Andrew Male
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andrewmale.bsky.social
Andrew Male
@andrewmale.bsky.social
13K followers 2.4K following 8.4K posts
Writer and arts journalist. MOJO, Guardian, and The Sunday Times. Sight & Sound's TV columnist. Cultivating the echo chamber since 2011.
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andrewmale.bsky.social
Steady on, ladies.
Spotify Wrapped list of my Top Genres for 2025 1 Hard Bop 2 Drone 3 Art Song 4 Singer-Songwriter 5 French Pop
December 3, 2025 at 2:44 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
This documentary is great.
George Smith, NYC Tree Guy, asks “Would you put a plastic man in your bedroom?” “Who wants a fake tree in their life?” “You wanna smell it, touch it, and feel it.”
December 3, 2025 at 12:16 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
I mean…
Something is going wrong With the singer and the song And the music isn't gentle anymore There's a mist across the moon And the sun's too hot at noon And the house is dark behind the broken door Where the flowers used to grow Now their leaves are hanging low And a constant shadow lies across the floor Theres a strange and empty sky Where the wild birds used to fly And I never tasted bitter rain before And will the grass be gone from underneath the sky? Will the golden flower wither soon and die Will the fire burn out the land And the sea fill-up with sand? Will the last word ever spoken be why? Will the last word ever spoken be why? Someones lost the plan For the brotherhood of man And no one's trying to find it anymore And the winds become a sigh For those who hate and those who die And the waves are black and slow along the shore And will the grass be gone from underneath the sky? Will the golden flower wither soon and die? Will the fire burn out the land And the sea fill-up with sand? Will the last word ever spoken be why? Will the last word ever spoken be why, why, why? Will the last word ever spoken be ..why?
December 3, 2025 at 10:14 AM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Every December for the past ten years I have told myself that this will be the month I dive back in. But it’s so vast. The geography of it. The landscape.
December 1, 2025 at 11:57 AM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Well done, Andy Miller. You’ll be pleased to hear that AutoCorrect initially decided that you were called Andy Molker. #CharlieBraun
November 30, 2025 at 10:22 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
#NowPlaying
Paula Castle -Lost Love (Bethlehem 10”, 1955)
November 30, 2025 at 7:54 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Best birthday ever!
Presents received on a 59th birthday that include Fortnum & Mason Gingerlossus biscuits, an Everly Bros biography, Caroline Fraser’s Murderland book, life lessons from Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, Miles Davis’ Cellar Door Sessions, Basil Brush in his racing car, Art Pepper’s Among Friends (now playing), Gerard Manset’s 1968 debut, an Amazon gift card, and a Cult Pens advent calendar (which I have not opened yet for obvious reasons).
November 30, 2025 at 9:54 AM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Love this photo that our petsitter sent us of Nico playing in Croham Woods with a small black terrier pal. Is she dog or is she dancer?
November 29, 2025 at 1:33 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 5:34 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 5:32 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
If you’ve ever longed for super-rare ££££ LPs I suggest you follow Galactic Ramble on Instagram where the writer Richard Morton Jack shows off his super-hard-to-find vinyl and gives the impression that none of it brings him any joy. A curious enterprise and all seemingly done without humour.
Bright City Miller Anderson DERAM Bright City by Miller Anderson came out in September 1971. It's a buffet of familiar early 70s sounds, with some nice moments and a variety of interesting contributors (Harold Beckett, Gary Thain, Madeline Bell and more), but his songwriting and singing are undistinctive to my ears, and he keeps his guitar on a short leash most of the time. For me the best track is the long acoustic closer, 'Shadows 'cross My Wall', which has a faint Eastern flavour and some lovely fingerpicking. I'd have preferred a whole album in that style. HEARKEN TO THE WITCHES RUNE DAVE AND TONI ARTHUR Trailer Hearken To The Witches' Rune by Dave and Toni Arthur came out in February 1971. Rather than Comus-style intensity, it's sparse trad folk, with only occasional backing from fiddle and whistle, and a broadly supernatural theme. There's even some earnest spoken word. It's an interesting artefact but I must admit I don't find it much fun to listen to. Tim Hollier's second LP came out in July 1970. For me the colourful cover writes a cheque that the music doesn't cash. A few songs are pretty good (the folk-rocker 'Seagull's Song', the atmospheric 'Llanstephan Hill' and eerie 'Evening Song'), but others are weedy or overblown, and the mixing on the tracks with rock backing is bizarrely amateurish. At times - most notably 'It's Raining And It's Cold' - his voice strains and quavers so much that he sounds like a goat. If Brother Bluto had overheard him at a party, he'd almost certainly have smashed his guitar. The Flame's album came out in November 1970. It's 'power pop', I guess, but I don't find it especially powerful. It has a nice sound, but comes across to me like a pastiche of the Beatles, Badfinger, the Nazz and others, rather than owning the style. For me the high point is also the heaviest: the long ending to 'Another Day Like Heaven.
November 27, 2025 at 5:09 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
#NowPlaying
Bob Darin - Commitment (Bell, 1969)
November 27, 2025 at 4:45 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
I love that the cover is a sort-of doom-metal reworking of Stephen Pearson's Wings Of Love.
November 27, 2025 at 11:18 AM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft Emanuel de Witte c. 1650. A small dog “strikes an irreverent attitude” up against one of the white church columns.
November 25, 2025 at 12:22 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
This was brilliant and made my head spin in the best way.

Why not follow it up by immersing yourself in the film and soundtrack by Jóhann Jóhannsson & Yair Elazar Glotman?

Backlisted favourite @andrewmale.bsky.social
wrote the liner notes which contain one of JJ’s last ever interviews. #RIP
LAST AND FIRST MEN JÓHANN JOHANNSSON & YAIR ELAZAR GLOTMAN Deutsche Grammophon, 2020. LAST AND FIRST MEN JOHANN JÓHANNSSON & YAIR ELAZAR GLOTMAN LINER NOTES BY ANDREW MALE
November 25, 2025 at 11:27 AM
andrewmale.bsky.social
This, however, is a *look.
Peter Cushing in navy blue sailor's cap, red brushed-wool open-collar shirt and powder-blue silk foulard.
November 24, 2025 at 7:17 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Watching 1968 British horror film Corruption and you just know things are going to turn weird and wrong when the role of the cool David Bailey-esque photographer is played by a blond-wigged Tony Booth.
A 35-year old Tony Booth, resembling a cross between a chipped Toby Jug and a Pekinese.
November 24, 2025 at 6:42 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
November 24, 2025 at 2:26 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
It is the billionaire equivalent of this.
An upside-down calculator spells BOOBIES
November 24, 2025 at 2:15 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) typing in the bath in Laura (1944)
November 24, 2025 at 1:59 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
#RIP Udo Kier. One of those utterly unique actors who turned the act of ageing itself into a work of art.
Young Udo Kier Udo Kier in 2025.
November 24, 2025 at 9:07 AM
andrewmale.bsky.social
“Narbonne Camembert Man!
Craved Euro drama
Dispensed with bread
His South Of France espadrilles
Smelt of cabbage in isolation!”
November 23, 2025 at 9:26 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Delightful #BlueskyJuxtaposition
A shot of Peter Firth in Tobe Hooper’s deranged 1885 film Lifeforce juxtaposed with The Man Made Mad by Fear by Gustave Courbet (c. 1843-44)
November 23, 2025 at 8:57 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
"Every media era gets the fabulists it deserves. If Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair and the other late 20th century fakers were looking for the prestige and power that came with journalism in that moment, then this generation’s internet scammers are scavenging in the wreckage of a degraded media environment. They’re taking advantage of an ecosystem uniquely susceptible to fraud—where publications with prestigious names publish rickety journalism under their brands, where fact-checkers have been axed and editors are overworked, where technology has made falsifying pitches and entire articles trivially easy, and where decades of devaluing journalism as simply more 'content' have blurred the lines so much it can be difficult to remember where they were to begin with." Nick Hune-Brown
November 23, 2025 at 7:53 PM
andrewmale.bsky.social
Strictly obeying the Ullmann Rule
We would like to point out that these pieces are extremely quiet. Due to the different recording situations and locations, the volume must be adjusted separately for each CD and each piece. Please choose, for each piece, the volume settings of your sound system so as to just barely mask the ambient sounds in the room.
November 23, 2025 at 1:57 PM