Before I saw Mostly Martha I didn’t know what to expect. It’s billed as a German rom-com so I tried to extrapolate. There’d be a bumbling Adolph Grant, a jittery Jelenka Aniston, a “You had me at Guten Tag” moment where everyone in the cinema would simultaneously vömit. There’d be a big-bottomed Hun-ny searching for Mr. Reich, and all the things that we have grown to loathe from our own rom-coms – with added umlauts. Thank God I was wrong. Martha is a celebrated chef in an exclusive restaurant, who’s aggressively passionate about her job. She’s Nigella, but with more bite; she’s Fast Eddie, but with Filo pastry and no balls. At first, it’s all going rather nicely, with laughs, a jolly jazz score and sumptuous cooking montages. Then suddenly, there’s death. Martha’s sister is in a car crash and she’s left to look after her young niece, Lina. We see the struggle Martha has to connect with her in a series of gloomy fade-to-black scenes. For a while, it’s all rather depressingly Germanic. Then, just in time, cue the arrival of new “eccentric” chef Mario, and pretty soon the storm clouds are beginning to clear, and the kitchen’s getting steamier. But it’s never quite as simple as it sounds in this film and writer-director Nettelbeck doesn’t patronize her audience with Life-lite; this is something closer to reality. Aided by an irresistible performance by Gedeck as Martha, a stunningly precocious turn by Foerste, and Castellitto for much-needed comic relief, the film is a treat to savour. Mostly Martha is by no means perfect – the ending was a slight letdown and the repetitive score occasionally grated – but one can’t deny the film’s emotional range and verve. What sets this apart from Notting Hill and its Jollygood-Hollywood ilk is that it has a substantial foundation in the real world, rather than the saccharine Brit-fop goo-topia where Grant currently reigns. So, although the Brits may have proved themselves better at winning War, this film suggests the Germans have a better understanding of Love.
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003

A sweeping, majestic, sensuous epic of a film, running for just over three hours, and based on the novel by Count Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard charts the effects of the Italian unification movement (the Risorgimento) on a family of Sicilian aristocrats. Burt Lancaster, in what would initially seem a surprising role, plays one of the island’s noblest families, who is forced to come to terms with the rise of the nouveau riche and the merchant class, symbolised by Don Calogero, a shrewd novus homo landowner in Salina’s fiefdom, the village of Donnafugata. Lancaster is truly excellent, simultaneously imbued with gravitas, charm and humour. The film is beautifully shot, and it concentrates on the atmosphere of the period, showcasing the rugged but stunning countryside, and portraying the abject squalor of many of its inhabitants, contrasted with the opulence of the aristocratic lifestyle. The Prince’s dashing young nephew, Tancredi (played by Alain Delon) proves himself a success story in the new Italy, fighting alongside Garibaldi on behalf of the House of Savoy, seeking to unify Italy under King Vittorio Emanuele. He falls in love with Don Calogero’s daughter, the drop-dead gorgeous Angelica (Claudia Cardinale). Visconti, the film’s director, was a committed Marxist despite his aristocratic background, and this paradox runs as a vein through the film in the confrontation between poverty and wealth, young and old, Bourbon and Savoyard.
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003

Considering the anticipation that has been attached to the new Radiohead material, for those of us who haven’t been bothered to download it already, the new single ‘There There’ is a disappointment. Thom York’s signature whine saves the song from sounding like a Talking Heads cover of an Oasis song, but ultimately that seems the more attractive concept. You simply can’t decipher what the hell he’s droning on about; York is almost becoming a self-parody. ‘There There’ lacks any identity as a song, and sounds distressingly like a filler. One interesting chord-change is not enough to hide the fact that this song is thoroughly dull.
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003

Ever since the untimely break up of Skunk Anansie, time has shown that their material has aged very well. Some would say not at all. Skin’s debut solo album is an absolute treat, for really unexpected reasons. Fleshwounds is a scaled down, simplified vocal treat. There’s still the odd hint of Skunk Anansie poetics, with lines such as “can’t see you through your blinding words”. But that really is all that remains for Skunk Anansie fans. ‘The Trouble With Me’ could easily be a Mel C song, except that Mel C could never come up with something so good. For someone who once sang “yes it’s fucking political, everything’s political”, “the trouble with me is my troubles with you” sounds like Lisa Stansfield, but in a good way. ‘I’ll Try’ is David Gray done well. Fleshwounds is a trip through everything that’s acceptable about modern pop. ‘You’ve Made Your Bed’ is so straight-up that it’s actually quite moving. Perhaps it’s the lack of a gargantuan guitar riff à la Stoosh that makes you take her seriously. Nothing ever kicks in, and you’re left with a line as simple as “You can’t keep turning to me, when she ain’t coming home” hitting home simply because it doesn’t turn into a mosh-fest. Towards the end Fleshwounds becomes more adventurous, both with it’s pace and it’s mix of styles. Just when it seemed like amps had been banned from the studio, ‘As Long As That’s True’ provides one verse where Skin nearly lets fly, but as soon as your head has begun to nod, it’s over. This really is a seriously well-judged, modest album. The final track ‘Till Morning Comes’ is a top-drawer jazz vocal piece. It actually made me think of the way Lou Reed ended Transformer. I don’t know where the fuck she pulled this one from but it forces you to take someone called ‘Skin’, seriously. Quite an achievement. If all pop albums were this well measured and made with this degree of subtlety, the world would be a better place. David Gray would be out of a job, and The Stereophonics would be hanging from a gibbet. Out June 2
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003

Seeing Mogwai is an experience. Those who turn up with ear plugs have the wrong idea. The Sk8r Bois who came along because they thought it’d be a cool mosh-fest retire to the back when they realise that Mogwai would tear Good Charlotte to pieces, and still have time to give NOFX a lesson in non-conformity. They open with ‘Helicon 1’, still looking like a group of Glaswegian reprobates who have somehow discovered the secret of music. The sound is something bigger than the band. They’re up there thrashing their guitars and going deaf, but there’s a sense that they’re not actually five musicians, they’re servants of a sound more beautiful and terrible than the sea. New material is slipped in amongst old favourites, the gentle melodies of Rock Action have not been recanted for their forthcoming album Happy Songs for Happy People. But it’s the segue from one of their new songs into ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’, almost unnoticed by the crowd until two or three minutes of the Young Team anthem has elapsed, that was undoubtedly the highlight. At times Stewart Braithwaite’s lead lines were swamped by the bass, but more often than not this was rectified at exactly the right moment. Patience is the key word with Mogwai. The encore seems to sum up the band. Starting with the beautiful ‘2 Wrongs Make 1 Right’ and then sweeping into the inevitable, but shortened rendition of ‘My Father My King’, Mogwai show that they can still make your ears bleed.
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003

CLUBBING TWISTED NUCLEUZ TOUR THE ZODIAC SUNDAY 25TH MAY Ed real, Ryan H and James lawson feature in a bank holiday break-beat hot-house tin-trance rave down. GIGGING BRITISH SEA POWER THE ZODIAC FRIDAY 23RD MAY Routh Trade debutantes dubbed the “lunatics” from Brighton will no doubt be peddling their particular brand of lunacy.
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003

As with everything Depeche Mode, Paper Monsters is a bit hit-and-miss. The spooky, hallucinogenic paranoia of the thick strings in ‘A Little Piece’ is undermined by execrable Hawaiian guitars in ‘Hold On’, and Gahan always seems intent on having one Marilyn Manson-esque pulsing industrial number as in ‘Bottle Living’. ‘Black and Blue Again’ is perhaps the most challenging song, an unpromising start builds slowly to a noisy climax of Reznor proportions with the nicely understated vocals proclaiming “I’m not very nice”. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Gahan is hoping to get some of this stringbased material on a future David Lynch sountrack; some tracks are similar to the work of Angelo Badalamenti. Out come the corny 808 drum sounds for ‘I Need You’. Was that really necessary? Out June 2
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003

NYC Man is Lou Reed’s first self selected greatest hits and it certainly does a good job of representing a career which has spanned some thirty albums. This double album gets the balance between the songs you do know, and the ones you should know, just right. There are only four original VU tracks, but Reed’s solo versions of ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ and ‘Heroin’ are must have renditions. There are the usual Transformer suspects, and unsurprisingly Reed takes the opportunity to plug his most recent release: the opening track is ‘Who Am I’ from The Raven. This selection is a great first step towards discovering one of the true geniuses of rock music. Out Now
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003