CDs/DVDs
Album: Gogol Bordello - SolidaritineWednesday, 14 September 2022
If anyone was going to produce a raucous musical response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it was always likely to be Gogol Bordello. After all, the band has both Ukrainian and Russian members (among other nationalities), they have a... Read more... |
Album: Suede - AutofictionTuesday, 13 September 2022
Suede were both prototypes and outliers of the Britpop pack, and their 2010 reunion managed a rare, creatively substantial second act; given their resurrection after guitarist Bernard Butler’s fractious 1994 exit, this may even be the band’s epic,... Read more... |
Album: Star Feminine Band - In ParisSaturday, 10 September 2022
The Star Feminine Band are from Benin, all of them under 18, the youngest only 12. They hail from a village in the north of their small country tucked between Togo and Nigeria. Their pop-inflected mix of high life, Congolese rhumba and other trans-... Read more... |
Album: Santigold - SpiritualsFriday, 09 September 2022
Those talented internationally-renowned musicians are just like the rest of us, you know? They had a rubbish time during lockdown too – turns out it was the great leveller after all. Santigold’s latest album (her sixth, the first for four years) is... Read more... |
Album: Parkway Drive - Darker StillWednesday, 07 September 2022
Away from the spotlight of mainstream music the metal scene thrives, unbothered with how much attention it picks up. When bands like Architects reach number one in the UK charts, it is huge, but unimportant. Instead the scene is preoccupied with its... Read more... |
Album: Ozzy Osbourne - Patient Number 9Monday, 05 September 2022
Is Ozzy Osbourne finally over the hill and ready to knock this rock’n’roll thing on the head? It’s a question that has been asked many times since he was unceremoniously dumped by Black Sabbath in 1979.Ozzy seems physically and artistically... Read more... |
Album: The Afghan Whigs - How Do You Burn?Saturday, 03 September 2022
Hedonism and romance still drive Greg Dulli’s rock’n’roll on his main band’s ninth album.Relationship traumas have always simmered just beneath the Whigs’ surface, most notably on Gentlemen’s 1993 autopsy of an affair. Whatever the real life... Read more... |
Album: Julian Lennon - JudeFriday, 02 September 2022
Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, there’s no way for Julian Lennon to escape the longest of shadows – his parentage – so by naming this album Jude, he’s tackling it head on. Or is he? The haunting cover image and name are the only direct... Read more... |
Album: Tom Chaplin - MidpointThursday, 01 September 2022
Travis, Coldplay, Haven, Elbow, Snow Patrol, Aqualung, Embrace, Starsailor, Turin Brakes, Athlete, Elbow, Doves… and of course Keane. The turn of the millennium deluge of sincere young men opening up their feelings to the world, their voices... Read more... |
Album: Two Door Cinema Club - Keep On SmilingWednesday, 31 August 2022
Three and a half years on from 2019’s False Alarm, Keep On Smiling comes album number five from Northern Ireland trio, Two Door Cinema Club. Known for having more bounce to the ounce than your average band, their brand of guitar-flecked electro pop... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Desire / All My Good Countrymen - Two films by Vojtěch JasnýTuesday, 30 August 2022
Hailed by Miloš Forman as “the spiritual father of the Czech New Wave”, Czech film director Vojtěch Jasný’s long career began in the early 1950s and spanned five decades. All My Good Countrymen (Všichni dobří rodáci), based on a screenplay... Read more... |
Album: Julia Hülsmann Quartet - The Next DoorMonday, 29 August 2022
Not every musician has friends in high places in quite the way German jazz pianist and composer Julia Hülsmann does these days.A few weeks ago she played a private concert at the invitation of the German Head of State. Bundespräsident Frank-Walter... Read more... |
