Chimpomatic

Beginners

Assured, personal, touching, refreshing exploration of love and relationships from Mike Mills.

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29th Dec 2011

Breaking Bad Season 4

This show just gets better and better, with S4 providing the tightest, most rivetting twists yet.

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26th Dec 2011

Good Will Hunting

Gus Van Zandt's absorbing drama still holds up. Beautifully written, acted, shot and directed.

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17th Dec 2011

This Is England '88

Another classy, confident, gut-wrenching slice of foreboding urban drama from Shane Meadows.

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16th Dec 2011

Top Boy

Utterly outstanding, multi-stranded British urban drama. Beautifully shot, written and acted. Catch it on 4OD.

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6th Nov 2011

Wilco

The Roundhouse, London

Wilco albums come and go, but the live act remains strong and steady - well aware which songs have stood the test of time and which have dropped off into back catalogue. New album and show opener "Art of Almost" immediately scored itself a position as today's song of the year, setting the scene for a heavy set that wasn't afraid to bring a couple of extra guitars off the bench when neccessary.

Possibly slightly more truncated in length than previous shows and light on Tweedy-stand-up, it was still plenty for my ageing body support system - and with another show tomorrow probably drawing back many of the beard-heavy crowd no-one is likely to be complaining.

Never, ever disappointing. Set list over at Wilco World.

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29th Oct 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Aliens

The original grunts-in-space epic still stands ahead of the pack. Classic.

Halliwell says: Frightening but mechanical sequel with none of the half-assed poetry of the original.*

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15th Sep 2011

The Skin I Live In

Cut me up, cut me down? Antonio Banderas returns to the Almodóvar fold for dark surgical menace.

#Screened
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#chimp71

9th Sep 2011

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Le Carré's mole-hunt played w class. Oldman excels at bringing Smiley's culture to life.

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6th Sep 2011

Platoon

Brilliant rites of passage movie that still stands as the definitive depiction of the war in Vietnam.

Halliwell says: Not badly done in the style of Bataan (plus brutality and gore). One would have thought it too late to do it at all, but the American public made it a box-office hit.**

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24th Jul 2011

The Tree of Life

Ambitious, epic, unique view of life, big and small. Beautifully shot, acted, edited and soundtracked.

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9th Jul 2011

The Secret in Their Eyes

Excellent Argentinian crime thriller about a retired cop haunted by an old case.

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12th Jun 2011

How To Make It In America

Season 1

HBO

With Entourage winding down after an epic 7 (soon to be 8th and final) seasons, HBO have started to line up it's successor. While the no-money, Lower East Side vibe of aspiring fashion entrepreneurs Ben Epstein and Cam Calderon might seem like a million miles from the valet parking of Vincent Chase's Hollywood, there are many parallels with this East Coast cousin - following the same dreams of success and the high life, just jumping on board at an earlier stage.

Despite the opposing fortunes, lifestyle envy also plays a big part here and while the reality of always being a dollar short might not quite hold the everlasting appeal of having a dollar too much, always knowing the hippest parties and being on first-name terms with every door man in town is something many of us would have loved 15 years ago. Slow motion mixes with flash frame photography and well chosen music to beautifully capture the gritty, exciting world of opportunity of both the Lower East Side and the just-graduated student mentality.

How To Make It In America has that quick-fix vibe that gets you high in 25 minutes and leaves you wanting more. Well-rounded episodes that fly by, but the season arc stays strong and is filled out well with multiple story strands (including a career-best performance from Luis Guzman and Rasta Monsta) all staying as strong as each other, while still building the bigger picture of the show's overall themes and agenda.

Great stuff. Should be back for season 2 later on in 2011.

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#CSF

1st Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Baraka

Spectacular 65mm film, beautifully restored, HD re-release of Ron Fricke's touching, hypnotic visual poem.

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14th Apr 2011

Cop Land

Brilliant modern western, built around the basics of good story, good direction and great performances

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19th Mar 2011

Animal Kingdom

For the third time - at Mrs CSF's request. Still film of the year so far. Masterful.

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27th Feb 2011

Pulp Fiction

Tarantino's showy, overlong 2nd film highlights all of his swagger - signposting his later flaws.

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27th Feb 2011

Animal Kingdom

Twice in a month - this Aussie crime thriller must be good.

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20th Jan 2011

Animal Kingdom

Brilliant, brooding, Aussie underworld thriller. A great debut and the best film of 2011 ...so far.

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#CSF

7th Jan 2011

Monsters

Masterfully handled low-budget sci-fi. Easily the best film I've seen in a while.

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#CSF

11th Dec 2010

Inception

(dir. Christopher Nolan)

What a relief it is to see something new. After all the endless sequels, franchise-extensions, remakes and reboots we've been lumbered with in recent years, you start to feel like no-one is going to bother coming up with anything new, which presents an odd problem: what are people going to remake in 20 years time?!

Anyhow, Inception delivers on its promise of mind-bending action. It's smart, coherent, tense, exciting, unpredictable and rich with emotional depth. Once the rules of the game are established early on - ex-military tech is now being used by corporate spies to steal secrets from people in their dreams you say? Oh, OK, fine! - the movie takes hold, dropping you off in its dream logic, throwing you around the world, dizzying you with some excellent special effects and not letting up until the final credits. Think Eternal Sunshine of The Ocean's 11 Mind, with a bonus dash of Matrix flash (before it got shit). 

Leonardo DiCaprio steps up to the promise he's been showing since The Departed, with another beefy role as the experienced dream warrior who gets hired to plant an idea, rather than steal a secret. It's like he's getting wider rather than older. Ellen "Juno" Page is a great addition to Nolan's tricksy world, adding a grounded, sarky teen level to the blockbuster antics. Tom Hardy's role moves a touch too far towards Action Dude from the cerebral, shady forger who's brought on board the team to impersonate people in dreams, but he's still great - surely a big lead role in a Hollywood film can't be far off for him? Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays DiCaprio's right hand man, another thoroughly watchable performance from him. Cillian Murphy makes a decent mark for them to target. Ken Watanabe and Michael Caine - two more Nolan veterans - add yet more weight. Marion Cotillard perhaps hams it up a little as the mysterious French femme fatale, but that's a minor niggle - and there's an argument to be made that it's an intentional device. 

Going in cold to a film like this is highly recommended - so we'll stop here; it's easily the film of the summer - and a strong contender for the year's best.

Check out the comic book prequel here.

#Film
#chimp71

14th Jul 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Spartan

Cold ruthless action from an excellent Val Kilmer in David Mamet's dry thriller.

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11th Jul 2010

Inception

Mind boggling thrills with a brain - thoroughly entertaining and original, with top notch performances.

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10th Jul 2010

Nik Bartsch's Ronin

ICA, London

The ICA - a different kind of ambience to some of the gigs I've frequented of late.  What a cultured group of individuals are to be found snuggling in this cozy nook just up the road from her maj. OK, so no one jumps around when the band finish a number, but on the positive side I won't go home wearing half a pint of Red Bull like I did at Les Claypool on monday night. So the ICA gets a thumbs up from me (but not the person who'd written the graffiti in the Gents - it read "You Bourgeois Cunt". There you go Banksy, that's how you do it).

Anyway. I digress.

Nik Bartsch has a musical mission and it's all about the crosstalk of rhythms. Ronin is one of his two bands, (the other is called Mobile) both of which share material and some members. Referred to by the ICA as "Zen-Funk" , it's a Jazz textured Steve Reich style experiment in rhythmic interplay, perhaps even more accurately called Math-Jazz. Anyway, before you all get visions of Howard Moon doing that Jazz face, it's important to understand that this band has a solid groove. The band play figures or riffs, patterns and pulses, but no wig-out solos or smug chords. The drummer might be playing in a different time signature to the piano, but a third rhythmic strand from the percussionist might lock them together in a new weird way that somehow makes your feet move.

Using acoustic instruments, plus electric bass, and some deftly applied reverb and delay, the band introduce musical patterns gradually, letting them take root in your head before something else joins in. Woodwind player Shaa creates mighty rasps from a contrabass clarinet, and smooth round tones from an alto sax. Bartsch himself is a very active player for a minimalist - confining his minimalism to the notes and figures played, but constantly plunging into the guts of the piano to mute the strings, pluck them and strum them with a drum-stick. In fact the whole band have this approach - to get maximum variety of tonal sound from the repeating figures (and keeping it funky).

The band really seemed to enjoy themselves - they had a nice crisp sound and were warmly received by the crowd. Absolutely recommended - next time they visit, be sure to check 'em out.

#Music
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#HarrisPilton

15th Mar 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Million Dollar Baby

Superior, heart-breaking drama from Clint.

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10th Jan 2010

Se7en

Now classic 90's thriller from David Fincher and Darius Khondji.

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2nd Jan 2010

3.10 To Yuma

Top class western with Crowe and Bale on fine form.

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30th Nov 2009

Redbelt

Superior drama from David Mamet. Chiwetel Ejiofor is outstanding. Tim Allen gets serious.

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20th Nov 2009

Pixies

Brixton Academy, London

First a confession - this is the first time in my life I have ever seen the Pixies, and since I've been going to gigs for (oh dear) 30 years, I've missed many a golden opportunity, and the Pixies always figured high on the list of "ones I shoulda seen". Suddenly the opportunity miraculously arises as the Pixies undertake a tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the stone classic Doolittle album. I say stone classic since I don't think I'll hear many arguments to the contrary - an album packed with great pop songs, ferocious guitars, great lyrics and brilliant vocals (plus it's on a British label). With the band playing Doolittle in full tonight, I had a slight concern that I might be seeing something that reeked only of nostalgia and might be best left alone, but in the weeks coming up to the show I've found it hard to suppress my optimism - just really hoping that these worthy veterans would deliver the goods.

Of course, they DID deliver the goods. The Pixies are a band - and by that I mean they are a genuine example of the sum adding up to more than it's (considerable) parts. They play like a band, with that wonderful sense that they are all at home where they belong when they are doing this. This was the first of three nights in Brixton - a venue the Pixies have a long history with - and their name on the dome outside could not have looked more like it was meant to be there. Indoor gig and a crowd who felt like this was their very own special band coming back to see the fans that first embraced them. All of these things meant there was a happy vibe from both band and audience.

Starting up with Dancing The Manta Ray, they warmed themselves up by plundering the b-sides box and treating us to some rare gems - Kim Deal told us that they were playing some of these songs for "maybe the fifth time ever, tonight". Then, after maybe fifteen minutes Kim Deal plays the opening riff to Debaser and the party really starts. God, they sound great. Upstairs in the Academy the sound was pretty good although I'm told it was a bit muddier downstairs, while the visual elements of the show can't be faulted - great lighting and projections, tastefully done. Each track from Doolittle sounds teriffic and the band play them all with deserved enthusiasm. It's kind of surreal - there they are playing Here Comes Your Man and Monkey Gone To Heaven, Tame, Dead, No.13.... right through to Silver which was a bit of a highlight despite it's being the slowest song they played all night, but then to follow that closely with Into The White was a masterstroke. Back for encores (twice) which included more b-sides (UK Surf version of Wave Of Mutilation) and classics (U-Mass) and ending with Gigantic - the word best used to describe the smile on Deal's face the whole night.

I was not disappointed.

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#HarrisPilton

7th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pearl Jam

O2, London

With relatively few UK gigs under their belts, it's always nice to have Pearl Jam in town. Assuming they aren't one of your most hated bands, of course.  As noted by the band, their first UK gig was at The Borderline in '92 - and they were often described as being 'full of energy'. Probably because they "only played eight songs" - a long way from tonight's three-hour-plus show in front of a packed house. So packed, that Eddie Vedder wisely hypnotized the crowd into taking a unified three steps back about four songs in, reminding everyone of why they were away from Europe for so long before.

With the band maturing gracefully, and the Ten reissue garnering such nostalgic praise, it's hard not to suspect that Pearl Jam may be winding things down somewhat. Tracks from imminent new release Backspacer didn't make much impact, while the set was packed with often overlooked tracks from the earliest (four) albums.

Surprise opener Release was a highlight, plus plenty of favourites from Vitalogy, the spine-tingling Footsteps, personal favourite Light Years - as well as obligatory singalongs Black and Betterman, plus the rousing encore of Crazy Mary.

While you might expect the enormodome proportions of the O2/Millenium Dome to make for a stale atmosphere, with the right band it makes for an exuberant party vibe. We're all here to see Pearl Jam, but with the beer stand so easy to get to you'd be foolish to pull the usual trick of backing up your toilet breaks to the end. And so evolves a new dilemma: where to take your break. With so many favourites flowing easily it's a tough descision, especially when unknown newer songs provoke a mass exodus/bigger queues. Like choosing which kid to throw out the boat first, I went with Rats, while BC chose lesser known b-side I Got ID and CJ bizarrely chose Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town. At least he was back quick.

If you hate them, you hate them, but if you love them you'll wish you had been there for a typically roof-raising performance from the definite 'grunge' (ha!) rockers.

Setlist:
Release
Animal
Corduroy
Why Go
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
Immortality
The Fixer
Even Flow
I Got I.D.
Rats (with a bit of Michael Jackson' Ben)
Got Some
Whipping
Light Years
Insignificance
Black
Life Wasted
Blood (with a bit of Atomic Dog)

Supersonic
Hail Hail
Footsteps
Love, Reign O'er Me
Do The Evolution
Alive

Better Man (with a bit of Save It For Later)
Crazy Mary
Leaving Here
Porch
Yellow Ledbetter

I've put the best part of the setlist into a Spotify playlist here.

#Music
#Gig
#CSF

19th Aug 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Lightning Dust

Infinite Light

Jagjaguwar

The Black Mountain Army are proving to be nothing if not consistent. Since releasing Black Mountain's barn-storming In The Future in 2008, the contributors have been working steadily through their alter egos - with Pinkmountaintops putting out the excellent Outside Love and now alumni Amber Webber and Joshua Wells releasing a second album under the Lightning Dust moniker. I'm expecting a breakthrough album from Blood Meridian next.

Webber's contribution to Black Mountain is not to be over-looked, with her sultry vocals pulling the band back from the brink of parody and adding a mournful sound to the mix. Her vocals also supplied some of the highlights on Outside Love - and she was sorely missed on the supporting tour. With Lightning Dust however, Webber is firmly centre stage - taking on the majority of the writing, as well as guitar and 95% of the vocals.

Where the self titled debut was spare and sultry, Infinite Light is a more filled out and polished affair - much like the latest albums from the previously mentioned strands - and that extra push pays out rich rewards. Where Lightning Dust occasionally strained or became just too sparse, Inifinte Light sweeps and soars, showing a much wider range. Opener Antonia Jane is a country-tinged affair, obligitary lead-free-download I Knew adds some catchy low-key disco electronics and is notable for Well's superb drumming, while the piano-led The Times even threatens to become a sing-a-long. There are mysterious synthesizers and luscious strings, which all add up to a strangely epic vibe - for what is still essentially a small, self-contained record. There's a consistency and clarity here that would make a perfect soundtrack, probably to a modern day western or double crossin' film noir.

That 5% of the vocals that Webber doesn't cover is where this album loses it's half star - momentarily slipping towards that musical theatre vibe as the male vocals intrude on Honest Man. So while the variations are welcome to a certain extent, it's still the mournful voice of Webber that scores the highlights here - leading us effortlessly through the swell of History, the pounding balladry of Wondering What Everyone Knows or the flawless closer Take It Home, which perfectly sums up everything good about this excellent band. Great drums, moody bass, strings that could go on forever and a soaring, epic vocal performance that will put shivers down your spine.

Unmissable.

#Music
#CSF

30th Jul 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Walkmen

You & Me

Fierce Panda

"When I used to go out I knew everyone I saw / Now I go out alone, if I go out at all" so sang front Walkman Hamilton Leithauser on ‘The Rat’, which along with ‘Little House of Savages’ was the other ‘Hit’ from ‘Bows and Arrows’, the New York Five Piece’s second album  released in 2004. Well the good news for Hamilton, four years and 2 and a bit albums later (2006’s Hundred Miles Off was followed by a cover album of John Lennon and Harry Nillson’s 1974 Pussy Cats) is that he seems to have found some significant company to which to devote plenty of material from their latest ‘You & Me’ (the title of which could be a giveaway, the album itself certainly was, with proceeds from the first two weeks of digital sales going straight to The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer centre in New York).  The even better news for the rest of us, is that this already great band just keep getting better.

“You know I’d never leave you and that’s just how it is” (On the Water), 
“I tell you I love you and my heart’s in the strangest place, that’s how it started and that’s how it ends” (In the New Year)
“You are the morning and I am the night” (Canadian Girl)

Are just a select few of the lyrical bouquets presented by Leithauser, as beautifully gift-wrapped as ever by the vintage instruments favoured by the band.  Ok, ’You & Me’ has actually been out for the best part of a year, but as past releases have proved, there really is no point rushing into conclusions on a Walkmen record, once in, it’s going to stay with you for a long time, maturing with every listen.  Take ‘Seven Years of Holidays’ for example, there, amongst the reverbed guitar and sparse-distant drums, lies the subtlest of string sections - quietly elevating this previously unassuming track up into the favourites after the twenty-something listen.

But picking favourites from ‘You & Me’ is a fairly pointless exercise, whereas 'Bows and Arrows' and ‘A Hundred Miles Off’  had their clear and immediate standouts, ‘You & Me’ is built up of fourteen parts to make a devastatingly beautiful whole.  For me they are up there with The National as America’s standout band at the moment, if sensitive, thoughtful, intelligent, rocking tunes is what you are after.  6 months in, I’m still waiting for a different album to come along and knock it from its heavily repeated listen perch.  Great Stuff.

#Music
#chimpovich

23rd Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Titus Andronicus

The Airing Of Grievances

XL Recordings

If the year 2009 was a person and one of your mates he'd be a right bore. He'd be constantly broke, sighting the credit crunch at every given opportunity - and he'd probably spend most of his time dreaming up ways to shaft you of all your money. Now if The Airing Of Grievances - the debut album from Titus Andronicus - was also one of your mates, he'd have blugeoned 2009 by now, dumped his lifeless corpse into landfill. Not for the reason that he's a diehard optimist - far from it - in fact, he'd be a vicious little fucker, but he just wouldn't stand for any of this namby-pamby fear mongering that goes on and so far The Airing Of Grievances is the only album to kick the broke ass of 2009 firmly and squarely between its limp little cheeks.

Here are some facts, Titus Andronicus are 5 guys from a small town called Glen Rock in New Jersey, a safe suburban enclave to the west of New York City. The Airing Of Grievances is their debut album following a pair of 7" singles and an early EP, it's got 9 tracks, its 45 minutes long and it's fucking brilliant.

If only I could stop there, but in order to justify my massive wage packet I must go on. The Airing Grievances is essentially a punk record but it's way more complicated than that. It's a pit-bull that thinks it's an alsatian, a punk record that thinks it's an Explosions In The Sky record. At times It can sound like Conor Oberst fronting The Wedding Present and at others it could be No Age fronting the E Street Band. It's supremely muscular and feral and yet highly sophisticated. Singer and chief songwriter Patrick Stickles has a voice like a bandsaw cutting through sheet metal, it's almost constantly out of tune and really couldn't give a shit and it stands proud in front of a deafening wall of sound that is the rest of the band. As in all music it's the relationship between this voice and this sound that holds the key to the albums success. Stickles can morph his voice into a blunt instrument of such power and venom as if it's his only way of smashing through this wall of guitar breeze-blocks that constantly towers above him.

From the opening "Fuck You" howl of Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ this record pummels relentlessly, it's massive musical structure rising slowly like a great city being raised from the oceans depths. Each song adds something different to the mix with this huge sound receding to allow room for punctuating guitar work on Fear And Loathing or the driving rhythm of My Time Outside The Womb. Joset Of Nazereth's Blues balances this might with Springsteen style harmonica while the title track foams at the mouth as Stickles spits the mantra "You're life Is over" repeatedly and eventually being joined by the rest of the band for a climactic finale. But it's the two tracks that follow that this record has been building up to. No Future, Pt 1 and No Future, Pt 2 The Days After No Future transform this record from a fiercely original punk pop album to something stella. They play out as one track and together stretch out over more than 14 minutes. It's one of the only times in the record that the tempo slows down and allows a brief breather. But as Pt 1 builds from this breather like a far off wave it drops into Pt. 2 and all hell breaks loose. Massive instrumental juggernaughts speed off at great speed and really open up the album into something magnificently ambitious.

The track lengths grow as the album progresses and so does the confidence. Stickles' vocals stand shoulder to shoulder with the awesome sound that props it up. He howls, screeches and moans over these huge riffs but always sounds raw and unhinged. The whole record sounds like a basement punk tape while effortlessly stretching out over enormous ground. It's this odd juxtaposition that defines their success. As Stickles shrieks on the title track "No more cigarettes, no more having sex, no more drinking till you fall on the floor, no more indie-rock, just a ticking clock," The Airing Of Grievances is a calamitous voice of doom and with a pounding fist draws a line under much of the music I've heard in a long time.

#Music
#BC

25th Feb 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Red Riding

(dir. Julian Jarrold)

Channel 4

Got a feeling this is going to be one of the TV highlights of the year. Taken from David Peace's quartet of cult novels, C4's trio of feature-length dramas covers life in Yorkshire during 1974, 1980 and 1983. It's a world infused with the dark spectre of the Yorkshire Ripper, a dark time in the UK's history when police corruption, a pervasive brutality and institutional misogyny all contributed to a background of paranoia while a serial killer ran loose.

It's an atmospheric, sophisticated work, beautifully shot, impeccably acted. Stories start in one, finish in another; loose ends abound, just like in real life. 

Andrew Garfield's a cocky young journo trying to convince his editor he's found a serial killer in the first film, 1974 - and then finding himself drawn into property magnate Sean Bean's dark world. The reliably great Paddy Considine plays a Manchester cop called in to investigate the Yorkshire force's casework in the second, 1980. David Morrissey returns in the third, 1984, to try and unravel the case. The excellent cast is filled out by Warren Clarke, Rebecca Hall, Gerard Kearns, Eddie Marsan, Maxine Peake and Peter Mullan - all working at the height of their game, with gruff take-no-prisoners dialogue like "this is Yorkshire - we do what we want around here" peppered through the terse script.

Peace also wrote The Damned United, which is getting a cinematic release as well Mar 27 - think he's going to be doing v well in 2009's end of year lists...

#TV
#chimp71

21st Feb 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Animal Collective

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Domino

So here it is, Animal Collective's much anticipated ninth studio album: Merriweather Post Pavilion (apparently named after their favourite venue) arrives with similar claims that greeted their previous few releases; namely that these would be proper songs, rather than the sprawling sketches that characterised their earlier work. The fact that none of the songs clock in at over six minutes, does seems to suggest a new more disciplined agenda.

Opener In the Flowers doesn't quite fit this claim; with its plodding build, it feels rather like a prelude and is slightly underwhelming. However, moving into the blissful My Girls, it all begins to make perfect sense, with Panda Bear's melodic stamp all over it and is utterly delightful. Then the stomping, playful My GIrls take things in a positively sing-a-long direction by Animal Collective's standards.

From there on in, it is apparent that the sound on Merriweather Post Pavilion has evolved markedly since Strawberry Jam, and on the whole it's a lot more accessible record. This time around their reliance on samples and loops seems to have focused them, such on the stripped back Daily Routine (Guitarist Deakin is absent from this record). Yet Animal Collective's real skill is their ability to extract melody from the strangest of places and as the album goes on it slowly seeps deep inside your head.

So whilst Animal Collective remain an acquired taste and are not ever likely ever to make something that isn't hard to categorise, Merriweather Post Pavilion is as an original, joyous and warm album that you're likely to find this year.

#Music
#marmot

14th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pavement

Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedance Edition

Domino

The Pavement re-release juggernaut continues at full-steam (wait, didn't the last review start like that?), with album number four now getting the super-deluxe treatment. Perhaps more than the previous efforts, Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition is truly jam-packed with goodies, stretching it out to an epic 155 minutes.

In the overall canon of Pavement's work, support for Brighten the Corners may be a little divided. The album sold considerably more that it's predecessors - and features a couple of bonifide hit singles in Stereo and Shady Lane - but much of the scattergun rambling charm of the earlier albums had perhaps been polished away. In retrospect, the album shows a logical progression in the band's sound, and pre-dates the evolution of Malkmus's excellent solo albums - and can hardly be labelled as 'conventional'.

Sure, the chorus of Stereo is catchy and conventional, but it's surrounded by unhinged guitar work and primal vocals - not to mention the spoken word interruptions ("I know him, and he does" retorts Bob Nastovich in his best Wayne's World voice, "And you're my fact checking cuz".). Shady Lane crams a 20 minute epic into less than 4, while the show-stopping Embassy Row commits an orchestrated guitar riot to tape.

Conventional, perhaps not - but if you take Spiral Stairs' slightly out of place efforts out of the mix (Date W/ IKEA, Passat Dream), the original album is at least pretty cohesive for a Pavement album. Bring the collected b-sides into play however and it's a different story, transforming this into a sprawling, but thoroughly engaging trip.

Outtake/B-side The Hexx has already been featured on Domino's Worlds of Possibility compilation (albeit in a more concise form than the versions here), while Beautiful As A Butterfly and Cataracts lead into the raft of additional tracks that formed the b-sides of the singles from this period. The highlight of the rarities section of this release has to be the Radio 1 Evening Session, which provides studio quality recordings of the band running through The Hexx, Harness Your Hopes and Winner Of The, with the undisputed highlight being the band's cover of The Killing Moon - a track that provides perfect ammo for a stretched-out work-out.

Admittedly things taper away with some of the other live tracks from the era, but as the zany double barreled finale of Space Ghost Themes I & II come around (from the Space Ghost Coast To Coast TV show), the notion that Pavement had entered a more 'straight-forward' mainstream period is a distant theory.

While the Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee re-releases arguably watered down their excellent starting points, Brighten The Corners here seems even better that the original - perhaps due to me approaching an album I perhaps was overly dismissive of from a fresh perspective. Either way, as these re-releases have shown, this was an incredibly productive band - kicking out 2 1/2 hours worth of decent material per album cycle, while the young pups these days struggle to produce a 12 track album and a couple of b-sides.

#Music
#CSF

2nd Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Waltz With Bashir

Ari Folman

Bridgit Folman Film Gang

Powerful examination of guilt, war and repression from Israeli director Ari Folman. Shot in the rotoscoped animation style that both Richard Linklater (Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly) and Ralph Bakshi (American Pop, Lord Of The Rings) have used, it's a docudrama take on his time in the Israeli army, as he searches through his past to try and uncover lost memories of a mission in the Lebanon. 

As he travels the world to meet up with old friends and people he was in the army with, we circle round ideas of how people deal with the horrors of war, the guilt of living and the terror of being witness to unspeakable horror. The choice to animate the story allows it to float effortlessly across time and space, weaving together his memories as other people open up the moments his mind has blocked for over twenty years. 

It's the collision between the warmth of seeing old friends and the brutality of their time in the Lebanon war that makes this film such an intense experience. It's been criticised for soft-pedalling the Israeli position, but it seemed to be much more concerned with trying to understand how our minds work to comprehend the shock of war rather than the morality; how people can carry on living after seeing how terrible people can be firsthand. 

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3rd Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Gomorra

(Dir Matteo Garrone)

Fandango

Two kids decide to take on the local crime boss. A mafia-funded tailor decides to moonlight for a Chinese sweatshop. A politician looks for new sites to dump toxic waste. A mob money man decides he's had enough. A grocery boy gets drawn into an escalating turf war.

Dizzying reinvention of the mafia movie, based on the nonfiction book by Roberto Saviano. Far from the glamour of The Godfather or even The Sopranos, this is more like a Naples version of The Wire. We're thrown into the middle of five stories, which build up a crushing portrait of a city in chaos; it's not so much that the system has failed here, but that even the crime culture which has stepped into the void seems to have spiralled out of control, light years from the honour amongst thieves myth we've seen time and again. 

It's beautifully shot, with the housing estates where the bulk of the action takes place rising up like decaying Mayan pyramids. Scenes are artfully constructed, with details like a freshly manicured hand or a statue of Jesus being winched down an estate balcony standing out amidst the action. That's not to suggest that this elegant movie glosses over the trauma and social breakdown - far from it. Violence is ever-present, brutally casual and everyday. It's a bewildering experience, as we float from story to story and back again, wondering how they connect - and also wondering how any of the characters can possibly hope to escape the lives they've found themselves in. 

At 137 mins, it's a long haul, but well worth it. Strong contender for one of the films of 2008.

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1st Oct 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Sebadoh

Harmacy

Sub Pop

THEN: Sebadoh's eighth album and their fourth for Sub Pop, saw the Massachusetts (rotating) 3 piece pick-up the succesful formula of its preceeding release, Bakesale. That 1994 smash reached the dizzy heights of number 40 in the UK albums chart, thanks largely to toning down some of the more off-the-wall ideas that marked earlier records and focusing on a more consistent sound, with more emphasis on 'songs'. Harmacy picked up that baton and as a result (and perhaps inevitably) was the band's most mature release at the time.

NOW: More mature maybe, but that's not to say the imagination and slight eccentricity that has secured Sebadoh an intensly loyal fanbase (guilty) is not present here. With songwriting duties split largely evenly between Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein, it weaves and bobs at differing pace; from the jaunty, effortless pop (Ocean / Can't Give Up) 3 chord punk (I Smell A Rat) rocking instrumentals (Sforzando! / Hillbilly 2) and painstaking love song (Willing To Wait) all held together with a tighter production than previous releases. Basically, Harmacy sits comfortably in a formidable canon of releases from these indie rock legends.

SUB POP SAYS: "Since each member of Sebadoh writes songs, their sound can be very different from one song to the next. Where once we heard three voice screaming at once, now they talk in harmony"

KILLER TRACK: Always tricky to pick a killer from the mixed bag that is a Sebadoh record, but of the nineteen here and in the interests of fairness I'll go for (Jason's) Mindreader and (Lou's) Ocean.

NEXT: 1997 - Pidgeonhed - The Full Sentence

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13th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Sunny Day Real Estate

Diary

Sub Pop

THEN: 1994 and Sub Pop was at the top of its game. Others such as Touch and Go, Blast First, Amphetamine Reptile, Cargo were all dishing out quality fayre, but it was the Seattle label that remained the go-to choice for hard-rocking anger and good times. So Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary caught a lot of people off-guard. Mostly it was singer Jeremy Enigk's voice, this guy sounded like he could actually sing - and it sounded like he was singing about intensly personal themes too, hence 'Diary' I suppose, this couldn't be right from the label who gave us Mudhoney, the band who sang about being drunk for 24 hours. Add to that the slightly creepy and childlike artwork of the record and it felt like Diary was a step in a new direction. Luckily, whilst making us think, it also rocked. Hard.

NOW: Little surprise that Dave Grohl called up rhythm section Nate Mendel (bass) and William Goldsmith (drums) when putting together his new project Foo Fighters in 1995, the drumming especially is awesome across the whole album. Take opener Seven for example: nearly five minutes of constant rolls and fills across a track that was a permanent fixture on many a mix-tape made around that period (to both guys and girls - evidence of the rocking and sensitive all-roundess of the group).

I hadn't listened to it for a while and seemed to remember the intensity level dropping off after Seven and In Circles, but no, the quality remains consistently high across all eleven songs. From the blistering Rounds and Shadows, surreal Grendel and Pheurton Skeurto and the epic 47 and 48. It's fair to argue that Diary was amongst the first Emo records, but don't confuse it with the cynical bullshit of today, there is far more intelligence to Diary than simply plastering on a bit of eyeliner. A classic of classics.

SUP POP SAYS: “Sunny Day’s key members have seemingly engaged in just about every rock cliché imaginable.”

KILLER TRACK: Seven

NEXT: 1995 - Pond - Practice Of Joy Before Death

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12th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

This Is England

(dir. Shane Meadows)

Big Arty Productions

With bullies making his school life a misery after his dad is killed in the Falklands, 12 year old Shaun falls in with a gang of local skinheads, who accept him as one of their own and treat him with respect. However, when older skinhead Combo returns from a stint in priosn, the group splinters as their beliefs are brought into question. What is being a skinhead? Is it a harmless interest in music and fashion - or a more militant belief in keping England "British"?

I'm rocking up two years late to this party, but yet again I wish I'd got in on this earlier. Following on from his magnificent Dead Mans Shoes, Shane Meadows delivers a masterful film - and an outstanding critique of British society and culture. Side-stepping the two usual British cliches of cockney gangsterism and kitchen sink drama, Meadows portrays a vivid sketch of 80's Britain, telling his stories form the common perspective rather the London-centric world portrayed on the news.

Thomas Turgoose is a revelation, effortlessly portraying the coming-of-age of cheeky protaganist Shaun - as he smokes his first joint, drinks his first beer and gets his first snog. Stephen Graham is an equally compelling Combo, undermining the leadership of the group, poisoning them with his mis-informed rhetoric.

Meadows keeps back from the action, but I'm pretty sure his seemingly improvised dialogue and effortless directorial style are actually fast becoming well-honed crafts. I'm surprised he hasn't yet been picked up by Hollywood, or maybe he's just not interested. Turgoose returns for his next movie Somers Town, which has been scooping awards around the world. Surprisingly, that has been revealed to have been funded by advertising agency Mother on behalf of it's client, Eurostar. Make of that what you will....

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1st Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Dark Knight

(dir. Christopher Nolan)

Harrowing. Searching. Compelling. If only Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight stopped there we could have possibly emerged from the Greater Union cineplex on Sydney’s George Street unscathed.

But Nolan wields his artform masterfully and knows his audience only too well - even when we don’t ask for more, he knows we want more and he delivers.

To watch Dark Knight is to undergo a cinematic interrogation. And it’s unsettling from the outset to confront not just the many questions Nolan is asking – good vs evil, right vs might, ambition vs reality and the many vs the few – but also the way in which he is asking them.

From the gritty opening frames of a bank heist you get the feeling Nolan has jumped into the trench right alongside you and that’s a pretty ballsy statement of claim from the guy who knocked out the flawless Batman Begins. Blockbuster sequels too often become cinematic comfort food. Nolan could have gotten away here with dishing up more of the same and most of us would have still come away pretty happy... y’know, a bit of moody darkness against the backdrop of some dazzling special effects, a couple of explosions and the odd menacing baddie... anything that erodes the travesty of Michael Keaton’s vaudevillian portrayal of Batman.

Instead, like so many of the characters in this film Nolan has turned his back on the easy option. The results are mind blowing and along the way he has produced a film every member of an entire generation wishes they could have made.

Believe the hype, Heath Ledger’s Joker will go down in history as one of the greatest silver screen performances and it’s almost a subconscious reflection of one of this film’s powerful recurring themes, the many vs the few, given the richness of the cast. Nonetheless it’s rare to see an entire cast come so totally to grips with a screenplay and deliver it in unison. Ledger, Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Nuff said.

It’s almost as if Nolan and his gang realised early on just how potent a brew they had on their hands. As this flick tears through its paces they start to pull off tricks, twists and turns simply because they can. And it works. When Batman swoops to deliver swift justice to a Chinese fugitive in Hong Kong, it’s Caesar Pelli’s 88-storey IFC that looks as if it was created as a prop for this flick and not as the most astounding skyscraper in a city of astounding skyscrapers.

Treading through the many reviews (this one included) that have emerged in the whitewater of Dark Knight’s release around the world one thing becomes clear – words alone are simply not enough to describe what occurs during a tumultuous two and half hours on screen. In any event, anyone who has seen it will be deeply affected in one way or another. Do yourself a favour and waste no more time trying to decipher what they’re trying to tell you. Pad up, get yer helmets on and get yourself a good seat.

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17th Jul 2008 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Grace Jones

Meltdown 2008, Royal Festival Hall

Grace Jones is the sort of star you can't quite believe actually exists. When she arrives on stage, it's like she's been beamed in on some hyperlink from Venus, or you've been transported into Studio 54 on Tatooine - not like you've just walked in from a sunny evening off the Thames. You hear a lot about stage presence, of artists captivating audiences, but when you see someone of her immense talent, playing at such a high level, you start to realise what can be done in the live arena. 

The first sight of her is the new video for Corporate Cannibal - monochrome shots of her distinctive face, distorted, stretched out, morphing into weird shapes - a simple effect, that captures and accentates that feeling that's she's not quite from this planet. 

Then, when she finally arrives, there's the physical presence - towering up the outsized steps on stage, instantly recognisable behind the screen and the smoke. 

There's the costumes - for a while it's pretty much a new outfit for every number - each throwing different shapes into the enormous fan onstage, huge capes billowing into the corners of the stage, impossible stilettos, nutty hats...

Then, there's the voice - with all the spectacle and show you almost forget just how great it is. The deep, dark, sultry drawl that propels classics like Pull Up To The Bumper, lifts into some astonishing notes and phrasing on torch anthems like La Vie En Rose, before punctuating it all with some hilarious stage banter that kills off any ice queen trivia. 

It's a great set - packed with all the hits - and a couple of new ones, which even she doesn't know (so she just makes it up). The band are super tight, a charged, tense version of that dub-disco sound that Sly and Robbie pioneered for her. Love Is The Drug is kicked out at almost punk speed, with a thin green laser shooting down onto a mirror ball bowler hat she's wearing, the lights splintering off at a hundred miles an hour - an amazing, kinetic effect that makes it look like she's frenetic, when in fact she's standing still, almost taking a break. 

She's also probably the only artist called Grace you'll see who's got the nerve to sing Amazing Grace. Is it a cheeky joke? A nod to her divatastic reputation? A homage to her religious upbringing in Jamaica? Or all of the above? Whatever, it's an apt description, and another classic moment in a great show.

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23rd Jun 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Onion Movie

(dir. Tom Kuntz, Mike Maguire)

20th Century Fox

For 20 years now, The Onion has delivered unparalleled satire of American life in its many forms. Originally (and still) an actual newspaper, The Onion is perhaps best known for their website, and they've also successfully published a series of brilliant books which further the cause of exposing and laughing at hypocrisy on a global scale. The Onion's humour has always been sort of middle-brow. There are tons of intellectual jokes throughout their work, but it's always balanced by a well-placed and timely cock joke.

Things could have turned out quite badly for this project. It was pretty much stillborn, then resurrected, and is now being released direct to DVD. Everyone involved in the project thought the material was not strong enough for a theatre release, and therefore I had a slight worry that Onion humour might not translate to a screen format, that it might be too long-winded or spend too much time extracting every ounce of humour from a topic: but the movie delivers at a great pace and (even better) does not rely heavily on material from the website and books. It's a fresh experience, and funny as fuck. Essentially, this is Kentucky Fried Movie as done by the Onion (KFO anybody?) and notably one finds the name David Zucker (Airplane etc) in the producer credits.

It's also great to report that the movie has high production values - a super glossy look and great cast. There's some neat continuity gags, themes which are returned to from different perspectives, tight dialogue and it's beautifully edited. For a comedy film these things are often secondary, but not in this case.

You'll laugh, you'll wince, and you will nod in agreement as the movie drops smart-bombs on self-inflated idiots. No-one is safe. From the Islamic terrorist training video, through trailers for Steven Seagal's latest action movie (Steven Seagal IS Cockpuncher), and an awesome sequence which involves a hip-hop Wigger being recognised as truly black (only not in the way he wanted) - this is a work of comedic and satirical genius. Highly recommended.

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#HarrisPilton

18th Jun 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes

Bella Union / Sub Pop

Hailing from Seattle, 5 piece Fleet Foxes have been causing quite a stir locally and while Sub Pop have long been Seattle's finest they thankfully they stuck to their "only sign bands from Seattle" code to snap up this band - as let's face it, that's a code that has seen more than a few happy exceptions recently (The Shins, Postal Service, Oxford Collapse, Flight of the Conchords (!?)).

Using heavy precussion, multiple vocals and a giant dollop of campfire guitar acoustics, Fleet Foxes gently rustle up an epic granduer that you often won't see coming. Everybody's talking about the Crosby, Stills & Nash sound that the band have, but it's just as valid to compare them to contempories like My Morning Jacket and label-mates Band of Horses - as all rely heavily on a powerful voice to carry the dense, sophisticated music. While there's a definite nostalgia to Fleet Foxes, it never seems like pastiche or parody - just fun, passionate music, with a depth and quality way beyond the band's slender years.

Thankfully there's a healthy dose of Young in that Crosby, Stills and Nash sound and while the hymnal harmonies might be the obvious USP here it's the rockier numbers that have grabbed my attention. The sweeping guitars of Ragged Wood build in beautiful climbing chords, while the pounding drums and keyboard provide the backing for a grand narrative on Your Protector. Thanks to more examples on the Sun Giant EP (English House and Mykonos in particular) it seems clear that this is an element that has plenty of room for development within the band.

For a debut album this is a pretty stellar release and you can only hope that things are going to get even better from this band. Fantastic.

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2nd Jun 2008 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Jim James

St. James' Church, London

May 22nd, 2008

By performing under his innocuous stage name, these one-man shows by My Morning Jacket front man Jim James often go unnotticed in the listings, but as anyone who has attended one can testify - they are overlooked gems in the My Morning Jacket schedule.

On this occasion lead guitarist Carl Broemel was in tow to provide some back up and the venue was spectacular. Could there be any better setting for James angelic voice than a church? James himself seemed awstruck by the venue and often lost himself in the darkness of the room, with only some low-key lighting picking the stage out of the darkness. Opening with Tonight I Want To Celebrate With You, the venue perfectly projected the bands gentle sound and as the two of them worked through acoustic masterpieces like Golden, the duelling guitars filled the room.

It Beats 4 U got a low-key workout which highlighted the passionate lyrics, while newsongs like Sec Walkin' and Librarian were perfectly suited to the venue - sounding much more part of the catalogue here, out of the context of the eclectic new record. Thank You Too really soared, with great guitar work from James - who often over-shadowed his counterpart Carl Broemel, who's presence sometimes seemed distracting from the otherwise captivating focus of the show. Left truly solo for a spell in the middle of the set, songs like The Bear got a flawless presentation for the front man, as the gentle acostics built up before letting loose into a torrent of guitar usually reserved for a speaker facing three-man jam.

James and Broemel returned for an encore and after a hymnal intro from Sam Cooke's I Thank God, they took on an ambitious rendition of Touch Me I'm Going To Scream (Part 2). The haunting electronics of the Omnichord made for an experience far beyond your average acoustic show, with Broemel's soaring slide guitar this time perfectly complementing the electronic beats and vocals.

As the echoing beats faded away there was time for one more and the drums continued into a great rendition of Anytime, before the eccentric cape-clad front man left the stage again - hiding under his cloak like a victorian sideshow oddity. Outstanding.

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23rd May 2008 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Black Mountain

Scala, London

May 18th, 2008

You're might be getting a bit bored of us raving about Black Mountain by now, but what can I say? With In The Future still holding it's current album of the year status for me, the band were back in the UK for the ATP festival and a European tour and I didn't want to miss them playing another smaller venue, before they certainly get bigger and bigger.

Playing a set consisting almost entirely of material from In The Future, you feel almost like you have flashed into the future yourself and are sitting at one of ATP's own Don't Look Back series - where bands perform their classic album in it's entirely. While it may have taken a couple of songs before the band really found their stride in terms of pace and power, it didn't take long and once they did they were firing on all cylinders. Never dropping a beat or letting the tension slip it's a remarkable show, best described as being run over by a freight train. In the best possible way. If you're not onboard by now, what are you waiting for?

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20th May 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet