Location: set your location

Reviews

Sorted by date / most viewed. Showing 25, 50, 100 per page.

Cannes 2012: Amour

Cannes 2012: Amour

Deeply sad and affecting film from Michael Haneke, and winner of the 2012 Palme D’Or

(4 stars)28 May 2012

Unlike The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke’s Palme D’Or winning film from 2009), which stands out for its thematic and narrative complexities, Amour sees the Austrian director take a far simpler approach to filmmaking, with an intimate story of an elderly…

Cannes 2012: Holy Motors

Cannes 2012: Holy Motors

Hugely satisfying and inventive celebration of cinema from Leos Carax

(4 stars)28 May 2012

Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant) is picked up by his driver Celine (Edith Scob) for a day’s work - 9 appointments that will take him across Paris and into the paths of an array of characters. If that sounds vague, it’s deliberate - to say anymore would…

Men in Black 3

Men in Black 3

Silly, lightweight, completely unnecessary but surprisingly fun

(3 stars)25 May 2012

In these times of austerity Hollywood seems scared of originals ideas. Studios demand ‘brand recognition’ before they’ll stump up the multi-million dollar budgets blockbusters require. And they seem willing to latch onto almost any brand, from comics to…

Cannes 2012: On the Road

Cannes 2012: On the Road

Walter Salles’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel struggles to capture a sense of the times

(3 stars)25 May 2012

If, for two and a half hours, you can put aside the fact that Walter Salles’ (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries) latest work is an adaptation of one of the most famous, influential books in recent American history, you might just enjoy this…

Cannes 2012: The Paperboy

Cannes 2012: The Paperboy

Lee Daniels’ plot hole-ridden latest film is still a compelling, if occasionally ludicrous, ride

(3 stars)25 May 2012

Lee Daniels follows up his sleeper hit Precious with an enjoyably trashy, if often misguided, story based on the book by Pete Dexter. It’s 1969 and journalist Ward (Matthew McConaughey) returns to his hometown of Lately, Florida to investigate what…

The Son(s) – Leviathan EP

The Son(s) – Leviathan EP

Remarkable EP of lo-fi subtlety and intimacy from the mystery-shrouded artist(s)

(4 stars)24 May 2012

Having consulted an online resource to find a definition of the word 'leviathan' I was met with the task of trying to come to terms with how a mythological sea creature that is manifested as some kind of demon incarnate would find context in the lush…

Melvins Lite – Freak Puke

Melvins Lite – Freak Puke

Experimental craziness from the long-running grungers' reduced incarnation

(3 stars)24 May 2012

You can never really expect every album by these insanely experimental men to sound the same. Even after 29 years of performing and recording together, The Melvins (or Melvins Lite, in this case) somehow manage to remain enthusiastic and creative in an…

Cannes 2012: Killing Them Softly

Cannes 2012: Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik’s stylish gangster film is visually impressive if occasionally lacking momentum

(3 stars)24 May 2012

Killing Them Softly, Andrew Dominik’s third film following Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, is a bleakly humourous gangster flick with an underlying commentary on modern day moral bankruptcy. It begins with…

Cannes 2012: Trashed

Cannes 2012: Trashed

British documentary about waste pollution could have done with burrowing deeper

(2 stars)24 May 2012

Watching British documentary Trashed it’s curious to think who the filmmakers imagined their audience to be. Exploring the impact and problems of waste disposal, the film barely scrapes the surface of its subject matter, giving the air of a dry…

DZ Deathrays – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Tue 22 May 2012

DZ Deathrays – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Tue 22 May 2012

Raw and intense show from the Brisbane duo

(4 stars)24 May 2012

2012 should be a landmark year for DZ Deathrays. The Aussie duo were included in NME’s Top 20 Most Exciting Bands of 2012, and their debut album Bloodstreams has met with generally favourable reviews. In the meantime though, it’s pleasing to see them…

Tim Hecker / Wounded Knee / Matthew Collings, Pilrig, St Paul's Church, Edinburgh, Sat 19 May 2012

Tim Hecker / Wounded Knee / Matthew Collings

Pilrig St Paul's Church, Edinburgh - Sat 19 May 2012

(5 stars)23 May 2012

Anyone au fait with Sacred Music, BBC 4's two-series trawl through the history of choral worship, from plainchant to polyphony and beyond, will be as versed in the integral relationship between music and church architecture as they are with presenter…

The Angels' Share - EMBARGO 22 MAY

The Angels' Share

Loach and Laverty's latest suffers from attempts to attract all-comers

(2 stars)23 May 2012

Here persists the noble quest of Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty to create accessible, populist films about the lives of the UK’s so-called underclass. Unfortunately, The Angels’ Share is straining so hard to be accessible and populist that it…

Scott Myles: This Production

Scott Myles: This Production

Dundee artist and former skater reclaims DCA building’s interior

(4 stars)23 May 2012

It makes sense that the site of DCA used to be Scott Myles’ playground. Back then he was a skater boy and it was a bricks-and-mortar garage re-imagined as the sort of makeshift skate-park for local heroes and future high-flyers, which, under the…

What To Expect When You’re Expecting

What To Expect When You’re Expecting

A witless and bland work based on the pregnancy self-help book

(2 stars)23 May 2012

‘You don’t know what love is until you’ve wiped someone’s ass,’ offers one of the many baby-boomers in Kirk (Waking Ned, Everybody’s Fine) Jones’ multi-stranded adaptation of the bestselling self-help book about the dos and don’ts of pregnancy.

She Monkeys

She Monkeys

Impressive coming-of-age drama with frank depiction of adolescent sexuality

(4 stars)23 May 2012

A courageous, periodically unsettling coming-of-age tale, She Monkeys is the arresting first feature from director Lisa Aschan. It’s a Swedish production which - in its frank approach to adolescent sexuality - bears comparison with Katell Quillévéré’s…

Edvard Munch: Graphic Works from the Gunderson Collection

Edvard Munch: Graphic Works from the Gunderson Collection

Extended introduction to troubled Norwegian painter

(3 stars)23 May 2012

Perhaps the greatest surprise for casual viewers of this high-profile new exhibition from the Scottish National Galleries is the discovery that Norwegian painter Edvard Munch had a whole catalogue of work besides ‘The Scream’. One of the most famous…

Tony Swain: Drowned Dust, Sudden Word

Tony Swain: Drowned Dust, Sudden Word

Using materials of newsprint as starting point for abstract painting canvasses

(3 stars)23 May 2012

There’s a deliberately seductive art to the design of a newspaper page, but only within the uniform rigour of the reader’s expectations. Northern Irish artist Tony Swain subverts these norms by using the materials of newsprint as the starting point for…

Callum Innes - Works on Paper 1989–2012

Callum Innes - Works on Paper 1989–2012

Demonstrates tension, richness and depth already familiar in Innes’ paintings

(3 stars)23 May 2012

Callum Innes’ explorations of material processes are well demonstrated in this first exhibition dedicated to his works on paper. Abstract images of colour familiar from his paintings on canvas fill the space, each one creating particular tensions…

Paul Thek: If you don’t like this book you don’t like me

Paul Thek: If you don’t like this book you don’t like me

Candid close-up of Brooklyn-born painter and sculptor

(3 stars)23 May 2012

‘I will now call to mind our past foulness and the carnal corruptions of my soul’ goes one missive culled from the now opened pages of almost a hundred notebooks left behind by Brooklyn-born painter and sculptor Thek, which came to light following his…

Stag & Dagger, various venues, Glasgow, Sat 19 May

Stag & Dagger, various venues, Glasgow, Sat 19 May

Eleanor Friedberger and Miaoux Miaoux play as part of 13 hour gig crawl

(4 stars)22 May 2012

While its London sister seems to have died a death, presumably smothered by a surfeit of such hipster-friendly crawls and brawls in the English capital, the Glasgow leg of multi-venue one-dayer Stag and Dagger happily lives on, albeit with perhaps a…

The Horrors - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Tue 15 May, 2012

The Horrors - O2 ABC, Glasgow, Tue 15 May, 2012

Charming and mesmerising set that avoids sharp pop aesthetic

(4 stars)22 May 2012

For Essex boys The Horrors, surely redemption has arrived at last. Yes, there were those of us who enjoyed the spooky frightwig garage rock of their debut album Strange House, but it left the sense that here was a band who are overstylised and blessed…

Alan Warner - The Deadman's Pedal

Alan Warner - The Deadman's Pedal

Evocative and personal rural drama from the Morvern Callar author

(4 stars)22 May 2012

In a literary career which has played down the overly autobiographical tendency (all that writing from a female perspective malarkey for one thing), The Deadman’s Pedal seems far and away Alan Warner’s most personal fiction to date. We return to the…

Births, Deaths and Marriages

Births, Deaths and Marriages

New radio sitcom from Alan Partridge regular David Schneider

(3 stars)22 May 2012

The old triumvirate of hatch, match and dispatch will surely prove fertile for the big comedic brain of David Schneider as he launches his new radio sitcom. Set in a Local Register Office, chief registrar Malcolm Fox (not Ian Rankin’s post-Rebus…

Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man in the Universe

Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man in the Universe

A wise yet not world-weary record from the soul legend

(3 stars)22 May 2012

‘As a singer grows older, his conception goes a little deeper, because he lives life and he understands what he’s trying to say a little more...’ So said Sam Cooke back in the day, and so opens electro-soul hymn ‘Dayglo Reflection’, the fourth track…

Elvis Costello - Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, Fri 11 May

Elvis Costello - Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, Fri 11 May

Three-hour 30-song greatest hits show with patter aplenty

(4 stars)22 May 2012

‘She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake’ – has any songwriter anticipated the career ahead of them as clairvoyantly as Elvis Costello did on Watching the Detectives? The song appeared in 1977 but its writer has spent the decades since…

Lil B - Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, Sun 6 May

Lil B - Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow, Sun 6 May

22-year-old Berkeley rapper describes himself as ‘an art history project’

(4 stars)22 May 2012

It must be the Californian in him, but the BASEDGOD, despite his lyrics about eating white booty, his VIP lifestyle, and his resemblance to Jesus/Michael Jordan/Miley Cyrus and Paris Hilton, is basically a hippie. Top off, shades on, tiny muscled torso…

Friends & AlunaGeorge - King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Mon 7 May

Friends & Aluna George - King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Mon 7 May

Disco-tinged set of dazzling pop music

(4 stars)22 May 2012

‘Come closer,’ beckons Friends’ enigmatic frontwoman Samantha Urbani, as the Brooklyn quintet make their Glasgow debut. She means it too: blink and next thing, she’s on the floor, shimmying up to an exhilarated crowd. If the intimate touch hints at a…

Hannah Berry - Adamtine

Hannah Berry - Adamtine

A disconcerting horror comic from the creator of Britten and Brülightly

(4 stars)22 May 2012

British graphic novelist Hannah Berry’s near-perfect debut, Britten and Brülightly, was a detective yarn inspired by Graham Greene and Carol Reed. But the familiar post-war milieu was given a surreal comic twist with the inclusion of a character that…

Auntie Flo - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Sun 13 May

Auntie Flo - Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, Sun 13 May

Club-friendly house beats with a world music undercurrent

(4 stars)22 May 2012

It’s a foul Sunday night and getting late, with the hour moving near to midnight when Glasgow duo Auntie Flo take their place behind a pod of trestle tables loaded down with kit and cables. The flickering projection behind them bears the legend ‘Night…

Ewan Morrison - Tales from the Mall

Ewan Morrison - Tales from the Mall

A wealth of information and anecdotes drawn together to paint a funny, scary portrait of our times

(4 stars)22 May 2012

As Ewan Morrison notes in his introduction, the shopping mall is a potent symbol of the homogenised world in which we live now. You could look at images of shopping centres in Dundee and Dresden and chances are you won’t be able to tell them apart. The…

Nikita Lalwani - The Village

Nikita Lalwani - The Village

A tense social drama about trust and betrayal, set in an Indian prison

(4 stars)22 May 2012

When Ray Bhullar travels to an Indian ‘open prison’ village to film a behind-the-scenes BBC documentary, she gets more than she bargained for. ‘Everyone here has killed someone,’ she’s told, as she slowly adapts to the sights and smells of her alien new…

John Irving - In One Person

John Irving - In One Person

A fascinating and engaging novel set against the backdrop of gay culture in America

(4 stars)22 May 2012

Write about what you know, we’re told, and John Irving is certainly a big subscriber to that particular maxim. For his 13th novel, Irving once again inhabits the worlds of New Hampshire (his birthplace) and wrestling (his preferred sport). Our…

Chris Cleave - Gold

Chris Cleave - Gold

Well-timed Olympic-themed novel fails to fulfill the promise of its intriguing premise

(3 stars)22 May 2012

There’s something intriguing about the mindset of those athletes who are honed from a very young age into Olympic machines. Lives are altered irrevocably in pursuit of a small gold disc and the too-fleeting associated glory: a strange, self-obsessed way…

Peter Zummo - Zummo with an X

Peter Zummo - Zummo with an X

Minimalist experimental reissue from the regular Arthur Russell collaborator

(4 stars)22 May 2012

An excellent reissue of the out-of-print debut from Peter Zummo dating back to 1981, a long time session musician and collaborator of Arthur Russell’s – who also lends his distinctive cello and baritone stylings throughout. With its feet firmly set in…

Friends - Manifest!

Friends - Manifest!

An insidiously hooky album that's sometimes brilliant, sometimes bloomin’ annoying

(3 stars)22 May 2012

There are songs you can’t get out of your head, and then there are songs you wish you could get out of your head. In the latter category: ‘Hey Baby’ by DJ Otzi. In the former: Friends’ ‘Friend Crush’ and ‘I’m His Girl’. The Brooklyn band’s well-blogged…

Ultravox - Brilliant

Ultravox - Brilliant

Dull and pompous record from the no-longer-relevant Ure and co

(1 star)22 May 2012

Does the world really need another album, the first in 26 years, from the ‘classic’ Midge Ure-era Ultravox – a group of negligible lasting impact on music even at their mid-80s arena synth-pop zenith? The Trade Descriptions Act-violating Brilliant is…

Paul Buchanan - Mid Air

Paul Buchanan - Mid Air

Poor solo effort from the former Blue Nile member

(2 stars)22 May 2012

Written as a kind of pop requiem for a late friend, Mid Air is, quite fittingly, something of a musical flatline; a cycle of 14 barely-there doodles for voice and piano with all the punch and urgency of a ghost falling asleep. Virtually nothing remains…

Neneh Cherry & The Thing - Cherry Thing

Neneh Cherry & The Thing - Cherry Thing

Inventive and charismatic return from Cherry in this free jazz/post-punk collaboration

(4 stars)22 May 2012

Neneh Cherry’s first album in 16 years is perhaps closer in spirit to the jazzoid post-punk of Rip Rig & Panic than the glorious hip-pop of Raw Like Sushi, but hot damn, it’s good. The Thing are renowned for their wild takes on cult rock and free-jazz…

Mary Epworth - Dream Life

Mary Epworth - Dream Life

A lavish and eclectic debut album from the folk-rock singer

(4 stars)22 May 2012

Where shall we begin? With the banjo twang, Black Sabbath fuzz and Goldfrapping blues-stomp of ‘Black Doe’? With the brass-toting folk-rock euphoria of ‘Long Gone’? With the swirling psych-pop of ‘Come Back to the Bough’? Or perhaps we should start…

Patti Smith - Banga

Patti Smith - Banga

Unique album of punk poetry populated by rocky arias, improvised psalms and lyrical reveries

(3 stars)22 May 2012

You may have heard that Patti Smith dedicates a song to Amy Winehouse on her 11th studio album, Banga. This takes the form of a syrupy ballad, ‘This is the Girl’, and its intentions are honourable, but look beyond it: there are greater, more defiant…

Miaoux Miaoux - Light of the North

Miaoux Miaoux - Light of the North

Gloriously melodic dance-pop in the vein of Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx and the Avalanches

(5 stars)22 May 2012

This is a perfect example of how good pop music can be if it’s driven by a restless intelligence. Miaoux Miaoux, aka Julian Corrie, has been turning heads with his distinctive electro-pop sound for a while, but this first album for Chemikal Underground…

Ben Zabo - Ben Zabo

Ben Zabo - Ben Zabo

Vibrant and inventive Malian Afro-beat, occasionally let down by naff blues guitar

(3 stars)22 May 2012

Described as Malian Afro-Beat, Ben Zabo’s music expands its scope well beyond the Fela Kuti-inspired sounds of 1970s Bamako to incorporate the bwa rhythms and melodies of his own Bo region, alongside elements of funk and rock. Slick production has…

Sigur Rós - Valtari

Sigur Rós - Valtari

A typically dazzling record from the Icelandic cosmic folk-pop outfit

(4 stars)22 May 2012

The rumours of an ‘indefinite hiatus’ might have left us thinking that was it for Sigur Rós, but the four years since their previous album have amounted to little more than a bit of creative refreshment time. Valtari (the infinitely less satisfying to…

Silver Jews - Early Times 1990-91

Silver Jews - Early Times 1990-91

Reissue of early works by David Berman, Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich

(4 stars)22 May 2012

Disbanded in 2009, David Berman’s Silver Jews project was a tremendous portmanteau of country and US indie that acted as a vehicle for Berman’s lyrics, his voice, smooth and unsteady as stretched taffy, often simply speaking the words in tune, offering…

Steve Kuhn Trio - Wisteria

Steve Kuhn Trio - Wisteria

Accomplished, crisp and cool recordings by Kuhn, Steve Swallow and Joey Baron

(3 stars)22 May 2012

Pianist Steve Kuhn has worked with both bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Joey Baron in many contexts over several decades, but they had never played together in a trio setting prior to recording this last year. You would never guess that, though – they…

Oriole - Every New Day

Oriole - Every New Day

Distinctly Latin-influenced sounds from the F-IRE collective

(3 stars)22 May 2012

The latest offering from the ranks of the London-based F-IRE collective features music written by Oriole’s founder, guitarist Johnny Phillips, during a six-year stay in Cadiz. The distinctly Spanish/Latin melodic and rhythmic feel has an appealing…

Can - The Lost Tapes

Can - The Lost Tapes

An essential Can album with unheard versions of familiar tracks and some never-heard-before material

(5 stars)21 May 2012

Not lost at all, but just forgotten about in Can’s cluttered studio until archived by the classic German psych-rock explorers’ Irmin Schmidt recently, this three-disc dump of material is unfeasibly good considering it managed to avoid the light of day…

Hot Chip - In Our Heads

Hot Chip - In Our Heads

The elctro-pop masters' fifth album is their most smartly accessible effort to date

(4 stars)21 May 2012

Every self-appointed creative with a WTF haircut and a MacBook thinks they’re an ‘electronic artist’ these days. But there’s more to it than bedroom-recording cry wank vocals over presets and dropping them to Tuesday night cheek-chewers. Hot Chip’s…

Dexys - One Day I’m Going To Soar

Dexys - One Day I’m Going To Soar

Full of wit, panache, brutal self-examination and abundant tunefulness

(5 stars)21 May 2012

The title alone gives you a tingling feeling that something glorious and redemptive lies within: and so it proves on Dexys’ – formerly Dexys Midnight Runners – first new album in 27 years. Following the young soul rebels’ disastrous plunge in fortunes…

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Crisp restoration of the 1940s satire by Powell and Pressburger

(5 stars)18 May 2012

Spry and delightful nearly 70 years on, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of many masterpieces from filmmaking virtuosos Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, collectively known as The Archers. Their fifth collaboration, from 1943, is an…

9,452 articles.

Sorted by date / most viewed. Showing 25, 50, 100 per page.

RSS feed