You recognize success in mixing genres when connoisseurs on either side think the music is beyond their field. My friend, a venerable bluegrass expert, recommended Goat Rodeo Sessions to me, saying he failed to understand the classical nuances. After I listened to this album, I wanted to give it back,[Read More…]

Drake is living proof that not every rapper has to resort to insipid, vapid rhymes about dollar bills and girls in order to still talk about dollar bills and girls. Returning strong with his second studio album Take Care, Drake continues to rely on his articulate, straightforward lyrics and his[Read More…]

straight.com The first thing to note about Immortals is that it’s not 300, at least not entirely. Directed by the remarkable Tarsem Singh and produced by 300 frontmen Mark Canton and Gianni Nunnari, Immortals brings an eclectic blend of stunning visual and creative elements together fairly successfully. Set in the realm[Read More…]

Yves Renaud Opéra de Montréal calls Antonin Dvořák’s Rusalka “the story of The Little Mermaid, enhanced by Dvořák’s captivating

magpictures.com The apocalypse has never looked so beautiful. Melancholia, the latest from maverick Danish auteur Lars von Trier, is magnificent. With a script that joins human introspection with nihilistic celebration, von Trier creates two hours of rich, thought-provoking and breathtaking cinema. Its long journey from Cannes to Canada now complete, Melancholia is assuredly one of[Read More…]

jojonews.com Making a film that deliberately attempts to confuse its audience can be a tricky thing. Not only is there the risk of repelling (or simply boring) viewers, but the incoherence can overwhelm the purpose of the trickery. Fortunately, first-time director Sean Durkin was able to avoid most of these[Read More…]

See footnote. Our environment has a deep impact on our mental, physical, and emotional health. A new exhibit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) called Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture explores the numerous ways in which this truism has, and could, manifest itself in the arenas of structural[Read More…]

Nick Petrillo / McGill Tribune Down on St. Catherine, a block east of Foufounes Électriques, is Cease It 2, a pop-up art gallery sponsored by Montreal’s CEASE art collective. Seventeen featured artists have taken over Fresh Paint’s open floor space for a free exhibition that’s open to the public. But[Read More…]

Music is everywhere. One can’t go an hour without hearing music at the mall, from an alarm clock radio, or even when someone’s cell phone inadvertently rings in class. Music has completely permeated our culture in every respect, with intentions to soothe, to market, and—although it’s rarer—to create art.  It[Read More…]

If the title alone doesn’t give it away, it only takes a cursory glance at the tracklisting to know Hello Sadness isn’t going to be the feel-good album of the year. Not that Los Campesinos! have ever really been all sunshine and rainbows—they have a knack for putting biting lyrics[Read More…]