Reviews

Onetime Pistol's third solo LP. Oh dear...

Return after eight years' silence from '60s legend

Glittering twin set from revitalised godfather of gloom

Self-styled Chauncey Gardiner of cute implies a lot but says little

London country duo relocate to US and make masterpiece

Icelander moves into new career phase with experimental vocal fantasies

Loach tackles love across the religious divide

Definitively 'zany' '60s farce, written by Woody Allen, with Peter O'Toole as a Paris fashion editor inundated with willing, eager ladies. This sends him to mad shrink Peter Sellers, who's jealous. Meanwhile, Allen longs for O'Toole's fiancée. Basically an excuse for thousands of hit-and-miss jokes, strippers, much daft over-acting and Ursula Andress. Fantastic.

Recorded in March, this is the same stylish stage show that Sparks brought to London earlier this year. Built around the Li'l Beethoven set, you also get a big helping of bonus tracks from that beguiling back catalogue, including the scarily prescient "The Calm Before The Storm". The motorik medley of "The Number One Song In Heaven" and "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" takes some beating.

This dark treasure from 1945 was Robert Bresson's second feature. Scripted by Cocteau, it's erotic longing and revenge, as spurned spider woman Maria Casares seeks the downfall of her ex and his lover. In contrast with the grey, static textures of Bresson's celebrated work, there's near-noirish lustre, but the intriguing, deceptive narrative bareness, the sense of forces moving beneath the surface, are his alone.