Demob Happy

This month I’m enjoying several tracks from The Magnetic Fields’ new album ‘Distortion’, which appears to be an unashamed homage to Jesus & The Mary Chain. Luckily, they didn’t forget to write songs to match. ‘Old Fools’ has something of Nick Cave about the vocals, which resound strikingly over the layers of feedback and reverb, [...]

Magnetic Fields - Old Fools [ 3:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tacks, the Boy Disaster - Frozen Feet [ 4:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Magnetic Fields - Nun's Litany [ 2:57 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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“He’ll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can’t live with that” 8.5/10 Arguably Shane Meadow’s most accomplished film to date, Dead Man’s Shoes combines the director’s normal witty observance of small-town Midlands life with that of a classic revenge movie. It stars co-writer and Meadows regular Paddy Considine as Richard, an ex-soldier returning [...]

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History, narrative, truth and fiction 9/10 Atonement is a stunning period melodrama adapted from Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name. Directed by Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) from a script by Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, The Quiet American), it slips comfortably into a canon of great historical dramas from those of Merchant-Ivory to Anthony [...]

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Before the devil knows you’ve made a terrible film 5/10 Why Sydney Lumet doesn’t get the recognition that the likes of Coppola and Scorcese receive for their 1970s output is a mystery. ‘Serpico‘ (1973), ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975) and ‘Network’ (1976) all feature among lists of the key films in that decade yet somehow Lumet [...]

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Brassed off 6/10 Like Shane Meadows’ later ‘This is England‘, ‘A Room For Romeo Brass‘ is a coming of age drama revolving around friends growing up in the working class Midlands. Both films feature friendships tested by the divisive arrival of an influencial older figure. The protagonists in both films seek friendship to escape disappointment [...]

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Geek chic 7/10 If like I did you heard ‘Coming On Strong‘ after their second, break-through album ‘The Warning‘, you might be wondering where the big tunes are. There is nothing as stand-out here as 2006′s stunning double-wammy of singles ‘Boy From School’ and ‘Over and Over’. Nevertheless, ‘Coming on Strong‘ sets the template for [...]

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I’m The Man Who Loves You 8/10 It took me a long time to come round to Wilco. I had always wrongly thought of them as a square man’s Flaming Lips. While there are superficial resemblances between the two bands, Wilco’s experimental brand of alt-country is focused on more classic pop concerns. The sonic adventurism [...]

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Melody days from the artist formerly known as Manitoba 8/10 It took me a long time to get over how mediocre Caribou’s last album ‘The Milk of Human Kindness‘ was. After the psychedelic onslaught of ‘Up in Flames‘ (recorded under previous moniker ‘Manitoba’), his sophomore record was an exercise in plodding 60s-infused futility. I tried [...]

Irene - Caribou [ 3:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Spaghetti westerns and pulp fiction 6/10 Calexico’s second album is a sprawling, doom-laden and cinematic work that draws heavily on latin jazz, mariachi, country and gypsy folk. Typically rich in the kind of malevolent desert imagery and border country narratives that suggest the novels of Cormac McCarthy, ‘Black Light‘ explores territory that is more fully [...]

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All About My Mother Too 4/10 I’ve always thought that Pedro Almodovar was deeply overrated – bestowed with unjustified and unquestioning acclaim for one tedious film after another. Volver does not buck the trend – a simply moronic family melodrama populated by unlikeable and unbelievable characters, and filmed in the Spanish director’s famously lurid hues. [...]

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