Recorded music686 total entries
Recent reviews5 reviews in the last 7 days
Latest entry1 in the last 7 days
 2 |
Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
Released: 31/01/2012
Columbia Records
Going by the recent list of honours bestowed on him, it appears (apart from his hit world tour) Leonard Cohen has spent the last eight years attending award ceremonies. Either way, he hasn't been releasing records. This is the first album since 2004 from perhaps the most literate songwriter of all time.
|
  
|
 0 |
We Have Band - Ternion
Released: 30/01/2012
Naïve
The London/Manchester trio return with a second album of dark, emotional electro. In a Depeche Mode fashion, discordant bleeps and drones travel along dance beats and prominent bass-lines. In an exercise in self-deconstruction par excellence, the band are also releasing a separate album featuring their own remixes of the tracks featured.
|
|
 5 |
Portico Quartet - Portico Quartet
Released: 30/01/2012
Real World Records
After humble beginnings busking in London, then a Mercury nomination in 2008, the laid-back quartet dive into the world of electronica. Renowned for the use of unconventional instruments, this otherwise traditional jazz ensemble have followed what seems like a natural progression in taking up with synthesisers and programmed drums.
|
 70%
|
 3 |
Nada Surf - The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy
Released: 27/01/2012
City Slang
The New York trio bring us the sixth album of their career, and after 15 years, they appear as close-knit as ever. Enlisting the help of a few friends - including Guided by Voices' Doug Gillard - this is energetic, guitar-heavy, and filled with youthful enthusiasm for its own sound.
|
 48%
|
 3 |
Leila - U&I
Released: 23/01/2012
Warp
Leila Arab's fourth album comes out of a long-running collaboration with producer/ musician Mt. Sims. Arab has her work on Bjork's Biophilia to recommend her, Mt Sims a part in The Knife's opera Tomorrow, In A Year. Together they offer a range from grinding industrial to all out drum'n'bass.
|
63%
|
 5 |
Fránçois and the Atlas Mountains - E Volo Love
Released: 23/01/2012
Domino Records
North African rhythms punctuate this otherwise laid back, melody-driven affair, inspired by frontman Fránçois Marry's al fresco experiences in the south of France. The band's songs - sung in both English and French - translate landscape into delicate soundscape for Domino records' first French signing.
|
74%
|
 4 |
Islet - Illuminated People
Released: 23/01/2012
Turnstile
An audacious nine-minute opener sets the tone for an album that harnesses some disparate but classic sounds - jazzy breaks, searing organ and vocal chants - to create something exciting and even danceable. Born out of the Cardiff group's ethos of jam-based experimentation, this is an uncompromising first full-length.
|
80%
|
 5 |
Porcelain Raft - Strange Weekend
Released: 23/01/2012
Secretly Canadian
Mauro Remiddi finds his audio analogue in artists such as Apparat or MGMT, but Strange Weekend is definitely of the digital age. Inspired by Remiddi's internet trawling and his travels to the farthest corners of the globe, eerie electronic sounds abound in an album produced in a Brooklyn basement.
|
76%
|
 9 |
Guided By Voices - Let's Go Eat The Factory
Released: 16/01/2012
Fire Records
After a year-long reunion tour - that they swore they wouldn't do - the Ohio-based indie veterans are back with the 'classic' mid-90s line-up reunited for the first time in fifteen years. Still recording in a garage with the majority of their songs seldom passing the two-minute mark, this could just match the lo-fi excellence of Bee Thousand.
|
65%
|
 3 |
Department of Eagles - The Cold Nose (Bonus Tracks)
Released: 09/01/2012
Melodic
The Brooklyn duo's bizarre but masterful 2005 collection of musical brain splurges is rooted in beatsy electro and guitars, but ultimately defies categorisation. This timely re-release, which now includes demo versions and remixes, shows the importance and relevance of esoteric, glitchy bedroom production in today's mainstream music industry.
|
 83%
|
-
Recorded music
-
Cinema
97% L'Atalante 91% The Artist 86% Martha Marcy May Marlene 76% Bombay Beach 76% Shame 76% Margin Call 76% The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 75% Snowtown 75% The Deep Blue Sea 74% Moneyball 73% The Descendants 70% Coriolanus 68% War Horse 68% My Week With Marilyn 67% 50/50 -
Books
-
Exhibitions
- Theatre
- Opera & Dance
Ads
