fri 07/03/2025

1970s

CD: Leo Sayer - Selfie

For Brits below a certain age Leo Sayer is the curly haired middle-aged chap who swearily walked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house in 2007 and disappeared. However, for those around in the 1970s his diminutive dancing form, ever-ready grin and...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Crass

Abbey Road Studios and the anarcho-punk legends Crass seem an unlikely pairing. The new, vinyl-only reissues of The Feeding of the Five Thousand (The Second Sitting), Stations of the Crass and Best Before 1984 each bear a sticker saying “...

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Terry Riley & Gyan Riley, The Old Market, Hove review - gently pleasing evening of improvisation

“I don’t know if I’m going to recognise any of it,” I say to my accomplice as we drain a couple of light ales amid the sea of grey beards in The Old Market’s bar. “I don’t think they’ll play the hits,” he replies, deadpan, “but don’t worry, there...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Marvin Gaye - You’re The Man

The sticker on the sleeve says “Marvin Gaye’s Lost Album.” A prime internet sales site states “You’re The Man was the album that was proposed to follow-up the monumental What’s Going On.” According to the marketing and promotional material, You’re...

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CD: Norah Jones - Begin Again

There's a remarkable lightness to the way Norah Jones has glid through her career. She once told theartsdesk that even in her early 20s, faced with the global hyper success of Come Away With Me, “I think I was smart enough to know at the...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Three Day Week - When the Lights Went Out 1972-1975

This new collection, compiled by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne, aurally delineates a period when much that was British had an edge of bleakness. Accordingly, Three Day Week – When the Lights Went Out 1972–1975 ought to be a grim listen...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Rema-Rema - Fond Reflections

Until now, Rema-Rema’s only release was a 12-inch EP released in August 1980. It had hit shops after the band fell apart at the end of the previous year. Negotiations with 4AD, a new offshoot of the Beggar’s Banquet label, were underway towards the...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: The Residents

Writing in 1980, the musician and musical theorist Chris Cutler said that “without the support and patronage of the culture-establishment, The Residents were able to exist, continue to exist, grow, find their public, hold that public – and expand it...

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Reissue CDs Weekly: Sparks

Although American, Sparks’ initial commercial breakthrough was in the UK where their rococo art-rock chimed with ears attuned to, say, Roxy Music. Their sensibility has always been more European than American. In 2009 they issued an album titled The...

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Follies, National Theatre review - the Sondheim spectacular returns, better than ever

This is a golden age of London Sondheim revivals, with Marianne Elliott’s thrilling Company still playing in the West End, and Dominic Cooke’s Follies getting a hugely welcome second run at the National – both testament to a director’s...

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Bodies, Southwark Playhouse review - shaky revival misses the mark

Bodies is the latest in Two's Company's series of what they deem "forgotten masterworks", this one making a less-than-triumphant return to the London stage after almost 40 years away. Written by James Saunders in 1977, it opened at the Orange Tree...

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DVD/Blu-ray: Dawson City - Frozen Time

Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen Time is an intoxicating cinematic collage-compilation that embraces social history – in microcosm, via its story of the titular Canadian mining town – as well as the history of film itself. But it goes further,...

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