CDs/DVDs
Album: Girlschool - WTFortyfive?Wednesday, 02 August 2023
Despite contemporary cultural zeitgeist fair zingin’ with reappreciation of under-celebrated female artists of previous eras, Girlschool haven’t been much shouted about.This is partly because they’re a metal band. The music media ignores most metal... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Driver's SeatTuesday, 01 August 2023
Liz Taylor’s blowsy late-period persona is finessed to its finest point in this 1974 Muriel Spark adaptation, boldly plugging into the mains of her fragile talent.Lise (Taylor) travels from Hamburg to Rome after a mental breakdown, sporting black... Read more... |
Album: Maria Wilman - Dark HorseMonday, 31 July 2023
Although Dark Horse is Maria Wilman’s first album, it feels as though it’s the latest entry in a string of releases. The songs are fully formed. The delivery is assured. The overall character of what’s heard is cohesive, suggesting the person who... Read more... |
Album: Peter Culshaw - Music from the Temple of LightSaturday, 29 July 2023
Music from the Temple of Light has for its cover image a minimalist 17th century representation of Tantra. In this instance, a deep blue field bordering on black, scored by a golden yellow square, an arrow hanging down from the square’s centre, and... Read more... |
Album: Dexys - The Feminine DivineFriday, 28 July 2023
In 2012 Dexys returned with their fourth album, and first in 27 years, One Day I’m Going to Soar. It was a concept piece, original and funny, chewing over the volatility of love, containing wonderful set-pieces, most especially a trio of songs at... Read more... |
Album: Dot Allison - ConsciousologyThursday, 27 July 2023
This album promises to be an expansion of the sound and ideas of its 2021 predecessor Heart Shaped Scars, and boy does it deliver. HSS was the Scottish singer-songwriter Dot Allison’s first album in some nine years, and only her... Read more... |
Album: Aphex Twin - Blackbox Life Recorder 21fWednesday, 26 July 2023
Blackbox Life Recorder 21f may have been originally touted as a mini-album but, in reality, it’s an EP with four tunes spread over just under a quarter of an hour and one of those is a remix of the title track. However, it is also the first new... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Thamp̄ (The Circus Tent)Tuesday, 25 July 2023
There are scores of films set in and around circuses. Aravindan Govindan’s bewitching Thamp̄ (The Circus Tent) isn’t like any of them, though I was fleetingly reminded of Jacques Tati’s largely plotless Jour de fête – which also opens and closes... Read more... |
Album: Susanna - Baudelaire & OrchestraMonday, 24 July 2023
After his death in 1867, it didn’t take long for Charles Baudelaire’s poems to be set to music. Composer Henri Duparc did so in 1870, but Claude Debussy’s late 1880s framing of five of the Symbolist pioneer’s verses confirmed this as more than a one... Read more... |
Album: Georgia - EuphoricSaturday, 22 July 2023
For someone predominantly poised at her kit, the mononymous music producer’s return is surprisingly devoid of live drums. Daughter of Leftfield cofounder Neil Barnes, Georgia has made a name for herself as the drummer for artists such as Kwes and... Read more... |
Album: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - City of GoldFriday, 21 July 2023
Some country music cosies up as close as possible to pop, in hopes of dragging more listeners in, smoothing away the raw backwoods feel. The most famed exemplar of this route is, of course, Taylor Swift, at least in her early career. Other country... Read more... |
Album: Kaidi Taitham - The Only WayThursday, 20 July 2023
The broken beat movement, centred on West London around the turn of the millennium, wasn’t super press friendly. Its complex rhythms were eclipsed in the populism stakes by its close cousin UK garage, and serious commentators didn’t really know what... Read more... |
