This was a show, I think, that meant something different to everyone who saw it, but I can't imagine that anyone who was there could have not responded to the music in some meaningful way. Actually with me was a rag-tag and fun posse -- it went like this: ages ago, Ruth mentioned that she and a friend (one Kate) were seeing the show and asked if I was interested; I was interested and spread the word to others (Swee Leng, Meribah and Romesh saying 'aye'); later still, mentioned it to Jarrod and some of the other ACs (Nicolette + friend Natalie, and Patrick, coming along); on the night, Romesh was ill so I passed his ticket on to Keith -- and I'm pretty sure that everyone was feeling it (along with the rest of the crowd if the general enthusiasm, atmosphere and demand for more was anything to go by).
Well, I definitely felt it. I hadn't heard much of Breut's stuff before last night - just a couple of songs here and there, and occasionally as background music at various parties, etc - but it swept me up from the very first song. The setup was neat - Françoiz, tall and thin, dark hair whimsically arranged and resplendent in black dress, at the microphone, guitarist plugged in and seated at a modified drumkit, backing track spinning on vinyl between them - and the music captivating from the first number, broody and light at the same time, shadowy and whimsical, rainy-day (or night) and prettily winsome. She sang mostly in French (sometimes, charmingly, proffering a translation before starting), with a few songs partly or fully in English and one in Spanish, mostly in a husky sing-song but sometimes reaching for and finding higher notes and lines, especially when doing harmonies, standing at the microphone and seeming to give herself to each song, swaying, leaning, gesturing, from time to time stepping briefly away to circle, shimmy and handclap when the instrumental breakdowns came in; between numbers, she smiled and basically charmed the audience every step of the way (right down to sitting on the stage after the show to talk to people and sign things).
What little I'd heard before the show had led me to expect something like a cross between Françoise Hardy and Mazzy Star with a dash of torch, and that didn't prove to be a mile off the mark (one of the songs I recognised, "Le Premier Bonheur Du Jour", was, of course, made famous by Hardy), though nor was it entirely accurate, even to the extent that these awkward musical analogies ever are. There was definitely a strong 60s influence, taking in both the sweetness-shaded-by-angst of the French girl singers of the time (instrumentation including, at various points, one of those mouth keyboard things the real name of which no one knows but whose mournful clarinet-type sound is instantly recognisable (Isobel Campbell uses it to great effect on Amorino), miniature xylophone, sundry other percussion, and programmed beats and sampled orchestral swoops on the backing track) and the early rock n roll garage clatter and clangour created by clean, straight up electric guitar and basic drumkit played in tandem (downstrokes of the guitar often falling on the same beat as the cymbals, that kind of thing). Fittingly, then, songs generally short but, as they say, perfectly formed.
...which is all just so much circling around the main point, which is that the concert was quite the lovely and delightful experience.
* * *
Support had earlier been provided by Dave Graney and Clare Moore (along with a third whose name escapes me) who were obviously an act worth taking in in their own right; they were pretty good, and I liked the showmanship, but I wasn't really paying attention and what I caught didn't especially grab me.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Songs of moments present and past: Stars - "Elevator Love Letter" & Jens Lekman - "Black Cab" / The music they play in bars
The song I'm most likely to be listening to over and over right now is Stars' "Elevator Love Letter", off their Heart album (which I haven't listened to). It's a simple little thing, really, a trilling Stars-style boy/girl indie electro-pop tune, but what can I say, it's lovely. Nothing else to say, I guess; or, as the band puts it with one of those delicious delicate slices of disaffectedness, "my heels are high, my eyes cast low..." - or something like that, I suppose.
And one from a little further back that I never got round to writing about was Jens Lekman's "Black Cab". The tuneful/morose thing has been done to death, of course, but rarely in such perfect style as here - this is close to the ultimate example of its type, even throwing in a lyrical reference to "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" ("so I said turn up the music, take me home or take me anywhere") and a musical one to Belle and Sebastian's "Mary Jo" (from which the flute fill is sampled). It makes you want to sing along from the dainty electric piano that rings the song in and its first words ("Oh no goddamn, I missed the last tram") - and I do - not just because it's so catchy, but also because the sentiments it expresses are so delightfully downcast and on the money; I'd quote more from it but every line is so exactly right, particularly when poor Jens sings it in that sonorous groan of his, that it doesn't seem right to reproduce individual sections out of context.
Actually, I've recently had a couple of experiences with 'black' cabs myself, where I've gotten into taxis and the driver has turned off the meter and asked me to just pay them however much I'd usually pay for that trip (presumably allowing them to avoid reporting the fare to the cab's owner and keep the full sum for themselves). It hasn't been done with any attitude, and I actually like the way that it forces the driver to rely on the honour of the passenger's estimate of the fare; also, once it happened when I needed to pay with the corporate AMEX card and I didn't get any attitude about that, either. Alas, of course, asking drivers to turn up the radio in real life is usually asking for trouble unless blaring top 40 dance-pop is your bag...
Although -- a couple of hyper-pop tunes that I get a kick out of, so-called meta-pop be damned (pop is pop!), are Girls Aloud's "Biology" (a ridiculous number of seriously catchy, genuinely different hooks crammed into three and a half minutes) and the Veronicas' "4ever" (girls singing sweet tunes in nice voices with 'rock' guitars and state of the moment major label production...yes, I can be predictable sometimes).
But going back to going out, a couple of weekends ago I went in search of a bar called Eurotrash in Chinatown, having picked up a flyer and free drink card somewhere along the line and been attracted by the name, but instead ended up at Fad, right next door. It was a nice place, kinda Fitzroy, pretty, colourful, mismatched, comfortable decor, friendly crowd but not too full, gallery attached and art on the walls - exactly my comfort zone, in other words. Anyhow, they also had a turntable and dj in the corner, and for the whole time we were there, all he did was play one high school favourite of mine after another, interspersed with more recent totems - stretching my memory a bit now, but "The Killing Moon" definitely got a spin, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" too, some Smiths, Nick Cave I think, maybe the Velvets, and others of a similar vintage...and also the Dandy Warhols, and perhaps Tori? Result: many warm and 'aw shucks' feelings in yours truly.
The other one that sticks in my mind is the first time I went to Misty. It was a weeknight, I think, and quiet, and the Scissor Sisters were playing as we arrived. I'm pretty sure that it was the whole album, but near the end; after that came the Lost in Translation soundtrack (regardless of how it comes about, any bar that plays both "Just Like Honey" and "Sometimes" gets my vote) and then Dolly Parton's Jolene, full albums both...the diversity and offhandedly good taste made me happy and definitely contributed to Misty for a while becoming my new favourite bar.
The moral of the story is: when I open my own bar ("The Waste Land"), which will probably happen some time after "Well, it pays the bills" but before I turn my back on the modern world and disappear into the socialist utopia of South America (this is years down the track, remember), it will unquestionably play excellent music; as Alex in Everything Is Illuminated might have said, it will be very premium.
And one from a little further back that I never got round to writing about was Jens Lekman's "Black Cab". The tuneful/morose thing has been done to death, of course, but rarely in such perfect style as here - this is close to the ultimate example of its type, even throwing in a lyrical reference to "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" ("so I said turn up the music, take me home or take me anywhere") and a musical one to Belle and Sebastian's "Mary Jo" (from which the flute fill is sampled). It makes you want to sing along from the dainty electric piano that rings the song in and its first words ("Oh no goddamn, I missed the last tram") - and I do - not just because it's so catchy, but also because the sentiments it expresses are so delightfully downcast and on the money; I'd quote more from it but every line is so exactly right, particularly when poor Jens sings it in that sonorous groan of his, that it doesn't seem right to reproduce individual sections out of context.
Actually, I've recently had a couple of experiences with 'black' cabs myself, where I've gotten into taxis and the driver has turned off the meter and asked me to just pay them however much I'd usually pay for that trip (presumably allowing them to avoid reporting the fare to the cab's owner and keep the full sum for themselves). It hasn't been done with any attitude, and I actually like the way that it forces the driver to rely on the honour of the passenger's estimate of the fare; also, once it happened when I needed to pay with the corporate AMEX card and I didn't get any attitude about that, either. Alas, of course, asking drivers to turn up the radio in real life is usually asking for trouble unless blaring top 40 dance-pop is your bag...
Although -- a couple of hyper-pop tunes that I get a kick out of, so-called meta-pop be damned (pop is pop!), are Girls Aloud's "Biology" (a ridiculous number of seriously catchy, genuinely different hooks crammed into three and a half minutes) and the Veronicas' "4ever" (girls singing sweet tunes in nice voices with 'rock' guitars and state of the moment major label production...yes, I can be predictable sometimes).
But going back to going out, a couple of weekends ago I went in search of a bar called Eurotrash in Chinatown, having picked up a flyer and free drink card somewhere along the line and been attracted by the name, but instead ended up at Fad, right next door. It was a nice place, kinda Fitzroy, pretty, colourful, mismatched, comfortable decor, friendly crowd but not too full, gallery attached and art on the walls - exactly my comfort zone, in other words. Anyhow, they also had a turntable and dj in the corner, and for the whole time we were there, all he did was play one high school favourite of mine after another, interspersed with more recent totems - stretching my memory a bit now, but "The Killing Moon" definitely got a spin, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" too, some Smiths, Nick Cave I think, maybe the Velvets, and others of a similar vintage...and also the Dandy Warhols, and perhaps Tori? Result: many warm and 'aw shucks' feelings in yours truly.
The other one that sticks in my mind is the first time I went to Misty. It was a weeknight, I think, and quiet, and the Scissor Sisters were playing as we arrived. I'm pretty sure that it was the whole album, but near the end; after that came the Lost in Translation soundtrack (regardless of how it comes about, any bar that plays both "Just Like Honey" and "Sometimes" gets my vote) and then Dolly Parton's Jolene, full albums both...the diversity and offhandedly good taste made me happy and definitely contributed to Misty for a while becoming my new favourite bar.
The moral of the story is: when I open my own bar ("The Waste Land"), which will probably happen some time after "Well, it pays the bills" but before I turn my back on the modern world and disappear into the socialist utopia of South America (this is years down the track, remember), it will unquestionably play excellent music; as Alex in Everything Is Illuminated might have said, it will be very premium.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Paul Whitelaw - Belle and Sebastian: Just A Modern Rock Story
It'd be asking too much of any account of this singular outfit to capture, or even really evoke, the delicate touch, distinctive worldview and all-round je ne sais quoi of Belle and Sebastian and the music they create (or, at any rate, created while at their peak) - but Whitelaw tries to do so, at least in some measure, opening and closing his chapters with brief narrative vignettes depicting the various members of the bands in a variety of characteristic and/or significant moments. Those gestures to whimsy and storytelling notwithstanding, though - and they really only half work at that - this book is, by and large, a stolidly workmanlike effort, enlivened by extensive quotations from members of the band and those close to them.
It traces the development of the band, starting (as do many of the band's records and songs) with Stuart M and then successively introducing the others, following their upwards trajectory over the course of the early records and then the more stuttering progress they've made since, including the internal dissensions and well-publicised relationship/fallout between Stuart and Isobel (neither of them coming off particularly well on that front, but then who ever does?), up to and including Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Along the way, Whitelaw devotes substantial space to considerations of the band's records - usually in a track by track way - but these never rise above standard rock-critese and don't, for mine, provide any particular insight except insofar as they're interspersed with comments from band members (often consisting of Stuart denying that particular songs are about Isobel, though he does cop to "I'm Waking Up To Us"); moreover, I reckon he's much too harsh on The Boy With The Arab Strap.
The prose and general writing style is about on a par with what you'd expect of an endeavour like this - it gets the job done, but without any particular flair or noteworthy feeling. The word copacetic appears too many times (more than once and you start to notice it, and I counted at least four appearances), as do references to the Velvet Underground (a common vice of music writers), and the journalistic habit of interspersing lyrical quotations, which can be charming when done well, here comes across as forced and too self-consciously clever for its own good (sometimes, it's more or less on point - throwaway references to a person's "shyness (which was criminally vulgar)" or to Stuart sitting "alone again (or) at a piano" at least invoke recognisable B & S influences, but to end a section with the line "Communication breakdown, it's always the same" smacks of nothing so much as being a right twit).
Maybe I've been a bit harsh about this book, but I guess that comes with the territory of writing about an outfit like Belle and Sebastian - their music and their aura is such that fans like myself tend to be protective of our ideas of the band, and really, probably the fundamental problem with this book is that it diminishes its subject almost precisely to the extent that it succeeds in illuminating it...it may not be entirely accurate to think of the two Stuarts, Isobel, Stevie and co as forever meandering, bookish, gentle, distracted, lightly tripping, out of step with the rest of the world, in a strange timeless realm of their own[*] - but even still, that's the picture of the band that I'd like to retain.
* * *
[*] Despite many attempts, I've never come even close to expressing in words how Belle and Sebastian's music can make me feel in those times when it's hitting the spot, or the sense of sheer rightness that sometimes comes when I'm listening to it...
It traces the development of the band, starting (as do many of the band's records and songs) with Stuart M and then successively introducing the others, following their upwards trajectory over the course of the early records and then the more stuttering progress they've made since, including the internal dissensions and well-publicised relationship/fallout between Stuart and Isobel (neither of them coming off particularly well on that front, but then who ever does?), up to and including Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Along the way, Whitelaw devotes substantial space to considerations of the band's records - usually in a track by track way - but these never rise above standard rock-critese and don't, for mine, provide any particular insight except insofar as they're interspersed with comments from band members (often consisting of Stuart denying that particular songs are about Isobel, though he does cop to "I'm Waking Up To Us"); moreover, I reckon he's much too harsh on The Boy With The Arab Strap.
The prose and general writing style is about on a par with what you'd expect of an endeavour like this - it gets the job done, but without any particular flair or noteworthy feeling. The word copacetic appears too many times (more than once and you start to notice it, and I counted at least four appearances), as do references to the Velvet Underground (a common vice of music writers), and the journalistic habit of interspersing lyrical quotations, which can be charming when done well, here comes across as forced and too self-consciously clever for its own good (sometimes, it's more or less on point - throwaway references to a person's "shyness (which was criminally vulgar)" or to Stuart sitting "alone again (or) at a piano" at least invoke recognisable B & S influences, but to end a section with the line "Communication breakdown, it's always the same" smacks of nothing so much as being a right twit).
Maybe I've been a bit harsh about this book, but I guess that comes with the territory of writing about an outfit like Belle and Sebastian - their music and their aura is such that fans like myself tend to be protective of our ideas of the band, and really, probably the fundamental problem with this book is that it diminishes its subject almost precisely to the extent that it succeeds in illuminating it...it may not be entirely accurate to think of the two Stuarts, Isobel, Stevie and co as forever meandering, bookish, gentle, distracted, lightly tripping, out of step with the rest of the world, in a strange timeless realm of their own[*] - but even still, that's the picture of the band that I'd like to retain.
* * *
[*] Despite many attempts, I've never come even close to expressing in words how Belle and Sebastian's music can make me feel in those times when it's hitting the spot, or the sense of sheer rightness that sometimes comes when I'm listening to it...
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Lick The Star, Sofia Coppola, and a list of my favourite films
An early short (13 mins) written and directed by Coppola, shot in black and white; looks at schoolyard politics amongst girls, and particularly the swift way in which those involved can fall from grace. Has something of the delicate, dreamy driftiness that would characterise her later studio efforts and also that air of nostalgia which so perfectly envelopes The Virgin Suicides but is interesting mainly for what it hints at in terms of what was to come.
In other Sofia Coppola matters, am still keenly waitin' on Marie-Antoinette, due later this year (around October, apparently). Recently saw the trailer again and again thrown to wondering - is it really going to be a 'straight' period piece, sumptuous and ornate, as the visuals seem to suggest? But if so, why is there a New Order song playing over the trailer, and what's with the punk branding of the title at the end (in off-centred ragged hot pink, no less)? How do I feel about Kirsten Dunst as Marie-Antoinette (actually, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense)? And what's with the casting of Jason Schwartzman (that doesn't feel right no matter how hard I think about it)? Also, I read a while ago that the film only covers the early parts of her life - how's that going to work? So many questions...
Incidentally, a while ago, I wrote briefly about celebrity crushes; I probably ought to've included Coppola at that point, even though I don't know anything about her except for the films she's made, and nor do I have much of an idea as to what she looks like.
* * *
Also, while we're here, an attempt at a current top 12 favourite films ever, weighted heavily towards the ones that I've seen recently, but oh well:
1. Three Colours: Blue
2. Amelie
3. Picnic At Hanging Rock
4. All About Lily Chou-Chou
5. Ghost World [*]
6. Lost In Translation
7. The Virgin Suicides
8. Heathers
9. The City Of Lost Children
10. Broken Flowers
11. In The Mood For Love
12. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
And of course, two old touchstones which I always think of together, Moulin Rouge and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (not hard to spot what they have in common)...
In other Sofia Coppola matters, am still keenly waitin' on Marie-Antoinette, due later this year (around October, apparently). Recently saw the trailer again and again thrown to wondering - is it really going to be a 'straight' period piece, sumptuous and ornate, as the visuals seem to suggest? But if so, why is there a New Order song playing over the trailer, and what's with the punk branding of the title at the end (in off-centred ragged hot pink, no less)? How do I feel about Kirsten Dunst as Marie-Antoinette (actually, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense)? And what's with the casting of Jason Schwartzman (that doesn't feel right no matter how hard I think about it)? Also, I read a while ago that the film only covers the early parts of her life - how's that going to work? So many questions...
Incidentally, a while ago, I wrote briefly about celebrity crushes; I probably ought to've included Coppola at that point, even though I don't know anything about her except for the films she's made, and nor do I have much of an idea as to what she looks like.
* * *
Also, while we're here, an attempt at a current top 12 favourite films ever, weighted heavily towards the ones that I've seen recently, but oh well:
1. Three Colours: Blue
2. Amelie
3. Picnic At Hanging Rock
4. All About Lily Chou-Chou
5. Ghost World [*]
6. Lost In Translation
7. The Virgin Suicides
8. Heathers
9. The City Of Lost Children
10. Broken Flowers
11. In The Mood For Love
12. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
And of course, two old touchstones which I always think of together, Moulin Rouge and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (not hard to spot what they have in common)...
Pretty Girls Make Graves - Élan Vital
On the strength of their first three records, and particularly their still-astonishing last, The New Romance, I've taken to thinking of Pretty Girls Make Graves as probably the best rock band going around today (with a partial caveat re Radiohead), so there's been a fair bit of anticipation in these quarters regarding the newie, Élan Vital. First track "The Nocturnal House" hit the web a while ago, and while I liked it, the shift in sound left me only guardedly optimistic about the album to follow it; hearing a few more songs off the lp in the meantime reinforced that feeling (although seeing them at the laneway festival produced a bit of a spike in excitement). Now, having at last got the record itself, I'm some way towards remembering why I liked the band so much in the first place, despite all of the changes that Élan Vital signals and embodies.
There definitely is a change here (but no more of a step than that from Good Health to The New Romance, I reckon), and a lot of it probably comes down to the lineup change they've had - losing a guitarist and replacing him with a keyboardist when the most distinctive aspect of your sound had previously been an intricate dual-guitar attack couldn't help but make a difference. Moreover, in has come a different approach to songwriting and a more polished and more echoey, less ragged and immediate vocal approach from Zollo (though perhaps she's just become a more accomplished singer)...the songs on Élan Vital are generally more 'thuddy' than previously, getting their propulsion and momentum from the keyboards and basslines more than from the spiky, duelling post-punk guitars that have always been the band's signature.
But do I like this new sound? I do, but damnit, it's not as good as their old stuff - for me, the three standout tracks are "The Nocturnal House", "Pyrite Pedestal" and "Selling The Wind" (and, in a different way, the epic 'fm radio cut up and put back together' closing provided by "Bullet Charm"), which are all urgent, surging calls to arms and also probably the three which (along, maybe, with the helter-skelter stop-starts of "The Magic Hour") come closest to invoking the old fire and intent. That said, even those three are decorated, and in some cases fundamentally underlaid, by keys, whistles, accordion, &c, and I think they succeed ("Selling The Wind" in particular) with the aid of those additions rather than despite them - which suggests that the directions in which they're stretching themselves aren't entirely devoid of promise.
I don't know, though - it's hard to imagine what the forlorn Eno-isms of "Pearls On A Plate", say, or the ominous urban atmospherics of "Pictures Of A Night Scene", could be transitional steps towards...it seems as if the band have, in these dimensions, already taken things as far as they can, and with only partial success. Points for ambition, and at least since the last lp there's been a noticeably 'art' slant to their rock in any case, and there are some good moments even on this most recent album, but even so Élan Vital isn't overwhelming, and I don't know where this all leaves the band going forward.
There definitely is a change here (but no more of a step than that from Good Health to The New Romance, I reckon), and a lot of it probably comes down to the lineup change they've had - losing a guitarist and replacing him with a keyboardist when the most distinctive aspect of your sound had previously been an intricate dual-guitar attack couldn't help but make a difference. Moreover, in has come a different approach to songwriting and a more polished and more echoey, less ragged and immediate vocal approach from Zollo (though perhaps she's just become a more accomplished singer)...the songs on Élan Vital are generally more 'thuddy' than previously, getting their propulsion and momentum from the keyboards and basslines more than from the spiky, duelling post-punk guitars that have always been the band's signature.
But do I like this new sound? I do, but damnit, it's not as good as their old stuff - for me, the three standout tracks are "The Nocturnal House", "Pyrite Pedestal" and "Selling The Wind" (and, in a different way, the epic 'fm radio cut up and put back together' closing provided by "Bullet Charm"), which are all urgent, surging calls to arms and also probably the three which (along, maybe, with the helter-skelter stop-starts of "The Magic Hour") come closest to invoking the old fire and intent. That said, even those three are decorated, and in some cases fundamentally underlaid, by keys, whistles, accordion, &c, and I think they succeed ("Selling The Wind" in particular) with the aid of those additions rather than despite them - which suggests that the directions in which they're stretching themselves aren't entirely devoid of promise.
I don't know, though - it's hard to imagine what the forlorn Eno-isms of "Pearls On A Plate", say, or the ominous urban atmospherics of "Pictures Of A Night Scene", could be transitional steps towards...it seems as if the band have, in these dimensions, already taken things as far as they can, and with only partial success. Points for ambition, and at least since the last lp there's been a noticeably 'art' slant to their rock in any case, and there are some good moments even on this most recent album, but even so Élan Vital isn't overwhelming, and I don't know where this all leaves the band going forward.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Garden State: Music from the motion picture
Some music lends itself to writing to, and the songs on this soundtrack definitely qualify on that front. Taken collectively, the music here has a hazy and wistful but somehow light air which goes down a treat; moreover, listened to on record, it retrospectively imbues Garden State with hues and tinges and fully-realised resonances that were only hinted at on my original watching of the film itself. I'm not going to be a snob about this record - it's darn good.
A'course, much of it was already well familiar to me (and I've actually heard the whole soundtrack before, albeit only as background music, as, for better or for worse, the circles I move in do tend to be filled with fans - it even had some rotation in the Review office at one stage). Running through those songs:
* Coldplay - "Don't Panic". I'm old enough to have liked this the first time round (ie, when Parachutes came out) and to have identified it even at the time as a minor pleasure but a pleasure still. A nice opener.
* The Shins - "Caring Is Creepy". Well, how could I not have heard this one somewhere along the line?
* The Shins - "New Slang". See immediately above; also, this is one of those that has seriously affected my recollected impressions of the film.
* Nick Drake - "One Of These Things First". For me, this would've come around at about the same time as the first Coldplay album - late high school. It's never particularly stood out from the rest of Drake's songbook - but of course that's no kind of criticism...and it fits well here.
* Thievery Corporation - "Lebanese Blonde". One from the radio, I think - I couldn't have named it before I came across it on this soundtrack, but would have instantly recognised the song any time it came on.
* Simon & Garfunkel - "The Only Living Boy In New York". I think I already had Bridge Over Troubled Water on vinyl at the time, but I've always thought of this song as the centrepiece of the mix cd on which David gave it to me (cd entitled "Hope Is Important"), which is also where I first heard --
* Iron and Wine - "Such Great Heights". Which ain't half as good as the Postal Service's original but is still as good as heck in its own way.
* Frou Frou - "Let Go". From the internet, and the other song which particularly reshapes my sense of the film for the better, at least while I'm listening to it.
(The rest is in a similar vein; I especially like Zero 7's "In The Waiting Line" and Cary Brothers' "Blue Eyes".)
A'course, much of it was already well familiar to me (and I've actually heard the whole soundtrack before, albeit only as background music, as, for better or for worse, the circles I move in do tend to be filled with fans - it even had some rotation in the Review office at one stage). Running through those songs:
* Coldplay - "Don't Panic". I'm old enough to have liked this the first time round (ie, when Parachutes came out) and to have identified it even at the time as a minor pleasure but a pleasure still. A nice opener.
* The Shins - "Caring Is Creepy". Well, how could I not have heard this one somewhere along the line?
* The Shins - "New Slang". See immediately above; also, this is one of those that has seriously affected my recollected impressions of the film.
* Nick Drake - "One Of These Things First". For me, this would've come around at about the same time as the first Coldplay album - late high school. It's never particularly stood out from the rest of Drake's songbook - but of course that's no kind of criticism...and it fits well here.
* Thievery Corporation - "Lebanese Blonde". One from the radio, I think - I couldn't have named it before I came across it on this soundtrack, but would have instantly recognised the song any time it came on.
* Simon & Garfunkel - "The Only Living Boy In New York". I think I already had Bridge Over Troubled Water on vinyl at the time, but I've always thought of this song as the centrepiece of the mix cd on which David gave it to me (cd entitled "Hope Is Important"), which is also where I first heard --
* Iron and Wine - "Such Great Heights". Which ain't half as good as the Postal Service's original but is still as good as heck in its own way.
* Frou Frou - "Let Go". From the internet, and the other song which particularly reshapes my sense of the film for the better, at least while I'm listening to it.
(The rest is in a similar vein; I especially like Zero 7's "In The Waiting Line" and Cary Brothers' "Blue Eyes".)
Monday, April 17, 2006
Tom Wolfe - The Bonfire Of The Vanities
A huge, seething more-or-less-literary potboiler of a novel which sets out to paint a picture of New York in the 80s - as a city on the point of exploding under the stress of race and class-related tensions, pushed and pulled by rampant capitalism and uncontrollable crime - and compels and convinces in the attempt. I first started reading it one morning at Simona's house, having stayed over the night before and found myself awake long before she was likely to be stirring, and made a pretty serious dent in it at the time (got a solid quarter of the way in); that must've been late 2003, and yet it's stayed with me clearly enough that now, two and a half years on, every scene was familiar and I knew exactly when I'd got up to the point where I left off last time.
It's not exactly subtle but there's an absolute urgency to it, and it really had me turning the pages, often having to resist the temptation to skim passages in order to find out what would happen next; also, it has the virtue of being very funny in patches (the scene at the dinner party, where Sherman is attempting to grin his way through a conversation with Maria for the benefit of his possibly onlooking wife, Judy, is particularly fine) and of knowing how to direct that humour. The Bonfire Of The Vanities is a Big Book, and if some of its characters are drawn perhaps a little too broadly or its themes underlined just slightly too often, I'm willing to forgive it because it so thoroughly succeeds in the old-fashioned aims of presenting a gripping story and strongly evoking its subject and milieu.
It's not exactly subtle but there's an absolute urgency to it, and it really had me turning the pages, often having to resist the temptation to skim passages in order to find out what would happen next; also, it has the virtue of being very funny in patches (the scene at the dinner party, where Sherman is attempting to grin his way through a conversation with Maria for the benefit of his possibly onlooking wife, Judy, is particularly fine) and of knowing how to direct that humour. The Bonfire Of The Vanities is a Big Book, and if some of its characters are drawn perhaps a little too broadly or its themes underlined just slightly too often, I'm willing to forgive it because it so thoroughly succeeds in the old-fashioned aims of presenting a gripping story and strongly evoking its subject and milieu.
Destroyer - Streethawk: A Seduction
On first impression, this reminded me of nothing so much as mid-period Bowie - it's the voice (scratchy, harangue-y, fraught and declamatory, etc) that furnishes the initial grounds for the comparison, but further listening disclosed a similar electric guitar rock 'n' roll/power-pop quasi-space-age (though more Hunky Dory or even Heroes than Ziggy) drama thing going on. It ain't derivative, though - Streethawk is quality indie-pop with intimations of the epic, impressively free of standard progressions and structures while remaining strongly melodic and catchy, and distinctively au courant while also seeming to draw inspiration from classic singer-songwriters of the 70s and 80s (including, dare I say it, Elton John - just check out some of those extended piano breaks!).
I don't really know the story behind Destroyer, but I read somewhere that it's basically the project of Dan Bejar, one of the New Pornographers band members and songwriters (which certainly sounds right). This kind of stuff can sometimes leave me a bit cold (I generally only like every second NPs song or so - though "Mass Romantic" and "Testament To Youth In Verse" still get me between the eyes pretty regularly - and the whole AC Newman thing completely passed me by) but there's something to Streethawk that wins me over - it's quirky, sure, but also seems to have a soul and a substance to it. Anyhow, faves probably "The Bad Arts" and "The Crossover" at the moment.
I don't really know the story behind Destroyer, but I read somewhere that it's basically the project of Dan Bejar, one of the New Pornographers band members and songwriters (which certainly sounds right). This kind of stuff can sometimes leave me a bit cold (I generally only like every second NPs song or so - though "Mass Romantic" and "Testament To Youth In Verse" still get me between the eyes pretty regularly - and the whole AC Newman thing completely passed me by) but there's something to Streethawk that wins me over - it's quirky, sure, but also seems to have a soul and a substance to it. Anyhow, faves probably "The Bad Arts" and "The Crossover" at the moment.
Röyksopp - The Understanding
"What Else Is There" is still a killer song, but the rest of this album is rather middling, alas. Starts swirling and pretty and inconsequential, and quickly devolves into mere inconsequence - middle-of-the-road electronica for the masses. It's not its tastefulness or its palatability that I hold against The Understanding but rather the album's lack of interesting ideas or genuine high points (though "Alpha Male", buried two-thirds of the way in, provides a bit of sparkle). Not painful to listen to - just not very inspiring.
The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
One thing you can definitely say for Blueberry Boat, it's hella dense; it's taken me weeks to begin to feel that I've started to absorb it, and I'm slightly hesitant to pass even a provisional judgment on it, 'cause it seems that the record has so much more to it than I've really plumbed. As it stands, I think that the album's going to be a bit of a sleeper in my collection - I'm not really diggin' its kitchen sink pop medleys just now, but I'm hearing enough to feel that it could be seriously bitchin' at some point in the future, when I'm more receptive to its particular charms. It's an album that really has to be taken on its own terms, and benefits, at least initially, from being left on in the background while the listener is more or less absorbed with doing something else - that way, the queer melodies, stop-start tempos and unpredictable changes in direction would have a chance to become familiar - and I've been doing a bit of that. It's definitely growing on me, but there hasn't yet been an 'ah' moment and I don't really have a sense of it as a whole...
Saturday, April 15, 2006
The Horse Whisperer: Songs from and inspired by the motion picture
The thing about acting on one's whims is that, often enough, they don't turn out quite the way one imagines. For example: earlier this afternoon,[*] I was struck by the thought that it might be nice to go down to St Kilda and sit out on the beach for a while, gazing at the ocean and being pensive, and maybe writing a little. (Obviously, I wasn't at all put off by the grey skies and generally austere tone of the weather; in fact, all of that played a large part in getting me in the mood in the first place.)
So I got down there and decided to go for a walk along the pier first, enjoying the wind and the spray and the water (deep blue and increasingly choppy, foam dancing on the surface) and the horizon (seemingly endless, as horizons tend to be), not to mention the sense of isolatedness - as to that last, isolatedness amongst a crowd while walking along the pier proper, and then isolatedness amidst the elements once on to the rocky promontory section that no one else was daring at the time, the wind being a pretty serious proposition by that point - and it all put me into that particularly self-contained, airy kind of mood that I always enjoy inhabiting.
In retrospect, though, I probably ought to've paid more attention to the weather forecast (or, for that matter, to what the skies had been telling me all day). I'd come prepared for cold - scarf, overcoat and all - but of course, when the skies opened and the rain hit in earnest, none of that stopped me from getting drenched on my way back to the foreshore, and from there to the car, where I sat and dried off for a good quarter of an hour (if not longer), not regrouping so much as reaccustoming myself to the idea of being inside, figuratively as well as literally.
So a good couple of hours out; hopefully, tonight I'll dream of the ocean.
On my way in, I'd been listening to Humming By The Flowered Vine, sitting in the car in mezzanine it was parts of Röyksopp's The Understanding, and going home was In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, but the album which really triggered the whole expedition was the soundtrack to The Horse Whisperer, which I'd been replaying in my room in the morning and early afternoon. Though I've not seen the film, I've had my eyes open for this record for a while now, because it has a Gillian Welch song which, as far as I'm aware, isn't available anywhere else, but the contributors' list is basically a roll-call - and a pretty impressive one - of artists of that certain type: Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, Allison Moorer, Iris DeMent...that kind of somewhat 'alt'-but-still-very-much-country, y'know.
So what's happened is that I've got stacks of new music to listen to at the moment and not that much time to listen to it (what with work and all, not to mention that often I'll be in the mood to listen to something more familiar) so I've actually had this cd for a while now without it having been spun much or made much of an impression. And, while it's very nice - the Gillian song, "Leaving Train" is slow and ruminative and just right (albeit not all that memorable), Lucinda's contribution is a gentler version of the Car Wheels cut "Still I Long For Your Kiss", and all of it's good - it's in no sense amazing. But what it does do is, as Robert Redford writes in his slightly mawkish but seemingly heartfelt liner notes, "wistfully echo the spirit of the ranching life of the wide open West", and with that, the whole lost dream, distinctively American but also universal, of endlessly rolling frontiers under wide open skies, and the limitless potential that dream seems to entail. It was around the "Dream River" (the Mavericks) / "Slow Surprise" (Emmylou) part of the record that the idea lodged in my head that I should see the ocean - and so I did.
* * *
[*] Friday (ie, yesterday as I post this).
So I got down there and decided to go for a walk along the pier first, enjoying the wind and the spray and the water (deep blue and increasingly choppy, foam dancing on the surface) and the horizon (seemingly endless, as horizons tend to be), not to mention the sense of isolatedness - as to that last, isolatedness amongst a crowd while walking along the pier proper, and then isolatedness amidst the elements once on to the rocky promontory section that no one else was daring at the time, the wind being a pretty serious proposition by that point - and it all put me into that particularly self-contained, airy kind of mood that I always enjoy inhabiting.
In retrospect, though, I probably ought to've paid more attention to the weather forecast (or, for that matter, to what the skies had been telling me all day). I'd come prepared for cold - scarf, overcoat and all - but of course, when the skies opened and the rain hit in earnest, none of that stopped me from getting drenched on my way back to the foreshore, and from there to the car, where I sat and dried off for a good quarter of an hour (if not longer), not regrouping so much as reaccustoming myself to the idea of being inside, figuratively as well as literally.
So a good couple of hours out; hopefully, tonight I'll dream of the ocean.
On my way in, I'd been listening to Humming By The Flowered Vine, sitting in the car in mezzanine it was parts of Röyksopp's The Understanding, and going home was In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, but the album which really triggered the whole expedition was the soundtrack to The Horse Whisperer, which I'd been replaying in my room in the morning and early afternoon. Though I've not seen the film, I've had my eyes open for this record for a while now, because it has a Gillian Welch song which, as far as I'm aware, isn't available anywhere else, but the contributors' list is basically a roll-call - and a pretty impressive one - of artists of that certain type: Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, Allison Moorer, Iris DeMent...that kind of somewhat 'alt'-but-still-very-much-country, y'know.
So what's happened is that I've got stacks of new music to listen to at the moment and not that much time to listen to it (what with work and all, not to mention that often I'll be in the mood to listen to something more familiar) so I've actually had this cd for a while now without it having been spun much or made much of an impression. And, while it's very nice - the Gillian song, "Leaving Train" is slow and ruminative and just right (albeit not all that memorable), Lucinda's contribution is a gentler version of the Car Wheels cut "Still I Long For Your Kiss", and all of it's good - it's in no sense amazing. But what it does do is, as Robert Redford writes in his slightly mawkish but seemingly heartfelt liner notes, "wistfully echo the spirit of the ranching life of the wide open West", and with that, the whole lost dream, distinctively American but also universal, of endlessly rolling frontiers under wide open skies, and the limitless potential that dream seems to entail. It was around the "Dream River" (the Mavericks) / "Slow Surprise" (Emmylou) part of the record that the idea lodged in my head that I should see the ocean - and so I did.
* * *
[*] Friday (ie, yesterday as I post this).
Cocteau Twins - Lullabies to Violaine vols 1 & 2
Two double-cd sets collecting all of the Cocteaus' singles, b-sides and eps, covering 1982-1990 and 1993-1996 respectively (interestingly, both on 4ad even though some if not all of the band's recordings from the latter period were put out on different labels)...
Most of the stuff from the first volume was already familiar to me - the Cocteaus really were an outfit whose ep output was just as good as their lps, and I've tracked most of it down in the past - but I hadn't heard much of the really early, gothier and more dissonant stuff, and I get a kick out of listening to it now, knowing where they were headed. (Also, I hadn't known that there was an alternate version of "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" out there, though I prefer the more concise version on Stars and Topsoil.) And listening to the second disc in particular, which runs through the Tiny Dynamine, Echoes In A Shallow Bay and Love's Easy Tears eps before finishing with the coda of the Iceblink Luck single, is a real reminder of just how astonishingly great the Cocteau Twins were at their peak.
A fair bit of volume 2 is new to me, and listening to the music on that set isn't like listening to any Cocteau Twins record released before 1993 - by '93, the glory days were over and their sound was just a bit too smooth, and what we were left with was a pleasant but largely indistinct melange, like snow lightly flecked with faint sparkles. But a bit of the magic is still there (more so on Milk & Kisses than Four-Calendar Cafe), and so it proves to be with these songs, all of which basically wash over one in that pretty gauzey latter-day Cocteau Twins way.
Most of the stuff from the first volume was already familiar to me - the Cocteaus really were an outfit whose ep output was just as good as their lps, and I've tracked most of it down in the past - but I hadn't heard much of the really early, gothier and more dissonant stuff, and I get a kick out of listening to it now, knowing where they were headed. (Also, I hadn't known that there was an alternate version of "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" out there, though I prefer the more concise version on Stars and Topsoil.) And listening to the second disc in particular, which runs through the Tiny Dynamine, Echoes In A Shallow Bay and Love's Easy Tears eps before finishing with the coda of the Iceblink Luck single, is a real reminder of just how astonishingly great the Cocteau Twins were at their peak.
A fair bit of volume 2 is new to me, and listening to the music on that set isn't like listening to any Cocteau Twins record released before 1993 - by '93, the glory days were over and their sound was just a bit too smooth, and what we were left with was a pleasant but largely indistinct melange, like snow lightly flecked with faint sparkles. But a bit of the magic is still there (more so on Milk & Kisses than Four-Calendar Cafe), and so it proves to be with these songs, all of which basically wash over one in that pretty gauzey latter-day Cocteau Twins way.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
There are at least two ways to tell the story of how I came to listen to this album:
(1) I've loved "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" - the song - for ages, its giddy, melancholy, wide-eyed, amazed, arms-outstretched joyful everythingness always having done it for me...if there's ever been a song which expressed how wonderful and strange it is to be anything at all, this is it. So, given that I'd heard the album described as a classic, naturally I'd have gotten round to listening to the lp one day.
(2) Last weekend, Kelly set me up with a stack of music, much to my delight; there's heaps and I'm savouring the idea of listening to it all properly, but it was In The Aeroplane Over The Sea which most immediately excited me, partly because I've wanted to listen to it for so long and partly because it's a favourite of hers...
But in any case:
At first, the album didn't grab me - it was rawer and more lo-fi and, on initial listens at least, more abrasive than I expected and I basically wasn't feeling it. Successive listens opened things up more, gradually, but this morning (grey, cold, glomming around at home getting ready to go out) the album really caught hold of me, and when it did, it was as if all the pieces had fallen into place at once - something stole over me and then all at once it seemed as if I could just see how the album fit together as a whole (both in a song-by-song sense, and as far as the overall slotting-together of its constituent elements goes), and concurrently with that a realisation of how good the record is...a strange feeling, and difficult to describe, but one which somehow bore with it a very strong feeling of rightness...
So anyway, I was out this afternoon, but I've been listening to it end to end since I got home,[*] and I do feel that there's something a bit special about the album. In trying to make sense of these things, I'm often reminded of that deceptively simple Kate Bush lyric, call and response: "Why should I love you?/ There's just something about you", and that's how it feels with In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - there's something going on in the spaces between the notes which binds it together and renders it amazing. Now that I've entered into its world, it keeps me with a lump in my throat more or less the whole way through, and I feel as if its rhythms --
-- from the skewed build-up of the scene-setting "King of Carrot Flowers" suite through the renewal and loss of the title track and the melodic dirge that is "Two-Headed Boy", to the mournful New Orleans brass-band waltz of "The Fool", stormy garage rock 'n' roll rave-up "Holland, 1945", end-of-day introspective "Communist Daughter", almost unbearably sad acoustic strumalong epic "Oh Comely" (intimating the end that's to come), and fuzzed-out "Ghost" (kicking out the rock and roll jams again with a cunning, constantly ascending feel), and then on to the skirling swirl of the untitled penultimate song and, finally, magnificently desolate closer "Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2" --
-- have written themselves inside me, or something, so that there's a kind of inevitability in its rises and falls, as well as a feeling of wholeness. Melodies recur, overtly and subliminally, and the horns serve as punctuation and signposts along the way, taking on a different complexion each time they reappear; Jeff Mangum's voice reaches and frays and expresses and one always feels as things are going to fly apart at any moment, but they never quite do.
Anyway, evidently I'm writing this in what's basically still the first flush of enthusiasm, so I don't know what effect In The Aeroplane... will continue to have on me once I've lived with it for a bit longer, but oh it's good right now...
* * *
[*] (I wrote all this last night but only got round to posting this morning.)
(1) I've loved "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" - the song - for ages, its giddy, melancholy, wide-eyed, amazed, arms-outstretched joyful everythingness always having done it for me...if there's ever been a song which expressed how wonderful and strange it is to be anything at all, this is it. So, given that I'd heard the album described as a classic, naturally I'd have gotten round to listening to the lp one day.
(2) Last weekend, Kelly set me up with a stack of music, much to my delight; there's heaps and I'm savouring the idea of listening to it all properly, but it was In The Aeroplane Over The Sea which most immediately excited me, partly because I've wanted to listen to it for so long and partly because it's a favourite of hers...
But in any case:
At first, the album didn't grab me - it was rawer and more lo-fi and, on initial listens at least, more abrasive than I expected and I basically wasn't feeling it. Successive listens opened things up more, gradually, but this morning (grey, cold, glomming around at home getting ready to go out) the album really caught hold of me, and when it did, it was as if all the pieces had fallen into place at once - something stole over me and then all at once it seemed as if I could just see how the album fit together as a whole (both in a song-by-song sense, and as far as the overall slotting-together of its constituent elements goes), and concurrently with that a realisation of how good the record is...a strange feeling, and difficult to describe, but one which somehow bore with it a very strong feeling of rightness...
So anyway, I was out this afternoon, but I've been listening to it end to end since I got home,[*] and I do feel that there's something a bit special about the album. In trying to make sense of these things, I'm often reminded of that deceptively simple Kate Bush lyric, call and response: "Why should I love you?/ There's just something about you", and that's how it feels with In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - there's something going on in the spaces between the notes which binds it together and renders it amazing. Now that I've entered into its world, it keeps me with a lump in my throat more or less the whole way through, and I feel as if its rhythms --
-- from the skewed build-up of the scene-setting "King of Carrot Flowers" suite through the renewal and loss of the title track and the melodic dirge that is "Two-Headed Boy", to the mournful New Orleans brass-band waltz of "The Fool", stormy garage rock 'n' roll rave-up "Holland, 1945", end-of-day introspective "Communist Daughter", almost unbearably sad acoustic strumalong epic "Oh Comely" (intimating the end that's to come), and fuzzed-out "Ghost" (kicking out the rock and roll jams again with a cunning, constantly ascending feel), and then on to the skirling swirl of the untitled penultimate song and, finally, magnificently desolate closer "Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2" --
-- have written themselves inside me, or something, so that there's a kind of inevitability in its rises and falls, as well as a feeling of wholeness. Melodies recur, overtly and subliminally, and the horns serve as punctuation and signposts along the way, taking on a different complexion each time they reappear; Jeff Mangum's voice reaches and frays and expresses and one always feels as things are going to fly apart at any moment, but they never quite do.
Anyway, evidently I'm writing this in what's basically still the first flush of enthusiasm, so I don't know what effect In The Aeroplane... will continue to have on me once I've lived with it for a bit longer, but oh it's good right now...
* * *
[*] (I wrote all this last night but only got round to posting this morning.)
The Child
It was Wei who sent out the call for people to go along and watch this on Friday night, and although I got held up at work a bit (I didn't get out of the office till about 6.30), I decided to head down to St Kilda and catch it on spec despite not knowing anything at all about the film. Met Wei, Gary, David and a friend of Wei's (John?) outside just before 7, and on the way in was pulled up by Pia and Nenad (plus friend) who were there independently and told me that it had won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, which whetted my appetite. The crucial bit of information which I lacked until afterwards, though (in fact, until today [Saturday], when Ruth told me), was that the people behind it - the Dardenne brothers - had also been responsible for Rosetta, which is possibly the least enjoyable film that I've ever seen; if I'd known that beforehand, there's no way I would have gone along to see this one.
Anyhow, I did watch it, evidently, and I realised fairly early on that it was going to be a lot too social realist for me; it only took about 15 minutes for me to start thinking along those lines, and to begin hoping that it would turn out more Dreamlife of Angels than Rosetta. I thought that it was well done, for what it was - neatly structured and effectively shot (with some cinematic moments - like the replaying of the apartment door scene with Bruno taking Sonia's place about two-thirds of the way through - which didn't distract from the tenor of the whole), and the actors do the job - but the truth of the matter is that this whole genre is more or less a no-go zone for me (I loved The Dreamlife of Angels when I saw it, back in high school or shortly after, but have felt very little desire to watch it again any time since, and besides, in my recollections at least, it had more of a luminescence to it than this one allows itself) and, while I admire the idea and the spirit of The Child in the abstract, actually getting through the film was a bit of a slog.
Anyhow, I did watch it, evidently, and I realised fairly early on that it was going to be a lot too social realist for me; it only took about 15 minutes for me to start thinking along those lines, and to begin hoping that it would turn out more Dreamlife of Angels than Rosetta. I thought that it was well done, for what it was - neatly structured and effectively shot (with some cinematic moments - like the replaying of the apartment door scene with Bruno taking Sonia's place about two-thirds of the way through - which didn't distract from the tenor of the whole), and the actors do the job - but the truth of the matter is that this whole genre is more or less a no-go zone for me (I loved The Dreamlife of Angels when I saw it, back in high school or shortly after, but have felt very little desire to watch it again any time since, and besides, in my recollections at least, it had more of a luminescence to it than this one allows itself) and, while I admire the idea and the spirit of The Child in the abstract, actually getting through the film was a bit of a slog.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
V for Vendetta
Sunday night went along to see V for Vendetta at Sid's behest (though I'd been keen to watch it in any case - struck me as a good candidate for the 'entertaining and thoughtful' double) and I thought that it was good, if a bit obvious. The grainy, unremittingly grey visual style struck me as quite a bold choice, grounding the films' settings in a recognisably present-day-derived milieu (and it's Britain, too, not the US, which is also relevant in that respect) and thus simultaneously invoking numerous very recognisable archetypal narrative-structures (most notably, perhaps, that of the decent cop in a world gone bad finding more than he or his corrupt superiors had bargained for) and giving it more of a contemporary resonance, but also thereby depriving it of the kind of techno-dazzle and neo-gothic-and/or-noir trimmings that might have brought in the Matrix/Underworld crowd...this also comes through in its - quite deliberate, I think - recalling of the film version of 1984 (has there been more than one? In that case, the one I saw in year 9 Lit).
In some respects, it's quite an interestingly composed little piece - the ultra-conservative police state which Britain has become, the mysterious revolutionary V, the development of Evey, and the investigations of Finch are all given more or less equal emphasis, and it's done in such a way that one doesn't mind when the film temporarily abandons one or another of them in order to focus on others. I also feel that it's a surprisingly restrained bit of film-making, both in terms of its underlying premises and as far as the execution of certain of its specific elements goes, although it pulls no punches in getting its message across (indeed, it's that very restraint which makes it effective, allowing us to more clearly trace a line between trends in society and politics today to the scenario depicted in the film). I don't know if I'd call it a left-wing film as such - maybe more small 'l' liberal in the classic sense, although the 'terrorist' things makes that a bit problematic! - and in any case we all know that these left/right/etc distinctions are problematic in the extreme (it was Orwell who once wrote of the effectively meaningless nature of most political words due to their strategic and never disinterested deployment by all and sundry), but in broad terms its heart is certainly in the right place, even if I'm not convinced on all particulars.
* * *
Also, of course I enjoyed the appearance of Cat Power's "I Found A Reason"...
In some respects, it's quite an interestingly composed little piece - the ultra-conservative police state which Britain has become, the mysterious revolutionary V, the development of Evey, and the investigations of Finch are all given more or less equal emphasis, and it's done in such a way that one doesn't mind when the film temporarily abandons one or another of them in order to focus on others. I also feel that it's a surprisingly restrained bit of film-making, both in terms of its underlying premises and as far as the execution of certain of its specific elements goes, although it pulls no punches in getting its message across (indeed, it's that very restraint which makes it effective, allowing us to more clearly trace a line between trends in society and politics today to the scenario depicted in the film). I don't know if I'd call it a left-wing film as such - maybe more small 'l' liberal in the classic sense, although the 'terrorist' things makes that a bit problematic! - and in any case we all know that these left/right/etc distinctions are problematic in the extreme (it was Orwell who once wrote of the effectively meaningless nature of most political words due to their strategic and never disinterested deployment by all and sundry), but in broad terms its heart is certainly in the right place, even if I'm not convinced on all particulars.
* * *
Also, of course I enjoyed the appearance of Cat Power's "I Found A Reason"...
The Sticks & Zero/Some @ 226 Clarendon St, Saturday 1 April
A few days ago, Nenad sent a call-out for people to head down to 226 Clarendon St, East Melbourne to see his current outfit, Zero/Some, play on Saturday night, 'round 11ish. The email was quite heavy on the details but still rather cryptic, so it was with a faint sense of embarking into the unknown that I went out in search of the place, post-graduation ceremony. Turns out that the address is that of a large house, shared by nine people (if I heard right) who periodically throw it open for a huge party, complete with a makeshift bar with cheap alcohol, an outdoor courtyard with a dj and large projector screen (I caught bits of Fight Club while out there), and an upstairs 'band room'. Hundreds of people must have passed through and there were various people I knew to varying extents scattered through the throng, some of whom I spoke to and some not; I arrived with David and, apart from Nenad and various of his friends (and Pia), they included David M (from Historical Fictions), Liz (from both of my '05 2nd semester English subjects), Michael J, Sarah O'B (from dpc/book club), and at least a couple of people apart from DM who had graduated with me earlier in the day.
As to the music, well, the Sticks were pretty good, from what I heard of them. I wandered into the room a couple of songs into their set and was sort of in and out throughout (both physically and in terms of how much attention I was paying), but from what I heard they're basically a tight, bluesy outfit with (consequently) a tendency to sound as if they're doing cover versions (at one point, I could've sworn they were ripping into "Whole Lotta Love", which itself presumably ripped something earlier off...Led Zep arcana has never really been my thing, not even in high school...although of course they actually weren't).
And Zero/Some - Nenad's band...well, obviously I can't really get anywhere near an objective appraisal of the music, but as far as descriptive relevancies go, they're a two-piece, Nenad playing guitar and singing on the last track of their set, the other fellow (I met him in passing but can't recall his name) ringing up the beats on his laptop, doing some house-y vocals and also playing the flute. Influence/similarity-wise I was thinking Underworld, Primal Scream, Faithless, maybe even a bit of Future Sound of London, but this genre's not really my forte...anyway, I enjoyed the music (although, parochially, I would've liked more and louder guitar) - you could nod your head along to it, and there were some good moments...and of course it was good to see Nenad in the spotlight and doing his thing.
As to the music, well, the Sticks were pretty good, from what I heard of them. I wandered into the room a couple of songs into their set and was sort of in and out throughout (both physically and in terms of how much attention I was paying), but from what I heard they're basically a tight, bluesy outfit with (consequently) a tendency to sound as if they're doing cover versions (at one point, I could've sworn they were ripping into "Whole Lotta Love", which itself presumably ripped something earlier off...Led Zep arcana has never really been my thing, not even in high school...although of course they actually weren't).
And Zero/Some - Nenad's band...well, obviously I can't really get anywhere near an objective appraisal of the music, but as far as descriptive relevancies go, they're a two-piece, Nenad playing guitar and singing on the last track of their set, the other fellow (I met him in passing but can't recall his name) ringing up the beats on his laptop, doing some house-y vocals and also playing the flute. Influence/similarity-wise I was thinking Underworld, Primal Scream, Faithless, maybe even a bit of Future Sound of London, but this genre's not really my forte...anyway, I enjoyed the music (although, parochially, I would've liked more and louder guitar) - you could nod your head along to it, and there were some good moments...and of course it was good to see Nenad in the spotlight and doing his thing.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
"The Taming of the Shrew" @ Guild Theatre, Union House, University of Melbourne
Friday night, after work, after after-work drinks, what to do? Well, tonight at least, the answer was: go to the Melbourne University Shakespeare Company's first production, a lively, colourful and fun "The Taming of the Shrew"; I'm not familiar with the play (nor were Swee Leng or Meribah, initiator and fellow last minute companion respectively), but I don't think my enjoyment was much diminished by that deficiency. It was heaps of fun - very energetic (both in terms of script and in terms of the players' performances) and plenty irreverent, the snatches of pop music and occasional interpolated contemporary references being only part of the general attitude (as one would expect of student theatre done well), not to mention the 'look behind you!' moment when Gremio is addressing the audience.
Liked the way that each character (and, in some cases, pairing/group) had its own colour or colour scheme - gave it a bit of an 8 Femmes vibe - and the backdrops and props were cute, simple and effective. Especially liked Julia Harari's turn as a minx-like, attractively flouncy Katerina (the titular shrew), all pouts and tongues pushed into cheeks and sidelong smiles, and Paul Carnell as the endlessly smiling and even more flouncy Lucentio, but all were good and there were no jarring moments or instances of misjudged overacting/mugging. Program says that a bit of John Fletcher's "The Tamer Tamed" was inserted into the text; I'm guessing that most if not all of that comes at the end, with Katerina's monologue about equality of the sexes (if not, the director of this production must have written that speech, unless I severely miss my guess - and misremember my Shakespeare).
Oh yes, it was also funny (as in laugh-out-loud), and the - oh, I don't know - 30-odd? who turned up for the show laughed plenty, me included. And it was one of those occasions where, even when you weren't actually laughing, there was a smile on your face most of the time - induced by the dialogue, the characters' interactions, and all that. We were in the second row and so were ideally placed - v. glad to've gone along and will try to make it to future ones (if any).
Liked the way that each character (and, in some cases, pairing/group) had its own colour or colour scheme - gave it a bit of an 8 Femmes vibe - and the backdrops and props were cute, simple and effective. Especially liked Julia Harari's turn as a minx-like, attractively flouncy Katerina (the titular shrew), all pouts and tongues pushed into cheeks and sidelong smiles, and Paul Carnell as the endlessly smiling and even more flouncy Lucentio, but all were good and there were no jarring moments or instances of misjudged overacting/mugging. Program says that a bit of John Fletcher's "The Tamer Tamed" was inserted into the text; I'm guessing that most if not all of that comes at the end, with Katerina's monologue about equality of the sexes (if not, the director of this production must have written that speech, unless I severely miss my guess - and misremember my Shakespeare).
Oh yes, it was also funny (as in laugh-out-loud), and the - oh, I don't know - 30-odd? who turned up for the show laughed plenty, me included. And it was one of those occasions where, even when you weren't actually laughing, there was a smile on your face most of the time - induced by the dialogue, the characters' interactions, and all that. We were in the second row and so were ideally placed - v. glad to've gone along and will try to make it to future ones (if any).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)