Passing Strange, Young Vic review - exuberant pocket musical with a thoughtful core

★★★★ PASSING STRANGE, YOUNG VIC Giles Terera excels leading a livewire cast in an irreverent look at Black identity

Giles Terera excels leading a livewire cast in an irreverent look at Black identity

From New York’s Public Theater, the venue that nurtured Hamilton, comes another estimable pocket musical, Passing Strange. It was first staged in 2008, to Tony-nominated acclaim, and it shows. Its forthright cheek and irreverence are refreshing and welcome.

Album: Justice - Hyperdrama

★★★ JUSTICE - HYPERDRAMA French electronic dance stalwarts return in fine fettle

French electronic dance stalwarts return from eight-year break in fine fettle

Justice are a couple of super-suave rock star analogues. Leathers and aviators, yes, but with a very Parisian insouciance. Their music is the same. It has a rocker-friendly je-ne-sais-quoi, but air-brushed with the glitzy sci-fi futurism one might expect from a couple of guys whose origins lie in design.

Album: Kim Gordon - The Collective

★★★ KIM GORDON - THE COLLECTIVE Maintaining a jagged trajectory

Second album by ex-Sonic Youth-er and producer Justin Raisen maintains their jagged trajectory

Some icons sit back and bask. Kim Gordon does not. She has occasionally intimated that her New York cool and relentless work rate may be down to a smidgeon of imposter syndrome, even after all her years on the frontline. Whatever the truth of it, her output since Sonic Youth (and her marriage) dissolved in 2011 has been prodigious.

DVD/Blu-ray: 23 Seconds to Eternity

Collection capturing the berserk, exhilarating vision of music-art mavericks The KLF

The KLF are endlessly fascinating. There’s never been a “pop group” like them. From the late Eighties into the early Nineties, they treated music, especially electronic dance music, as a laboratory for lunatic experiment. Unlike most avant-garde thinkers in pop, though, they made a glorious and highly unlikely commercial success of it, via a series of globally successful singles (and, to some degree, the album, The White Room).

Album: The Chemical Brothers - For That Beautiful Feeling

★★★★★ THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS - FOR THAT BEAUTIFUL FEELING Longstanding dance duo maintain juggernaut status on mighty tenth

Longstanding dance duo maintain juggernaut status on mighty tenth

The Chemical Brothers are unstoppable. Their live shows are a guaranteed monster good time, redolent of proper old-school rave-ups, but with visual tech from some freaky eye-boggling future. Their last album, 2019’s No Geography, was a total belter. Their latest, their tenth, is also a total belter. They do what they do. But they do it so bloody well.

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