CDs/DVDs
Matthew Wright
“I always think she knows a little more than the rest of us,” said film director Paul Thomas Anderson, on casting Newsom as the knowing narrator Sortilège in last year’s Inherent Vice. Fans of her music know the feeling. It’s five years since the epic Have One On Me, all of which time Newsom claims to have been working, on and off, on Divers, an inspiringly complex and ambitious collection discussing love, history, time travel, desolation, the indigenous people of New York (I’ve only got 300 words, so I’ll leave it there…).Vocally, Björk and Wuthering Heights-era Kate Bush (with glimpses of Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Time, released in 2013, was Rod Stewart's first album of fresh compositions in nearly two decades. The business of working on his deservedly bestselling autobiography triggered a windfall of new songs in the key of Rod: reflections on love and family with the odd mea culpa thrown in. Another Country picks up where he left off.Thus from another dad-rock goodies bag comes “Love Is” (see video overleaf), a four-square chugger with bluegrass tinges in which Rod expatiates, presumably to one of his vast brood, “on a subject on which I’m well versed”. A younger bairn is apostrophised in the lullaby Read more ...
Graham Fuller
The first feature written and directed by John Maclean, the former Beta Band keyboardist, is a Western comprised of late-genre tropes and references – but one that’s fresh and sincere. It’s knowing and affecting, unlike Django Unchained.A tremulous aristocratic youth, Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee), is searching for the fellow Scot (Caren Pistorius) he loves in the hell of 1870 Colorado Territory. The terrified survivors of a burned Indian camp flee murderous bluecoats. Their officer is about to shoot Jay when bounty hunter Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender) intervenes. After Silas hires Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The title Tape Hiss instantly telegraphs a dissatisfaction with today’s digital world and, fittingly, the all-analogue second album from Rotterdam’s Rats on Rafts could soundtrack a half-remembered Eighties evening taking in a bill of Britain and New Zealand’s most singular post-punk survivors. Their musical inspirations ring through loud and clear. But – and it's a massive but – these Lownlanders do it better and more ferociously than any of their forebears.Most prominent in the mix are the two-step swing of early “Pink Frost” Chills and the unwavering rolling crescendos of “Going up” and “ Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Hawklords were one of the first splinter groups from late Seventies Hawkwind, when Dave Brock and Robert Calvert were joined by bassist Harvey Bainbridge, Pilot’s Steve Swindells and drummer Martin Griffin for a short-lived but brilliant incarnation.Thirty years later, Hawklords was reborn from the ex-Hawkwind survivors' club – Nik Turner, Ron Tree, Danny Thompson, Jerry Richards, Alan Davey, Adrian Shaw, Harvey Bainbridge, Steve Swindells and Martin Griffin among them – to play benefits for dear departed Hawk alumni Robert Calvert and later Barney Bubbles, the band's visionary set and Read more ...
mark.kidel
Ousmane Sembene is one of the pioneers of African cinema. Black Girl, the film that brought him international renown, has been beautifully restored for this DVD release, so that it looks as sparkling as when it was released in 1966.The strength of this film is derived in large part from the potent creative forces that were unleashed when Senegal became independent, and was ruled by the visionary politican and poet Léopold Senghor.The simple but powerful story of a Senegalese woman who takes a job as a nanny in the South of France, in the hope of enjoying the promises of the former colonial Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
I spin about the gravity-free access chambers of Levantis’s Romantic Psychology 1. He calls this entry experience “Exploding Boxes”. I ping about for four minutes, finding my bearings, disorientated, my weightless form clanking into equipment, each sound rendered opaque and radio-mic metallic. I push through an airlock. The next area – "Red Blocks" – is in darkness. Must be some sort of engine in here, judging by the low, echoing hum. This lasts for five minutes and it’s spooky. I’m glad to move beyond it. My senses pulse. Is there a lifeform? Something’s going on, certainly. “Yoghurt” thuds Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Georgie Fame: The Whole World’s Shaking – The Complete Recordings 1963–1966Last month, theartsdesk’s Reissue CDs Weekly tackled a collection of albums by Faces which, despite great remastered sound and noteworthy bonus tracks, was a thoughtless, cheapo package ill-befitting a band of such popularity and status. This splendid new Georgie Fame box set is exactly the sort of thing the Faces release could and should have been.The meat of The Whole World’s Shaking – The Complete Recordings 1963–1966 is Fame’s four albums from the period: Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo, Fame at Last, Sweet Read more ...
Katie Colombus
In terms of musical gravitas, style and general swag, Peter Andre ain’t no Frank Sinatra. He’s not even a Michael Bublé, but like Strictly Come Dancing in which the pop star is currently appearing (and which, by superfluous marketing cohesion, this album is released alongside), Come Fly With Me kind of sweeps you up and bounces you around a bit. Like a shop-bought cocktail from a squeezy metallic pouch, it's sweet and slightly fake, but it does the job.With all the very best tunes to watch girls go by – "Fly Me To The Moon", "I’ve Got You Under My Skin", "Come Fly With Me", "Mack The Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Coming to this, the second album from big-voiced, baby-faced David Gahan lookalike John Newman, I was keen to see how he’d progressed. After the occasionally satisfying blend of old soul and new production on Tribute, would Revolve allow him to evolve and perhaps hone his sound further?Not really, is the answer. His voice is great – let’s get that out of the way from the off. No complaints there, the voice can stay. However, having pulled in Greg Kurstin to work on his follow-up, the result is an album that has more to do with the incessant, pummeling and exhausting day-glo colours of Katy Read more ...
mark.kidel
Athens, 1987: Youssou N'Dour opens for Peter Gabriel on a world tour. It's a wonder – and to his credit – that the British rock star should dare follow such a powerful performance. Few bands at the time could produce such a seductively joyful sound.Dakar's super-talent hadn't yet succombed to the lure of international audiences. Although he'd begun to move away from the explosive party music of the lengthy grand bals with which he would entertain Senegalese audiences for three to four hours, he was still wholeheartedly true to his roots: the unique combination of African and Afro-Cuban Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Sparrows Can’t Sing can be seen in many ways. The film, completed in 1962 and released to British cinemas in March 1963, features an extraordinary cast which now seems an uncanny roll call of British character and comic actors: James Booth, Avis Bunnage, Yootha Joyce, Roy Kinnear, Stephen Lewis, Murray Melvin, Arthur Mullard, Victor Spinetti, Barbara Windsor and more. For this alone, Sparrows Can't Sing would be a landmark.It is also a classic comedy and funny - frequently, extremely so. It was the only film directed by Joan Littlewood, then almost single-handedly effecting a sea change in Read more ...