Reviews

Sunrise

Up there with Citizen Kane as a standard bearer for the medium, and still utterly compulsive. FW Murnau's first US movie, dating from 1927, deploys a battery of impressive camera techniques in telling the story of a steadfast family man seduced by Margaret Livingston's femme fatale.

This Month In Americana

With a new LP imminent, the Minnesota-based folk-country boy reissues albums two and three

Charalambides – Unknown Spin

The American underground is currently full of unashamedly cosmic bands, like Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Tower Recordings, who mix folk and psychedelia with an unusually fluent understanding of improvised music. Unfortunately, most of their records are difficult to track down, as they're only released in tiny, elaborately packaged quantities. Thanks to Kranky, then, for reissuing Unknown Spin, previously a limited run of 300 CD-Rs. Charalambides are a Texan trio specialising in a kind of desert drone constructed from guitar, wordless female harmonies and spectral pedal-steel.

Savath & Savalas – Apropat

Eclectic Prefuse 73 man turns his hand to Latin ballads

Cornelius – PM By Humans

Last year, in a fatally altruistic gesture, Japanese technocrat Cornelius invited visitors to his website to remix tracks from his excellent 2002 album, Point. PM (it stands for Point Mixes) purportedly compiles the best 12 from around 400 of those submitted, with largely dispiriting results. If Cornelius set out to showcase how the meticulous pastoral textures of Point could be desecrated, then PM is a triumph of sorts: only Masakatsu Inoue's "Pointer Remix", a beautiful hybrid of musique concrète and prickly ambience, really does the source material justice.

Various Artists – Goodbye, Babylon

Magnificent six-CD compilation of gospel roots

Strange Meeting

Sofia Coppola's second feature is a graceful, melancholic romance set in Tokyo and starring Bill Murray

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Reimagining an artist's life through his art

Hollywood Homicide

A fascinating study in waning star power disguised as a cop movie, disguised as a comedy, this reveals the Harrison Ford screen persona at its most intransigent, here playing a 'big dog' cop who hates rap music and yoga, punches people, solves murders and sleeps with Lena Olin.

Pink Sunshine

DVD-Audio 5.1 Surround Sound version of Coyne and co's biggest-selling album
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