Welsh singer Marina Diamandis (stage-name Marina & the Diamonds) has previously been somewhat unsuccessful in cultivating her own identity within the much-crowded pop music scene. Her debut, The Family Jewels (2010), was a rather garish, cock-a-hoop record, and 2012’s Electra Heart suffered from over-collaboration due to Marina’s route-one scramble for[Read More…]
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
Deep Cuts: Songs for my future wedding
God Only Knows Artist: Beach Boys Album: Pet Sounds Released: May 16, 1966 This wonderful, harmonically complex, feel-good track is not always rightfully recognized as one of the greatest tracks of the 1960s. According to the songwriters, it is a story told from the point of view of a man[Read More…]
Album Review: Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell
Asthmatic Kitty Records recently gave us an initial glimpse of Sufjan Stevens’ seventh studio album, Carrie and Lowell, by releasing YouTube videos for his new tracks “Should Have Known Better” and “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross.” The former is a montage of extended still camera shots that[Read More…]
Back to Bukowski’s future
In an age dominated by tweets and texts, it is quite easy to forget—or at least be distanced from—the chaos and warfare that ravages the world today. Kim Kardashian ‘breaks’ the Internet while Russia breaks international laws. Dresses change from white to blue on Facebook while the situation in Syria[Read More…]
Album Review: Joel Plaskett – Joel Plaskett & The Park Avenue Sobriety Test
In “Lightning Bolt,” the opening track from his previous album, Scrappy Happiness (2012), Joel Plaskett sings, “This is our only chance/ For some happenstance.” Now, on the verge of turning 40, the Nova Scotian rock veteran has decided to keep the temporal meditations coming on his latest album, Joel Plaskett[Read More…]
Iran gets spaghetti westernized in latest film
Director Ana Lily Amirpour is billing A Girl Walks Home at Night Alone as Iran’s first vampire spaghetti western, as though vampire spaghetti western is a popular genre in Hollywood. While entirely in Farsi and featuring an Iranian cast, the film was shot in southern California, which barely passes for Iran. The[Read More…]
Pop rhetoric: #sixseasonsandamovie: Community’s self-fulfilling prophecy
Depending on how you look at it, the fact that Community will premiere its sixth season on Yahoo! Screen today is either an astonishing achievement or a preordained inevitability. On one hand, the unconventional sitcom has been fighting off (and eventually succumbed to) cancellation since 2011. Yet, while Community may[Read More…]
Deep Cuts: Creepy Love Songs
Run For Your Life Artist: The Beatles Album: Rubber Soul Year: December 3, 1965 When a song begins with “I’d rather see you dead little girl/ Than to see you with another man,” it’s off to a rocky start. Backed by surprisingly upbeat accompaniment, John Lennon spouts harrowing paranoia in[Read More…]
What’s happening in Montreal
THEATRE — Hosanna Talented and controversial Montreal writer Michael Tremblay’s famous story of gender identity, sexuality, and struggle comes back to the stage in Montreal. Tuesday, March 17 to Sunday, March 29 at 8 p.m. at Mainline Theatre (3997 Blvd Saint-Laurent). Student tickets are $15. MUSIC — Rep[Read More…]
It feels good to let go
Co-produced by legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (of Volver (2006) fame), Wild Tales will make you laugh, shake your head, and turn to the stranger next to you to make eye contact. In his first feature-length film, Argentinian director Damián Szifron threads the common theme of revenge through six disconnected[Read More…]
