Finding a place for Bob Dylan's 34th studio album in one of recorded music’s greatest solo catalogues is a perilous business. From its first rattle of sleighbells, “Christmas In The Heart” demands to be compared not with this year’s “Together Through Life”, but, perhaps, with “The Twelve Songs Of Christmas”, by Jim Reeves. “Christmas In The Heart” is a collection of 15 traditional Christmas songs, played in glimmeringly traditional style, pushed into leftfield by a pretty off-the-wall choice of lead vocalist.
This year's London Film Festival kicks off next Wednesday (October 14) for 2 weeks. As usual, there's a ton of UNCUT friendly films screening, plus a particularly strong selection of music documentaries. So, for those of you umming and ahhing about what you might go and see, let us make some suggestions...
“This is great, you don’t have to cheer for that,” deadpans Josh Tillman as a smattering of whistles and applause greet his arrival on stage. “It was pretty lazy of me. But I thank you for your faith.”
Tillman, a tall, commendably hirsute figure, has a fine line in flint-dry humour, which he seems more than happy to indulge himself in many times during his 90+ minute set. After a slow, sedentary “Firstborn”, for instance, he stares out into the crowd and drawls, “This is no Vampire Weekend show, for sure.”
This one arrived a couple of days ago and it’s been hard to stop playing ever since. It’s the debut solo album of a French guy previously known as half of the Zombie Zombie duo, who I vaguely recall as being Krautrockish, but not as interesting as they were made out to be. I need to check them out again, I think.
Just in case you haven’t come across it yet, the first song to surface from Vampire Weekend’s forthcoming “Contra” album (due early January, I believe) turned up on their website yesterday.
