Reviews

CD debut for lost '60s soul giant

Grammy-nominated at five (for 1973's "Daddy What If" duèt with famous country dad Bobby Bare), Junior took the Nashville blood and jacked it up with a punk speedball and heaps of seedy Memphis Soul. His second YCSL release is a dark narcotic delight, the beat-up voice straddling the grainbelt between Jeff Tweedy and Ryan Adams, and flipping the bird with all the wry sarcasm of Red Star Belgrade's Bill Curry. And the back-up's top drawer—Will Oldham, plus Lambchoppers Paul Burch, Paul Niehaus and producer Mark Nevers.

While many of St Etienne's 'concepts' have left me cold, this one resonates, perhaps because I've just read the enchanting coffee-table tome Classic Cafes by Adrian Maddox and Phil Nicholls. Bob Stanley's sleevenotes similarly eulogise the faded majesty and allure of "caffs"—"'It's for lorry drivers,' said my mum." As these temples to a bygone age disappear, they exude the melancholy of half-recalled Donovan songs. In homage to these hallowed halls of grease are kitsch gems from The Kinks, Chairmen Of The Board, The Moments and The Sapphires.

Debut of lean, libidinous mechanico-funk from London DJ duo

Ill-chosen selection that ignores her best work

...or It Shouldn't Happen To A Baby Seal

The small transit town of Nouadhibou lies between the desert and the sea in the African state of Mauritania. Here, Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako explores the tug between modernity and tradition, adopting an image-heavy poetic style to examine themes of migration and exile, centred around the character of Khatra, a young man caught between two cultures.

Sad, funny and cynical, Billy Wilder's 1970 movie presents a classically Holmesian mystery—a missing person case which ends with the Loch Ness Monster—as cover for an exploration of the great detective's myth, seeking to identify the crippled man behind the machine-like facade. Beautifully shot, the movie was cut by the studio and ignored by critics, but it's gorgeous. Robert Stephens is a complex Holmes, Colin Blakely a most human Watson.

Impeccable 1948 Hollywood swan song from Preston Sturges detailing the destructive effect of marital infidelity on suave millionaire Rex Harrison (brilliantly unhinged). Naturally, there's polished badinage, snappy one-liners and physical comedy aplenty. But it's also curiously dark and modern—see Harrison mutilating his wife with a cut-throat razor, and forcing her to play Russian roulette.

A companion piece to last year's sensual reimagining of Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger, Bozulich's latest offers two tasters from there ("Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain"; "Can I Sleep In Your Arms?", with Nelson duetting) alongside the outré experimentalism of her live work. The ex-Geraldine Fibber revisits both 1997's "Arrow To My Drunken Eye" and the epic "Outside Of Town", sharding them with amplified strings, dissonant guitar and a voice like velvet studded with razor blades.