Month: December 2005

Anything an alternative rock magazine is going to report about the new ‘Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire’ soundtrack is likely to be monopolised by the inclusion of three new Jarvis Cocker numbers and the performances of Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood, sticksman, Phil Selway plus Add N t (X)’s Steve Claydon, Pulp’s Steve Mackey and Jason Buckle – a shame given the subtle magical majesty of Patrick Doyle’s score and the affectionate performance of the orchestral crew who mesh all Continue Reading

They’re a thankless, moody bunch those rock stars, aren’t they? Breaking up their amps and guitars when their mothers have worked their nails to the bone paying for them on the old HP month in and month out without so much as a word of thanks from any of them. As long as they’ve got enough pennies to spend down at the local salon come Friday evening for their weekly cut and blow they just don’t give a stuff about Continue Reading

It’s going to split a few people this one. And whilst Christmas is as good a time as any to start an argument (gooder, in my view) there’s really no reason why this impeccable selection of Blue Note originals can’t sit quietly alongside the Jazznova collective’s fashion assisted fusion of hip-hop, funk, breakbeat and soul without poking at one another or pulling out their tongues. Likewise, there’s no reason for Blue Note sophisticates to dismiss this mix record simply because Continue Reading

The Anticon stamp is a fine argument for why labels can still matter in these oh-so-very-modern days of instantaneous identity and product delivery dot com forward slash. It’s a guarantee. It tells you ‘it’s ok, there will be something, maybe many things, that will make you stop for breath on this record’. Imagine that, eh. Creativity is taken for granted and not demanded nearly often enough, and here’s a label that kicks that into touch a little. It’s a hip-hop Continue Reading

For those expecting a new album from the Grammy award winning and jazz savvy hip-hop band the Digable Planets, this could be something of a wind-up. Folks have already queried the misleading moniker – The Creamy Spy Chronicles – when the album amounts to little more than a greatest hits package amassed from a selection of quality B-Sides, tidy remixes and singles. But for a band that can boast no more than two albums proper (1993’s ‘Reachin: A New Refutation of Continue Reading

The words ‘genius’ and long-awaited’ seem something of a platitude thesedays whenever uttered in deference of Kate Bush. Still there’s no getting away from the fact that the enigmatic singer-songwriter who reared us suckling babes on a mixed-diet of leotards and bleak literary references is something of a rarity in English music: a fresh and imaginative icon unafraid to scale the dizzying heights of invention or retire into the bosom of English heritage both; as happy to trade steps with Continue Reading

The problem with building a commercial career around a beef with the mainstream and the success of other artists like LL Cool J is that it doesn’t leave you much room to go once you find yourself riding a minor triumph like the solid New York anthem ‘4-3-2-1’. But in spite of all expectations, Canibus found himself raising the temperature and the bar still further with ‘Second Round K.O’ – a ferocious left-hook of a track that caught the whole Continue Reading

‘Don’t open your mouth ‘till you’ve seen this DVD’ boasts the cover. You might also want to add, ‘Don’t open the box until you’ve read this review’. Self-styled ‘Queen Of Scream’ Melissa Cross is a sincere enough lady. Whether she’s talking about taking a dump or singing over the pencil, this feisty, flame-haired rock siren really does have your best interests at heart. You see; there’s a way to scream and a way not to scream and this hansom DVD/CD Continue Reading

The kitchen-cupboard Brian Wilson wiggles his crusty old bedroom-slippers at us again with a rather special brew of Gorky and Furries style horseplay and 60s recording techniques. Stealing liberally from Pet Sounds, tracks like ‘My Patch’ and ‘How To Be So Real’ sparkle like diamonds in a men’s urinal regardless of the iffy means through which they’re earned. It’s all perilously close to being all pastiche, but its pretty all the same. Alongside the liberal doses of inspiration found in Continue Reading

The gods honest truth of the matter is we can’t get enough the eighties, can we? And with the exception of exhuming Falco, Baltimora, Michael Hutchence, Paula Yates, Divine and Stuart Adamson and putting them in a supergroup of dead 80s icons fronted by Holly Johnson we can’t do much more than we are doing in dragging it kicking and screaming into the new millennium. Why do we do it? Why do bears shit and moonwalk in woods? It’s part Continue Reading