Discovering Elvis Costello was probably the sole highlight of my strange and turbulent sophomore year of high school. It probably would have been runner-up had I kissed a girl. By all means, mine is an ordinary account, so I’ll try… Read More
Guitarist Nels Cline has released his third album for jazz’s Cadillac label, Blue Note. In a sense, though, it is his first Nels Cline recording for the label. In 2016 he created something riveting in Lovers, a moody music project… Read More
We all know that the Clash (1976-1983) wear the halo of eternal coolness. History has been very kind to them. What is the big deal, anyway? For me, the question is personal. Abiding loyalty as a Clash fan has been… Read More
Director Chad Hartigan’s fourth feature Little Fish (2020), adapted by Mattson Tomlin from a short story by Aja Gabel, is a science-fiction romance that frighteningly echoes the present day. Emma (Olivia Cooke) and Jude (Jack O’Connell), play a couple who… Read More
Pearl Charles spends much of her second album Magic Mirror thinking about who she is, refining her introspection even as she finds ways to reach out. As she seeks self-definition, though, she develops a more fluid musical identity. Charles has… Read More
Over the last couple of years, Light in the Attic – a reissue label responsible for lavishly reviving the catalogs of artists as disparate as Lee Hazelwood, the Last Poets, Sixto Rodriguez, and Nancy Sinatra – have been shining a… Read More
In this significant collection of essays and illustrations, curator Milena Høgsberg marvels at the reception to Hilma af Klint’s work at the 2020 exhibition at Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden. The question of af Klint’s growing popularity is at the heart… Read More
As the hoary saying goes, old folkies never die, they just keep on playing the same song over and over again. At 67 years old, Rod Abernethy’s been around, and he’s lived long enough to remember the folk revival scare… Read More
In Relic (2020), Kay (Emily Mortimer) accompanied by her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote), rushes to the family’s decaying country home after her mother, Edna (Robyn Nevin), who suffers from Alzheimer’s, disappears. When Edna returns, her volatile behaviour leads her daughter… Read More
1. Alfred Schnittke – “Collected Songs Where Every Verse Is Filled with Grief” arr. the Kronos Quartet (1997) Alfred Schnittke’s most famous piece is probably known to most through a version not quite his own. Originally composed for chorus from… Read More