CDs/DVDs
Joe Muggs
theartsdesk’s Thomas H Green has lately been noting a “mellow production flatness” in modern pop and he’s really nailed a ubiquitous tendency there. The pendulum has definitely swung a long way back from the “loudness wars” of the era that trap and EDM crashed in and everything was amped up and ramped up as if to fight for attention in a crowded mall. One might trace the global counter tendency back to the chillwave of the Noughties, and its mainstreaming to the breakthrough of Tame Impala a decade ago, ushering in era where (brat being the exception that proves the rule) everyone from SZA to Read more ...
johncarvill
It’s hard to describe this hot mess of a film without divulging the entire plot. And even if you did, you’d struggle to convey the scabrous psychosexual atmosphere, or summarise the thematic currents that swirl beneath the surface. As director Peter Medak says in one of the interviews on this typically well-stocked BFI disc, “It's too complicated to explain."The basic setup is simple, though: Theo (Peter McEnery, pictured below right) and Vivien (Glenda Jackson) live above Theo’s father’s antiques shop in a down-at-heel corner of West London. They pass the time by indulging in what today Read more ...
Ellie Roberts
Johnny Franck’s energy is palpable with the latest Bilmuri instalment, his signature comedic country metalcore style is as honed as ever and Kinda Hard really just sounds like it was a lot of fun to make. Even with the genre blending, this album falls very much under the pop punk umbrella, with humour through emotion being at the forefront of its style. It’s not hard to see why fans of this trope enjoy Bilmuri, even if the moment has slightly passed. Maybe it’s because the world felt lighter, because the genre was newer, or because we were younger, but the notion of comedy through Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Mountain Call from ECM – it consists of recordings made in Prague in very different contexts and settings between 2003 and 2010 – is a timely reminder of what a fearsomely irrepressible and unique musician Miroslav Vitouš is, both as instrumentalist and as composer. There is purpose, attitude and an almost daemonic challenge in everything he plays or writes.His backstory is all about heft and serious chops. When Vitouš (b.1947) won first prize at the 1966 International Jazz Competition in Vienna, an event set up by Friedrich Gulda, the prize included a course of study at Berklee in Boston. So Read more ...
Guy Oddy
About a dacade ago and then again last year, Seattle’s proto-grungers, Melvins and Birmingham’s grindcore originators, Napalm Death hit the road with their double-header Savage Imperial Death March tours – scorching the earth and damaging hearing wherever they went. Now, they have emerged together from the studio, having turned their relationship into something more solid and lasting.The disc that has emerged, Savage Imperial Death March, is a true collaboration and not a split album with sperate songs from each band. The resulting material is new, covers-free and as extreme in its sonic Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Poetry and song are related, but they’re not kissin’ cousins, more first cousins at one remove. Composers of art song in the 19th and 20th centuries turned to poets for their song cycles, and rock-era lyrics have often been hailed as poetry, but what happens when a poet – a page poet, albeit adept at performance – combines with musicians and lyricists and adds his own voice to the mix; his reading voice, not a singing one. In the case of Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate, former probation officer and resident poet with LYR, he’s fortunate in his collaborators, singer-songwriter Richard Read more ...
Tom Carr
José González is one of those musicians who is well known without many recognising it. Until that is, someone plays his most known track “Heartbeats”, which was unavoidable after it released in the early Noughties. Since then, the Swedish solo artist hasn’t pierced through the zeitgeist in quite the same way, but he has been more than successful enough.Born in Gothenburg to Argentine parents who had fled their native country following the coup in the late seventies, González grew up learning the guitar on a steady stream of Latin and folk influences which form the bedrock foundation of his Read more ...
Tom Carr
The premise of a four-piece rock band hailing from Bedford sounds very unassuming when compared to the reality of the eclectic rockers, Don Broco. Their journey, not just musically, but also stylistically has been fascinating to see unfold.Just over 10 years ago, the quartet of Rob Damiani, Simon Delaney, Tom Doyle, and Matt Donnelly arrived in a sleek modern fashion with tunes equally glossy, though with heavy undertones of Nu Metal influences. Over their first four albums, that sleek style has morphed and shifted as with each outing, the group have adapted more genre influences and styles Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
The title is, of course, typically British understatement. This Music May Contain Hope has not just irresistible confidence and optimism but also real originality about it. All the way from a spoken film noir-ish intro, right through to the final track, in which everyone, yes everyone involved in the album is thanked, including every single member of the London Symphony Orchestra, with all of its section members individually named from front to back.Raye’s moment has definitely arrived, and the future looks very bright indeed. “Where is My Husband?”, her co-write with Mike Sabath, first Read more ...
graham.rickson
Strongroom is a film to be endured as much as enjoyed, Vernon Sewell’s low-budget thriller almost unbearable to watch in its final stages. Released in 1962 as a supporting feature, Strongroom depicts what happens when a bank heist goes badly wrong, leaving the branch manager and his secretary locked in a vault with just 12 hours of air. Unfolding over a long Easter weekend, the three gang members realise that if the bank staff suffocate, they’ll face a murder charge and capital punishment. Colin Gordon and Ann Lynn spend most of their screen time in perspiring in their cramped, Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Solo albums by musicians from established bands can be interesting beasts - not least when discovering which route they’ve decided to take with their own music. Will they be conservative and carry on with no deviation from the normal; will they run for the hills and bring something completely different to the table; or will they take a middle road and just fiddle around the margins of their day job?Flea – former Beavis and Butthead favourite and bass player for US rock megastars, Red Hot Chilli Peppers – has very much jumped ship from the day-to-day with his first solo album. For Honora is by Read more ...
Joe Muggs
If you’re supposed to be in touch with pop culture as part of your professional life, there’s not much that can sharpen the lines of your ignorance like having teenage kids. Of course, not everyone can know or like everything, especially not in this era of unimaginable abundance. But my kids reaching the age of proper fandom has really brought me up on how I’ve lazily treated huge sections of the global mainstream as homogenous blocs, when musically and culturally they are really anything but. This has particularly been the case with the arena rave sounds of American EDM, and with the factory Read more ...