CDs/DVDs
Kieron Tyler
On “Truth in the Wild”, Erin Birgy sings “Never smother the mystical song that rests deep inside you.” Accordingly, its parent album Dolphine confirms she has no intention of suppressing her vision. Conceptually, the 11 compositions are linked by the premise a being evolved in parallel with humans after our distant ancestors left the oceans – the sub-aqua “dolphine”. The inspiration appears to be that spirits survive after death. Perhaps the cover's medical ultrasound image relates to this?The haunting Dolphine is US singer-songwriter Birgy’s fourth album as Mega Bog. It opens with “For the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Thom Yorke is frontman of Radiohead, a festival-headlining rock band who sell out stadiums all over the globe. His artistic aspirations, however, right back to Radiohead’s Kid A album 19 years ago, often seem to lie elsewhere, in the world of glitching, otherworldly electronica. He’s had mixed success in this area but with last year’s soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Suspiria he finally nailed it. Anima proves that album was no fluke.This is Yorke’s third solo album (excluding the soundtrack), and where its predecessors attempted, sometimes awkwardly, to staple classic song Read more ...
Barney Harsent
The first thing you notice when listening to the debut album from Austrian duo Molly (Lars Andersson and Phillip Dornauer) is that it is a collection lit with the glow of confidence. Introducing themselves with a delicately paced 15-minute Mogadon-prog epic denotes a certain slow-burning swagger, but it is surrounded by a sense of grandeur rather than the grandiose. Grandeur is an important theme here, musically at least. Informed as much by their local geography (the Austrian Alps) as the bands they will inevitably be compared to (Sigur Rós, Galaxie 500, Dungen), this is music with a Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Keith Thornton is a big deal in the hip hop community, having forged a 35-year career with the likes of the Ultramagnetic MCs and under pseudonyms like Dr Octagon and Kool Keith. To many, however, he is primarily the voice of the incendiary sample that drove the Prodigy’s magnificent “Smack My Bitch Up” single. Anyone still doubting Thornton’s position in the hip hop pantheon are treated to Kool Keith emphatically staking his claim throughout KEITH. A lyrical and beat collage that takes in social reportage on the menacing “95 South”, anti-materialism on “Word Life” and racism, it also has a Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The excellent booklet essay by Michael Brooke that accompanies this Second Run release of Pavel Juráček’s second, and final feature (it’s presented in a fine 4K restoration) tells us much about the director’s importance for the Czech New Wave, that remarkable period of independent filmmaking that spanned the 1960s. It was brought to an end, of course, by the Soviet intervention in 1968. A Case for a Rookie Hangman intriguingly spans that crucial dividing line: written in 1966, it was filmed only in 1969 and released two years after that, albeit only on a very limited scale (for many observers Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Earlier this year, eight musicians – Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Kerry Andrew, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter and Jim Molyneux – set about working with the ‘spell songs’ of nature writer Robert Macfarlane and the images from nature of artist Jackie Morris, and recorded what they created at Rockfield studios, then performed four sell-out shows to standing ovations in February. At these shows, Morris would create new images live on stage as the musicians played. Next weekend, they return to Folk By The Oak, the one-day festival in Hertfordshire, and the patron of the Read more ...
mark.kidel
Damon Albarn isn’t just a national treasure but an international one. He seems to spread his reach so widely, with a mix of curiosity and boundless energy, a great deal of discernment and a vision as different as possible from the narrow-minded attitudes that feed the Brexit frenzy.Having worked creative magic in Mali, with a range of exciting collaborations and recordings at Bamako’s Bogolan studios and elsewhere, and paid homage to various traditions on his label Honest Jon’s, Albarn has taken his ever-renewing project Africa Express into the creative maelstrom that is South Africa. He is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
With shifts from the crepuscular to the distinct, Dawnbreaker is the aural equivalent of a stygian day periodically lightened when banks of cloud break to allow knife-like sunlight through.The album begins with “Fellows”, where an unadorned acoustic guitar accompanies a cracked solo voice declaring “he gave me his love and I couldn’t give mine.” The atmosphere and sound quality suggest it was rescued from a wax cylinder recording. Next, and bedded by what could be the rhythm box of a Seventies supermarket keyboard, “Gem” swings along, builds and adds instruments, developing into a Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Scott Hansen is a man that, in the musical guise of Tycho, finds himself seemingly unable to sit still creatively. Over his previous four albums, Hansen has incrementally filled out his sound, by bringing post-rock guitars, bass and live drums to a downtempo electronic groove, as well as recruiting other musicians into the band. Weather is no different in its desire to bring new sounds and people into the mix. Indeed, it sees Tycho’s further humanisation since 2006’s electronic solo debut, Past Is Prologue, with the addition of Hannah Cottrell’s sophisticated, pop vocals.After more than a Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Mirai made animation history when it was included in the Director's Fortnight at Cannes in 2018, the first Japanese anime feature to be so honoured. It went on to be nominated for an Oscar. Director Mamoro Hosoda, who worked at Studio Ghibli before creative differences on Howl’s Moving Castle led him to strike out on his own, has been described as the natural successor to anime master, Hayao Miyazaki. Certainly they share extraordinary artistry and a fascination with children and the fantasies they create. But for me, Mirai lacked the otherworldly enchantment of Studio Ghibli classics like Read more ...
Liz Thomson
“He was an outsider, a purveyor of truth”, Sarah Jane Morris has said of John Martyn, whose rackety life came to a tragically premature conclusion in 2009, when he was just 60. He was a key figure on the British folk scene, and his distinctive fusion of folk and blues quickly led him into the realms of jazz. A brilliant finger-picking guitarist in a style often referred to as folk baroque, Martyn was also an early experimenter with the fuzzbox and other gizmos, and while his own hero was Davey Graham, Martyn’s admirers came from across the musical spectrum and included Mike Harding and David Read more ...
joe.muggs
Releasing this record must be a daunting process for Steve Clarke. For one, it's his first record as a frontman and main songwriter, after a lifetime as a jobbing bassist and tour manager. For two it's a collaboration with his wife – they've been married a year, and together for five – and isn't shy of expressing the hopes and fears of an evolving relationship. But perhaps most potentially intimidating for Clarke, his wife is Rachel Goswell of Slowdive, one of the most distinctive sounding UK bands of recent decades, so it's inevitable her presence will generate attention and draw comparisons Read more ...