On the generally acclaimed Let England Shake, Harvey gave her music a bony, volkish edge, flaying it back to strummed autoharp, electric guitar and crude drums, mongrelising it with awkwardy intrusive sampling of Middle Eastern singers, dub interjections and huntsmen’s horns. Seamus Murphy’s cinematography complements this approach perfectly: not storyboarded, but collaged from various journeys around the island made during 2011, from the remotest hedgerows to the heart of London.
Fired up by disco and punk, Jagger’s swagger returns, with a disc of unreleased songs...Wrongly or rightly, the allegations against the Stones came thick and fast in 1977. They’d lost their edge. They’d become gluttonised, lazy, too rich and bored to care. Some of them had the temerity to be in their mid-thirties (NME called them “The Strolling Bones”). The urgent sound of punk had made their jet-set rock seem passé.
Five whole remastered discs and a mountain of trinkets. But is it worth a ton?JEEZ, THE SOUND quality is INCREDIBLE. It’s like David Gilmour is playing his acoustic guitar IN YOUR ROOM. You really can hear the strings BUZZ and hear his fingers SCRAPE on the fretboard. You can hear Nick Mason’s drum stool SQUEAK, hear Rick Wright’s Clavinet THROB, and you can actually hear Roger Waters having a BREAKDOWN about two minutes into “Welcome To The Machine”. Amazing.
