From the new Cioz EP: Lucky Man
on Get Physical
Archives for December 2018
Vox Lux Falls Short Of Its Bold Ambition
What to make of the deeply strange Vox Lux? Actor turned writer/director Brady Corbet centers on the tragedy-strewn life of a female pop star to explore celebrity, sisterhood, motherhood, and terrorism. But while his sophomore effort is wildly ambitious, it’s more confounding than captivating, and ultimately underwhelming. [Read more…]
Surging New Sounds From John Tejada: “Subsumed”
from Live Rytm Trax
on Palette Recordings
Clara’s Ghost Is A Twisted Family Affair
Reviewed by Kristy Puchko
There’s a unique kind of horror found within families. Inside jokes can become a cozy place to nestle insults. Old wounds and deepening resentments can be papered over with any new bit of family gossip or for any get together. But in the horror-comedy Clara’s Ghost, a brush with the potentially paranormal pushes a mild-mannered mom to lash out against the family that’s tradition is casually berating her. [Read more…]
A Lovely, Spindly New Track From Jeff Tweedy
“How Hard Is It For A Desert To Die”
from his latest solo release, Warm
on dBpm Records
James Dickey’s Black Mask: Deliverance as a Runaway Slave Narrative
When Burt Reynolds died last August, the obits recounted the strange life of an iconic American actor. Particularly weird was how Reynolds often lied about where he was born. He said he was born Waycross, Georgia. Why anyone born in Lansing, Michigan would want to be from Waycross, Georgia is a baffling question. What we do know is that Reynolds, who always identified as southern, and even affected a twang to fit the image, was, with this odd fib, participating in a cultural practice with roots dating back to nineteenth-century plantation culture. Burt Reynolds was “storying.” [Read more…]
Why Frank Zappa Is The Voice America (Still) Needs
“It’s time for a revolution, but probably not in the terms that people imagine it.” –Frank Zappa
This December marks 25 years since the death of DIY genius, comical cynic, lyrical satirist, musical innovator, social commentator, sardonic iconoclast, political debater, and composer-slash-rock-star Frank Zappa.
Throughout his eyebrow-raising career, Zappa parodied the plastic people, brain police, valley girls, dancing fools, and hungry freaks across America. His prolific body of work is a symphony of observations of human absurdity, expressed through such mediums as political meetings in the Soviet Union and the former Czechoslovakia, experimental advertisements for razors and cough drops, a violin bow tickling a bicycle wheel, a surrealist claymation music video, and a grotesque potato-headed puppet named Thing-Fish. He aimed to “shake people out of their complacency… and make them question things.” [Read more…]
Out Of Thailand: Onuma Singsiri’s “Mae Kha Som Tam”
from Sound of Siam: Leftfield Luk Thung, Jazz & Molam in Thailand 1964-1975
on Soundway Records
Saigon’s Vân Sơn: “Cô Tây Đen”
from the new release, Saigon Supersound Vol. 2
on INFRACom!