Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Songs for Cineastes: 2014 Edition

Neneh Cherry as seen by Kim Hiorthoy.
Click here for the 2012 edition.

The fol-
lowing 
list repre-
sents the 
best mu-
sic I heard 
in 2014, and I 
heard a lot, but I didn't hear everything, so if you know my taste and you think 
something's missing, feel free to let me know. There's a good chance I 
simply didn't hear it. Due to income constraints--one longtime free-
lance gig came to an end and two other employers reduced hours and/or assignments--I was limited, for the most part, to music that labels sent to me (almost exclusively via stream and download). Now that I'm not reviewing music on a regular basis, since Line Out came to an end, it's possible that I'll be receiving less in 2015, though I'm still writing concert previews ("Up & Comings") for The Stranger, so who's to say. One way or the other, though, I'll continue to make every effort to listen to as much new music as I can. That will never change.

Because I didn't hear many reissues and because I don't pay much attention to singles, I've eliminated separate lists for those formats. Also, I have no interest in major labels. Never have, never will. Other than D'Angelo's long-awaited album on RCA, these increasingly irrelevant dinosaurs did nothing in 2014 to change my mind. Furthermore, major label artists will always have an easier time generating free publicity from writers like myself. I would rather show support for the minimally-funded artists who need it most. And if any of those artists should sign to a major, I will continue to support their efforts as long as they continue to make music I enjoy. That doesn't happen as often as I would like, but there are always exceptions, and I'm grateful for that. Musicians deserve to eat, to pay their rent, and to live, as much as possible, like normal human beings. Here's to them for making our lives much richer than they would be otherwise.  

Note: Due to a hard drive crash in November 2013, I didn't compile
a list for that year. Links lead to my reviews for Line Out and Slog.



The Tops
1. Neneh Cherry - The Blank Project (Smalltown Supersound)
2.
Total Control - Typical System (Iron Lung)
3. Mike Cooper - Trout Steel, Places I Know, and The Machine Gun Co. with Mike Cooper (Paradise of Bachelors) [reissues]
4. The Coathangers - Suck My Shirt (Suicide Squeeze)
5. Meatbodies - Meatbodies (In the Red)
6. Ty Segall - Manipulator (Drag City)
7. Robert Wyatt - Different Every Time (Domino)
8. King Tuff - Black Moon Spell (Sub Pop)
9. Morgan Delt - Morgan Delt (Trouble in Mind)
10. Perfume Genius - Too Bright (Matador)



Runners-up
11. D'Angelo and the Vanguard - Black Messiah (RCA)
12. Quilt - Held in Splendor (Mexican Summer)
13. Stone Jack Jones - Ancestor (Western Vinyl)
14. Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness (Jagjaguwar)
15. Habibi - Habibi (Burger)
16. Boozoo Bajou - 4 (Apollo Records)
17. Todd Terje - It's Album Time (Olsen Records)
18. Ghetto Ghouls - Ghetto Ghouls (Monofonus Press)
19. Bitchin Bajas - Bitchin Bajas (Drag City)
20. Roll the Dice - Until Silence (The Leaf Label)



Second Runners-up
21. White Fence - For the Recently Found Innocent (Drag City)
22. The Aislers Set - Terrible Things Happen, The Last Match, and How I Learned to Write Backwards (Slumberland/Suicide Squeeze) [reissues]
23. Woods - With Light and With Love (Woodsist)
24. The Body - I Shall Die Here (RVNG Intl.)
25. Ex Hex - Rips (Merge)
26. K. Leimer - A Period of Review (Original Recordings: 1975 - 1983) (RVNG Intl.)
27. New Bums - Voices in a Rented Room (Drag City)
28. Craig Leon - Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Vol. 1 (RVNG Intl.)
29. Polar Bear - In Each and Every One (The Leaf Label)
30. Paul White - Shaker Notes (R&S)



Also worthy of note: ARP - "Pulsars e Quasars" (Mexican Summer), Cave - Release (Drag City), Cold Beat - Over Me (Crime on the Moon), The Dead Space - Faker (12XU), Amen Dunes - Love (Sacred Bones), The Flesh Eaters - A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die (Superior Viaduct) [reissue], FRKWYS Vol. 11: Steve Gunn & Mike Cooper - Cantos de Lisboa (RVNG Intl.), Gulp - Season Sun (Everloving), Steve Gunn - Way Out Weather (Paradise of Bachelors), Charlie Haden and Jim Hall - Charlie Haden-Jim Hall (Impulse!-Blue Note) [new release; 1990 engagement], Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Wig Out at Jagbags (Matador), Montibus Communitas - The Pilgrim to the Absolute (Beyond Beyond is Beyond), Mutual Benefit - "The Cowboy's Prayer" EP (Other Music Recording Co), Jack Name - Light Show (God?-Drag City), Meshell Ndegeocello - Comet, Come to Me (Naïve), Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal and Parkay Quarts - Content Nausea (What's Your Rupture), Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right (Hardly Art), Brian Reitzell - Auto Music (Smalltown Supersound), September Girls - Cursing the Sea (Fortuna POP!), Shabazz Palaces - Lese Majesty (Sub Pop), She Keeps Bees - Eight Houses (Future Gods), Soft Walls - No Time (Trouble in Mind), Trans Upper Egypt - Trans Upper Egypt (Monofonus Press), Turn to Crime - Can't Love (Mugg and Bopp), Doug Tuttle - Doug Tuttle (Trouble in Mind), Ultimate Painting - Ultimate Painting (Trouble in Mind), Chad VanGaalen - Shrink Dust (Sub Pop), Noah Wall - Print the Legend (Driftless Recordings), Web of Sunsets - Room of Monsters (End of Time), Wyrd Visions - Half-Eaten Guitar (P.W. Elverum & Sun) [reissue], and Yo La Tengo - Extra Painful (Matador) [reissue].



Like what I've heard (need to hear more): Willis Earl Beal - Ex-
periments in Time (No Label), Black Lips - Underneath the Rainbow
(Vice), Budos Band - Burnt Offering (Daptone), Vashti Bunyan -
Heartleap (Fat Cat/Dicristina), Cody ChesnuTT - Landing on a Hun-
dred: B-Sides & Remixes
(Vibration Vineyard), Elysian Fields - For House Cats and Sea Fans (Diluvian/Ojet), Andy Haas - Taballah (No Label), Klaus Johann Grobe - Im Sinne der Zeit (Trouble in Mind), Mogwai - Rave Tapes (Sub Pop), Ninos du Brasil - Novos Misterios (Hospital), The Notwist - Close to the Glass (Sub Pop), Soundcarriers - Entropicalia (Ghost Box), and Tele Novella - Umbrellas at the Station (American Laundromat).



Endnote: If it wasn't for 2013's hard drive crash, I would've had to come up with a #1 for that year, but I'm not sure what it would've been. Possible contenders: Cave - Threace, Bill Callahan - Dream River, or Ty Segall - Sleeper. In other words: something on Drag City!

Monday, December 08, 2014

December Reviews

These are the 
reviews and  
other pieces 
I'm working 
on this month.



The Stranger Film Openings: Antarctica: A Year on Ice: Strange Harmony in a Harsh World, Wild: A 1,100-Mile Journey from Rock Bottom, and Elsa & Fred: Unconvincing Sentimentality.

Slog/Film Opening count: 578 posts/reviews since 2011.  

The Stranger Up & Comings: The Meat Puppets and
Cass McCombs
, tUnE-yArDs and Cibo Matto, The Dusty
45s and Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas
, and Young Fresh
Fellows, the Fucking Eagles, and Less Than Equals
.

Video Librarian: Eric Clapton - Planes, Trains & Eric 
[Blu-ray], Southern Baptist Sissies, Very Extremely Danger-
ous, East Nashville Tonight, Jimi - All Is by My Side, Billy 
Joel - The Last Play at Shea [Blu-ray], The Skeleton Twins,  
The Two Faces of January, and White Bird in a Blizzard.



Endnote: Wild image from Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Monday, November 10, 2014

November Reviews

Cover art from Meatbodies' In the Red debut
These are the
reviews and
other pieces
I'm working
on this month.

The Stranger Film Openings: Diplomacy: What It Takes to Convince a Nazi Not to Blow Up Paris, The Theory of Everything: Biopic of Stephen Hawking Plays It Safe, Too Safe, and Pulp: A Doc About a Britpop Band That’s Better Than Blur.

Slog/Film Opening count: 575 posts/reviews since 2011. 

The Stranger Up & Comings: Frankie Rose/Cold Beat/Ephra-
ta
, Gruff Rhys/Willis Earl Beal, and Twin Peaks/Meatbodies.

Video Librarian: Boobs, Breastmilk, Finding Fela, Inher-
itance, Me, the Vinyl and the Rest of the World, Ocean Keep-
er, When I Walk, Alabama & Friends at the Ryman, The Lan-
guage of the Unknown - A Film About the Wayne Shorter 
Quartet, Lilting, Wetlands, and Abuse of Weakness.



Endnote: Image from In the Red. Art by Tatiana Kartomten.

Monday, October 13, 2014

October Reviews

Shailene Woodley and Christopher Meloni in White Bird in a Blizzard
These are the 
reviews and 
other pieces 
I'm working 
on this month.

The Stranger Film Openings: The Zero Theorem: The Weirdness Accumulates in Terry Gilliam's Latest, White
Bird in a Blizzard
: Suburban Life Without Mom, and Young
Ones
: A Dystopian Tussle Over a Robotic Donkey.

Slog/Film Opening count: 572 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger Up & Comings: Perfume Genius, Court-
ney Barnett/San Fermin
, and Frankie Rose/Cold Beat/Ephrata


Video Librarian: For a Woman, Freak Jazz, Movie Madness 
and Another Mothers - Frank Zappa 1969-1973, Money for No-
thing - A History of the Music Video, Nashville - The Complete 
Second Season [5-disc set], Grey's Anatomy - The Complete 10th 
Season [6-disc set], The Art of Observing Life, Globe Trekker - 
Central Japan, Looking for Johnny - Legend of Johnny Thunders.



Endnote: Film still from Magnolia Pictures.

Monday, September 08, 2014

September Reviews

Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue in 20,000 Days On Earth
These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

Slog: Miles of Style and Rivers of Blood in New Movie The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears, The Old Master Builder of Jonathan Demme's Ibsen Adaptation Faces His Final Challenge: A Young Woman, 20,000 Days on Earth: An Unconventional Documentary on Musician Nick Cave, Kristin Wiig Goes to a Dark Place in The Skeleton Twins, Tracks: A Woman Walks Across the Australian Outback, & Pacific Aggression.

Slog/Film Opening count: 569 posts/reviews since 2011.

The Stranger: U&C blurbs on Bear in Heaven/Young Magic,
the Aislers Set/Childbirth, Girl Trouble, and Thurston Moore.

SIFFBlog: Quasi-Fictional Documentary 20,000 Days
on Earth
Imagines 24 Hours in the Life of Nick Cave.


Video Librarian: Captive Radio, Don’t Shout Too Loud, The 
Naked Room, Off the Floor, State 194, Walter, Justin Hayward - 
Spirits... Live at the Buckhead Theatre, Atlanta [Blu-ray], Black-
bird, Country Roads - The Heartbeat of America [Blu], Golden Boy - The Complete Series [3-disc set], Swedish House Mafia - Leave the World Behind [Blu], Jay Johnson - The Two and Only!, and Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson - Thick as a Brick Live in Iceland [Blu].



Endnote: Film still from Drafthouse Films.  

Saturday, August 02, 2014

August Reviews

Melvil Poupaud and Amanda Langlet in A Summer's Tale
These are 
the reviews 
and other 
pieces I'm 
working on 
this month.

Slog: The Best Sum-
mer Movie of 2014 Is from 1996
, The Brazilian Documentary Elena Is an Exercise in Ex-
orcism
, New Rye Coalition Documentary Is Filled with Big Riffs and Bad Breaks, Spanish Award-Winner Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed Opens Today, The True Story Behind Dog Day Afternoon Gets Its Own Stranger-Than-Fiction Documentary, Film Short: Level Five, Aubrey Plaza Will Eat Your Brain...If You Let Her,
and A Korean Moebius Strip of Infidelity and Vengeance.

 Line Out/Slog post count: 565 posts since 2011. 

The Stranger: U&C blurbs on Kevin Morby,  
Murder City Devils, Jack White, and METZ/Posse.

Video Librarian: Kismet [Blu-ray], The Last Days, Careful, He 
Might Hear You, EastSiders, Grigris, ZZ Top - Live at Montreux 
2013 [Blu], The Girls in the Band, Guns N’ Roses - Appetite for 
Democracy 3D: Live at Hard Rock Casino, Locked Down, Na-
ture - Bionic Pet, They Came Together [Blu], Sex Pistols on TV.

 

Endnote: A Summer's Tale still from Big World Pictures. 
 

Thursday, July 03, 2014

July Reviews

Nick Cave at the Paramount, 7/2/14
These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.








Slog: The Criterion Collection's World Cup Promotion: A Fabulous Deal for Foreign Film Aficionados, You Better Run, You Better Take Cover: Bad Trip Australian Psychodrama Wake in Fright, Nick Cave Brought His Patented Jazz-Punk Vegas Act to the Para-
mount. And It Was Good
, Building a Community Only to Watch It Fall Apart: Razing the Bar Documents the Final Days of the Fun-
house
, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: An Interspecies Western Set in the Not-Too-Distant Future, Richard Linklater Reflects on Boyhood: "Everything in the Movie Is Somebody's Experience," Now Playing: Melvil Poupaud Brings Low-Key Charm to Éric Roh-
mer's Langorous Summer's Tale
, A New Spanish Film About a Friendless Cannibal Opens this Friday at Northwest Film Forum, Swedish Duo Roll the Dice Releases a Stunning Video to Accom-
pany an Epic Song
, and Chadwick Boseman in Get On Up.

Line Out/Slog post count: 557 posts since 2011.

 

ProgDay!: the Sensations' Fix page includes an excerpt from my 
Line Out review of the Music Is Painting in the Air collection. 

The Stranger: U&C blurbs on Amen Dunes, Magik Mark-
ers
, The Body/MTNS, and Woods/Steve Gunn/Foxygen.


Video Librarian: Anomaly, Growing Up Green, Living for 32, Neuromarketing - Programming the Brain to Buy, Outcasts - Surviving the Culture of Rejection, Suitcase of Love and Shame, Scott and Bailey - Season One [two-disc set], Every Everything - The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart, B.B. King - The Life of Ril-
ey
, Sarah Silverman - We Are Miracles, Vinyl
, Half the Road - 

The Passion, Pitfalls & Power of Women's Professional Cycling,  
Kid Cannabis [Blu-ray], O Samba, The Double, and Filth.



Endnote: Photo from The Stranger's Brooklyn Benjestorf. 

Sunday, June 01, 2014

June Reviews

Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater in Boyhood
These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.

Slog: A Few of the Visiting Actors and Directors (Including Two Local Ringers) at this Year's SIFF, Popping and Locking from Cambodia to Uganda in the Hip-Hop Documentary Shake the Dust, That's a Wrap: SIFF Concludes with Quincy Jones, Chris Messina, and Some Cool Shoes, Double Your Pleasure with Tom Hardy's New Film, The Dance of Reality: Chil-
ean Director Alejandro Jodorowsky's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
, Guy Pearce and Chris Evans Struggle with Machin-
ery and Hygiene in The Rover and Snowpiercer
, The House of
the Devil
Director Ti West Takes on a Cult in The Sacrament. The Cult Wins
, and a nice shout-out from Paul Constant in this post

Line Out/Slog post count: 547 posts since 2011.

 

 

Portland Mercury: Up & Coming blurb on Lee Bains III.

Seattle Channel: Chris Estey interviewed me for Take 21.

The Stranger: Up & Coming blurbs on Throwing Muses
Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires, Chad VanGaalen, Dean 

Wareham, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and Amen Dunes. 

Video Librarian: Call the Midwife - Season Three [Blu-ray 

set], Dio - Live in London: Hammersmith 1993 [Blu-ray], To-
to - Live in Poland: 35th Anniversary Tour [Blu-ray], ADHD 
Rush Hour, Field Biologist, Insights - Queer Youth Defining Our 
Future, Pad Yatra - A Green Odyssey, Suitcase of Love and 
Shame, Run & Jump, and My Father and the Man in Black.


Endnote: Boyhood still from IFC Films. Thought I might get to transcribe my interview with Richard Linklater this month, but I was wrong. Will get around it prior to the film's July opening.  

Tuesday, May 06, 2014

May Reviews

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are The Skeleton Twins
These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.






SIFF Notes: The Case Against 8, The Dune, Life Feels Good, Medeas, Supermensch, The Skeleton Twins, and The Signal.

Slog: The Contradictory Couple in Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive Are Neither Alone Nor Alive (also included in my list of April posts), Factual Death, Fictional Life, and the Associations That Result When the Two Intersect, Now Playing: A Documentary About the Invention of the Teenager, Taylor Kitsch Takes a Break from Big-Budget Action Movies to Try Something Different, Matt Smith Remembers the Capitol Hill of the 1960s in My Last Year with the Nuns, Richard Linklater: From Slacker to Boyhood, Doc-
umentary Stars at This Year's SIFF Include Susan Sontag, George Takei, and Bronies
, and Vincent Kartheiser Leaves Pete Campbell Behind for a Trip to Antarctica with Olivia Thirlby in Red Knot.


Line Out/Slog post count: 540 posts since 2011.  
  
Video Librarian: Off the Rez, You, Me & Them - Series 1 [2-disc 
set], Brownian Movement, Call Me Crazy - A Five Film, The Rise 
& Fall of the Clash, Suzanne Vega Live Solitude Standing [Blu].

 


Endnote:
Skeleton Twins still from Roadside Attractions/Lions-
gate. Wiig and Hader previously teamed up for Adventureland

Saturday, April 05, 2014

April Reviews

These are the reviews 
and other pieces I'm 
working on this month.

Seattle International Film Festival: Four blurbs for the SIFF program guide: Desert Runners, Everything We Loved, The Great Museum, and Healing

The Stranger's SIFF Notes: Bad Hair, Clownwise, and more. 

Slog: Ambient Artist K. Leimer and the Quieter, More Electronic-Oriented Side of the Seattle Sound, Remixer Extraordinaire Todd Terje Produces His First Full-Length with a Little Help from Bryan Ferry, German Duo Boozoo Bajou Bend and Stretch Jazz (and Other Styles) into Beautiful New Shapes, I'm Ambivalent About Total Control's "Flesh War" Single (but I Dig That '80s Flashback Title), If You're Gonna Watch a Guy Drive Down a Motorway for 85 Minutes, It Might as Well Be Tom Hardy: A Preview of One-Man Motion Picture Locke, New Music and Images from Brazil's Boogarins, Late Pass: Portland Trio WL Plays with Contrasts on Their Captivating Full-Length Debut, Hold, Woods' With Light and with Love Lives Up to its Hippy-Dippy Title—and That's a Good Thing,
The Strangest and Most Influential Movie Spectacular Never Made: Jodorowsky's Dune, Neneh Cherry: Alone with a Studio and a Camera, Animal Kingdom Director David Michôd Has a New Film on the Way with Robert Pattinson, and The Contradictory Couple in Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive Are Neither Alone Nor Alive

Line Out/Slog Music post count: 533 posts since 2011. 

Video Librarian: Brian May and Kerry Ellis - The Candlelight 

Concerts: Live at Montreux 2013 [Blu], Lou Reed: Transformer and Live at Montreux 2000 [Blu], The Punk Singer, American Masters - Billie Jean King, Arctic Hip Hop, Beyond the Music, First Comes Love, The Hooping Life, Karama Has No Walls, Mrs. Judo, Punk in Africa, Street of Dreams, Don’t Ask Me Questions - The Unsung Life of Graham Parker & the Rumour, Grand Piano.



Endnote: Poster image from Sony Pictures Classics.

Friday, March 07, 2014

March Reviews

Scene from Anne Émond's Nuit #1
These are the 
reviews and 
other pieces
I'm working 
on this 
month.

Line Out: Stone Jack Jones's Third Album, Ancestor, Is a Haunting, Mesmerizing Piece of Work, Animator-Musician Chad VanGaalen Raids the Vaults to Illustrate New Vid-
eo
, Guto Pryce of Super Furry Animals Forms New Band, Releases Single, and Preps Full-Length Debut, They Got Him on the Run: Alien Boy Documents the Short Life of a Portland Music Figure, The Ghetto Ghouls Have Loudness in Their DNA, Eleven Minutes of Guitar Bliss from Wyrd Visions, A Look at London Quintet Polar Bear's Latest Experimental-Jazz-Pop-Dance Conglomeration, Bluesman Gary Clark Jr. Joins Soul Singer Cody ChesnuTT for a Somewhat Unexpected Collaboration, "Last Summer" (Featuring Kevin Shields) Exemplifies Composer Brian Reitzell's Maximal Approach to Minimalism, Director Bill Morrison and Composer Bill Frisell Remember The Great Flood of 1927, Switzerland's Confusingly Named Klaus Johann Grobe Is a Duo (and Their New Song Is Terrific), Helium's Unstoppable Mary Timony Has a New Band and a New Video (Co-Starring Ian Svenonius), East Coast Guitar Bands Woods and the War on Drugs Make New Fans by Re- fining Their Strengths, and Ass-Kicking Atlanta Trio the Coat- hangers Win Over the Seattle Crowd at Friday's Sold-Out Show.  

Line Out/Slog Music post count: 521 posts since 2011.  

 

SIFFBlog: Vic + Flo Saw a Bear and Enemy.

Video Librarian: 400 Miles to Freedom, Danchi No Yume - Dreams of the Projects, From Nothing, Something - A Docu-
mentary About the Creative Process, Melvin & Jean - An Amer-
ican Story, Muscle Shoals, Romeo Romeo, Running for Jim, Sis-
ter - An Intimate Portrait of a Global Crisis, Young Lakota, Girl Rising, Miss You Can Do It, Nuit #1, Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer.



Endnote: Image from K Films Amerique/Adopt Films.  

Saturday, February 01, 2014

February Reviews

Cover of Habibi's self-titled debut (1/28 release date)
These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.












Amazon: Going forward, I'll be providing database support,
but no further DVD or theatrical reviews, since Amazon won't be offering exclusive editorial content anymore (I've been writing music and movie reviews since 2000). Once I'm caught up with current assignments, I plan to pursue other opportunities.

Still playing (or yet to open): August - Osage County, The Hunger
Games - Catching Fire
, The Invisible Woman, and The Past.



Line Out: Habibi Bring "The Moves" to Their New Single, Rock and Booze: Suicide Squeeze Issues a Compilation and a Namesake Beer, Stone Jack Jones' Spare, Spectral "Red Red Rose," September Girls Make a Fine Racket on Their First Full-Length, Cursing the Sea, Beverly Is Not a One-Woman Band, Quilt Channels Traffic on "Tie Up the Tides," The Notwist's New Single, "Kong," May Be Their Most Upbeat Song to Date, The Perfect Song for Your Next Seance: Portland Two-Piece the Body's "Hail to Thee, Everlasting Pain," The Blank Project, Neneh Cherry's First Solo Album in 18 Years, Is Her Best Yet, Get "Caught Up" with Detroit Combo Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas in Their Latest Video, The Mind Massage of Doug Tut-
tle's Debut
, Elysian Fields Use "Cat" Ploy to Reel in Listener, Aus-
tin's Tele Novella Are on the Move with a Single and a Record
.

Still playing: Jobriath A.D. Also, some of my words about Tough Age's "Sea of White" appear in their latest press release: "With its echoey vocals, fuzz guitar, rubbery bass, and thundering drums, it plays like a cross between Rocket from the Crypt's 'On a Rope' and Loop's 'Straight to Your Heart,' as incongruous as that combination may seem—and the louder you turn it up, the better it sounds."

Seattle Film Blog: long-delayed review of The Great Beauty

Video Librarian: Free China - The Courage to Believe,  
Harvest, My So-Called Enemy, Orange Witness, Tokyo 
Waka, How I Live Now, Mr. Nobody, and Bomb It 2.

 

Endnote: Habibi cover image from Burger Records. 

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

January Reviews

Tahar Rahim, Bérénice Bejo, and Ali Mosaffa in The Past
These are the reviews and other pieces I'm working on this month.






Amazon Theatricals: Ralph Fiennes' The Invisible Woman 
(with Fiennes and Felicity Jones) and Asghar Farhadi's The Past.

Line Out: After Two Years in Berlin, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks Unveil Wig Out at Jagbags, Morgan Delt's Kaleidoscopic "Obstacle Eyes," That Time Morvern Callar Author Alan Warner Wrote About Can's 1971 Album Tago Mago, What Happens When the Black Lips Get the Blues (and Break Out the Leather and Chains), Protomartyr's "Scum, Rise!" Revives the Scuzzy Noise Rock of the Reagan Era, Angel Olsen Revs Up Her Sound on New Record, Web of Sunsets Herald Their Debut on End of Time Records with a Lovely New Song, Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn Celebrate Old Drunk America on First Full-Length, Forget the Title: Boston Trio Quilt's "Tired & Buttered" Is One of Their Finest Songs to Date, The Coathangers Throw Things, Deface Record Covers, Release a New Song, and Hit the Road, Neneh Cherry's Genre-Defying "Everything," and Jobriath A.D.

Video Librarian: Old Dogs & New Tricks - Complete Seasons 1 & 2, Cliff Richard - Still Reelin’ and A-Rockin': Live in Sydney [Blu-ray], George Thorogood & the Destroyers: Live at Montreux [Blu-ray], Consumed - Identity and Anxiety, Follow Me Down - Portraits 
of Louisiana Prison Musicians, The Lower 9 - A Story of 
HomeThey Think I'm Chinese, Sample This - The Birth 
of Hip-HopSister (with Léa Seydoux), and Tiger Eyes.

Endnote: Image from Sony Pictures Classics.