Sweden
The Knife, RoundhouseThursday, 09 May 2013
Nine people are on stage. Male and female. None is singing. All are dancing. No instruments are being played. For a 20-minute, three-song segment of Swedish art-dance electro-tricksters The Knife’s London show the sound was of a live concert, but... Read more... |
Mamma Andersson / Andreas Eriksson, Stephen Friedman GalleryMonday, 06 May 2013
With their curious juxtapositions and scrambling of pictorial space a dream-like atmosphere is conjured in Mamma Andersson’s paintings. Her scenes are often confined to the domestic or everyday realm, but, even when peopled, suggest something closer... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Eurovision 2013, Françoise Hardy, James Last, Nico GomezSunday, 05 May 2013
Various Artists: We Are One - Eurovision Song Contest Malmö 2013From the British perspective, one thing stands out at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. And it’s not our entry, the turgid power balladry of Bonnie Tyler’s sure-to-stumble “Believe... Read more... |
Dead Man DownThursday, 02 May 2013
In 2009 Niels Arden Oplev sent a lightning bolt through the multiplexes with his adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was only a matter of time before a magpie in Hollywood noticed. They duly went about the business of... Read more... |
Just in From Scandinavia: Nordic Music Round-Up 7Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Continuing its voyage through Scandinavia’s music, theartsdesk opens the latest chapter in Norway with Still Life With Eggplant, the 16th album from Trondheim’s prolific, long-lived, occasionally challenging and always vital Motorpsycho.Their last... Read more... |
Doktor Glas, Wyndham’s TheatreFriday, 19 April 2013
Scandi thrillers have a lot to answer for. Ever since the small-screen success of the Swedish Wallander series, based on the books by Henning Mankell, there has been a host of other must-sees — including the brilliant Borgen — plus British... Read more... |
Arne Dahl: The Blinded Man - Part One, BBC FourSunday, 07 April 2013
Swedish cop drama Arne Dahl snugly fits BBC Four’s Saturday-evening slot for continental European TV imports, but it also suggests that the well might be running dry. Based on the opening episode there’s not much intrinsically wrong with it, but it’... Read more... |
CD: The Knife - Shaking the HabitualSaturday, 06 April 2013
Shaking The Habitual’s centrepiece – the seventh of its 14 tracks – is the 19-minute “Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized”. A tone which ebbs in and out, it’s occasionally underpinned by distant rhythmic colour. Although thoughts inevitably turn to... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: A.R. Kane, Crime and the City Solution, ABBA, Demis RoussosSunday, 30 September 2012
A.R. Kane: Complete Singles CollectionJoe MuggsIn my early teens, circa 1988, certain records would appear on The Chart Show indie chart countdown on a Saturday morning, records that hinted disquietingly at something far beyond the standard... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Lee Hazlewood, T-Coy, Laibach, Boppin’ by the BayouSunday, 02 September 2012
Lee Hazlewood: A House Safe for TigersGraham RicksonLee Hazlewood’s voice can still invoke awe. It's gravelly, sonorous, rasping, but incredibly affecting – even when he’s scraping around in the depths it always sounds musical. A reissue of a... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Magnus BetnerSaturday, 18 August 2012
Magnus Betner, Assembly Rooms **** Here is the news: dismemberment, suicide bombers, industrial-strength Japanese porn, paedophilia and the descent of Julian Assange from hero to zero. The son of a priest and a superstar in his homeland,... Read more... |
Wallander, BBC One/ Sinbad, Sky 1Monday, 09 July 2012
Every leading thespian needs a depressive Swedish detective in his repertoire, and Kenneth Branagh has the knighthood to prove it. He may also face a little extra critical scrutiny this time around, since the return of his Anglicised Wallander comes... Read more... |
