Album: Ry Cooder, I, Flathead (Nonesuch)
Sunday 22 June 2008
Latest in Reviews
On Facebook
Arts & Ents blogs
From London to Barcelona: Lee Webster explains how moving abroad boosted his creativity
Sometimes moving overseas can help lubricate a person's creativity helping to boost something that w...
RIP Whitney Houston
Michael Jackson. Amy Winehouse. Now Whitney Houston. When the biggest names precede ‘has died’ I alw...
Something for the weekend in London: February 17-19
To some, February is the month of lurrrve, to others it's the month of rain, snow and flu, but for u...
Cooder concludes his "California trilogy" with another crusty narrative, this time circulating around the activities and perspectives of an ageing fictional muso, Kash Buk. (There's a separate novella to go with the album.)
And if what you like, above all things, is immaculately played and produced high-resolution Americana, copiously endowed with flathead auto engines, then 'I Flathead' will knock you out. This is Cooder doing what he does best, which is to summon a lost America from his fibres and set it to the music he hears in other people's heads. Impressive, but not deeply moving.
Pick of the Album: 'Steel Guitar Heaven': just like it says on the tin, like
- 1 BANNED: The most controversial films
- 2 The artist vandalising advertising with poetry
- 3 Spotify: 1 million plays, £108 return
- 4 Amanda Knox agrees $4m deal for tell-all book
- 5 First Listen: Bruce Springsteen, Wrecking Ball, Theatre Marigny, Paris
- 6 Whitney Houston, the greatest voice of her generation
- 7 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (12A)
- 1 Vatican told to pay taxes as Italy tackles budget crisis
- 2 Spotify: 1 million plays, £108 return
- 3 Pete Doherty: I was a bit unhinged
- 4 Khader Adnan: The West Bank's Bobby Sands
- 5 Rothschild loses libel case, and reveals secret world of money and politics
- 6 'My 10 days at an Eton summer school was a real shock to the system'
- 7 WikiLeaks takes aim at an unlikely new victim: Unesco
- 8 Prehistoric cybermen? Sardinia's lost warriors rise from the dust
- 9 Can you master a language in a weekend?
- 10 The artist vandalising advertising with poetry
Free trial of new Independent iPad app
Get your daily dose of the best of British journalism, sponsored by American Airlines
Amazing restaurant offers
Three glasses of free champagne and a special menu at 46 top London restaurants.
Latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page
Wilderness and wildlife in Australia’s Top End
48 Hours: Marrakech
Bear with Bern for Swiss skiing
The West Bank's Bobby Sands
Is there such a thing as a gastronomic gender divide?




Comments