JOE GILL speaks to the Palestinian students in Gaza whose testimony is collected in a remarkable anthology
Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: March 18, 2019
The latest from Iron & Wine, TEEN and Chick Corea
MARY CONWAY delights in a rarely performed comedy that recalls a Britain we remember in our bones
JEAN ROBERTS appreciates the way traditional panto can be remodelled into critique of the academy schools system
MARY CONWAY is riveted by a superbly crafted glimpse into the soul of a cast-off US star
MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
Iron & Wine
Our Endless Numbered Days
(Sub Pop)
★★★★
IN THE mid-2000s it was difficult to escape the sound and influence of US singer-songwriter Sam Beam — AKA Iron & Wine, in indie music circles — especially his career-high second album Our Endless Numbered Days.
Re-released with eight demos to celebrate its 15th anniversary the record has, if anything, improved with age. Beam’s hushed vocals and acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin and slide guitar playing fashions a deeply intimate and thoughtful atmosphere, his Southern folk akin to your favourite jumper — warm, familiar and calming.
Like the album title, Naked As We Come — a song of exquisite beauty — is a meditation on the passing of time and mortality. Elsewhere there are summer memories on the finger-picked Sunset Soon Forgotten and the keys-assisted Passing Afternoon is a sentimental, poetic closer.
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