ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
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Best of 2019: Albums
EMOTIVE: Lizabett Russo
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
IT’S been a year of pleasant and rewarding surprises, with Polish outfit Trupa Trupa’s Of The Sun (Glitterbeats Records) being perhaps the most unexpected revelation.
Frontman and poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski has described their music as “a meditative, pessimistic thing,” adding that Don Quixote is an inspiration.
Brimming with sophisticated exploratory rock arrangements, delivered with superb musicianship, overlapping voices, beautiful guitar cadences and a spellbinding syncopation of bass guitar and drums, the sense of innovation is captivating, none more so than on the pulsating Long Time Ago.
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