A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Vine LP by Jen Gloeckner. Anyone who has ever gone to therapy knows that it can take years to accurately qualify, articulate and compartmentalize feelings like anger, resentment, isolation, love, affection, confusion and emotional unease and then begin to deal with them in a healthy manner. It’s all a process and, in that regard, Jen Gloeckner has arrived miles ahead of the game on her third album, Vine; after having slugged...
Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night by Jason Zinoman If you’re a fan of comedy you’re going to have to answer the following question at some point: are you a Leno or Letterman person. I’ve always been a Letterman guy, even when I was unaware of the whole Late Night battle. In high school, we just didn’t talk about the Leno segments in class (and no, we weren’t paying attention to the teacher), but focused mostly on what Letterman...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Life’s A Garden LP by Worthless. The beauty of psychedelic rock in its purest state is that the music is about art and expression first, and then everything else (be it community, statement-making, even simple performance presentation) comes second. That can mean a psychedelic rock album takes an unwieldy form (check out The Flaming Lips’ album Zaireeka – which requires that four CD players play a different disc simultaneously – for...
El Topo Blu-ray (Abkco) If you haven’t seen the movie Jodorowsky’s Dune I highly recommend you stop what you’re doing and watch it immediately. Through the course of an hour and a half you will take this extravagant journey into probably the most ambitious movie ever attempted and into the mind of Alejandro Jodorowsky. To say that he comes across as eccentric might be an understatement, and it’s highly probable that you’ll leave the movie feeling inclined to learn...
WHO: Pissed Jeans WHAT: Why Love Now WHY: We’re hard pressed to find an album that’s as intense as it is hilarious. Something about Why Love Now is as threatening and raw as it is goofy and entertaining. It’s definitely hardcore and punk rock and structured at times while still sounding not just unpolished but downright unfinished. Why not? These results are cool as fuck. Check out their Bandcamp...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 3LP Record Store Day-pressed edition of the Centennial Collection by Robert Johnson. It’s difficult to accept the idea that such a broad and storied sound as rock n’ roll can be traced back to a single point in history but, in many ways, that case is easily made when one considers the influence of Robert Johnson. As everyone knows, Johnson became the king of the Delta Blues singers and the auteur...
Raw Original Motion Picture Score by Jim Williams It truly feels like we’re living through a new rebirth of independent horror movies. Look to the The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Love Witch, and the Void just to name a few. But no movie (horror or otherwise) has impressed me so far this year the way Raw has. Everything about it is beautifully executed, whether it’s the original story, or casting, or the look. However, if you didn’t notice the...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Modern Pressure LP by Daniel Romano. If we can all agree that the key to having an enduring career in music lies in an artist’s ability to always have listeners guessing excitedly at what they might have in store next from album to album, there’s no chance that interest in Daniel Romano’s music will wane anytime soon. Since the singer first appeared fronting a hardcore band in 2005, Romano has leapt...
The Red Turtle The Red Turtle comes at a very interesting time. Its calm and subtle style is in stark contrast to the current movie climate of jump cuts, fast-paced-action, and obvious plot lines. Even more, this obviously “western” project (Dutch director and European team) is produced by Studio Ghibli. So who is this movie for? Marketed by an anime studio, yet westernized in its look, mythical and ethereal in its tone? I think it’s important to have the right...
Pulley No Change in the Weather Pulley will always have a special place in my heart. As a doe-eyed teenager, committed to punk rock and soaking up music like a sponge, I remember going to the local CD Warehouse and looking through the CD racks trying to find the perfect two punk rock CDs I was going to buy with my hard earned money (that I had to beg my dad for). Back then we were going for quantity...