best of the year 2020
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latest music reviews
The Good The Bad And The Queen Merrie Land
Almost 12 years ago Damon Albarn’s supergroup released their debut record, a concept album centred around London. After scrapping a... read more
J Mascis Elastic Days
We’ve been used to J Mascis standing in front of a wall of Marshall amps with his Fender Jazzmaster in... read more
Charles Bradley Black Velvet
Released just a few days after Bradley would have turned 70, Black Velvet is a fitting postscript to the life... read more
Dead Can Dance Dionysus
From the spray and swell of the sea to the sound of a Swiss goatherd, the latest album from Brendan... read more
latest film reviews
Mandy
The full range of Nicolas Cage’s ferocious acting ability is on display in Mandy – a grindhouse revenge thriller that offers us LSD-crazed bikers, several deaths by burning and axe-smelting. It is nothing if not full on, and for a joint like this Cage is most definitely a filmmaker’s go-to... read more
Whitney
Legacy management is an increasingly significant business as estates and record companies sensitively administer the posthumous careers of their artists. Significant projects along these lines this year have included ‘new’ albums from John Coltrane and Prince and this authorised documentary on Whitney Huston. To an extent, this is the official... read more
Edie
Following her husband’s death, an elderly woman embarks on a trip to fulfill her longtime dream of climbing a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. That the woman – Edie – is played here by Sheila Hancock, whose own husband John Thaw died in 2002, brings a small degree of veracity... read more
