In the newly-revised edition of his book The Music’s All That Matters, music journalist Paul Stump finds acceptance of the last musical taboo – progressive rock. Jason Weaver bends an ear In his Spike review of June 2000, Stephen Harper reckoned Unknown Pleasures the definitive work on Roxy Music for many years to come. Its […]
International Festival Musique Actuelle: Victoriaville
Whether you call it improv, avant-rock or noise, Québec has a music festival dedicated to it Where: Victoriaville, Québec, Canada When: 19th to 22 May 2011 What: Michel Levasseur, artistic director and founder of FIMAV: “We did not coin the term, but in those days Musique Actuelle was more clearly defined by what it was […]
Free Jazz: Fat Kid Wednesdays: Three Guys Having Fun
Drawing on an improvisational heritage that includes Ornette Coleman, Fat Kid Wednesdays have been playing together for almost 20 years. Robert O’Connor listens in Fat Kid Wednesdays: ‘Skylark’: For 12 years, until its management dramatically changed hands earlier this year, Fat Kid Wednesdays held a jazz night every Monday at the Clown Lounge, underneath the […]
Sound Advice: Phill Brown’s Musical Odyssey
Sound engineer Phill Brown has an astonishing musical CV. He tells Jason Weaver how to keep it rolling “I was there!” exclaims James Murphy in LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’, before listing his crucial interventions in the history of rock music. But Phill Brown’s ‘right place and right time’ memoir of his career in the […]
Literary Graveyards
Bunhill Fields Burial Ground near Old Street in the City of London has been given Grade I protected status. Originally the Dissenters’ burial ground, one great names of English literature have tombs here, including William Blake, Daniel Defoe and John Bunyan. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has also listed 75 of its tombs. […]
Guernica Magazine
“Guernica is an award-winning magazine of art and ideas. In its short time online, it has grown from one of the web’s best-kept secrets to one of its most acclaimed new magazines.” 01 Guernica: Launched in 2004 by New York-based writers Joel Whitney and Michael Archer, Guernica is an online journal of original creative and […]
Curation of Thought: James Polchin, Writing In Public and the Mind’s Reflection
Writing In Public is a website dedicated to the art of the essay. Chris Wood interviews its editor about the thought behind the word “I look for writing that is well written, where the writer has a love of language and this love shows in the sentences and paragraphs and overall movement of the essay.” […]
YouGov and Political Metrics
The internet has long promised a golden age of metrics, online polling organisation YouGov is hoping to track our political opinions “YouGov is the authoritative measure of public opinion and consumer behaviour. It is our ambition to supply a live stream of continuous, accurate data and insight into what people are thinking and doing all […]
Eric Hobsbawm: How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism
Reviewed by Jacob Knowles-Smith In the week after Michael Foot, socialist and former-Labour Party leader, died I encountered a veteran taxi-driver early one morning in Liverpool. What started as mere headshaking and tutting at the fellow revellers eventually became a discourse on the political traditions of Liverpool and the state of Britain as a whole. […]
Proposal for a Theme Park (or) The Continuing Relevance of the Frankfurt School
A call to arms (and mind) by Jonathan Reynolds A Theme Park; Consciousness; and the Reasonable Pessimism of the Frankfurt School What certainly a consensus in social scientific circles has isolated and denominated as “capitalism” and “neoliberal democracy” has triumphed on the world stage. Many people seem to take this triumph as much for granted […]
Black Swan: Is This Natalie Portman’s Announcement She Can Act?
Reviewed by Chris Wood Darren Aronofsky’s new film has been celebrated as a powerful psychological thriller revolving around lust and ambition. It was chosen to open the 67th Venice Film Festival and has been nominated for a staggering 166 awards, including 5 Oscars. The story is centred around a ballet company in New York, and […]
Hong Kong: Film Business Asia
If you have an appetite for Asian cinema, Film Business Asia might become your first port of call “Film Business Asia is a new company, created and run by some familiar names in Asian film: Patrick Frater and Stephen Cremin. Based in Hong Kong and with a reach across the Asia-Pacific region, the company is […]
Made In Europe Film Festival
This year’s Made In Europe Film Festival offered a fascinating snapshot of the continent’s newest cinematic visions. Below are some of the festival highlights to keep an eye out for What: 6th Made In Europe Film Festival. “The cultural diversity of the festival movies reflect this international cooperation. With special attention for small, personal films […]
The Depth Beneath the Jokes: Richard Ayoade Talks Submarine
The IT Crowd’s Richard Ayoade steps to the other side of the lens. Chris Wood dives in Submarine could be considered a film about communication, the rise and fall of the libido, teenage indulgence or just the desire to be noticed. Its sharpest early scene is when the teenage Oliver Tate imagines the impact of […]
Cutting Edge: The Making of Blade Runner
Reviled at the time of its release, and now considered a cinema classic, Blade Runner still attracts attention. Tina Bexson has an audience with the androids “I’ve seen things that you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those… […]
M. Ageyev: Novel With Cocaine
A review by Dolly Delightly I have a penchant for esoteric Russian literature of the kind that’s mostly found in frowsy second-hand bookshops which, I am unashamed to say, I frequent with steadfast regularity. About a week ago, during one such visit, I picked up a 1985 Picador edition of a book called Novel With […]
An Interview With Jeanette Hewitt
Jeanette Hewitt Is the author of Freedom First Peace Later, a novel about life in Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland, against the backdrop of Republican activity. The book was first published in December by BlueWood. and has been submitted for The Orwell Prize 2011. In 2008, Jeanette Hewitt won the silver award for the Author v Author […]
Superman: Earth One (DC Comics)
Reviewed by Kes Seymour Superman is an ideal. Superman is perfect – there’s nothing that he can’t do; he will always overcome any challenge (he even managed to come back from the dead in the 1990s) and this is why people love him. But it’s also why writers have struggled to create new ‘interesting’ stories […]
Joolz Denby and Ignite Books
From New Model Army to award-winning novels, Joolz Denby has created an impressive body of work. Now, with poet Steve Pottinger, she launches Ignite Books Poet, author, artist, vocalist, and all-round force of nature Joolz Denby recently published her latest novel The Curious Mystery of Miss Larkin and the Widow Marvell. Though more playful than […]
Hideous Kinky: An Interview with Stephen C. Bird
Dolly Delightly is granted an audience with New York performer, artist and ‘downright dirty’ author Stephen C. Bird Writer, performer and artist Stephen C. Bird was born in Ontario, Canada, but has spent most of his life in New York City. He studied theatre with the Stella Adler Conservatory in association with New York University, […]
Sweeping Narratives: Joan Didion
Kevin Fitzgerald gathers together the narrative fragments of Didion’s novels and finds that identity is a collaborative process In her essay ‘Facing Reality’, Marilynne Robinson likens our present model of the world to so much ‘floorsweep’ – the meagre skimmings from a hundred years’ worth of economics, history, technology merged into a seamless narrative. It […]
How I Work: Nuno Cera
Futureland is a photographic and video portrait of the effects of rapid urbanisation Futureland #17 – Shanghai, China, 2010. Ink jet print, 110 x 145 cm © Nuno Cera and Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, reproduced with thanks Nuno Cera’s project Futureland catches the process of rapid urbanisation in the act. Between 2008 and 2010, the […]
Designs for Living: Jordi Parra
Although you may not know his name, it’s likely you’re familiar with Jordi Parra’s design work Chances are you saw this beautiful Spotify device that was all over the internet a few months ago. The player makes novel use of RFID tags to create exchangeable playlists linking back to the Spotify service. Although haling from […]
Mariko Mori’s Cyborg Surrealism
As genetic engineering creates hybrid forms, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve speculates on post-human art and what it means for the Freudian unconscious Mariko Mori: Miko no inori (Link of the Moon): 1996: digital film, 61 x 71 cm “I demand that he who still refuses… to see a horse galloping on a tomato should be looked […]
Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield
A major new gallery opens next month but could it be the last of its kind? The opening of Wakefield’s stunning new Hepworth gallery on 21st May could mark the end of an era. The 5000 sq m space, designed by David Chipperfield Architects at a cost of £35m, is the largest purpose-built gallery in […]
