David Bowie
Ouvrez Le Chien (Live Dallas 95)
Parlophone UK
The gates are wide open now, the David Bowie reissues and new releases are pouring. Some are very, very boring. Some didn’t need to happen. But there are some gems – of course. There’s gold in the vault, and probably a bit more to come too. But this year and last we’ve had a few interesting archival live shows. Read More
Sean Murray
Avengement [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
Sean Murray
I was watching Avengement the other day on Netflix. I’m a big fan of the Jesse V. Johnson / Scott Adkins vehicles where everything is solved through big barroom beat-em-ups and a bit of martial hurts actually hurts everyone in the end, and during the middle, and also right at the start. Fabulous stuff. Read More
Paul Haslinger
Austerlitz
Artificial Instinct
Paul Haslinger is an Austrian musician and composer based in LA. He was a member of Tangerine Dream through the last 1980s and has contributed to both the programming of and scoring for video games as well as making film and TV soundtracks and working with a range of musicians from the dark ambient master Lustmord through singers like Nona Hendryx and the conceptualist Jon Hassell. Read More
Darren Watson
Getting Sober For The End Of The World
Lamington Records / Real Deal Productions
Wellington-based singer/songwriter Darren Watson has a new album out. And I’m pretty sure it’s his best. I thought that last time, admittedly. But I reckon Getting Sober trumps the also-wonderful Too Many Millionaires. And speaks, then, to the hallmark of quality and consistency. The new album is warmer, earthier, it relies less on the rigidity of the blues, instead it takes that form of soul music as its heart and starting place and reaches out. Here you will hear upbeat rattlers (Alison Jane) and slow-churn balladry (Another Day). You will hear mischievous jubilance (the title track) and utter sadness soaked through simmering rage (Ernie Abbott). And you might think of John Hiatt and Elvis Costello and Lyle Lovett as much as you think of The BluesTM – which is great, because I’m pretty sure Darren is thinking of those things at least as often as he’s thinking of The BluesTM.
Sober sits alongside Millionaires as something of a companion, or a next step; they are the most alike and like-minded of any two albums in Watson’s catalogue. But there’s more variation on the new album and I also think he’s in the best voice of his career. The vocal performances on the dirge-tempo Another Day and Ernie Abbot are extraordinary. When he lets out a blues wail (One Evil Man, Broken, Preachin’ Blues) it’s pure testifyin’. Read More
Neil Young
The Times EP
Reprise / Amazon Music
Neil Young has been one of my favourite voices of lockdown – I quickly got bored with live-streamed house-gigs. Zooming in on musicians attempting to heal the world, make it a better place was fine in our first reaches of housebound panic but it felt, for the most part, self-serving and privileged in some cases, annoying and desperate in others. And I know I’m not necessarily going to find favour with people saying that. It’s a stony heart that decides that anyone sharing their gift for free, or minimal fee, is some sort of hindrance or on the take. But I sought my solace in old movies rather than ramshackle musical performances. Read More
Roger and Brian Eno
Mixing Colours
Deutsche Grammophon
The brothers have worked together over the years but this is their first full album as a duo. Both have worked extensively in ambient, even easy listening spaces – older brother Brian is better known of course but Roger has been prolific in recent years particularly; the best of his work is poignant, gossamer piano chord voicings that shimmer and hold brittle. Read More
Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets
Live At The Roundhouse
BMG
A couple of years back I read about Nick Mason’s new group – Saucerful of Secrets. He was tackling the pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd, the Syd Barrett years and some of the early years of when Roger Waters started to steer the ship. Essentially the pre-fame era. Certainly the pre-stadium/arena years. Read More
Backlash 2020
Madman
WWE
As a fairweather fan – at best – these days, I was intrigued to catch up with Backlash on DVD not so much for the greatest hyperbole of all time (“The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever”) more for the fact that this was my first wrestling-watching experience in the Covid-era. Read More
John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies
Halloween: Expanded Edition (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Sacred Bones
John Carpenter’s original score for the original Halloween movie is what saved it – the low-budget movie which is legendary now for its kickstarting of a new strain of horror films and for its pioneering indie film spirit was laughed at when it was shown without a score. In three days Carpenter wrote the soundtrack for that film – allegedly he pulled the main theme out of a hat in less than an hour. His name hangs heavy over the franchise even though he’s hardly ever actually there. He scored the next couple of volumes, drew a producer’s credit and said ‘okay’ to several reboots. Read More
Richard Thompson
Bloody Noses (ep)
Beeswing
Richard Thompson is never less than brilliant, never less than prolific – for me if it has his name on the spine of the album it’s an instant mark of quality. But in recent years there’s been a lot of closet-cleaning and stocktaking, volumes of Acoustic “Classics” and “Rarities”, live albums from the archives and his official ‘bootlegs’ – an orchestral film score too. All of it of value, some of it mind-blowingly good, none of it unwelcome. Read More
Brutalist
Michael J. Fox (ep)
Good Manners
Brutalist is the moniker for Melbourne duo John Hassell (Seekae) and Lucian Blomkamp – they’ve both made music alone and in other collaborations and the seeds for this duo were sewn when they shared the bill and bonded backstage of “nerdy” music shares – Profofiev and Arvo Part. And if that seems like some highfalutin PR spin it’ll all make sense instantly on the opening track of their new EP, Eve. Here strings shimmer in ever so slightly jittering recontextualisation – and shelve the house nods and hip-hop beats they’ve been known for and think only of Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed (I’m sure Richter came up in that backstage chat as well, right?) Read More
The Newton Brothers
Dr Sleep (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Watertower Music
I’ve yet to read the book, but I probably will since I’m gearing up to dive deep back into the world of Stephen King – but I saw the film and liked the film, particularly given it had a lot to live up to, sequel-ing The Shining – one of King’s greatest early triumphs and one of the all-time great suspense horror/existential-terror films. Read More