The Fantastic Four: First Steps review - innocence regained

★★★★ THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Innocence regained

Marvel's original super-group return to fun, idealistic first principles

Marvel goes back to its origins, gulping the fresh air of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s first hit comic The Fantastic Four in 1961. Ignoring recent flop film versions, it revels in a self-contained, space-age world as yet uncluttered with other costumed characters, and heroes who aren’t brooding vigilantes but human beacons of light.

Album: Paul Weller - Find El Dorado

Inspiring curation of some pretty great covers, and hints of majesty

Paul Weller occupies a strange place in the cultural sphere. Especially since he was adopted as an elder statesman of Britpop in the mid 1990s, he’s been particularly beloved of a core audience whose tastes are extremely conservative. So much so, in fact, that middle-aged men who ape his classic mod haircuts are now a shorthand for meat-and-potatoes, Brexity, red-faced, pub-coke bloke-rock. Yet Weller himself is anything but conservative.

Music Reissues Weekly: Mike Taylor - Pendulum, Trio

MIKE TAYLOR - PENDULUM, TRIO Two idiosyncratic, uncompromising Sixties British jazz rarities

The return of two idiosyncratic, uncompromising Sixties British jazz rarities

Wheels of Fire was Cream’s third album. Issued in the US in June 1968 and in the UK two months later, it was a double LP. One record was of live recordings, the other of studio material. Of the nine tracks on the latter, three were co-written by the band’s drummer Ginger Baker – who wrote the lyrics – and British jazz pianist/composer Mike Taylor.

Blu-ray: A Hard Day's Night

The 'Citizen Kane' of jukebox musicals? Richard Lester's film captures Beatlemania in full flight

Andrew Sarris, doyen of auteurist film critics, dubbed A Hard Day’s Night “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals”. Wild over-praise, or sly, back-handed compliment?

Album: Mocky - Music Will Explain (Choir Music Vol. 1)

Is the Canadian polymath hiding behind his exquisite production and arrangement skill?

Dominic “Mocky” Salole has had a long career in which the tension between authenticity and pastiche has been a constant. Toronto-born, of English and Yemeni heritage, he came of musical age in the Bohemian hotbed of 1990s Berlin with a close-knit bunch of other Canadian ex-pats, including Peaches, Chilly Gonzales and Feist.

Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind

How ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ transformed a London mod-pop band

Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was an instant phenomenon. Recorded in April 1967 and issued as a single on 12 May after pre-release play on pirate station Radio London, it topped the UK charts four weeks later. Globally, it hit big on most pop markets and was integral to launching the classical music/pop hybrid which evolved into prog rock.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Sonics - High Time

THE SONICS - HIGH TIME Box set of seven-inchers celebrating the ferocious Sixties rockers

Handsome box set of seven-inchers celebrating the ferocious Sixties rockers

“Theirs is truly rock in extremis, a précis of the youthful impetuosity and cathartic chaos at the heart of real rock ’n roll.”

Ithell Colquhoun, Tate Britain review - revelations of a weird and wonderful world

★★★★ ITHELL COLQUHOUN, TATE BRITAIN Revelations of a weird and wonderful world

Emanations from the unconscious

Tate Britain is currently offering two exhibitions for the price of one. Other than being on the same bill, Edward Burra and Ithell Colquhoun having nothing in common other than being born a year apart and being oddballs – in very different ways. And since both reward focused attention, this makes for a rather exhausting outing – I’m reviewing them separately – so gird your loins.