CDs/DVDs
mark.kidel
Henri-Georges Clouzot is one of the giants of French cinema history, such a versatile master of entertainment that his qualities as an auteur and art-house director are sometimes forgotten. This new collection of his restored films includes some of his very best work: Le corbeau (1943), a tale of poison pen letters in wartime France; Quai des Orfèvres (1947), the complex and twisted story of a pianist and composer’s jealousy – stirred up by his neurotic singer wife; and the only colour film he made, La prisonnière (1968) which plunges with almost perverse relish into the eroticism that was Read more ...
Katie Colombus
Full disclosure: I have never quite gotten over Alexandra Burke's rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. I'm not sure I ever will.And now I'm unsure as how to cope with the fresh outrage of realisation that it is now 10 years since that flagrant disregard of a soul-crushing classic, when clearly I haven't aged at all.A decade on, the X Factor winner celebrates by signing with Decca Records, capitalising on her recent stint on Strictly Come Dancing, and releasing an album of epic power ballad proportions.It's a strange mix of 90s femme-pop that I am accidentally crushing on and cheesy Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s difficult to dislike Kim Wilde, whatever you think of her music. Even more so after her pissed Christmas sing-along on a tube train a few years back became a massive YouTube hit. Or how about her appearance at Download Festival in 2016 with thrash metallers Lawnmower Death? There’s something boisterous and everyday about Kim Wilde. She has that early Spice Girls thing, whether she’s acting raunchy or silly, of being a human woman you might really meet, and who’d be fun, rather than a plastic, photo-shopped, faux-sexy lollipop-head. Her new album, despite its faults, makes her seem even Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The subtitle of Franz Osten’s 1928 film, A Romance of India, says it all: this Indian silent film is a tremendous watch, a revelation of screen energy and visual delight. An epic love story-cum-weepie with lashings of action and intrigue thrown in, it was an Indian-British-German coproduction (a curious strand of cinema history in itself) that was entirely filmed in India, and glories in having some of the country’s architectural wonders for locations: the Taj Mahal, central to the story, features primus inter pares.German director Osten – he worked in India for close on two decades, making Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Since forming in 2013, The Gloaming have set about transforming how Irish traditional music is heard, received and performed. There is no other group like them, and none with the sheer heft of brilliance that fiddler Martin Hayes, viola/hardanger player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, sean nos singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, American pianist Thomas Bartlett and guitarist Dennis Cahill demonstrate on their two studio albums, and on this superlative live set from Dublin’s National Concert Hall, which has become something of a home-from-home for the group (Martin Hayes is the venue’s artist in residence) – Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Looking to the 'net to help fund a project is nothing new. Getting strangers to help with the actual creative process, though, is still pretty novel. It's what David Schweitzer's In Analysis project does. Schweitzer is best known for children's TV scores, like Charlie and Lola. Now he and collaborator Mary Richards have created a virtual analyst's couch. Visitors to their website were invited to anonymously submit personal stories, on the theme of mothers, which Schweitzer then turned into songs. The album comprises 11 tales of people's experiences of the person who brought Read more ...
howard.male
Is it fair to say that Seun Kuti’s fourth album is just more of the same? I believe it is, because more of the same is more or less the point with protest music, particularly if what you’re protesting hasn’t gone away. You have no choice but to keep singing that same tune (sometimes literally). So what we have here are variations on the theme of struggle and liberation – corrupt politicians, the unjust jailing of the poor, police and army brutality, the promise of jobs as more factories close, and the need for education so that the young are intellectually armed for an uprising. Oh and, to Read more ...
joe.muggs
That Erasure have stuck to the tonalities of electropop – and not just electropop, but the extra gay hi-NRG flavour thereof, with Andy Bell's theatrical voice cartwheeling off Vince Clarke's fizzing beats – for seventeeen albums now makes them a gloriously reassuring musical presence. It also means that they are often not treated with the seriousness which they absolutely deserve. Contrast with their Mute labelmate Nick Cave who, thanks to his rock'n'roll demeanour is positively lauded for working through the same themes, lyrically and musically, time and time again. Bell's narratives of Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
There’s a terrific drive to Kornél Mundruczó’s Jupiter’s Moon, a cinematic powerhouse of both technique and ideas. The maverick Hungarian director’s film, which premiered in last year’s Cannes competition, may occasionally bewilder – such is the spectrum of subjects upon which it touches – but rarely fails to impress.The energy of its opening takes us right into the frantic disorder of Europe’s refugee crisis, as an attempted border crossing – a rush from a crowded lorry onto boats – is intercepted by troops. A single figure flees, only to be felled by gunfire, before rising into the sky in a Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Al Jourgensen is pissed off with Donald Trump. Really pissed off. So pissed off that he’s dragged the latest incarnation of mighty industrial metal originators Ministry back into the studio for the first time since 2012’s Relapse to produce an album made up solely of songs of resistance against the 45th President of the USA and his alt-right junta. Ministry’s signature monster guitar riffs, jackhammer beats, spoken-word samples and Uncle Al’s unmistakable roar are all given a fresh airing to unleash a tropical storm of revolutionary rock with one very definite target. Make no mistake though, Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Huge-voiced rock singer Myles Kennedy is best known for two things: first, his day-job as Alter Bridge frontman and, second, the extra-curricular work he does with Slash. In neither capacity could you exactly call his approach subdued. Alter Bridge produce a kind of revved-up alt-metal, while Slash continues to plough his bluesy hard-rock furrow. For his debut solo album Kennedy changes down a gear. It's an emotionally raw, stripped-back work that occasionally evokes acoustic Led Zeppelin.Year of the Tiger is not just introspective, it's also deeply personal. The title is a Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Tracey Thorn’s solo career in the 21st century has veered between contemplative adult music and the pop dancefloor. With her latest, we’re definitely on the pop dancefloor, but, despite delicious synth-led production from Ewan Pearson, ignore the lyrics at your peril. It’s unlikely the likes of Dua Lipa or Rita Ora would start a song with the lines “Every morning of the month you push a little tablet through the foil/Cleverest of all inventions, better than a condom or a coil” as Thorn does on the pithily crafted motherhood-themed “Babies”. Her smart, sharp lyrics give these nine numbers a Read more ...