Reviews

The L-Shaped Room is a stagy 1962 adaptation of a Lynne Reid Banks novel about pregnant French socialite Leslie Caron in a London bedsit, and is famous only to Smiths obsessives due to it being the source of the opening sample from The Queen Is Dead. John Schlesinger's 1965 Darling is a key text from the Swinging London canon, breezily and brilliantly skewering vacuous underwear model Diana Scott (Julie Christie) as she seduces her way into wealthy despair.

Part of a triple DVD pack, this contains footage of German TV show Beat Club, a legendary showcase for the best bands of the era. Its late-'60s archive is now a valuable resource for DVD compilers. Like a visual companion to Uncut's Acid Daze CD given away two issues ago, Psychedelic High features Donovan, Arthur Brown, the Small Faces and The Nice all overlapping with that collection. The Who and The Moody Blues also attend what is mostly a very English psychedelic tea party, although The Byrds, Blue Cheer and Canned Heat fly the American freak flag.

Raw-as-blisters rock from Jack White cohorts

Bizarre female electropop debut with several Kid 606 productions

The garage rock virus spreads to Canada

Sixth album from multi-award-winning British-Asian pioneer

This album from Detroit electro-garage band, Electric Six, invites the listener to consider two obvious reference points. One being Dynasty, the abysmal 1979 disco album by stadium rock clowns Kiss, the other being the inside cover of Daft Punk's 1997 debut Homework (a collage of grubby teen paraphernalia—comics, rock stickers, Chic seven inches). Electric Six nail a kitschy hybrid of '70s rock and disco—AC/DC & The Sunshine Band, if you will—but repeated plays reveal little charm and less real humour.

Today's New York rockers, posturing Gotham dance music and yesterday's post-punkers from Blighty

Two neglected '70s funk/soul albums; part of a Universal Funk series

Vintage French noir makes a reappearance