CDs/DVDs
Thomas H. Green
Some country music cosies up as close as possible to pop, in hopes of dragging more listeners in, smoothing away the raw backwoods feel. The most famed exemplar of this route is, of course, Taylor Swift, at least in her early career. Other country music resonates with American folk history, emanating the vastness of the American south, its roots sounds and narratives. Molly Tuttle falls into the latter category and her latest album, her fourth, whips the listener off on a journey that’s as effective as a book of short stories, but with the added benefit of being a toe-tappin’ hoodang.Tuttle Read more ...
joe.muggs
The broken beat movement, centred on West London around the turn of the millennium, wasn’t super press friendly. Its complex rhythms were eclipsed in the populism stakes by its close cousin UK garage, and serious commentators didn’t really know what to do with a broadly working class, multicultural scene that was aspirational and privileged virtuosic production and musicianship. Indeed there was a distinct inverted snobbery in the refusal refusal to treat it with the respect afforded other electronic music which fit into a scholarly vs “street” dichotomy.The movement itself, which could Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Full disclosure. I actively dislike Blur and always have. Don’t get me started on why. That would last seven times as long as this review.In this game, though, at theartsdesk, if no-one will review an album, and it’s one we absolutely should review, either Joe Muggs or I will end up with it. In my defence, I gave Blur’s Think Tank a fair-minded review two decades ago. Even quite liked it for about three months. That’s the best I can muster. If you’re a devoted Blur fan, then, I’m definitely not the most reliable source. For the rest reading, I’ll do my best.Their ninth album, and first in Read more ...
graham.rickson
Early editions of Swiss novelist Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1958 novel The Pledge carried the subtitle “Requiem for the Detective Novel”, the writer’s point being that murder cases can take years to solve (if at all) and that those doing the investigating make mistakes. The story has been filmed several times before, Sean Penn’s starrily-cast version (released in 2001 with a weather-beaten Jack Nicholson in one of his last decent roles) the best known.Hungarian director György Fehér’s Szürkület (Twilight) is radically different in tone, a requiem for the crime thriller which unfolds at a daringly Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The atmosphere is foggy. What can be discerned through the murk is either out of focus or translucent. Words drift in from somewhere which can’t be pinpointed. “I’m tuning you in,” “I’ve picked up the loaded dice,” “Everything you know is everything that you let go.” Control is just out of reach. The songs are mid paced, with nods to Crazy Horse and Television. There are odd snatches of backwards guitar.All of this applies to Rain Parade now. It also applies to the Rain Parade of 1983, when their first LP, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, was issued. It’s an enduring musical outlook. The Read more ...
Sebastian Scotney
Everyone has their "what-if" moments. But the “Sliding Doors” inflection points in the life of Guadeloupe-born, Montreal-based Malika Tirolien, after which everything that happened afterwards could been very different, are truly extraordinary.What if the songwriter/composer /singer/pianist/bandleader had chosen to do her university music studies in France (like her close school class-mate, the brilliant drummer Arnaud Dolmen) rather than being quite so determined to be closer to the music that inspired her – hiphop, jazz and soul – in North America? Or…what if she had taken up the job offer Read more ...
joe.muggs
Ever since she broke through in her teens, Leicestershire singer Mahalia Burkmar’s music has often been referred to as retro or revivalist R&B. But that framing is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the genre operates for young 21st century music lovers. For fans and artists of Mahalia’s generation – she’s 25 – the Nineties and early Noughties classics of Mariah, TLC, Destinys Child and co aren’t really retro in the way that Seventies and Eighties music were back then.Firstly, those records have weathered the cycles of fashion particularly well – they’ve never been “out” so there’s Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
The response to this album will depend almost entirely on whether the listener regards Norwegian electronic musician Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s Seventies-synth-wizard-goes-disco thing as tasty noodle or just noodle.He’s tried on many hats over the years since the righteous hype around Oslo’s “cosmic disco” scene thrust him into the limelight a few years into this century, but Everyone Else is a Stranger sees him return to core territory.One gets the sense that Lindstrøm simply pootles along in his country retreat studio, tinkering, the vagaries of musical fashion an irrelevance, as he indulges in Read more ...
Justine Elias
Searching for a coherent narrative thread in David Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006) is probably futile, so it’s best to begin with the movie’s nervy central performance by Laura Dern in multiple, overlapping roles as “a woman in trouble” – the movie’s subtitle. Or maybe many different women in all manner of trouble. In one timeline, Dern plays a battered but defiant drifter, fighting back against years of abuse. In another, she’s an American actress at work on a Southern-fried melodrama called On High in Blue Tomorrows. That movie-within-a-movie’s smarmy Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Forty years ago, the songs of New Jersey’s Kool and the Gang formed an essential soundtrack to many a suburban lothario’s weekend. “Celebration”, “Ladies’ Night” and “Get Down on It” were undisputed chart classics of the time – laying down slick grooves that focused wholly on having a good time and not having a care in the world.James “JT” Taylor, lead singer during the band’s commercial peak, may be long gone but bassist, Robert “Kool” Bell and keyboard player, George “Funky” Brown (all the original band members seem to be obliged to have a one-word nickname) are still very much on board for Read more ...
mark.kidel
As an authentic artist, PJ Harvey manages to remain true to her essence as well as constantly shifting her creative stance. Each of her albums has been a leap forward, and yet anchored in a sound and style that are immediately recognisable as hers.This new album, the first in seven years, is in character – sensual, mysterious, a mixture of introverted softness and extrovert violence. It's very good, full of surprises, slow to reveal itself, like a really well-accomplished piece of poetry.Her previous release, The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016) was a collection of demos, Read more ...
Cheri Amour
You could say the catalyst behind it all was Rocketman himself. During his Apple Music Show, celebrated CBE Elton John named Gabriels’ self-released EP, Love and Hate in a Different Time, one of the most seminal releases in the last ten years. At that time, little was known about the US-UK trio. When they eventually signed a major record deal a few months later, there wasn’t a single photograph of the three of them in the same room.Despite the inconspicuous start, the band has already racked up a performance at The Royal Albert Hall (for Letters Live). They supported Harry Styles in Texas and Read more ...