Reviews

Various Artists – Beginner’s Guide To World Music

Moderately entertaining introductory selection

Jane Birkin – Arabesque

Gainsbourg's grand amour offers Oriental stylings

Dandies Of The Underground

Comprehensive collection of Philly pop-soul boys, fronted by Todd Rundgren, who looked to Swinging London for inspiration and then blew up

Various Artists – The Wire 20 1982-2002

Triple box set celebrating independent alternative experimental music

City By The Sea

Crime, family, and De Niro; a quiet beauty

In an ideal world, Blondie would have existed only on video. The golden Deborah, adored by the camera, would now live forever as a shimmering punk siren, blessed with a voice of both honey and crystalline clarity. Harry fronts Blondie at their 1983 farewell concert in Toronto uncomfortably, inelegantly, and sings without any of the vitality of the sassy little Kittens whose success has prompted this release.

Stamp Of Approval

A stand-out hit among the current new wave of globally fê ted Latin American features, Fabián Bielinsky's fine caper thriller fucks with audience perception like a pumped-up David Mamet puzzler. A motley team of conmen and crooked cops progress from petty shop swindles to plan a rare stamp heist, but as the stakes escalate and the cast of characters broadens, nagging questions about who's hoodwinking who throw up dazzling wheels within wheels.

Erasure – Other People’s Songs

Kitsch covers of pop standards

Boxstep – The Faces All Look On

Eight-piece Pittsburgh ensemble with epic debut

Richard Buckner

Americana cult hero gets down to basics
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