quite the same vigour, originality and creative zeal as Youngblood Brass Band. With their seventh album, YBB lead the pack once more with 12 tracks packed with coursing rhythm, unadulterated power, and shrill horns that abound in creative freedom. Continuing to blend the heavy brass band sound with hip-hop, rap and free jazz, YBB prove that they’ve lost none of their innovation. GL
PET SHOP BOYS *****
Love Is A Bourgeois Construct (x2) Love Is A Bourgeois Construct gallops along at a fantastic pace, finding its voice with a wonderful sampling of Michael Nyman’s Chasing Sheep Is Best Left To Shepherds, while also firing out some of the most tightly tailored, anthemic hooks Pet Shop Boys have come up with in years. BK
THIS MONTH’S
DVD PICK
THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT
15 (Anchor Bay) More psychological thriller than horror, this ‘found footage’ movie is perfect sofa’s edge fodder. Despite its guessable storyline, where a group of fresh-faced students head into wilderness with a camera, the direction transcends the simplicity of the formula. With a real life unsolved mystery at its heart, the action keeps your mind turning somersaults all the way to the mind fizzing finale. ****MLM
singles
The One (Dramatico)
ALISTAIR GRIFFIN & LEDDRA CHAPMMAN FEAT. GRIMETHORPE COLLIERY BAND **
Olympic gold medallists jump for joy. Tears stream. Smiling world records are broken. A song soars in the background reminding us that we can achieve our dreams. That song would possibly be The One. A cheese-fest that is so neatly packaged into three and a half minutes that it can’t help but leave you cold. IR
STUBBORN HEART ***
Penetrate (One Little Indian) Stubborn Heart’s experimental 12” delivers much more than their typically discordant synths, warm sub-bass and electronic invention. Half the joy of this single comes from the healthy array of accompanying remixes which challenge the original. Total reworks from Walter Ego, the Invisible and Stubborn Heart gives Penetrate refreshing fresh legs. GL
PASSION
15 (Metrodome) Brian De Palma’s story of psychotic professional rivalry in Zurich is more interested in the impact of its sex and shocks than it is in ensuring any of it makes sense. It asks you to look, be impressed and trust that what it is doing is actually as impressive as it says it is. It isn’t. *MM
PLEIN SOLEIL
PG (Studiocanal) To mark the centenary of French filmmaker René Clément, his 1960 adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley gets this 4k restoration. The sun-drenched 60s palette is what every Instagram jockey is aiming for, and it has never looked better. A charming tale of murderous deceit from the French Hitchcock. ****MM
WILEY ***
Flying (Big Dada) Festival-organiser -baiting, Twitter-spatting, agent brovocateur Wiley returns to the grime sound he was instrumental in creating on this Zdot-produced beat. Is it original? Not really, but it is a fun, rough and ready three minutes that ticks off double-yellow lines, bad photo shoots and cycling along the way. SE
BEAULIEU PORCH ***
The View from Gainsborough (Tillsammans) Beaulieu Porch’s new psych-by-numbers single sounds like nothing so much as late 80s also-rans House of Love: keening guitars, backwards dubbing, a melody that’s gone as soon as the song ends and a vaguely meaningful repeated lyrical refrain. B-side Of Particles is a more interesting affair, reminiscent of Brazilian pysch-folk legends Os Mutantes. DG
INSEPARABLE
15 (Matchbox Films) Li is a loser who finds his suicide attempt thwarted by an anonymous neighbour (Kevin Spacey) who gives him an entirely new outlook on life. Filmed almost entirely in Mandarin with English subtitles, streamlined in a way that is so efficiently oriental, this is Kick-Ass meets Fight Club, psychotic drama with a comic book spin. Perhaps a bit too ambitious. **AM
demos
IDES
www.soundcloud.com/ide-s The solo venture of Alanna McArdle, whom long-memoried readers will recall I endorsed on the last page, in her other role as Joanna G