CDs/DVDs
Kieron Tyler
Transangelic Exodus is a roller-coaster ride. Songs twist, turn, have sudden shifts in tempo, are punctuated by unexpected instrumental interjections, and come to a dead stop after which they resume their unpredictable course. Although Ezra Furman's musical touchstones of late Fifties pop and The Modern Lovers are still apparent, the follow-up to 2015’s Perpetual Motion People comes across as nothing less than a vigorously shaken-and-stirred take on pre-Born in the USA Bruce Springsteen.Furman says the narrative thread running through the frenzied Transangelic Exodus is his being “in Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
What a gallimaufry! The polymath Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the most prolific, obsessed and best-known artists in the history; in fact, without qualification, he remains the best-known, for his genius, his mastery of so many media, his public personal life. Not to mention the four museums, the thousands of books and catalogues, the auction records, and the posthumous marketing of his name (both authorised and not) from the Citroen Picasso to coffee mugs. The Mystery of Picasso, remastered for this Arrow Academy release, is Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1956 film of Picasso drawing (Clouzot, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Rae Morris, a singer from Blackpool, has shinned up the slippery pop biz tree the modern, major label, mainstream way; ultra-managed, co-writes with Clean Bandit, support slots with George Ezra and Tom Odell, vocal collaborations with Bombay Bicycle Club, slow careful “development”. It’s plain old vocational training, really. In terms of raw, gutter-to-the-stars excitement, her career emanates the dizzy appeal of a dentist’s apprenticeship in Dorking. It is to her credit, then, that a good helping of actual character escapes onto her second album, alongside a few decent songs and one absolute Read more ...
Guy Oddy
It’s hard to be sure if Rakal, Bella and Alice from Dream Wife are a rock’n’roll band or a girl gang with guitars. Either way, their debut album has got some cracking Riot Grrrl-flavoured tunes and a stridently feminist, in-your-face attitude. There is nothing demure about this trio and they really don’t care what your thoughts on that might be.Like Blondie on rocket fuel or Bikini Kill with better songs, Dream Wife is a set of thrilling tunes of raw guitar from Alice Go and the harpy-like vocals Rakel Mjöll. “Hey Heartbreaker” comes on like turbo-powered glam rock and a kick in the nuts, Read more ...
Saskia Baron
It’s fascinating to compare this Norwegian film, which despite being Oscar-nominated (it made the Best Foreign Film shortlist of nine, but not the final five) has slipped out without a cinema release in the UK, with Darkest Hour. Set over a crucial few days in April 1940, it’s a parallel story of powerful personalities and their personal and political dilemmas in the face of Germany’s invasion of Europe. But the parallels don’t extend to directorial style; where Joe Wright opted for overly artful set pieces and CGI flourishes in Darkest Hour, for The King’s Choice Erik Poppe adheres to the Read more ...
Russ Coffey
One complaint often made about contemporary music is it's either too worthy or too bland. Not Saxon. The vintage rockers have been around for 40 years and their latest effort is as red-blooded and full-fat as ever. Vocals screech and guitars crunch with machine-like force. Most importantly, Biff and the boys still know how to excite your inner 14-year-old.Like much classic metal, Thunderbolt eschews the grim tedium of everyday existence while remaining faithful to the band's working-class roots. As such, there's a strange emotional substance to the album's other-worldly lyrics Read more ...
Barney Harsent
With the possible exception of Talking Heads, I can’t think of another band who had such an exceptional run of early albums as Simple Minds. After a promising but uneven debut, they released Real to Real Cacophony in 1979 and barely put a foot wrong for five (some might argue six) albums.Big Music (2014) was a knowing look over a shoulder; a direct reference to the stark electronic thrum of their early albums, and one which largely eschewed the later stadium pomp. In doing so, it was open to accusations of mannered pastiche – some thought it an odd choice for a band that had once set so much Read more ...
Owen Richards
Daphne, the independent feature debut from director Peter Mackie Burns, was released to little fanfare last year, a fact somewhat emphasised by the other films advertised on its DVD release – Moonlight and Lady Macbeth – more lauded releases from distributor Altitude Films. Even the special features fail to commemorate anything but the trailer. But don’t be fooled; Daphne is a hidden gem of British humanist filmmaking.Daphne is a 31-year-old with no direction and very little regard for her wellbeing. Her intelligence and wit give her a magnetism, but it’s soon clear that she’s a useless Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's something oddly innocent, gauche even, about the US-based Anglo-Finnish trance trio Above & Beyond. They are almost implausibly huge – their weekly radio show, called "Group Therapy" after their 2011 second album, has some 25 million listeners, and polls consistently rank them among the most popular DJs in the world. Yet in a global scene dedicated by oafish American EDM bros and Dutch and Scandi DJs engaged in an arms race with said bros to achieve maximum empty audiovisual bang-per-buck – ultimately approaching something resembling something vaguely totalitarian in its Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
On paper Django Django seem a perfect band. The four-piece, half Scottish, quarter English, quarter Northern Irish, boast an indie songwriting sensibility, but filtered through a natural pop suss, an engaging sense of psychedelia, a desire to rave it up, and a ripe capacity for harmonisation. Their third album is fat with melody and interest, right from its ballistic opening title track, yet in the end, why is it eminently likeable rather than loveable?See, I keep trying to have a love affair with Django Django’s music. Their last album, Born Under Saturn (2015), sounds luscious but in the Read more ...
graham.rickson
Adapted by Raymond Briggs from his best-selling graphic novel, When the Wind Blows was released in 1986 and stands up so well that you’re inclined to forgive its flaws: namely David Bowie’s leaden theme song and an abundance of fairly flat black humour. Though, in hindsight, Jimmy T Murakami’s deadpan, quasi-realist look at nuclear Armageddon as it befalls an elderly working class British couple shouldn’t be amusing.As with all the best animated features, the storytelling grips to the extent that you forget that you’re not watching a flesh-and-blood cast. Not that there’s much story, other Read more ...
Russ Coffey
The Time is Now sees Craig David's career well into its Indian summer. The story of how he got here is well known: back in the early noughties a series of hits like "7 Days" made him the toast of the UK Garage scene. Then comedian Leigh "Bo' Selecta " Francis turned David into a figure of fun. The singer relocated to Miami to become a club DJ. Finally, he returned to the UK and released the Number One album, Following My Intuition.It wasn't just the latter's sales figures that were impressive. Over the past two years, David has also picked up a MOBO and filled London's 02 arena Read more ...