As a still wet-behind-the-ears English professor on a spring day in 2000, I stood completely flummoxed in front of my 19th century, British literature class. A student remarked that we only talked about representations of people of color in relation… Read More
Dave Douglas – Marching Music (Greenleaf) <a href=”https://davedouglas.bandcamp.com/album/marching-music”>MARCHING MUSIC by Dave Douglas</a> Dave Douglas plays the trumpet, but that is becoming a relatively small part of how I experience him. Douglas composes music and brings together bands, runs the Festival of New… Read More
Stefano Mancuso loves plants. The Italian scientist is one of the world’s leading plant neurobiologists, but he also has an exceptional knack for good storytelling. In the latest of his books to be translated into English (by Gregory Conti), he… Read More
“Enola Gay”, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s (OMD’s) wonderfully indulgent synthpop classic named after the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, has just turned 40. While the last 40 years have seen OMD produce multiple charting records, break into… Read More
Once upon a time, wearing a Jacques Derrida T-shirt was a hip way to declare one’s cerebral aspirations but to do so now is more likely to be taken as an indication of age or quaint fidelity to a thinker… Read More
The restless musical spirits of siblings Nicki and Patrick Adams have found a pared-down yet bracing place to land on their latest musical collaboration. With Nicki on piano and Patrick on trumpet, this eclectic duo, perhaps best known as being… Read More
The paradox of all great ambient music is that it sounds easy to create, but it isn’t. All the different parts are simple, but the way they come together is not. This has always been the case with both Ulla… Read More
Open Up To Me (Kerron sinulle kaiken) is Finnish director Simo Halinen’s award-winning 2013 drama portraying the tribulations of Maarit Majantie, a middle-aged trans woman. Now employed as a janitor, she’s trying to rebuild both her professional career as a… Read More
In an interview for Rolling Stone India (2020), BTS member SUGA said: “I want to be like the ’90s folk musicians whom I’ve been listening to. I’m not trying to limit myself to a specific genre. I simply want to… Read More
Yellow Rose (2019) centres on Filipina teenager Rose (Eva Noblezada), who dreams of becoming a country music performer. When her mother is picked up by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service, she’s forced to choose between staying with her family,… Read More