CDs/DVDs
Albums of the Year 2023: Cécile McLorin Salvant - MélusineThursday, 21 December 2023
If Mélusine is encountered without knowing its background or themes it would still be remarkable. There is no need to know anything about what frames this journey through Chanson Française, electronica, jazz and show-tune sensibilities with lyrics... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2023: PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year DyingWednesday, 20 December 2023
PJ Harvey never fails to deliver – much as I hate that over-used word, the go-to assurance from politicians who promise the earth and dump nothing but shit. With Polly Harvey, she reaches into the unknown, true to her creative impulses, and... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2023: Janelle Monáe - The Age of PleasureMonday, 18 December 2023
It was a year of bleak and brutal conflict, ugly and stupid imposition of power, overt Fascism in the mainstream public sphere, decay of infrastructure and apocalyptic weather. So what better than a record of total pleasure? And Janelle Monáe’s... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2023: Lana Del Rabies - Strega BeataSaturday, 16 December 2023
2023 was a year that was best defined for me by some astounding and unanticipated live performances. Iggy Pop for one put on a fine show, that was enhanced by an unexpected brass section, at Crystal Palace on one of the last weekends of glorious... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2023: Kesha - Gag OrderFriday, 15 December 2023
Some years there’s no obvious Album of the Year. 2023 is not such a year. Any one of five albums could have been my choice. I chose Kesha from that esteemed selection because her fifth album bombed commercially, and I want to BIG IT RIGHT UP.The... Read more... |
Album: Tarja - Dark ChristmasWednesday, 13 December 2023
In Finland Tarja Turunen is an institution. There, she’s regarded as a kind of heavy rock-flavoured fusion of Sarah Brightman and Maria Carey. She first came to prominence as the multi-octave singer for symphonic metal kingpins Nightwish but, since... Read more... |
Album: Kate Rusby - Light YearsMonday, 11 December 2023
The regular appearance of Kate Rusby’s folkie Christmas albums have almost become a Yuletide tradition in themselves at this time of the year. 2023’s Light Years being, somewhat incredibly, the seventh in the series.Festive albums are generally, of... Read more... |
Album: Samara Joy - A Joyful HolidaySaturday, 09 December 2023
This six-track EP on Verve/UMG brings the breakthrough year of 2023 for Samara Joy to a neat close. In February she won two Grammys, as Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album for “Linger Awhile”. In July she was Downbeat’s Critics’ Poll’s Rising... Read more... |
Album: Cher - ChristmasFriday, 08 December 2023
I honestly never thought I'd add a Cher song to my painstakingly curated Christmas Spotify playlist. But after listening to the ultimate diva's new album entitled simply, Christmas, as we decorate the tree (much to my children's chagrin –... Read more... |
Album: Gregory Porter - Christmas WishThursday, 07 December 2023
The cat in the hat with the mellifluous voice delivers his Christmas Wish for the festive season, his first Christmas album, and it sounds more or less as you would imagine it – tasteful, discreet, soulful, reined in, but richly expressive, and... Read more... |
Blu-ray: BlackhatWednesday, 06 December 2023
The Boxing Day release of Michael Mann’s first feature in eight years, Ferrari, finally follows up Blackhat, a Chris Hemsworth-starring cyber-thriller dismissed on its 2015 release in a manner he hadn’t experienced since The Keep (1983). This two-... Read more... |
Album: Neil Young - Before and AfterMonday, 04 December 2023
Down memory lane, taking us back some six decades to the Buffalo Springfield, the latest Neil Young album's almost 50 minutes of continuous music, each song segueing into the next.“Songs from my life, recently recorded, create a music montage with... Read more... |
