CDs/DVDs
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It’s been a few years and a handful of albums since Booker T Jones did the well-played heritage artist comeback thing, which has to be the only reason that Sound the Alarm has not been greeted with the hype you would expect. It’s his first on Stax Records, the Memphis label where Jones & the MG’s spent much of the 1960s as the house band, since 1962’s Green Onions.Paying homage to those roots, as well as building on the many intriguing collaborations Jones has been involved with throughout much of his long career, Sound the Alarm features contributions from a range of contemporary talent Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The latest album from blues veteran Buddy Guy is a must for air guitarists. At 77 years of age he fires out a double CD set, one’s Rhythm, the other Blues. Both sound similar in that the main feature is Guy’s extended solos and background fret-widdling over a boogie-rockin’, piano-tinklin’, good-time jam. It’s a retro and very American sound - in excelsis - performed by a long term expert who doesn’t need to break a sweat to nail it.Guy made his name in the late Fifties and early Sixties as the man who joined the dots between rock’n’roll and the blues. At live shows as early as 1958, despite Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
Influencing Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, director Andrei Konchalovsky’s underrated marvel Runaway Train is finally available on crisp Blu-ray: think masculine philosophy meets Alaskan wilderness in an existential thriller as exciting today as it was in 1985.Two convicts – Oscar “Manny” Manheim (Voight in an Oscar-nominated role) and the beautiful, irritating Buck McGeehy (Eric Roberts, also nominated for an Oscar) – flee an Alaskan high security prison. Only moments ahead of vindictive warden Ranken (John P Ryan), Manny chooses an ominous locomative (the forboding, box-like powerhouse EMD GP7, a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A disembodied, wispy female voice declares “this is not true”, the only emotion left a resignation so acute she may as well be contemplating her imminent demise. On Soft Metals’ “Tell me”, her deliberation is accompanied by electronic music drawing from the pulse Giorgio Moroder created for Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”, 20 Jazz Funk Greats-era Throbbing Gristle, French cold wave and the drifting vapourousness of the early Orb. On the next track, “When I Look Into Your Eyes”, she sighs “we all die”.Patricia Hall and Ian Hicks, the Portland-formed and now Los Angeles-based duo who operate as Read more ...
mark.kidel
Martin Simpson comes heavily laden with the ghosts of redundant iron miners from Minnesota, the betrayed lovers of centuries old and the child victims of the Aberfan disaster. His voice is, not surprisingly, shot through with a melancholy that can act homeopathically, healing the blues with its very own medicine, or just drive the listener mad. There is something relentlessly dark about his latest album, perhaps more so than in his recent work. His music should come with a health warning: open your heart at your peril.Simpson’s artistry saves the day: he is one of Britain’s most musical Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Various Artists: Saint Etienne Present Songs for a Central Park PicnicThis is the perfect compilation for days when heat brings an enervation so overwhelming it’s possible only to bask like a seal flopped on a rock. Compiled by Saint Etienne, Songs for a Central Park Picnic’s 25 tracks capture moods of calm and wistfulness, something to help you take it easy. Yma Sumac’s swinging “Gopher Mambo” and Sammy Davis Jr’s “Bee Bom” are uptempo, but their relaxed groove won’t induce a sweat.The picnic kicks off with the definition of cool. On Vince Guaraldi’s “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” notes Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Is the former Razorlight singer Johnny Borrell really the arse that many music fans seem to think? After his debut solo album was announced, the hubris of titles like “Pan-European Supermodel Song (Oh! Gina)” prompted a fresh round of ridicule. JB didn’t seem to notice or care. Even as he toured half-empty regional civic centres on the run-up to the album’s release, his self-confidence never wavered. Some call this behaviour delusional. But is it really? Unlike many of the vapid, wannabe Dylans who bother the indie charts, few could deny that Borrell has real talent. The disagreement Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Few real-life subjects of a film would allow themselves to be seen in the way Ginger Baker is in Beware of Mr. Baker. He’s violent, bullying, self obsessed, a control freak, irresponsible, sexist, foul-mouthed and harbours decades-long grudges. Since he doesn't appear to be ill, it's difficult to ascribe his behaviour to forces beyond his control. He does, though, love animals and is a legendary drummer. So that’s all right then. Not only is Beware of Mr. Baker a testament to director Jay Bulger’s tenacity, it’s a portrait of a human so grotesque that even William Hogarth couldn’t have Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
AlunaGeorge deserve to be lauded as one of this year’s great singles bands solely on the strength of “Attracting Flies” and “White Noise”, their collaboration with electro outfit Disclosure. The London duo - featuring the purring vocals of Aluna Francis and George Reid’s sassy production - have been gaining attention in all the right places over the past 12 months, which gives their delayed debut a lot to live up to.That the big, distorted hook and kiss-off chorus of "...Flies", so perfect in its subtlety, are the catchiest things on Body Music is a little misleading. It means that the first Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s rather gratifying that, in an area dominated by Americans (with the exception of the Moshi Monsters phenomenon) Bin Weevils is a very British success story. The pop-eyed cartoon insects first came into existence a decade ago as animations for Nickelodeon UK but in 2010 their creators split with the parent company and developed an online social world for children that’s proved massively popular, branching into magazines, trading cards and toys. Around half Britain’s under-10s have interacted with Bin Weevils - 20 million have registered and two million remain active users.This, of course Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Post Tenebras Lux is a hard film to love, but it is one which engrosses. Although riveting, its appeal is akin to the fascination exerted by catastrophes and car pile-ups. Fittingly, the taste it leaves is bitter. It’s also hard to digest. Contrary to the title – light after darkness – there’s little to suggest either salvation or a path towards redemption.Director Carlos Reygadas doesn’t make it easy for viewers: there was animal cruelty in Japón (2002) and explicit sexual situtations in Battle in Heaven (2005), but he seemed to have mellowed with the Dreyer influenced Silent Light (2007). Read more ...
joe.muggs
“Formulaic” is all too frequently used pejoratively in reviews – but from minuets to minimalism, Bo Diddley to drum'n'bass, finding a formula that works and sticking to it has produced some of the finest music in human history. Liverpool-born producer E.m.m.a. might not yet be in the history-changing category, but she's certainly found a simple and distinctive recipe and her explorations of its possibilities are currently extremely fruitful.In essence, E.m.m.a. takes the rugged grooves of UK pirate radio, and adds an extra layer of melody and harmony which connects them back into the much Read more ...