Ute Lemper - The Thousand And One Lives Of Ute Lemper - A Trilingual Portrait (DVD)

Advantages: Its brilliantly produced
Disadvantages: Difficult to Categorise

...This album is magic. It grows on you. It is the sexiest thing I have heard in a long time. Ute Lemper is a German stage star who is currently playing the lead female role in CHICAGO in The West End. It is an album that is beyond categorisation , really. I'm not sure if I LIKE this music, but it bugs me, its got inside my soul, I sing certain bursts of it all the time. She has an operatic quality to her voice and the album sees some strange collaborations with some of my favourite musicians. Neil Hannon, from The Divine Comedy, Elvis Costello, Nick Cave. The music is hauntingly beatiful, the lyrics are sometimes disturbing, but it is really worth playing it alone a few times to get a 'feel' for the thing. Its odd, its clever, its beautiful.... Read review

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Advantages: Outstanding performances
Disadvantages: A tad slow

...anger over the people around her. Having only recently survived breast cancer, and living with an abusive violent husband, Rose is a bitter woman who speaks her mind regardless of who it might hurt. Both women find themselves at odds over their love for a local farmer's son who has recently returned to the land after running away years earlier. This is a complex and heart wrenching story that focuses mainly on the lives of two sisters as they come to terms with the man that their father is. It also focuses on their relationship as it threatens to crack under the pressure of revelations that would break lesser beings. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, she depicts a stunning but bare land, and pulls power house performances from her leads. Jessica Lange is typically mesmerising, grief stricken by shocking insights to her father that she... Read review

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Advantages: A different take on a musician on the road, amusing and touching
Disadvantages: None!

...Introduction Glenn Tilbrook used to be a pretty big fish in the music business. Thirty years ago he was a member of Squeeze, a band hailed at their peak as "the next Beatles". Originating in Deptford, southeast London, they had a handful of huge hits and a smattering of lesser ones - many of which have become modern classics through inclusion on compilation albums and repeated radio play over the years. However the band last tasted chart success in the mid 1990s and broke up in 1999 leaving Tilbrook facing the launch of a solo career in middle age. Unable to afford to tour with a band, he took the decision to do acoustic tours, performing a mixture of old Squeeze favourites and his solo material in small venues, accompanied solely by his own guitar playing. Background Squeeze were relatively successful in the college radio... Read review

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