Reviews

New wave god turned worldbeat evangelist gets opera bug

Lovelorn pop from Chicago's Navin brothers

Nu-soul from old funk head making solo debut

The doyen of French hip hop returns with his sixth album

Elemental, my dear Wreckless. Eric Goulden's 1986 releases on a twofer

Starring some nuns, a pair of naughty schoolgirls, a dog, and an animated man with a huge willy

Mesmeric magical realism from indie icons

Minor shocker (made for TV) from Wes Craven, starring Linda Blair as a schoolgirl whose boyfriend and family get taken over by her evil cousin, a backwoods witch. Only Blair's horse and friendly supernatural expert Macdonald Carey can tell the possessed from normal people. Also known as Stranger In Our House, and for Blair and Craven completists only.

Another brave taboo-buster from Joseph Strick, tackling Jean Genet's play in 1964 with the kind of cast that has you pinching yourself: Shelley Winters, Peter Falk and a youthful Leonard Nimoy. In a brothel that's a hideaway from the war outside, Winters is a fearsome madam and Nimoy's a rebel leader. Surreal and grubbily saucy, though the low budget shows its cracks at times.

It's too much to digest in one sitting—three discs, seven hours and almost 100 songs, released in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Jacques Brel's death. But it's fascinating to watch him turn so rapidly from the hesitant, gauche performer of the late-'50s into the charismatic equivalent of a Gallic Sinatra.