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Spy, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jude Law, Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Miranda Hart, Raad Rawi, Jessica Chaffin, Sam Richardson, Katie Dippold, Jaime Pacheco, Romain Apelbaum, Rose Byrne, Richard Brake, Steve Bannos, Morena Baccarin, Carlos Ponce, Wil Yun Lee, Bobby Cannavale, Michael McDonald, Julian Miller, Adam Ray, Lukács Bicskey, 50 Cent, Nargis Fakhri, Peter Serafinowicz, Jamie Denbo, Zach Woods.

 

Doctor Who: The Defectors. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Katy Manning, Richard Franklin, Neil Roberts, Barnaby Edwards, David Graham, Rachel Bavidge, Jez Fielder.

One of the more interesting factors about Doctor Who is the ability to mix things up once in a while and play a different type of game, a game in which nobody except the writer really knows what’s going on and in which the vagueness, the small hints, of it all can be tantalising and fruitful. It can of course go horribly wrong or at best come out of the Tardis like a mixed blessing.

Rose Coloured Telescope.

I find myself more drawn to the past

than I have found myself in decades.

The rose coloured telescope pinpointing with

alarming accuracy what I already knew

but was too deaf, to blind and stupid

to understand what could have been

if I’d had the courage to stay and not move

on once more.

 

The past, the illusion of fine weather days,

of fresh country air filling my lungs

and cleansing the stuffy headed inoculation

first given to me in a needle fit to burst

On Black Hill.

We stand assured, macadam solid under boot.

Left and right, road ribbons to nothing.

Behind us the surety of a familiar way, ahead?

A drenched black canvas without features,

save for sodden bog pocked with grit grey stone,

way marked by twisted bloomless gorse.

A dun mud mire rising toward a hidden summit,

our goal, unseen. On Black Hill.

Rotting layers of long dead musty forest.

The fossil fragments of ancient timbers,

past splintering present.

Strike out with firm resolve onto quivering morass,

soaked ground sucks at uncertain feet.

Laura Victoria, Head Above Water. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is almost nothing like listening to a strong positive woman perform the music she wants to and recording it with no hindrance, no outside thought of what other may think and best of all, no use of overtly sexual tactics in which far too many young female pop stars resort to in a wide of the mark belief that their music empowers young girls but also converts boys to their cause. For brains and outstanding ability will always beat the sexualisation of a song, the likes of Kate Bush, Nicola Bendetti and Tori Amos are more in keeping with observing a positive female role for both genders than the likes of anyone who has to expose more than their thoughts on screen.

In Darkness, My Friend.

The darkness of the night crowds in

and I’m left alone with grinning spectres

plaguing my twilight hours and my uncomfortable state

of mind, fragile, insistent, running so fast

that smoke billows out and only one idea in a million

sees the dawn and breathes deeply

at surviving

another unseen, obscure dusk.

 

I want to scream, so drawn to the darkness

that envelopes me, that barely a whisper of mortal love

for the shadows and the fog crosses my cracked open mouth

and the declaration of irresistible devotion

Black Diamond, Stranglehold. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

That dreadful watchword of buzz is more than likely to bandied around as if being chased by Africanised bees with a group of angry hornets following up behind, sleeves rolled up and spoiling for a fight, as soon as world beyond Liverpool finally cottons on to Black Diamond. Already a huge firm favourite with the heavy Rock crowd in the city, their debut E.P. Stranglehold, is sure to add a heavier amount of support to their flourishing output and good name.

Ripple Green, Timepiece. Single Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Mention the word Oklahoma to the average person from Britain and Howard Keel singing baritone against a grainy American backdrop would very possibly be high upon the list of watchwords used to describe the Sooner State. For the more historically minded, the former Native American land would throw up images of both national importance, the swarming despair of the Dust Bowl era and internal political division that had far reaching ramifications, which ever thought is mentioned, Oklahoma is a state that never quite springs to mind when thinking of a place to visit, nestled as it is a place firmly caught between East and West Coast sophistication and artistic endeavour.

They Use A Different Word.

It is almost as if scientists have discovered

a new subsection of Humanity

that never appeared in the growing pains

of the species between ape and man.

The new hailing stone of enlightenment

and information which comes our way via the mass

media in which the modern discovery was made

suggests that this scientific breathing wonder

that eats, sleeps, makes love and has the capacity

for great artistic endeavour

they found

crossing the seas in search of life

should not exist

and yet as they die in their hundreds,

Chris Callander, Ghosts Of The Old Casartelli. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Time has such an effect on the way we as a species perceive things that it is possible to feel part of two different eras at the same time. The human capacity for imagination adds much colour to the feeling of displacement that at times a certain sound or perhaps a headline in a newspaper or even the smell of a long lost lover can transport the person back to a place where they have no right to be, lost in the cacophony and melodrama of Time.