CDs/DVDs
joe.muggs
Would it come as a terrible surprise to learn that this record is highly problematic? Well, duh. Kanye West is the sad clown narrating the global tragicomedy, a troll on an epochal scale, a bundle of contradictory drives all attempting to express themselves to reductio ad absurdum levels. Every time he seems to trip himself up and the world acts as if he's humiliated, it just spurs him on to go “uhuh, you think that's bad? Watch this.” The most powerful of all among those tangled drives seems to be an appetite for preposterousness: hip hop's natural flamboyance expanded way beyond a Read more ...
Barney Harsent
It can be hard to put distance between an artist and their behaviour. Woody Allen films present a problem for some, while I, for one, will never see Tommy Robinson’s impressionist landscapes in the same light again. One rock musician who recently came under scrutiny is The Who frontman Roger Daltrey, after calling the #metoo phenomenon “obnoxious” and “salacious crap”, before adding, of his extra marital activity, “Come on, men are men,” and “there have been times when I’ve hurt her [his wife] and that’s upset me.” Sending hugs, Rog, sending hugs. His rejection of the zeitgeist also Read more ...
Ellie Porter
Ignore the associations that come with the name LUMP - this record is as far from leaden, dull and heavy as you can get. A dreamy, itchy collaboration between folk musicians Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay of Tunng, LUMP features vocals and lyrics by Marling and music, sound effects and "textures" by Lindsay. A furry man-creature – who looks a bit like the costumed prankster dad in the German film Toni Erdmann – sits mournfully on the cover, and is also the star of the oddly touching animated video accompanying fourth track "Curse of the Contemporary". The video sees Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
From the way that Czech director Ivan Passer remembers the genesis of this, his 1965 debut feature, in the 2006 interview that comes with this Second Run rerelease, Intimate Lighting happened practically by accident. A scriptwriter friend had put an idea forward to Prague’s Barrandov Studios, the acceptance of which a few months later came as a surprise to all, and resulted in Passer, better known during the period of the Czech New Wave as a screenwriter (notably as a collaborator of Milos Forman), agreeing to direct.It seems a somehow appropriate beginning for a film in which, famously, Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Many will remember Jennifer Warnes as the backing vocalist on a mighty handful of Leonard Cohen albums, and from his touring bands – she was on the 1972 and ’79 European jaunts. The latter was in support of Recent Songs, mocked at the time for its painting-by-numbers sleeve and for just about everything else. For Cohen had become a figure of some derision (punk rock et al has much to answer for) and was as unhip and irrelevant as it was then possible to be. The notorious Phil Spector collaboration hadn’t helped.The ’79 London concert lives on in my memory still (and not just because I Read more ...
joe.muggs
Everything on this record changes shape. One moment in “RayCats” Far Eastern instrumentation is being glitched beyond recognition, then suddenly it sounds like something from a relaxation tape. “Same” shimmers and twists between 20th century avant-classical, Depeche Mode at their stadium peak and pure electronic sound. “The Station” sounds like Drake or Future crooning over the bassline from a 90s grunge track, but periodically dissolves into Autechre type abstraction.But that's Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, all over. Since he emerged from the US electronic noise scene, he's Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Their ninth album should please Morcheeba fans. Take the song “Find Another Way”, for example. It rolls in like a haunted breeze, an acoustic/twangy combination preceding front-woman Skye Edwards, one of the sweetest-sounding vocalists in pop, and she still has it. Tarred with the brush of being the bland dinner-party face of 1990s trip hop, due to their easy way with a pop song, there was always more to Morcheeba than many credited. “The Sea”, “Part of the Process”, “Trigger Hippy”, “What New York Couples Fight About” and others are simply delicious songs. The happy news is that Blaze Away Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Few bands divide opinion quite like Snow Patrol. Their fans see their slow, intense anthems as cathartic friends. Others - myself included - tend to regard their music as an insidious, dreary presence. As Nicky Wire (of the Manics) once put it, "the same drab little thing, over and over". Wildness, their first album in seven years, is being billed as being something completely different - more passionate, and with a lighter touch.Apparently, the shift in musical direction is down to various changes in the band members' lives. Singer Gary Lightbody has given up drinking. He's also been Read more ...
Owen Richards
When bands move to the US, some find themselves drawn into the commercial machine; when Scottish band Chvrches crossed the Atlantic, they were targeting direct assimilation from the start. Recorded with mega-producer Greg Kurstin, the band are aiming to be more direct than ever; perhaps a wise move considering they’ve always leaned heavily on the pop side of electro.This move is successful, somewhat. The production is appropriately crisp and expansive, and the songs nearly all follow the same structure (sleek verse, build up pre-chorus, hook-heavy chorus). Lauren Mayberry’s voice was built Read more ...
graham.rickson
The brightness and colour are deceptive; at its heart, Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina’s Coco is an affecting reflection on death, remembrance and the redemptive power of music, dressed up as a frenetic and gag-stuffed Disney comedy. I’d place it above recent hits such as Frozen and Moana; here, the music is integral to the film’s plot, and the closing scenes have an emotional impact comparable with the montage which opens Pixar’s Up. Have a box of tissues on hand, in other words, especially if you’ve had to deal with memory loss in an elderly relative.Set during the Mexican Día de los Muertos Read more ...
Liz Thomson
Gretchen Peters arrived in Nashville in the late eighties from Bronxville, New York, where she was born, and Boulder, Colorado, where she grew up. Within a decade she was writing songs for some of the biggest names in country music, among them Trisha Yearwood, Shania Twain, and George Strait, and for Etta James. It was “Independence Day”, which Martina McBride picked up, that led to her first honours (a Grammy and a Country Music Association Award), an occasional writing partnership with Bryan Adams and the release of a sequence of distinguished albums (including the garlanded Blackbird, 2016 Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Loner’s opening track “More of the Same” lyrically tracks being at a party where “everyone’s well dressed with a perfect body and they all have alternative haircuts and straight white teeth.” It triggers a flashback to schooldays when it was, indeed, the same thing. “Cry!” looks a life in the limelight, “Money” is about doing everything for money and “Bikini” is about becoming a celebrity. The price of entry? Putting on a bikini and dancing.Caroline Rose’s third album is a smart, sardonic 11-track romp through how she sees aspects of the modern condition. A sadness-tinged cynicism is Read more ...