One of the first sequences in the documentary series City So Real shows the mayoral candidates in Chicago marching in the 2018 Bud Billiken Parade, a celebration for the start of the back-to-school season in the storied Black neighborhood of… Read More
Balothizer – Cretan Smash (Louvana) <a href=”https://balothizer.bandcamp.com/album/cretan-smash”>Cretan Smash by Balothizer</a> Full disclosure: I’m cheating a bit. Balothizer’s Cretan Smash was released back in November, but the album is such a gem that it deserves everyone’s attention. Three factors make this… Read More
Kevin Godley has been a vital part of some of the most innovative music of the last six decades. As a quarter of the original lineup of 10CC, he had hits worldwide but jumped ship with his long-time creative partner,… Read More
German actress Nina Hoss’ lengthy collaboration with German director Christian Petzold, from Wolfsburg (2003) to Phoenix (2014), saw the pair become inseparable. The characters she played showed the diversity of her onscreen presence, with her talent for conveying nuance in… Read More
Éric Vuillard’s The War of the Poor lifts readers from the contemporary battlegrounds of class struggle and deposits us in the frenzy of the 16th century. The Protestant Reformers had declared war on the privileged elites of Catholicism, but the… Read More
Watching Steven Soderbergh’s film Contagion (2011), in light of a year of COVID-19, I was struck by the accuracy of much of the writers’ vision. A zoonotic disease crosses over from increasingly under pressure animal populations, trapped in the ever-shrinking… Read More
It’s been ten years since Rhye began recording their debut album, Woman. Eventually released in 2013, the album caused a storm with the performers’ identity shrouded in mystery. The beautifully androgynous and seductive vocals caused debate as to the gender… Read More
American Head, the latest release from the Flaming Lips, stands as a marker of time. It’s wrapped in anxieties about the future, whether that future is distant or close, yet it provides the listener with a distinct sense of comfort.… Read More
Think about Buzzcocks for a moment. What did they look like? The image that popped into your head was probably from about 1978. Four stick-thin figures, brimming with angst and cheap speed and cocky with it. Hammering their instruments into… Read More
Chris Brokaw’s onto something. The post-rock mainstay (Codeine, Come) and longtime supporting player (everyone from Thurston Moore to G.G. Allin) borrows the title from the best song on his new solo LP to christen the whole affair. We could spend… Read More