Reviewed by Eric Saeger Rooted mostly in twee-folk, these too-long-in-the-city Brooklynites erupt in occasional Boredoms no-wave (‘Death By Sea Air’) and play to their inarguable strengths with dweeb-prog (opener ‘Tuck Me in with Bells’), all the while dabbling in the cracks in between and offering singing that should have stayed in the shower, save for […]
Essay: Wistfulness in These Strange Times
For philosophical counselor Andrew Taggart the pace, pressure and squeeze of contemporary life leaves no room for reflection. That necessary disquiet, however, may a more sustainable way to live This morning I awoke in a wistful mood. The birdsong coming through my bedroom window reminded me of something softer and higher but also, and less […]
James Barsness: Icons of Comic Relief
Drawing on comic strips to explore “crackpot ideas” about social interaction, the Barsness universe recalls the playful chaos of Bruegel. In this catalogue essay from 1997, Thyrza Nichols Goodeve considers drawing and doodling. Full thanks to the author and the gallery for permission to republish “For all drawing depends, primarily, on your power of representing […]
The Front Bottoms: The Front Bottoms (Bar/None Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Microwaving the Dead Milkmen for Generation Text pretty much on schedule, although this unplugged New Jersey guitar/drums punk duo have a darker edge, obsessed not with booger-fingered AIDS jokes but uber-emo concerns, from taking steroids in the hope of impressing a Snooki-like bimbo to the joyful fantasy of beating dad to […]
Driftwood Fire: How to Untangle a Heartache (self-released)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger I suppose at the least we can now say it’s no longer a mystery how a pair of chick scientists (as in females utilizing glorified vocational training in various scientific McJobs, not scientists who try to understand chicks) would interpret modern Western-Americana. Their best feature is their Sarah McLachlan yodelling, while […]
TV Eye: Bill Hicks, The Field of Blood and Page Eight
Jacob Knowles-Smith settles down for an original American comic and some not so original British drama It might be a cliché for fans of Bill Hicks to reminisce about the man and wonder what he might have to say about the present day, but it isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination: he wouldn’t […]
Somewhere (Sofia Coppola)
A radical new direction for the acceptable face of art house cinema? Hardly, says Declan Tan “Let’s open with one of those long, audience-testing shots, yeah, yeah, keep him driving around. Make about ten laps then we’ll cut.” I imagine this is how Sofia Coppola speaks and I imagine this is how she sets up […]
The Colour of Money: An Interview with Peter Mountford
Set against the backdrop of South America’s poorest economy, Peter Mountford’s first novel is a smart read on the human side of economic, political and ethical dramas. For the author it was also a long road to publication, as Dan Coxon learns. Portrait by Jennifer Mountford In a literary landscape dominated by celebrity memoirs and […]
Gutbucket: Flock (Cuneiform Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Your upgrade from math-jazz-punk like this would involve buying bands like That Fucking Tank, but I suppose the utterly deconstructed sounds of real-live Brooklyn Knitting Factory avant-jazz kids will float enough people’s boats, sure. This crew is sax and stun-guitar over bass-drums, so you get Red Scare into Bosstones-ska bang on […]
Mike Prigodich: A Stitch In Time (Mexican Mocha Music)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger I’ve said it before, but it does continue to be the case that one can almost never go wrong buying jazz albums for their cover art. Simple, streamlined, a wee bit old school while keeping one eye on an increasingly cybernetic world, the art and music itself evoke Weather Report in […]
Gaby Moreno: Illustrated Songs (Paisley Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger I’m all for a little diversity, and multi-lingual chill-folk singer Gaby Moreno has enough eclectic interests that her constant gear-switching is coherent, at least to overeducated NPR liberals. Basically this is ripe for soundtracking a snobby coming-of-age-again-for-the-5th-time Baby Boomer movie, music that’s slow, flabby, and randomly old-sounding, in other words annoying […]
Sister: Hated (Metal Blade Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Sweden isn’t particularly famous for glam rock, not that those weird little frozen micro-countries in Europe won’t try anything for a laugh. So we have the band Sister, which I’m sure will never eventually run into any trademark name litigation ever, and they bill themselves as glammy sleaze-rock. Such it is, […]
Route Irish (Ken Loach)
Often something of a cinematic conscience, Ken Loach turns the camera to the Iraq war. Declan Tan reviews Ken Loach’s take on Iraq was always going to be one to look out for. After In Our Name, Green Zone, The Hurt Locker and a slurry of others sent hot and steaming down the pipe of supposedly cantankerous cinema, […]
The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper)
Is there anything left to say about The King’s Speech? Declan Tan thinks so Welcome to the throwback film of the century. You already know the story thanks to the BAFTA-soaked hype parade (and the ubiquitous trailers), and you’re vaguely familiar with the history, World War II and all that (though you won’t be too […]
Keeping Up with the Jones: Regarding Indiana
Whilst the Star Wars trilogy has embedded itself deep within our cultural mythology, Robert O’Connor wonders about George Lucas’ other classic serial, the Indiana Jones films George Lucas made the first Star Wars movies as a throwback to the classic adventure serials like Flash Gordon. A few years later he did it again with the […]
The Dear Hunter: The Color Spectrum (Triple Crown Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Half the time, Boston-based Dear Hunter bandleader Casey Crescenzo has a voice that sounds like Julian Casablancas out of a pull-top can, but he can also do a passable Brandon Flowers. Given this, there’s obvious potential for making a permanent mark in show biz, at least for the next 15 minutes […]
Steven Lugerner Septet: Narratives/These Are The Words (self-released)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger It’s probably quite fitting that this was the first album I listened to for review purposes in 2011, a year that promises more long-term unemployment and a brand spanking new Wall Street-driven oil bubble (to end with a ‘shocking’ stock crash, be assured), meaning lots more destroyed people. Of this double […]
High Fiddelity: Tell Me (self-released)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger This jazz setup, led up by Munich-born violinist Natalia Brunke, could have been conducive to some exquisite creativity. Could have been. The major fail here is singer Marina Trost, whose workaday voice is as interchangeable as a muffler in a 1998 Buick, a warning from the get-go that there will be […]
TV Eye: The Hour and The Culture Show
Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)
Eight years after One Hour Photo, music video director Romanek steps back in the ring with an adaptation of Ishiguro’s much-touted novel. Declan Tan reviews In 1952, the breakthrough came. All disease and illness were cured, all disability wiped out. By the 1960s, age expectancy reached over 100 years. This is the opener for Never […]
No Country for Young Men: An Interview with Urban Waite
Sidestepping the industry circus and downplaying his own achievements, Urban Waite isn’t your typical thriller writer, and his debut, The Terror of Living, isn’t your typical crime novel, as Dan Coxon finds out. Portrait by Sean Hunter Crossing into similar territory to Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men, The Terror of Living offers more […]
The Set: An Interview With Roger Ward
Vanessa Libertad Garcia interviews actor, author and pioneer of Australian gay culture about his novel The Set In 1969, the Australian public would know Roger Ward’s face from TV shows like Skippy. Less than a year later, he would gain tabloid infamy thanks to Frank Brittain’s film based on his novel The Set. Originally a […]
The Chain Gang of 1974: Wayward Fire (Modern Art Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger In a perfect, not-so-genre-gerrymandered 80s-revival world, this band would tour with goth-darlings Birthday Massacre, the bright keyboards and autumnal first-day-of-high-school angst of both bands duking it out for retro-supremacy. But as I alluded to, Denver’s Chain Gang of 1974 are more straightforward and less kitschy in their Talk Talk worship, which, […]
Banjo Or Freakout: Banjo Or Freakout (Rare Book Room Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Campfire-ready bedroom-pop strummed and crooned by hipster-fringe-pandering Alessio Natalizia, who dazzled the Pitchfork-arazzi with his distortion-washed previous ‘single’ ‘Upside Down’. Aside from possessing a gift for hook (catchy music is back in fashion now?), Natalizia glugs down the usual Kool-Aid, wallowing too long in a pool of nonsensical psyche-chill repetition at […]
Grieves: Together/Apart (Rhymesayers Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger Downtrodden hoodie-honky chill-rap of the quality familiar to Rhymesayers repeat customers. The Seattle-based 27-year-old isn’t in either the physical or lyrical weight class to fight his way through these ghetto survival issues, but he’s elegantly eloquent about them, curling his squishy-soft baritone around ‘Falling From You’ when it’s time to get […]
