CDs/DVDs
Javi Fedrick
IDLES' debut album, Brutalism, exploded onto the UK post-punk scene last year, lauded by the music press (myself included) for its lyrical blend of charm, fury, and politics, and musically, for just being a refreshingly original and catchy punk album. While IDLES haven’t moved away from these things on Joy as an Act of Resistance, they've branched out in some different, exciting directions.Taking their cues from the album title, singles “Danny Nedelko” and “Great” are possibly the poppiest songs IDLES have ever written, approaching racism, immigration and Brexit from an utterly danceable, Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Paul Simon is currently traversing the globe on his Farewell Tour. His new album clearly accompanies that. It’s a thoughtful look backwards wherein Simon has plucked numbers from his catalogue he feels deserve another go-round, recording them with guest artists, often from the world of jazz (notably Wynton Marsalis). It is, by its nature, somewhat self-indulgent, for there are none of his most famous songs here. These are numbers he wants to bring out of the shadows; that he reckons are worth further attention. On occasion, he’s absolutely right.The album opens with "One Man’s Ceiling is Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
“To our enormous suffering!” There are many macabre vodka toasts, accompanied by some appropriately gruelling visuals, in A Gentle Creature, but that one surely best captures the beyond-nihilist mood of Sergei Loznitsa’s 2017 Cannes competition contender. It’s a film guaranteed to leave viewers – those who make it through to the end of its (somewhat overlong) 140-minute-plus run, that is – scrabbling to find words to describe what they have just seen. The likes of “visceral” or “phantasmagoric” somehow aren’t enough to catch the film’s mixture of horror and hallucination, both elements made Read more ...
mark.kidel
Peyroux made her name by channelling the sultry sensuality and soul of Billie Holiday and breathing new life into well-known songs written by others - notably Elliott Smith and Leonard Cohen.She still brings enchantment to covers, but has increasingly found her own distinctive voice, without losing that element of sensual magic - those long drawn-out notes - inherited from the great Lady Day.Her new album is drawn strongly together by impeccable arrangements and production, studio expertise and inspiration that provides the album with welcome variety, as well as a touch of melancholy Read more ...
joe.muggs
This album starts on a slightly odd footing, thanks to the opener “As a Man” having phrases that sound by turns a lot like Propellorheads and Shirley Bassey's “History Repeating” and Grace Jones's cover of Flash And The Pan's “Walking in the Rain”. Not that those are bad records – both are still highly playable – and it certainly sets a tone of arch assurance and cabaret sass. But being reminded so early of such entirely distinctive and out-on-their-own tracks makes it a little hard to triangulate where Calvi is coming from here.As on previous records, there's a great degree of classicism Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Following on from last year’s blistering blast of conviction, Every Country’s Sun, it’s tempting to view Mogwai’s latest offering – the soundtrack to a new sci-fi action drama from the producers of Stranger Things – as a continuation of this return to form. There are, however, a couple of problems with this view. Firstly, it’s not strictly speaking a return to form. Mogwai are a band who have rarely, if ever, put a foot wrong in their 23-year career. From 95’s Mogwai Young Team onwards, their career has been defined by deft assurance in their compelling and singular vision. It’s hard to Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Fifty years after the 1968 Soviet invasion that so brutally interrupted it, the Czech New Wave really is a gift that keeps on giving. It still astounds that such a sheer variety of cinema was created in so short a time – really just six or seven years, not even a decade – by such a range of talent. It’s a rich vein of film history, one that has been revealed in recent years in exemplary releases from distributor Second Run; if it left you with any concern, it was when this remarkable source might begin to dry up.Not for a long time, if their latest is anything to go by, though it’s no less Read more ...
Javi Fedrick
Over their past five albums, Interpol have crafted a strong sound that rests on the heavily reverbed, emotive vocals of singer Paul Banks, the subtly discordant guitars, and drums that pound along underneath it all. Although these can still be found on Marauder, the album holds some of the poppiest songs Interpol have ever done – something which doesn’t always work in their favour.This is evident from the very first song, “If You Really Love Nothing”, which couples typically cryptic and morose lyrics with galloping drums and a happy chord sequence that appears to nod to Noughties indie-pop Read more ...
Ellie Porter
Once pleasingly described on the Flight of the Conchords radio show as "the King of New Zealand", Neil Finn has a new gift for his subjects (and the rest of the world, happily) in the form of this album, which sees him recording with son Liam for the first time. Neil and Liam have toured together a lot, joining forces in 2015 and sharing the setlists. They decided to continue the collaboration in the studio, with the curious Lightsleeper the result. The family theme (in both personnel and thematic terms) goes beyond father and son, though, with Sharon Finn – Neil’s wife and Liam’s mum – Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s It Happened Here surely deserves the acclaim often accorded it as “the most ambitious amateur film ever made”, and the rich supporting extras on this BFI dual-format release make clear why. Best of all is a 65-minute interview with Brownlow, in which he recounts how he set out in 1956, at the age of 18, to make this ambitious “alternative history” of England living under wartime Nazi collaboration.The development of the film – the 17-year-old Mollo came on board the following year as co-director after Brownlow sought his advice on war-time costuming and Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Birth and death are nowhere more entwined than in folk music, and the seventh album by Radio 2 Young Folk Award-winner Jackie Oates poignantly honours both her father and her daughter, his unexpected death just five days before the birth of Rosie. Inevitably, her life went into free-fall, “intense emotion at the joy and sadness that had struck me all at once”.The album, dedicated to her father, whose love of music inspired Oates, and to her daughter, is very English. Its title comes, of course, from Ewan MacColl’s great song, written as his life drew to a close “to turn grief and loss into Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Kate Nash is no quitter. For years her heavy London accent and kitchen-sink lyrics made her an easy target for mockery. Nash always brushed it off. Even, last year, when her record label dropped her, she refused to take things lying down. So she turned to the internet and Kickstarter. The result is Yesterday Was Forever. Some are saying it's her most sophisticated record yet.Maybe it is, maybe it's not. What is for certain is that, since her massive hit "Foundations" (2007), the sing-song voice has progressed beyond recognition. Much of the album feels more Katy Perry than Kate Nash. There's Read more ...