CDs/DVDs
bruce.dessau
Sympathy vote time is over. After Edwyn Collins suffered two cerebral haemorrhages in 2005 his comeback album, 2007’s Losing Sleep, was greeted with ecstatic reviews. It was a certainly pretty good, but maybe critics, being the old softies we are at heart, were slightly swayed by our unbridled joy at the fact that the former Orange Juice frontman was simply back in the game. So the new album, Understated, is the real test of whether Collins can still cut the musical mustard.The verdict was hardly ever in doubt. From the opening Northern Soul stomp of "Dilemma" to the unashamedly sentimental Read more ...
mark.kidel
Unlike the Rai masters Khaled and Mami, who grew up in Algeria and are slightly uncomfortable with the audience-winning slide into rock, Rachid Taha is a beur, a North African born in France, raised on punk but with a thorough knowledge of his heritage: for him, music has always combined partying with political protest, fuelled by the righteous frustration of the second generation immigrant.On stage, Taha is an erratic performer: some of his gigs are magical invocations in which supercharged rock energy meets the complex rhythms of the Maghreb, and the singer darts around the stage displaying Read more ...
Jasper Rees
When Tess was released in 1979 much was made of the fact that Hardy’s western England had become Polanski’s northern France. Also, that he had cast a German actress in the title role with a wobbly Wessex burr. All these years on, Nastassja Kinksi’s performance looks as ravishing as ever, and doesn’t sound too bad either. An extra layer of otherness is added to her portrayal of a beautiful young country girl passively buffeted by fate – and seduced, possibly raped by a powerful male - with the recent revelation that her father Klaus Kinski abused her half-sister and tried it on with her too. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
To the left of the electronic pop that dominates radio and the charts sits music which is that bit artier, emanating more class, imagination and sonic inventiveness. Think SBTRKT, Jessie Ware, Frank Ocean or Aluna George. Far, far to the left of that, then, out in a smeared alt-reality where Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker” is the template for all, sits Lapalux.Twenty-five year-old Stuart Howard from Essex first popped onto most radars last year through a pair of 12-inches with incongruous cover art, images of posh Keira Knightly-esque models sprawling, pouting, smoking cigars. It looked like the Read more ...
joe.muggs
The portents were good. The single “Heaven” emerged with all the melodrama and crypto-religiosity hardcore Depeche Mode fans have loved – Dave Gahan hitting some notes that suggested he's spotted certain tics that Muse's Matt Bellamy has nicked from him and gone “ahaa no, THIS is how it's done.” It's a dirge in the best sense, a gorgeously crushing piece with – thankfully – digitally degraded sounds and robotic drum-rolls putting the guitars and pianos in their place: this is Depeche Mode at peace both with their stadium Goth stature and their history as electronic innovators. The follow-up “ Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Future writer-directors who cast their mothers in their first features should be as blessed as Barnaby Southcombe, who was able to cast his mum, Charlotte Rampling, in the title role of I, Anna. An actress on a formidable run, whose sphinx-like reticence usually shields her characters psychological complexities, she is typically riveting here.Southcombe adapted the script from the 1990 debut novel of psychoanalyst Elsa Lewin, transposing the story from New York to London. A soignée department store bed saleswoman, Anna exudes quiet confidence, but her desperate loneliness has led Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
There must be something quite frustrating about being a Stroke in 2013, assuming you just want to get on with the business of making music without constantly being reminded that you are part of a band once labeled the biggest in the world by the music press. It’s no wonder they aren’t giving interviews around the release of their fifth album, even if they’ve now pretty much outlived every magazine that once put them on the cover. The thing is, the Strokes have eschewed the simplicity of their debut on every release since, which is why the new wave-y synths and 80s influences on their latest Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
You will have to excuse my solipsism but I can find no way into this review without my own preoccupations butting rudely in. Music journalists sometimes end up reviewing albums utterly disconnected to their own interests, background and musical tastes. Some overcome this with ease, finding their inner dispassionate judge, while others find a meaty angle that adheres closely to their own perspectives, then pile in. I am closer in tone to the latter. However, it would be unfair and boring to play that game with Suede.I don’t like them and never have, yet they were ahead of the pack, a vanguard Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Bernard Herrmann: Vertigo and Music From the Films of Alfred HitchcockGreat film soundtrack music can have a tough time being accepted as thus. There’s the test of time: does the music continue resonating? Is the music a sympathetic foil for the visuals? Can it live away from the screen and still create its atmosphere? The questions are endless, but the music of Bernard Herrmann will always pass any test. With Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo declared the greatest film ever in last year’s Sight and Sound poll, Herrmann’s music for it was, by association, also cast as an all-time great. Previously, Read more ...
joe.muggs
You really don't need the context on this, do you? Event album, comeback, cheesy title, blah blah – it's all there splattered all over the internet if you really want it. I'll just cut to the chase and say: I love Justin Timberlake's music, and I'm very, very relieved to say I love this album, for a number of reasons. And rather than try and analyse anything too much, I'll just list them.It doesn't try too hard. There's nothing that explodes in your face with hyper-pop orgasms like "Cry me a River" or "Sexy Back", and neither should there be. This wouldn't be dignified for a movie star, keen Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
For anyone who missed Sightseers in the cinema, purchasing it on DVD is a must. Its blend of the shocking and what initially seems a quirky, Mike Leigh-style British road movie is audacious. Mischievously subverting the familiar, it’s funny, pathos-filled and openly questions the nature of morality. It’s hugely entertaining too.By now, the adventures of Steve Oram’s ginger-faced Chris and Alice Lowe’s angry-woman Tina have been recounted endlessly. Both their performances are sure to fuel cult fandom, with Sightseers assured an afterlife akin to that of Withnail and I. Director Ben Wheatley Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
TWenty years in operation, Minnesota’s Low could have comfortably chosen cruise control. Instead, for their 10th album they’ve looked to their own past and taken a step back from the Crazy Horse-influences which coloured their last album C’mon. Bringing Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy in as their producer seems to have reintroduced Low to an earlier form of themselves. Their new album was recorded at Wilco’s Chicago studio. Alan Sparhawk has said that hearing Tweedy’s work with Mavis Staples helped him and his Low and life partner Mimi Parker decide to make the journey south-east from their home town of Read more ...