CDs/DVDs
David Nice
Lukas Moodysson caught the miseries and splendours of kids on the cusp of teendom in an early gem, Together (Tillsammans), but there they made up only one strand in the general trajectory of trouble to triumph. That difficult theme of very early adolescence, so easy to parody, so hard to keep truly affectionate, is the entire domain of We Are the Best!Maybe it partly rings true because the tale of first two, then three spirited girls embracing punk at the end of its natural life in 1982 is also the true story of Moodyson’s wife Coco, who novelized her early angsts and exuberance. But it Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Wire: Document and EyewitnessEven when taking account of the elasticity brought by punk splintering into the myriads of left turns, new directions and dead ends of what became post-punk, the trajectory of Wire was eccentric. Document and Eyewitness was the final and fourth album they issued before their reformation in 1985, having first split up in 1980. Ostensibly a live album, Document and Eyewitness captures Wire’s final show, on 29 February 1980, at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. It was an evening which continued what they had begun during a residency at The Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre Read more ...
joe.muggs
The Fence Collective – originally a group of mates coming together to sing in a pub in Fife – has given the world an extraordinary roll-call of exceedingly durable singer-songwriter talent. The likes of the Anderson brothers Kenny, Ian and Gordon (aka King Creosote, Pip Dylan and Beta Band / Aliens member Lone Pigeon respectively), Johnny “The Pictish Trail” Lynch and a host of others have released such a vast catalogue of albums laced with intelligent eccentricity, intense emotion and gentle Scots vernacular that it's hard to know where to start with them.One excellent starting point for the Read more ...
Russ Coffey
She's never liked labels, but this time round Anja McCloskey’s categorisation as “alternative folk” really seems misleading. Sure, there may still be the prominent use of accordion and her unusual voice, but now the 22-year-old seems only incidentally eccentric. Indeed, the overriding sense from Quincy Who Waits – a dreamy, phantasmagoria of sound – is that the singer from Iowa really just wants to entertain.The album builds on the her debut, An Estimation, whose 19th century central European feel delighted many critics and invited comparisons to The Mummers Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Fantastic is the only word for The Changes. Fantastic as in fantasy, and fantastic because it's a television drama that's brilliantly conceived and impeccably executed – and also because it tackles issues of social cohesion and fragmentation head-on without using a sledgehammer. Broadcast by the BBC in 1975, The Changes was a ten-part series adapting Peter Dickinson's trilogy of novels The Weathermonger, Heartsease and The Devil's Children.The series tells how a sudden, inexplicable change transforms British society. Made with serious intent, it was for children and broadcast in a tea- Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
I feel as though most recording artists are missing a trick when it comes to seasonal albums. Although the market for Christmas albums is - as we demonstrate here on theartsdesk annually - a growth one, there are thousands of themes out there waiting to be explored. Easter. Eid. That one Wednesday in July when the weather in Glasgow rivals that of the Med and you can only watch in envy from your office window. For her second album, Finnish singer-songwriter Mirel Wagner has produced something not unlike a Halloween album. Not the Halloween of popular culture, cutesy with cartoon ghouls and Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Morton Valence are a band that have “cult” written all over them, one to be adored by literate sorts and bedsit weirdos (and Plan B, apparently). They’re a five-piece from London who write story-songs that are as poetic as they are mordant and spiced with detail and humour. Their third album is a treat, once again, dealing out tunes with novelistic detail and authorial pith, but since we appear to currently value singer-songwriters who lyrically major in lame mood verbage, who knows whether Morton Valence will gain any more commercial purchase.The album opens with the near eight-minute “The Read more ...
graham.rickson
Director David Mackenzie tells us in this disc’s extras that Starred Up is his first genre film, and Fox’s low-rent sleeve art suggests that this could be another dreary, thuggish Britflick. The prison drama clichés come thick and fast, from the hard-nosed governor to the attack in the shower block. There’s a well-meaning outsider helping prisoners deal with anger issues, copious, bloody violence and a sweaty gym scene.So it's good to report that Starred Up is a remarkable film, superbly acted and cannily scripted by Jonathan Asser, basing the screenplay on his own stint teaching prisoners. Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Cats on Trees are a roaring success in their native France. The Toulouse-based duo Nina Goern and Yohan Hennequin hit the Top 10 there with this, their eponymous debut album and racked up gold-disc sales. Live, Goern plays piano and sings while Hennequin drums. On record though, things are much grander, with orchestration and a sonorous, stadium-sized production.It follows then that as Goern sings in English, the album is ripe for releasing to the British market. Columbia Records might think Cats on Trees could have the impact of Gallic sensations Daft Punk or Phoenix over here, but it seems Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: Front Line – Sounds of RealityA month after The Sex Pistols sighed their last in San Francisco in January 1978, their label boss Richard Branson flew ex-frontman John Lydon and his entourage to Jamaica. Sid Vicious would hurtle towards oblivion while fellow former Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones headed to Brazil to trash their legacy by larking with on-the-lam criminal Ronald Biggs. Lydon’s mission was to scout talent for Branson’s new reggae imprint, the Virgin subsidiary Front Line.Front Line was launched in March 1978. Over its less-than two-year lifespan, it Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It’s been that long since the Gaslight Anthem could be called a punk band with any sort of seriousness that a good half of the crowd at their last round of UK shows would have balked at the notion. But it leaves the critic/fan with something of a dilemma: how to marry a continued love of the band with a loathing for the Killer Kings of Leon-style stadium rockers that recent releases have drawn comparisons to? The answer comes in those throwaway lines of frontman Brian Fallon; the sort that written down look like the worst sort of rock ’n’ roll cliché but which, combined with just the right Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Geoff Dyer’s book on jazz But Beautiful predicted the future of jazz would come from places like North Africa and this is a perfect example. Southern Morocco has become a hothouse of cultural fusion, partly due the number of foreign musicians playing and working with Moroccans at the huge Gnawa and Timitar festivals. This is one of the best attempts and came about after top Brazilian jazz pianist Benjamin Taubkin was asked to appear at the Timitar Festival in Agadir and became fascinated by the local music.The result is not an attempt at a 50/50 split between Morocco and Brazil – you won’t Read more ...