In 1974, a saggy old cloth cat and his rag-tag bunch of friends managed, in just 13 episodes, to influence a generation. Ask pretty much anyone who watched Bagpuss what their first experience of traditional folk music was and the answer is unlikely to be Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span.
Was anyone prepared for the fact that Ed Harcourt's new album would be fully instrumental? He's known as a songwriter – hailed for his Mercury Prize-nominated debut album, Here Be Monsters in 2001, then swapping solo work for song-writing, working with Paloma Faith, Sophie Ellis Bextor, James Bay and Lana Del Ray, among others.
Karel Zeman’s Invention for Destruction (Vynález zkázy) was, for many years, his best-known film in the West, dubbed into English three years after its 1958 premiere as The Fabulous World of Jules Verne by an enterprising Hollywood producer. Both versions are included on Second Run’s release, and it’s striking that the English version retains most of the original’s charms.
Faithful Fairy Harmony is in the tradition of The Beatles’ White Album, Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard, a True Star and The Clash’s London Calling, all double albums because an outpouring of songs couldn’t be stemmed. Also like these, Josephine Foster’s 18-track double-set plays with listener expectations.
Cliff Richard has been the butt of many jokes down the years, but he’s always looked the other way, true to himself. But he couldn’t look the other way when BBC TV conspired to air live coverage of a police raid on his home. Vindicated in court (through all he wanted was an apology), Sir Cliff has now emerged from that dark period with his first album of new material in 14 years.
It’s fair to assume that the current state of American politics has US underground punker Justin Pearson and hip-hop producer Luke Henshaw somewhat riled. Planet B’s debut album is a 35-minute rant in the form of a relentless anti-love letter to Donald J Trump. So, while it is a set that doesn’t rely on lazy sloganeering, its subject matter is bound to turn some listeners off straight away.
Wow, can it really be 10 years since Mumford & Sons blazed their trail across the musical world with Sigh No More? The release of Delta, the band’s fourth album, marks the start of a 60-date world tour, which will keep them on the road – first in the UK and Ireland – until mid-May.
London’s Palace Theatre this week celebrated the thousandth performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened there back in 2016. Like everything else JK Rowing puts her hand to, it’s been an outrageous success, taking the post-Hogwarts wizarding world further into the future than any other part of the franchise.
My Name is Safe in Your Mouth takes off with “Above You, Around You”, its fourth track. Up to that point, progress has been stately. Minimal piano refrains, distantly chiming guitars, heartbeat percussion, string swells and a plaintive, multi-tracked voice have summoned a subdued yet intense mood. Then, the curtain is drawn and an ascending musical drama spills from the speakers.
Whatever happened to real singer-songwriters? That is to say the kind of artist that raged against society’s ills in one song, and sung tenderly or bitterly of lost love in the next. Today’s insipid equivalent tends to be stuck in a perpetual adolescence, imparting solipsistic lyrics that have no more depth than their tweets. But then there’s Sarah Gillespie. Wishbones is her fourth album in just under a decade and what a gem it is.