JOE GILL speaks to the Palestinian students in Gaza whose testimony is collected in a remarkable anthology
Album reviews
Latest releases from Fruit Bats, Valerie June and Field Music
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
Fruit Bats
The Pet Parade
(Merge)
★★★★
“HELLO from here to you all out there/It feels like it has been years.” I’m not sure when the opening words to the Fruit Bats’ ninth album were written, but their lonely delivery makes them perfect for the Covid years.
Having worked under the Fruit Bats moniker for 20 years, US musician Eric D Johnson — also active with Bonny Light Horseman — has created an impressive set of mercurial Americana on this album.
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