CDs/DVDs
Album: Rachel Sermanni - Dreamer AwakeTuesday, 19 September 2023
It was more than a decade ago when I first saw Rachel Sermanni in concert, in the upstairs room at The Old Queen’s Head in Islington, London, for a Nest Collective night. She had yet to release her debut, 2012’s Under Mountains, but was already... Read more... |
Blu-Ray: Partie de CampagneMonday, 18 September 2023
Partie de Campagne (1946), while not being one of French cinema giant Jean Renoir’s best-known films, unfinished and just under 40 minutes long, is still regarded as an important if not essential example of the director’s multi-faceted and often... Read more... |
Album: Joshua Redman - Where Are WeSaturday, 16 September 2023
Joshua Redman’s latest album, where are we, marks the jazz saxophonist’s debut on the Blue Note label, after a recording career which now spans just over thirty years and has many high points, not least his eponymous debut on Warner in 1993.When... Read more... |
Album: Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are WeFriday, 15 September 2023
With 2022’s Laurel Hell and Be The Cowboy from 2018, the Japanese-American solo musician Mitski Mayawaki – better known simply as Mitski to all – had refined a massively Eighties influenced, synthesiser led sound.Having combined the invaluable... Read more... |
Album: Ash - Race the NightThursday, 14 September 2023
Northern Irish rockers Ash appeared in the mid-Nineties, channelling The Ramones when the UK was in thrall to either bangin’ club music or Britpop. They had a good commercial run, longer than almost all their contemporaries, mustering 18 Top 40 UK... Read more... |
Album: Corinne Bailey Rae - Black RainbowsWednesday, 13 September 2023
Anyone who is still dismissing Corinne Bailey Rae as a one-hit wonder of easy listening fayre from almost 20 years ago is going to get their preconceptions well and truly shattered by Black Rainbows. Her fine new album is a diverse but coherent... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Three AgesTuesday, 12 September 2023
The Saphead gave Buster Keaton his first starring role in a full-length comedy, but 1923’s Three Ages is the first feature film which he wrote, produced, directed and starred in. Two-reelers were a form where he could go, in his words, “wild and... Read more... |
Album: The Pretenders - RelentlessMonday, 11 September 2023
In a recent interview with The Observer, Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde admitted, “I don’t think of myself as a songwriter or a musician. I feel as if I’m doing my thing, and I’ve got away with it.” With the band’s 12th studio album,... Read more... |
Album: Olivia Rodrigo - GUTSSaturday, 09 September 2023
Much like her pop predecessor Avril Lavigne, musical snobs over the age of 25 are likely to be suspicious of Olivia Rodrigo. As the 2003 BBC review of seminal angst classic Let Go (every millennial woman’s mirror to her teens) posited, ”She’s only... Read more... |
Album: The Chemical Brothers - For That Beautiful FeelingFriday, 08 September 2023
The Chemical Brothers are unstoppable. Their live shows are a guaranteed monster good time, redolent of proper old-school rave-ups, but with visual tech from some freaky eye-boggling future. Their last album, 2019’s No Geography, was a total belter... Read more... |
Album: James Blake - Playing Robots Into HeavenThursday, 07 September 2023
Today James Blake is perhaps more known as super-producer to the stars than post-dubstep innovator. His collaborations with Beyoncé and Travis Scott have perhaps overshadowed his EPs on R&S Records. His two previous albums, 2019’s Assume Form... Read more... |
Album: Kristin Hersh - Clear Pond RoadWednesday, 06 September 2023
Kristin Hersh’s voice, it transpires, is ageless. In the 80s when Throwing Muses broke through, she hit a particular combination of tones – blurring boundaries between harsh and smooth, melodic and discordant, trad and weird – that became vastly... Read more... |
