CDs/DVDs
Thomas H. Green
Since it’s Christmas time and everyone’s in office party mode, here’s the pub chat verdict on The Conjuring: “It’s that bloke who did Saw, starts off a bit naff, then gets quite scary for a bit, but blows it in the end. You getting them in? Mine’s a pint of Cobra. What? No, they always boil all the alcohol out of mulled wine in pubs, but I’ll have a port, if you’re buying. Yeah, there are a couple of bits that make you jump, like when this zombie-witch thing leaps off a wardrobe but it’s not as scary as the trailer made it look. Cheers! No, I’ll sip the port, not down it in one, thanks.” Read more ...
Matthew Wright
The Sons of Kemet’s peculiar forces of two drummers, tuba and reeds have been on the road for over two years now, their performances landing on an unsuspecting crowd like a petrol bomb on seasoned timber. With the tuba playing as part of both the rhythm and horn sections, the Sons can deploy both massive rhythmic firepower and potent melodic edge. It’s an intense and compelling sound, exploring the triangular musical dialogue between North and West Africa, the Caribbean, and New Orleans, in a musical language primed with exploding dance hooks and entwined with spiralling North African melody Read more ...
joe.muggs
It's an understatement to say that the massive revival of fortunes of club music in the 2010s has had its ups and downs. It's been a time of chaotic glut, of excess and spectacle – thanks particularly to the American “EDM” (electronic dance music) wave, which has seen egos, assholery and unnecessary fireworks that make the 90s UK superstar DJ era seem like a gentle Sunday afternoon stroll in the park – but also of diversification and fertility. And one particularly interesting phenomenon has been musicians who've picked up certain threads which the diminished scenes of the 1990s had left off. Read more ...
Katie Colombus
It’s very unusual to hear ballet dancers talk. The extent of ballerina acting is normally a flamboyant point at a ring finger to announce a wedding, dramatically wiping away tears to express sadness or furrowing a heavily pencilled brow to portray anger. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to see that the two ballet dancers employed for the main parts - soloist Cindy Jourdain, formerly of the Royal Ballet, and Arionel Vargas, principal dancer with the English National Ballet – can manage the theatrics as well as they do in this sweet little independent film, directed by Christopher Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
In the right circles, Jason Isbell already has enough of a reputation as one of contemporary Americana’s finest songwriters - both solo and as part of the Drive-By Truckers - that for him to drop an album as subtly stunning as Southeastern shouldn’t really have been a surprise. But what edged this album - the songwriter’s fourth either under his own name or alongside his band the 400 Unit - above The Julie Ruin’s Run Fast in my choice of best of 2013 was its consistency. While previous Isbell albums have featured some of my go-to, favourite-ever songs, the sucker punches were usually held Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s ironic that the album which has invited itself back onto the turntable more often than any other this year is wholly redolent of another time and place: the California of the early Seventies. Whatever the shortcomings of his live performance, on his second album Fanfare Jonathan Wilson fashioned a dense, atmospheric whole whose constituent ingredients were explicitly acknowledged – and not just by the identity of those guesting on the album. But it was also wholly original and showcased a unique yet disconcertingly familiar voice. And it revealed more and more depth with repeated visits Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: German Measles Vol 1 – Flames of Love / German Measles Vol 2 – Sun Came Out at SevenFor the years between The Beatles inventing themselves in the clubs of Hamburg and the evolution of what was dubbed Krautrock, Germany’s popular music scene hasn’t gained much of an international profile subsequently. It’s understandable, but a pity. Just as the Fabs inspired countless wannabe beatsters in Liverpool and beyond in Britain, they did the same in the country which had as great a hand in their training as the UK. The two German Measles albums don’t dwell on local stars like Read more ...
joe.muggs
There's something about the partnership of Vince Clarke and Andy Bell that seems to automatically generate sweetness. This collection of half originals and half Christmas classics is really quite dark, quite a bitter look at winter and the Christmas spirit – but somehow, Clarke's fizzing synth work and Bell's ever-distinctive voice give it all a sugar frosting, just like pretty much all of their work.But then that's been their strength and downfall throughout their existence. The longest running of Clarke's musical partnerships, Erasure never seemed to ever quite get the critical kudos of Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney perhaps hoped their Lone Ranger reboot, replete with hamming Captain Jack Tonto at its heart, would be a draw in the league of director Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean series. They were gravely mistaken. The kids don’t like cowboys, something Hollywood should have gauged after the resounding flop that was Cowboys & Aliens. Grown-ups however, do still enjoy the Wild West, it seems, as the age bracket drawn to the cinema by The Lone Ranger was often higher than expected. Maybe these were parents and grandparents seeking innocent, old-fashioned Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Few were surprised this week, when Susan Boyle revealed she had been diagnosed with Asperger’s. Some used this knowledge as an opportunity to have another go at Simon Cowell's and his role in putting her in the spotlight. But the brittleness so apparent in Boyle’s inter-personal interactions also reflects the problems many perceive in her style of music. For instance why, instead of making you feel fuzzy and warm, Home for Christmas simply leaves you feeling a little uncomfortable.Christmas songs should make you want to invite the artist over for the holidays. That's true of Mariah Carey, Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Special Dialogue is a frothy, lunchtime news-and-chat programme on Indonesia's national television channel. One day – not a special day – its bubbly female anchor hosted three older men. One was called Anwar Congo. She smilingly introduces them by saying “Anwar and his friends developed a new, more efficient system for exterminating communists. It was more humane, less sadistic and avoided excessive violence.” It’s one chilling moment amongst many in a powerful film.Congo (pictured below right) was an executioner for the Suharto regime which took power in 1965. Before turning to contracted- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Neil Young: Live at the Cellar DoorCrosby, Stills, Nash & Young had fallen apart in summer 1970 and Neil Young was left to promote After the Gold Rush, his third solo album from August that year. He hit the road on his own after "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" had nudged the singles’s chart. As 1971 unfolded, the tour would be billed Journey Through the Past – he was playing recent songs alongside material from his earlier albums, including those made with The Buffalo Springfield.Live at the Cellar Door catches Young in Washington D.C during a series of dates over 30 November to 2 Read more ...