CDs/DVDs
Kieron Tyler
After a few listens, the second album from Evan Uschenko’s musical alter-ego Ghost Woman increasingly resembles something which could have emerged from the early Eighties Los Angeles scene dubbed the "Paisley Underground". However, this does not seem to be what Canada’s Uschenko is aiming for.The promotional text for Anne, If on the label’s website is peppered with different references: the harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Nuggets compilation, a 12-string guitar evoking The Byrds, Love, and Jefferson Airplane, Safe As Milk-era Captain Beefheart, Shel Talmy's Sixties productions for Read more ...
Cheri Amour
As second-wave feminism vouched in the late 1960s, the personal is political. For Billy Nomates, the moniker of Sleaford Mods-approved musician Tor Maries, that sentiment is rife.Entrenched in her eponymously titled debut in 2020, the songwriter tapped into flailing societal structures, dead-end jobs in dead-end towns and the dichotomy of the Fat White Man. Despite touching on such evocative and self-assured issues, Billy Nomates came to being after a period of intense instability.Leaving the West Country with a relationship and a job in tow, Maries set up her seemingly picture-perfect life Read more ...
Guy Oddy
What do power-poppers do when they get older and return to the fray after an eight-year lay-off? If they’re the Subways, they recruit a new drummer, invest in a synthesiser and add some alt-rock sounds to their repertoire.That said, plenty else has also been going on with the Subways during their hiatus. In addition to Camille Phillips replacing original drummer, Josh Morgan, lead vocalist and guitarist, Billy Lunn has studied for an English degree at Cambridge University, embraced his bisexuality and had to deal with various personal mental health issues – never mind having to negotiate the Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Time’s Arrow is electro goths Ladytron’s seventh album since the late Nineties and marks their post-Covid re-emergence into the modern dystopia that is our seemingly never-ending, Brexit-damaged Tory Britain. However, while it isn’t an album that’s full of the joys of spring exactly, it does nevertheless attempt to reach out for at least some optimism in these difficult times.Despite the amount of time that has passed since the band’s previous, 2019 self-titled disc, not a great deal has changed with Ladytron’s sound. Time’s Arrow is still marked by Helen Marnie’s characteristic, somewhat Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Iggy Pop is one of rock’s great survivors but his fans are divided into two categories; those who claim he hasn’t done anything worthwhile since the late-Seventies and those, like this writer, who find much to enjoy, right up to the present.Every Loser-era Pop takes a break from the less visceral directions his solo career has pursued for the last 20 years, the jazz experiments and the knowingly crafted hat-tips to his Berlin years. Instead, while laced with delicious, crooned West Coast rock slowies, such as the lost sunrise sadness of "Morning Show", it's also righteously rooted in goofy Read more ...
mark.kidel
The recently-departed director Mike Hodges was one of our most underrated filmmakers. Along with Get Carter (1971), a dark story of revenge starring Michael Caine, Croupier (1998) – newly released on 4K Ultra HD – is one of the most fascinating and superbly crafted films of late 20th century British cinema. It’s so good, at many different levels, that it bears watching over and over again.Written by the British-born Hollywood screenwriter Paul Mayersberg, it tells the story of an aspiring novelist who uses his background in casino work and his engagement as a dealer in a London gambling house Read more ...
mark.kidel
Perfect timing for the release of Lucas Santtana’s new album release. The return of Lula to the presidency of Brazil has been received with a surge of optimism and joy. We have witnessed the end of Bolsonaro’s corrupt, opportunistic and authoritarian years, in which the Amazon forest was opened up further to those who would destroy it, along with the indigenous people who struggle to survive against the depredations of greed.With a soft tenor voice, and accompanied by his delicate guitar playing, and skilfully integrated synthesised wind instruments, Santanna sings dreamily in praise of Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Carvings is recorded so it sounds as if Juni Habel is adjacent to the listener’s ear. The Norwegian singer-songwriter may as well be inches away. Such intimacy can be disconcerting, especially as Carvings evokes a reflective melancholy. Its eight crepuscular songs evoke twilight and wintertime, when introspection is never far.Habel’s second album is the follow-up to summer 2021’s All Ears. That was a mood piece drawing from influences including Vashti Bunyan and Jessica Pratt. Carvings is less about the atmosphere created but more about the form of the song itself, and rising and falling Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
CVC stands for Church Village Collective, a six-piece who hail from the countryside near Cardiff. They were the best live act I saw last year (of a long list which includes Melt Yourself Down, Paul McCartney, The Prodigy and Wet Leg). It was a joyously raucous and contagious gig, front-loaded with Seventies rock vibes and a sense of fun, so I’m intrigued to hear if their debut album can live up to it. But they’re a different proposition on record. The raucous rock wildness is missing, but the Seventies are there in a mellower, cheesier form.The best bits of Get Real, recorded in guitarist Read more ...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Watching caroline, the experimental post-rock octet, play live is an immersive experience. The band stands elbow to elbow among the audience. Shrouded in near darkness, the music envelopes the room and everyone in it.Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never actually seen caroline live. I missed their show in Manchester and it is my biggest regret of 2022, as their eponymous debut is my favourite album of the year. The album came out in February and its gorgeous, clattery compositions have had a hold on me ever since.I think the beauty in caroline’s music lies in how they balance their influences. The Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Greg Urbanski, Gary Oldman’s long-term producing partner, tells us on the commentary track that no film company wanted to touch the script of Nil by Mouth. Oldman was riding high as an actor in 1996, renowned for his shape-shifting performances as Sid Vicious and Joe Orton in the UK, and Lee Harvey Oswald, Beethoven and Dracula in the US. But moving into the director’s seat was seen as career suicide, especially with Oldman’s highly personal screenplay about working class family life in South London lacking star names. Luc Besson, who had had a big hit with Oldman in Leon Read more ...
Katie Colombus
When asked what I wanted for Christmas this year, my response was mostly that I just want to drink Baileys out of Lindt bunnies and dance in my socks in the kitchen. Y'know?More specifically though, it's Beyonce's Renaissance that I particularly wish to be kitchen-disco-ing to. Mostly because it is the strongest, sexiest riot of soul, disco and house music I've heard in an age, but also because Queen Bey is (basically) the same age as me and my children think she's cool, which keeps hope alive in my soul.Whilst Harry Styles' "As It Was" and Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" have been particular Read more ...