New York
Gimme the LootWednesday, 01 May 2013
It’s the sort of New York summer week where the sidewalk melts. But in writer-director Adam Leon’s SXSW Grand Jury prize-winning cool breeze of a debut, the mood stays amiably balmy. It’s the tale of teenage Bronx graffiti artists Malcolm (Ty... Read more... |
CD: Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the CityMonday, 29 April 2013
In a way, falling prey to hype-inspired backlash as early in your musical career as Vampire Weekend did has its benefits - assuming, of course, you have the long-term determination and songwriting prowess to back it up. When “Diane Young”, the first... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Steve EarleSaturday, 13 April 2013
A renaissance man from Texas? Hell yeah. Loosely pegged as "country singer" when he struck out for Nashville in the late Seventies, where he survived on a series of odd jobs before landing himself a songwriting job with a music publisher, the mature... Read more... |
CD: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - MosquitoWednesday, 10 April 2013
On hearing the opening track of this album, a friend said “I didn't expect to be listening to new albums of the YYYs 10 years on!” And this is kind of understandable: of all the new rock bands of the early 2000s – The Strokes, The Vines, The Hives,... Read more... |
CD: Mice Parade - CandelaWednesday, 10 April 2013
Some bands pootle along in the background for album after album without anyone but their devoted fans appreciating their wares. Such outfits spend years in the shadows of majority culture, but very slowly, through friend sharing with friend,... Read more... |
Nile Rodgers: The Hitmaker, BBC FourSaturday, 30 March 2013
It was one of those entirely unverifiable "facts" that music documentaries increasingly prefer over genuine insight: early on in this serviceable but routine overview of a truly stellar talent, we were told that Nile Rodgers’s guitar has “played on... Read more... |
CD: The Strokes - Comedown MachineMonday, 18 March 2013
There must be something quite frustrating about being a Stroke in 2013, assuming you just want to get on with the business of making music without constantly being reminded that you are part of a band once labeled the biggest in the world by the... Read more... |
George Bellows: Modern American Life, Royal AcademyWednesday, 13 March 2013
One can immediately see the influence of Manet and Whistler, especially Whistler, the fellow American who spent most of his life in Paris and London. George Bellows, the first quintessentially American artist of the 20th century, made famous in his... Read more... |
Side EffectsThursday, 07 March 2013
Stephen Soderbergh would have us believe that this might be his last movie, which is difficult to believe. But if so, he's bowing out with one his sharpest, most devious and most watchable pictures, in which a shrewdly-chosen cast does full justice... Read more... |
Crysis 3Friday, 01 March 2013
Crysis 3 arrives as the current generation of console hardware is being shuffled over to make way for the next – normally a very fertile time for games. Usually, the best games come out late in a home console's lifespan – when developers have learnt... Read more... |
David Bowie: The Next Day reviewedWednesday, 27 February 2013
“Stars are never sleeping, dead ones and the living” sings David Bowie on the “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”, The Next Day’s third track. He could have been singing about himself. Having apparently hibernated for a decade after heart surgery, his... Read more... |
Broken CityWednesday, 27 February 2013
It doesn’t look broken from above. Broken City now and then takes to the skies over New York to look down on the splayed conurbation. Grand views of the skyline find silver towers a-shimmer, blue rivers a-glimmer and autumn’s burnished-bronze trees... Read more... |
