Saturday, February 28, 2009

Article: Straight outta Brooklyn: A Golden Age in American music


By Daniel Greenwood
via Seven


It has been said that, when times are hard, the art gets better. To compare the state of the American economy to the health of indie music in America shows that there is some truth to this idea. The rude health of American music is symptomatic of the sheer number of lauded artists (big and small) emerging from Brooklyn, New York. At the top of the scale are TV on the Radio, whose recent release Dear Science headed numerous album polls last year; Rolling Stone and Spin are two of the bigger brands who plumped for the act. In fact, American music dominated year-end charts, with British act Portishead and Aussies Cut Copy the only acts outside of the States to really trouble critical listings.
TV on the Radio are a bi-racial alternative rock band; four of the members are African Americans (Gerard A. Smith on keys and brass, Kyp Malone on bass, singer Tunde Adebimpe and Jaleel Bunton-Drums as percussionist) while fifth member and production hot-shot Dave Sitek is a white American. The significance of this idea of a bi-racial act is in line with the recent inauguration of America’s first African American president, Barack Obama. Take the track “Golden Age” from Dear Science: “There is a golden age/and it’s coming round.”

Leading indie website Pitchfork ranked Dear Science at number six in 2008 and their writer Eric Harvey commented: “One last sigh of relief that "Golden Age" in December isn't a sad curio of a nation afraid to embrace difference on November 4th [Election day], but instead stands as a bona fide fucking anthem going forward.”

For Harvey, this “Golden Age” is one of racial harmony, of kicking out Bush the draconian; but it can speak equally for the brilliant lights of the Brooklyn scene.

Telepathe are an electronic duo residing in Brooklyn, but with the release of their debut record Dance Mother, they haven’t been spending much time in the New York borough. Their record was produced by TV on the Radio member Sitek. It is experimental electronica and minimal, simmering with reverb-laden guitar moments akin to Sitek’s work for TV on the Radio.

In January, I spoke to Busy Ganges, one half of Telepathe, in the build-up to their debut release. Originally from Los Angeles, she said: “I’ve lived in Brooklyn for a few years now and I feel like I’ve been lucky to see live so many interesting and innovative bands over the years. But this past year, I feel like I’ve barely lived here. We’ve been touring, so I haven’t actually been out to any shows in Brooklyn. I feel like the scene has become so big that it’s almost overwhelming. I hear about a new band every single day.”

Ganges has a point. The overwhelming nature of the scene has lead to some bands spilling out into other parts of the country. Rob Barber and Mary Pearson of High Places comprise one of these acts who, in January, upped-sticks to Los Angeles, home of No Age and the Smell – perhaps America’s most relevant and, currently, most famous indie setting. High Places marry together an Animal Collective (once NYC-based) instinct for samples and ambient sounds, many of which are electronically modified sounds recorded at home, like plastic bags and even food bowls floating in a paddling pool full of water. High Places are perhaps the most under-the-radar of Brooklyn’s recent graduates but with much in common with the superlative Gang Gang Dance, another similar to Animal Collective.

The thing that ties bands such as TV on the Radio, High Places, Gang Gang Dance and Animal Collective together is their continental sound. The cover for Gang Gang Dance’s St. Dymphna is adorned with the image of lead singer Lizzi Bougatsos wearing colourful, almost royal Arabic headgear. The samples that tinge their breakthrough record hint at Middle Eastern influences with the kind of beats reminiscent of African American hip hop acts. It all adds up to a vibrant and colourful spectrum of artists that seem to cover so many genres that it all merges into one – a golden age for art.
Though artists like High Places have drifted away from New York’s epicentre, there is a constant germination of new acts. Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts are two bands to have achieved international acclaim with their debut albums in late 2008, along with the lesser-known experimental dance trio Lemonade.

For all the hyped artists, such as Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts, dominating the blogosphere over the past 12 months, one band is on the brink of doing something wonderful. This band is Grizzly Bear, the Brooklyn-based quartet of Ed Droste (vocals), Chris Taylor (bass), Daniel Rossen (guitar) and Christopher Bear (drums). Veckatimest, their second studio album, will be released in May and has been described by indie-hegemonic Pitchfork as “one of the big ones”.

But 2008 was no dry year for the band. Rossen teamed with friend Fred Nikolaus to release their long-anticipated 4AD debut under the Department of Eagles guise – In Ear Park. What you can expect from Grizzly Bear’s new record will be similar to the Department of Eagles’ tone, a spirited sound lit by the ruffle of acoustic guitars and droning piano keys. In Rossen, Grizzly Bear have a folk-virtuoso, a skilled arranger whose input on 2006’s superlative slow burner Yellow House cannot be ignored. The band is on the verge of breaking into the corner of the mainstream inhabited by Seattle-based and much-admired folk crooners Fleet Foxes. In simpler terms, Grizzly Bear have the chance to hold the gong for 2009 as TV on the Radio did last year.

The Brooklyn scene is in the throes of a golden age. But what is most wonderful about it is its eddy; you cannot identify one influence for these bands. Thanks to the internet – the blogging culture that desperately and adoringly attempts to charter the rise of these bands – much of it can be witnessed from outside the city itself and from across the pond. As some acts move on and those such as Grizzly Bear scale the international heights, new bands are moving in and playing their first shows. The scale is large, but with TV on the Radio stirring styles at the top and the likes of Lemonade reinventing rave-culture at the other end, there’s plenty of gold to mine.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Film Review: Interiors (Woody Allen, 1978)


via Atlas Film
By Daniel Greenwood
This review is depressing (and contains spoilers).


The fun thing about watching a Woody Allen film is digesting it afterwards, chewing it over with the teeth in your head. But many people won’t get to the ‘afterwards’ part of Interiors, a film that is completely overcast. In three years - 1977, 1978 and 1979 - Woody Allen came up with Annie Hall, Interiors, and Manhattan. Holy carp, that’s three films better than any of the trillion some Hollywood directors make. In between Annie Hall and Manhattan, two little charmers, is one great big stinking misery fest. And you know what? I think it’s my favourite.

It’s a film about three sisters - Renata (Diane frickin’ Keaton), Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) and Flyn (Kristin Griffith). These sisters are torn apart by the protracted, messy divorce of their parents. Their mother Eve (Geraldine Page) takes the separation badly. She’s clinically depressed, introduced in a scene early on in the film where she obsesses about the positioning of a table lamp against a certain shade of wallpaper in Joey’s apartment. It’s unnerving to see someone so fragile to the colour palette of furniture. These small incidents are impressed against the harsh truth that her husband Arthur (E.G. Marshall) doesn’t want to get back together with his wife, he wants to marry another woman. Indeed, he does, and this wedding is the grand climax to Interiors, played out beneath the roaring waves of a bitter, Bergman-esque bay.

Renata is a successful poet. Her husband Frederick (Richard Jordan) is jealous of her, claiming her praise of his own work (which the critics ravage) to be lying on her part. The man’s a fool. He’s a drunk and an adulterer, typified by a scene where he pretty much attempts to rape Flyn, the youngest of the sisters, a beautiful and successful actress. But she ain’t happy, furtively snorting cocaine in the garage late into the wedding night. Renata toils with her lifestyle, what does she care if she has some poems left over when she’s dead for other people to enjoy. She’s unhappy with her life, almost oblivious to the small shape of her daughter that seems to flit on the fringes of Interiors.

Allen’s deftest manoeuvre here is his use of sound, the film’s complete lack of music. The only music that’s heard is from a record put on by Arthur’s newly wedded wife Pearl (Maureen Stapleton) - so it’s within the film. It’s quite clever, all the sound is interior. The crashing, early morning waves are terrifying, it’s as if Allen’s layered them over one another, and it gives the effect of fearing the water might come crashing through the screen. The action on screen is unclear and I found myself squirming, edging closer and closer attempting to see what was going on.

You could write a billion-word dissertation on these sisters, every performance is bang-on, every little thing about Interiors is aching and creaking, built on shambolic foundations. In the real world, people can’t get jobs, but here are people with a choice about their lifestyles - people who can make a living from art - forsooth! But man Allen has conjured some desperately unhappy characters in this elegaic, unrelenting piece of cinema.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Interview: Vivian Girls


Gallery
By Daniel Greenwood

Vivian Girls are excited about beginning work on their second album and tonight they’ll be playing new material. I am interested to hear about the creative process seeing that much has been made of who the trio sounds like, rather than the standout quality of their record. ‘Tell the World’ is one of the album’s most immediately awesome tracks, a contender in various song-of-the-year polls. It’s a love song: “He sees what I see/He feels what I feel/I’ll tell the world about the love that I found.” There’s a real sense of simplicity about the lyrics which is quite remarkable considering the complexity of its subject:

“I wrote that song about my ex-boyfriend,” says Cassie. “He was really into psychic stuff, and we’d always try to be psychic together, it’s kind of creepy but it’s true. I don’t know. I wrote that song after we’d broken up but then we hung out again one time and I was like, ‘Holy shit, I’m still in love with him, it’s insane.’ That’s what it’s about.”

Read the article in full on Ragged Words

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Caught Live: Parts & Labor


Thursday 19th February @ Cargo, London
Gallery

Thanks to the wonderful work of the Upset the Rhythm gang, London has been graced by some of North America’s best new bands. Recently we’ve had High Places, Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Women and tonight it’s Parts & Labor. This is Upset the Rhythm’s 199th show according to Dan Friel, on keys and vocals for the headliners, and here’s to another two-hundred shows. Brighton three-piece Cold Pumas open, excelling under the defunct disco ball. Their triangular sound contains two guitarists, Oliver Fisher and Dan Reeves, and vocalist/drummer Patrick Fisher. At the point of their blockbusting finale they’ve gathered a decent and receptive audience which includes impressed-looking Parts & Labor members. They’re a band to keep an eye on.

Parts & Labor begin their set as Receivers does, ‘Satellites’ surges through Cargo’s gig room, dragging punters closer to the stage with each humongous chorus. This band has an impressive sound, the first thing that grabs you is the epic wave of cymbals and keys, but Receivers’ finest moment is the incendiary guitar riff on ‘Solemn Show World’, cutting through this gargantuan sound. Sarah Lipstate wields the axe, she’s superb. There’s also something of an eighties synth-vibe to these tunes, with Dan Friel all smiles as he busies away at his desk of pedals and wires. It typifies the wholesome nature of Parts & Labor – there really is something for everyone.

The front of the audience is a sight to behold, accentuated by the flitting of one fan’s red mohawk, bassist BJ Warshaw succumbs and joins in, raising his bass aloft like a knight of super pop. London is renowned for its quiet audiences, and there is a split second of complete silence at one point in between songs. But at the encore’s climax – the band make quick work of the traditional two minute split – with Friel throwing his equipment table around like a ship in a storm, the majority of these uptight onlookers are indulging in the mighty hug of Parts & Labor. ROCK!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

New Music: Fever Ray


When I Grow Up from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson goes minimal as Fever Ray.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO...Yo La Tengo!

In an age and arena (the internet) where we all must act as if we know everything (because it's all available) how refreshing to have a new series that will proclaim loudly and proudly that I HAVEN'T SEEN CASABLANCA OR LISTENED TO A CERTAIN BAND! Let's go! Maybe the 10-minute intro of I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass isn't the best way to taste-test Yo La Tengo. It's the sort of intro that's made for a band's hardened fanbase. But instead, this seems the most accessible and gorgeous place to start - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. According to their label Matador 'Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew sound like no other band. This is not because they're contrarians, but because they're artists.' That's a sure-fire way to put me off. But listening to 'Damage', 'Green Arrow' and 'The Lie and How We Told it' I think I've found my new favourite band.

Yo La Tengo
YLT on myspace
YLT on the Hype Machine

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Film Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)


via Atlas Film
By Daniel Greenwood
This review contains spoilers.


In what is only his third film, Director Julian Schnabel manages to forge the wit of an Amelie-esque French mainstream cinema with all the woe of an American indie movie. Schnabel’s employment of novel techniques like the initial point-of-view shot, from the right-eye of Jean-Do (Mathieu Amalric), help to keep The Diving Bell and the Butterfly moving at a pace that is both enticing and entertaining. Jean-Do is surrounded by enough tempestuous characters, invoking as much of a stir in him to make his paralysis seem purely physical, momentarily forgettable. But it is his injuries that dominate the film - in the memory sequences where Jean-Do is fit and well, and in the sad faces peering into his remaining eye.

The film begins in a hospital, the focus of the camera fluctuating, a mistiness slowly disappearing from the lens to reveal beady-eyed doctors. Jean-Do’s voice can be heard by his cinematic audience, but not by the characters in the film. Jean-Do answers each of the doctor’s questions and is bemused when he doesn’t receive a response. The doctor tells him he’s suffered a stroke and has ‘locked-in’ syndrome. There is no cure, nor is the condition understood. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’s remarkable instance is the fact that Jean-Do manages to ‘write’ a sort of memoir while suffering ‘locked-in syndrome’. With the aid of a speech therapist (Marie-Josée Crozea - dead-ringer for Naomi Watts) Jean-Do is taught to use a system whereby someone reads to him a list of letters in order of commonest use and he blinks upon hearing the letter he wants. Each word is built painstakingly, letter-by-letter. In his life before the stroke, Jean-Do is the editor of Elle magazine. He’s a womaniser, but also a father of three children and husband to an estranged wife, Céline (Emmanuelle Seigner).

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian said The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of the only films he’s removed his glasses and sobbed to, publicly. Bradshaw was talking about the end of the film, a sad moment, yes, but it’s ruined by a song that rocks out in the credits. If only Schnabel had gone all out French art-house here and really indulged in a classical French piece. For me, the most potent image in this film is of Jean-Do lying in the hospital bed, visited by Laurent (Isaach De Bankolé) who reads to him. The two friends have fallen asleep and Lauren is sitting close-by with his feet resting on the side of the bed. There’s something quite innocent about this image. If this isn’t the most emotive scene then Jean-Do’s father’s first call to his son after the stroke is.

It’s not all woe-begone, however. The real allure of Shnabel’s film is it’s sense of humour. Soon after Jean-Do wakes he’s already cheekily peering into the cleavage of the beautiful doctors who introduce themselves to him as their speech therapists. Much of what keeps Jean-Do ticking is the sight of a woman, and often it’s to see them pent-up and teeming. His wife Céline is constantly annoyed, disturbed by what seems to be her inability to make up her mind over her estranged, sick husband. She’s hurt because he left her for someone else, and Jean-Do’s assertion that she’s ‘the mother of my children, not my wife’ adds to the tension between them.

This very witty and thoughtful film achieves in making the point that the human condition is very frail. The scenes that reminisce over Jean-Do’s days as a healthy middle-aged man act to underline how quickly things can change. But The Diving Bell and the Butterfly makes another point in Jean-Do’s wit, the craving he has for life, his love for his children (he feels an insatiable guilt over them) and the brilliant women who exist around him in his paralysis. It’s that life is precious, but a sense of humour is the most important thing. Death is inevitable, but happiness isn’t.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Record Review: Asobi Seksu - Hush


via Ragged Words
Asobi Seksu – Hush
One Little Indian
Release Date: 16/02/2009
Ragged rating: 2.5/5
In a Ragged Word: Opaque


It’s tough to decipher the conflict at the heart of Hush, Asobi Seksu’s third studio album. The song titles ‘Layers’, ‘Transparence’ and ‘I Can’t See’ offer some insight – it’s a case of something hidden away and difficult to find. It’s not an issue of restraint but more simply that these songs don’t differ from one another all that much, therefore Hush suffers a lack of variation. That’s not to say there’s no enjoyment in this record, just that come the closer ‘Blind Little Rain’ it’s all a bit underwhelming. There are few melodies or hooks to catch hold of, even upon repeated listens it’s a wrestling match.

Musically, the motivating element here is Larry Gorman’s drumming, rippling and pulsating across these twelve tracks. Front woman Yuki Chikudate feels hidden away under James Hanna’s gushing guitar work, most of which fleshes itself out above these songs and only really steps things up on the penultimate track ‘Me & Mary’. On Citrus (2006) Chikudate revels amongst a Sigur Rósean delay-guitar maelstrom, but here she labours. It’s the mix that feels problematic. It’s too reverb-laden, overly-glittery, acting like vacuous hole that sucks away the fun.

Perhaps Hush’s biggest gripe is that at the end, with forty-minutes gone, the album’s start doesn’t feel far away. What’s peculiar is the feeling that little has happened or been revealed and the greatest sin is that Chikudate’s lyrics fail to suggest much. For a band with a coitus-implied name (‘Seksu’ translates in Japanese via ‘sekkusu’ as ‘sex’) Hush feels undersexed. But it’s important to emphasise that Asobi Seksu aren’t underachieving, it’s more like something they’re underplaying – conflict. The music is accomplished technically, but it lacks the variation to offer what this band should. Shoegaze is a melancholy thing at its heart, and thus Asobi Seksu are no purveyors of that style. The band’s sound – Hanna’s enveloping, gleeful guitar and Chikudate’s cushioned harmonies – lacks the trauma to really uncover any new ground, to transport you anywhere either new or painfully familiar. Right now it feels as if there’s something Asobi Seksu aren’t telling. Hush, indeed.

Daniel Greenwood

Monday, February 16, 2009

Film Review: Vicky Christina Barcelona (Woody Allen, 2008)


via Atlas Film
By Daniel Greenwood

Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson are Vicky and Christina, two close friends visiting Barcelona - Vicky is here to research for a degree in Catalan studies, Christina simply to tag along. Javier Bardem plays Juan Antonio, a Spanish painter who approaches the two friends in a restaurant and offers to fly them to Oviedo for the weekend. Vicky scoffs at the proposal but this kind of thing is just what Christina's looking for - a hunky painter man to show her something new, loins, even. Vicky is cynical of Juan Antonio, and unimpressed by his forwardness she dresses him down often. Christina suffers food poisoning, leaving Juan Antonio to show Vicky the sights of Oviedo. It's here that the two form a bond and Juan Antonio works his magic. But Vicky is engaged to be married, and her boyfriend Doug (Chris Messina) is never far away, calling Vicky's cell phone regularly. It's only after Vicky's really got to know Juan Antonio that she feels uncomfortable speaking to her fiancée. She pulls herself away from the artist, whilst he and Christina forge a sexual bond.

The dilemma at the heart of Vicky Christina Barcelona is whether to settle for a partner or to keep searching. Both Vicky and Christina struggle with this issue: Vicky is initially sure of her love for Doug, but Juan Antonio undresses its false premise; Christina falls for Juan Antonio, it was only the food poisoning that stopped them hooking-up, but in the end she's not comfortable with the triangle befitting herself, Juan Antonio and the brilliant Penelope Cruz as Maria Elena. Judging by the final shot and voice-over it seems that the closest thing these young women have to happiness is their friendship. Vicky is confident that wedlock is for her, but the allure of the world draws her away, filling her with desire. The Spanish guitar music is perhaps the most potent symbol of her longing for 'something else', this rapturous music entrances Vicky.

Allen's film is full of ideas. It has universal appeal and never sates itself with an answer to any of the questions arising from its characters. Each of these characters is belittled and wretched at some point, the narrative moves naturally, seamlessly from scene to scene. Scoop (2006) flailed because it was following a limp plot device - a serial killer - and I never got to (nor wanted to) peer inside the people. But here Scarlett Johansson typifies Allen's artless individual, someone who loves art (in this case photography, architecture) but cannot express themselves creatively. In 1978, Allen wrote and directed Interiors, a film about the disintegration of an unhappy family. Joey (Mary Beth Hurt) is Interior's 'artless' person, and she says it herself: how do people with all these emotions but no talent ever express themselves satisfactorily? Christina is an update on that problem because she manages to be artistic with help from Maria Elena and Juan Antonio. She learns to let things flow over her, to lose her preconceptions (what Vicky desperately struggles to do herself) and let her art come naturally. Perhaps for Allen talent doesn't exist, it's just confidence, or knack - something gained rather than God-given.

Vicky Christina Barcelona has a lot of depth to it. It's a comedy tinged with the painful ideas that swirl beneath its surface. It's classic Allen in that respect, though not funny like Annie Hall was, nor with the tragedy of Interiors (1978.) or Crimes and Misdemeanours (1989). In Rebecca Hall, Allen has an assured lead who commands the film alongside Penelope Cruz's harrowing turn and Javier Bardem as the believable sap.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Film Review: Scoop (Woody Allen, 2006)


via Atlas Film
By Daniel Greenwood

Scarlett Johansson is Sondra Pranksy, a bubbly, inquisitive student attempting to unravel the mystery of the 'tarot card killer'. Sondra attends a magic show starring Sid Waterman (Woody Allen) and, invited onto the stage, she partakes in a vanishing trick. Subsequently, she's visited by the ghost of Lovejoy (Ian McShane). Lovejoy appears and gives Sondra the scoop of the decade. He informs The Other Boleyn Girl that it is in fact Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) who is the 'tarot card killer'. So, The Girl with the Pearl Earring goes in search of this, 'the scoop of the decade', and in finding Wolverine she falls in love with him. Hugh Jackman's character is buff, so it doesn't matter if it's obvious that he's the killer. In the mean time, magician Sid Waterman is doing card tricks and sometimes he's left alone to joke with himself. He isn't making cutesy attempts at breaching the fourth-wall or anything. In fact, it's not quite clear what he's doing. Thus does that very same confusion seep into this review.

In The Guardian's G2 supplement last May critic Joe Queenan wrote an article entitled 'Europe, please stop funding this man'. This man is Woody Allen. Queenan was pleading with European film companies to stop falling for Allen's ploys. The article gives the sense of Allen as a criminal on the run from the American intellectual hegemony, a bit like Roman Polanski steering clear of U.S. borders. It's like Allen is an infection, and Europe now has an itchy rash:
The ex cathedra pronouncement that Woody Allen comedies were no longer in vogue came as no great shock to most regular moviegoers, and certainly not to people under the age of 30 (sticklers who prefer comedies that are actually funny), as it had been widely reported in other outlets that the once-revered actor/ writer/director hadn't made a film worth seeing in years, and nothing vaguely approaching the quality of Annie Hall, Broadway Danny Rose, Manhattan, The Purple Rose of Cairo, or even Bullets Over Broadway. People didn't talk about Woody Allen movies any more, not even people who had been breathlessly waiting for his latest release since their university days.

By watching Scoop you can see Queenan's point. It's peculiar to think that Woody Allen directed Manhattan, a paean to that part of New York, shot in glorious black and white film stock and underwritten with a Gershwin score. It's peculiar that Allen is that same director because Scoop is so bad. The quality of the camera work is dire, not that the movement of the camera was ever the most important part of an Allen film, the script or witty improvisation always was a greater pull. It's also to do with the acting too, which is diabolical. Scarlett Johansson has one mood - inquisitive - and it doesn't matter if she's pretty, she's not worth watching. Her character is supposed to be annoying and is thus even more annoying. Her closest friend Vivian (Romola Garai) is a young woman who talks simply of 'fit blokes', prancing around like the secondary school drama student that she is. Sorry, but middle class, posh London girls don't act like this. They're irritating, yes, but never wooden.

Scoop plays like a poor Three Men and a Little Lady (Emile Ardolini, 1990), at least that has some humour in it, at least something is at stake (classic altar chasing stuff). Allen is annoying here, it's sad to watch, in that it's embarrassing. Indeed, the obligatory middle-to-upper-class English country house scene is awful, and Wolverine has never looked so relaxed. He's better with mutton chops on his face, cutting people. It remains to be seen whether Allen has 'returned to form' with Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2009), but any upward curvature is no excuse for this bore-fest.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Record Review: Wintersleep - Welcome to the Night Sky


via Ragged Words
Wintersleep – Welcome to the Night
Labwork
Release Date: 02/02/2009
Ragged Rating Rating: *+1.5/5
In a Ragged Word: Glib

Kevin Drew need not lose any sleep over the pop-rock overtures of Wintersleep. In fact, Drew, the Broken Social Scene co-founder, should be seen as the retort to this really rather dull event – Welcome to the Night Sky. The night sky is one made up of glimmering stars and sometimes the red tint of the planet Mars. There is no such brilliance in this, the third album from Wintersleep. What you have instead is a barrel of clichés and samey drum scuttles that go neither anywhere interesting nor dark. Indeed, the darkest that vocalist Paul Murphy gets is on ‘Freaks’, where he says ‘fuck’ a few times and refers to drugs.

At his best, Murphy sounds a bit like Zach Schwartz of Rogue Wave, but commonly Murphy is akin to Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty mega-stardom. Much of the singing is vague cooing, and on ‘Search Party’ the vocals are trailed by the spiralling delay effect that a producer will enforce just to fill a yawning bar. These songs leave much to be desired, artistically, but they will prove popular in the mainstream. Wintersleep deal in a kind of progressive soft-rock that is entirely radio-friendly, and the band know this. These are songs a group will definitely make a living from. Perhaps ‘Weighty Ghost’ is Wintersleep’s clearest grasp of an anthem, with Murphy singing, ‘have you seen my ghost?’ before descending into acceptable nah-nahing..

Perhaps the most galling aspect here, and one that could hinge on whether this record is likable or not, is the idea that Murphy is philosophising over these palm-mute power ballads. If you’re looking for big questions look to Phil Elverum’s latest, but if you’re looking for something altogether damp why not consider ‘Dead Letter & Infinite Yes’, with Murphy talking about ‘death’, and out-pouring to a ‘therapist’. It’s amazing that someone can sound so sincere about being half-hearted. The real drag is that there is no darkness here, but then the record’s title is tuned to just that – the night. This brand of radio-friendly intellect-rock is something not to waste your time with. Just because a guitarist presses his toe to a distortion pedal it doesn’t make the music dangerous. But if you’re into bland, faux-grandiose indie Wintersleep have a record you are going to absolutely love. Someone call Kevin Drew, tell him he can go back to bed.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Film Review: Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)


via Atlas Film
By Daniel Greenwood

It’s strange to call Andrei Rublev an epic, a term modern cinema will attribute to vast landscapes clogged with soldiers, usually seen as specks from a computer enhanced birds-eye-view. And Andrei Rublev’s first scene has something of the sort, but here the figures are real, as are the wild horses seen by a man escaping in a hot air balloon. The modern epic is the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003), a gargantuan trio of films released across the space of three years. Perhaps where Lord of the Rings is epic in its visual grandeur, Andrei Rublev is epic in its spirit. Like all of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s films, it feels like there are unfathomable depths to the characters and also the plot that doesn’t ever really surface.

Little is known about Andrei Rublev, the fifteenth-century Russian painter, and so Tarkovsky’s Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn) is a vision of the painter as imagined by the director. In many ways Tarkovsky sees himself in the character of Rublev, another Russian with a great artistic talent, however many centuries and legends apart. Tarkovsky is one of the great autobiographical filmmakers, he says himself that it’s impossible for a director to make a film that is not about himself, and not from the perspective of how he sees the world. He felt that a director should maintain control of his film, and put all his honesty into it. Perhaps Andrei Rublev is as good because it feels genuine, brimming with wit.

Rublev struggles with the notion of God. He is drawn into his orthodoxy, underpinning the theme of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. Tarkovsky envisions Rublev as a monk called upon by Theophanes the Greek to paint the religious icons that are the concrete evidences of his existence to date. But Rublev’s talents are the cause of envy from factions of his brotherhood, particularly Kirill (Ivan Lapikov), an aspiring painter himself, and older than Rublev, who is gravely disappointed when Theophanes calls for Rublev instead. Kirill loses it, venturing out into the world, banished by his master under the charge of blasphemy as he wildly accosts Rublev, sullying his own nurtured faith.

Another important idea in Andrei Rublev is the severe existential angst of the protagonist. Rublev is drawn into the maelstrom of a pagan celebration, tied-up by a gang of men and accosted by a naked woman. She kisses him, and it’s unclear whether Rublev is disgusted by her flesh or his sexual desire inhibited for so long by his Orthodox beliefs. If Andrei Rublev is epic in its spirit, in its dealing with unanswerable, existential dilemmas, it is remarkable that it feels as compact and focused upon its story. There are no certified heroes here, barely villains - the rampant Tartars are seen as murderers with a great sense of humour, and their looting is portrayed as the actions of men keenly picking the fruits of a Godless earth. In this case the fruits are torture and gold, violence and rape.

Much of the film concerns Rublev vying with the weight and expectation his talent brings. Ultimately, he is a man of few words, taking a vow of silence in his darkest moments. As an artist his burden mirrors Tarkovsky’s, who in his day was hailed as a visionary by the Russian people, but was equally damned by those disbelieving of (or misunderstanding) his talents. Tarkovsky battled the Soviet film authorities, and it was years later than 1966 that Andrei Rublev was screened to an audience outside of the Soviet Union. Tarkovsky suffered claims of mysticism from the ruling film authority Goskino, and pivotally it was they who had the say of whether his film could be shown or not - they were paying for it.

It’s stunning to consider this is only Tarkovsky’s second film and his first with Solonitsyn, an actor who went on to be his stapled lead. It’s stunning also in the light of Andrei Rublev’s depth of ideas. It’s a success because Tarkovsky has come close to matching Rublev, though in very different eras and through completely separate means, Tarkovsky has created something timeless and true that can be fed upon for years to come.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009