visionary born Herman Blount had issued around 117 albums, about 46 of which were live sets. Trying to pin down exact numbers with Sun Ra is unrealistic. Some albums repeated material from previous releases. Others were re-recordings or re-titlings. Since his passing there has been an outpouring of collections of previously shelved studio material, more live offerings and reissues on CD and vinyl. Getting to grips with this monumental catalogue is close-to Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Even if this album were dull, which it is far from, Aphex Twin Richard D James’ return would be welcome. Although he’s only a pop star in the loosest sense, his return via the “dark web” and a nonsensical press release reminds that he’s the eternal prankster, subverting the increasingly staid music biz game.Happily, his career has also lived up to his obtuse anti-hype with game-changing output such as “Analogue Bubblebath” (1991), Selected Ambient Works 85-92 “Quoth” (as Polygon Window, 1993) and the extraordinary “Windowlicker” in 1999 (both the tune and Chris Cunningham’s demented video). Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
Do not miss this film. I don’t say it lightly. Even on the small screen, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch's Cannes Palme d'Or nominee is a warm love story, no, a cool vampire tale, no, a wry comedy, no, all of these things in Only Lovers Left Alive. Stealing the title from David Wallis' 1964 science fiction book, this is an adaptation of Mark Twain’s satire The Diaries of Adam and Eve for the undead, and the casting couldn't be better. It's a film of mood and wit, of profundity and imagination: watching Only Lovers Left Alive will put you in a delicious mood.Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play Read more ...