CDs/DVDs
Blu-ray: TargetsTuesday, 03 October 2023
Targets (1968), Peter Bogdanovich’s first feature is generally regarded as a great film. And yet, it came out of a mixture of false starts and opportunism. Could it be that its unique quality, the elements which make it stand out in the history of... Read more... |
Album: Sufjan Stevens - JavelinMonday, 02 October 2023
Sufjan Stevens, so we’ve heard, has just been struck down with a rare and immobilising disease – the Guillain-Barré syndrome. With characteristic courage and faith, he has thrown himself into physical rehabilitation. That he should be so reduced and... Read more... |
Album: Ed Sheeran - Autumn VariationsSaturday, 30 September 2023
Towering drums, seering and furious guitars, vocals that are powerful and often throat-scorching; metal, hard rock, and all their intertwining sub-genres are by far the ones that fit most naturally for this writer. It may be a surprise then to be... Read more... |
Album: Jorja Smith - Falling or FlyingFriday, 29 September 2023
Jorja Smith said she named her new album Falling or Flying to describe the uncertainty she’s felt about her career following the success of her debut, the Mercury Prize nominated Lost & Found. Would her career fall to earth or keep flying higher... Read more... |
Album: Oneohtrix Point Never - AgainThursday, 28 September 2023
The music of Daniel Lopatin – AKA Oneohtrix Point Never – exists at the sonic/electronic vanguard. Were the likes of avant-gardists such as Iannis Xenakis, George Antheil and Edgard Varese around today, maybe even Stockhausen, they might dig... Read more... |
Album: Steven Wilson - The Harmony CodexWednesday, 27 September 2023
Steven Wilson has merged various genres – metal, shoegaze, pop, dance, jazz – in his solo career without shrugging off the prog label he considers reductive. He hasn’t exactly jettisoned it with his seventh album The Harmony Codex, a collection of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Gregory's GirlTuesday, 26 September 2023
Gregory’s Girl stands alongside Kes as one of the few films offering a realistic depiction of state school life. Director Bill Forsyth’s surreal flourishes delight without getting in the way: think of the penguin waddling along the corridors, or the... Read more... |
Album: Doja Cat - ScarletMonday, 25 September 2023
It felt inevitable that Doja Cat would turn her back on being a popstar. The Californian rapper’s career has been shaped by her ambivalent relationship to fame and earlier this year she went as far as denouncing her previous albums as “mediocre pop... Read more... |
Album: Animal Collective - Isn't It Now?Saturday, 23 September 2023
Animal Collective have been putting out albums of off-kilter and whimsical psychedelic pop, in various guises, for over 20 years. And while their 12th album together doesn’t exactly rock the boat and bring on a major stylistic change, it’s not... Read more... |
Album: Kylie Minogue - TensionFriday, 22 September 2023
Two years after the release of her rather flaccid Disco album and five since her somewhat inadvisable foray into country-ish music, 2023 has seen something of a return to form for Kylie Minogue. First there was this summer’s all-conquering single, “... Read more... |
Album: Devendra Banhart - Flying WigThursday, 21 September 2023
Had Devendra Banhart been born between 1940 and 1950, he’d likely be a household name. His output – very loosely – sits between Cat Stevens, Syd Barrett and Richie Havens, studded with a greatness not widely acknowledged. He had a spell around 15-20... Read more... |
Album: Teenage Fanclub - Nothing Lasts ForeverWednesday, 20 September 2023
Nothing Lasts Forever opens with a drone, a weightless prologue of guitar feedback evoking the initial moments of the Buffalo Springfield’s “Everydays,” written by Stephen Stills and heard on his band’s 1967 second album Again. Teenage Fanclub’s... Read more... |
