What place does retro pop have in the contemporary indie and electronic soundscapes of Montreal? Local musician Karneef doesn’t seem to care, and his debut LP Love Between Us presents his fastidious funk vision, with all its offbeat lyrics and diverse instruments, largely arranged and played by Karneef alone. Karneef[Read More…]
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
Lady Gaga – ARTPOP
Although ‘dull’ isn’t a word you would usually associate with the avant-garde, publicity stunt-loving ‘Queen of Monsters,’ the first time I listened to Lady Gaga’s new album, I skipped pretty much every song. The only one I managed to listen to all the way through was piano ballad “Dope,” which[Read More…]
Sebastien Grainger – Yours to Discover
In this LP, Canadian Death From Above 1979 singer/vocalist Sebastien Grainger deftly embraces the breezy Los Angeles style into his past punk persona. After signing with Saddle Creek Records in 2008, he is now releasing his second solo album Yours to Discover. The album flows from one electronic synth ballad[Read More…]
Stones Throw: skipping through hip-hop history
Chronicling almost 20 years of eclectic activity, Jeff Broadway’s Kickstarter-funded film ushers viewers into the vinyl-lined living rooms of the founders of L.A.’s Stones Throw record label, crafting a social history of underground hip-hop against a backdrop of crate digging, studio sessions, and release parties. Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton[Read More…]
Heroes of Hebrew humour
Although Jewish people represent only 0.2 per cent of the world’s population—according to a Hebrew University of Jerusalem study—they hold a much larger portion of social attention when it comes to comedy. Director Alan Zweig made the documentary When Jews Were Funny to investigate why Jewish people have been so[Read More…]
A night out for the kids
I really had no idea what I was in store for as I took my place in the audience of the 13th annual Commerce & Administration Students Charity Organization (CASCO) charity fashion and dance show last Friday night at Telus Theatre. A quick glance at the McGill student-driven charity’s program[Read More…]
If Shakespeare had written Lost…
The Tempest, the latest production by McGill’s Players’ Theatre, is the third installment in a season where the mission is “to juxtapose reality with what is magical and imaginative.” This play, believed to be the last written work of William Shakespeare, certainly does just that. Director Juliet Paperny blurs the[Read More…]
Cowboy Junkies – The Kennedy Suite
The Kennedy Suite, an All-Canadian collaborative album written by Scott Garbe and produced and arranged by the Cowboy Junkies (Margo Timmins, Michael Timmins, Peter Timmins, and Alan Anton), as well as Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson of Skydiggers, is an ambitious song cycle centred around the assassination of former U.S.[Read More…]
Blue is the Warmest Colour: more than just a blue film
Blue is the Warmest Colour has attracted a lot of critical attention. This could stem from its accolades at Cannes this summer for its seven-minute long sex scene. What I found interesting were the comments that arose from the portrayal of the women in the film. Manohla Dargis, writing in[Read More…]
A supernatural force in the natural world
The Orenda, Joseph Boyden’s long-anticipated book on the 17th century indigenous peoples of Canada, is a sweeping epic that deals with the birth of a nation—a time when Jesuit missionaries arrived on the shores of Canada. This novel succeeds not in its strength of device but rather, its impact in[Read More…]
