May 24, 2014

Fargo (Noah Hawley, 2014 )

If, like me, you haven't seen Joel and Ethan Coen's black comedy masterpiece for a long time, you might also only remember certain things. Not all the intricacies of the plot, but certainly Frances McDormand's Marge Gunderson, Steve Buscemi and (in) a woodchipper, but also the look and the feel of the whole thing, maybe even the sound. You will probably remember how much you loved it too.
Which makes watching this new TV Fargo – created by Noah Hawley with the blessing of, but no creative input from, the Coens – a strange one.

The Congress(Ari Folman, 2013)

"A genius designer on an acid trip" is the way one character describes the futuristic animated universe of Ari Folman's "The Congress," which contains one of the most startling uses of the medium to come along in years. Words can hardly do justice to the plethora of outlandish visuals populating this ambitious sophomore feature from the Israeli director of "Waltz With Bashir," but they're merely one piece of a larger puzzle. Folman's beguiling project amounts to a stinging indictment of mainstream culture's unending commodification. The director spent half a decade assembling his loose adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's science-fiction novel, "The Futurological Congress," and the work shows in both its stunning appearance and the extraordinary depth of insight paired with it. Folman uses beauty and wonder as vessels for rage.

Bastard Mountain – Farewell, Bastard Mountain (2014)

That project, which boldly mixes together thick electronics and emotive folk, is a bold and fresh take on “Folktronica”, a genre which doesn’t generally work out very well (Probably because it’s called “Folktronica”). This year, after delivering a solid organ-driven covers album, Pennycook has decided to collaborate with a bunch of very talented musicians on a project called Bastard Mountain.
Similar to label Song, By Toad’s previous collaborative record, Cold Seeds (a record that brought together Meursault and King Creosote, among others), Bastard Mountain aims to bring together a collective of musicians to create music that’s worth more than being some kind of super-group collaboration.

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott – What Have We Become (2014)

... Album of the month ...

A wonderful mix of caustic and clever, British band the Beautiful South broke up in 2007 thanks to “musical similarities,” but the two voices of the group reunite on this 2014 treasure, and it’s like everything that’s old is new again. What Have We Become? opens with a familiar, crisply hit snare, a bright piano that whisks the melody away to a sunshine place, and the heavenly harmonies of Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott, and yet, in the lyrics there are diamonds being shoved into mouths plus a Gil Scott-Heron interpolation that goes “The revolution will not be televised/And neither will your death” as if the Smiths just got hip.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Revelation (2014)

May 17, 2014

Hamilton Leithauser – Black Hours (2014)

... 5 AM ...

The Walkmen shocked fans in late 2013 when they announced an “extreme hiatus,” a statement generally interpreted as a breakup. A widespread fear that frontman Hamilton Leithuaser’s mollifying voice would go missing ensued, but now there is reassurance that is not the case.
On June 3, Leithauser will release his debut solo album, Black Hours. The album features a lineup of notable contributors as well. Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend), Paul Maroon (The Walkmen), Morgan Henderson (Fleet Foxes), Richard Swift (The Shins/solo), Amber Coffman (Dirty Projectors) all make an appearance.

Sharon Van Etten - Every Time the Sun Comes Up


Angel Olsen - "High & Wild" (Live)


Septembar (Penny Panayotopoulou, 2013)



 After a 10-year hiatus from filmmaking, director Penny Panayotopoulou makes her highly-anticipated return to the Festival with this poignant study of a solitary woman who develops an increasingly peculiar attachment to a neighbouring family following the death of her dog.
Anna lives with her dog Manu. She thinks they will live together forever. When he dies, she buries him in the garden of the family across the street. But unlike Manu, the happy, bustling family does not need her love and affection. September is that ambivalent mood, between endings and beginnings, a struggle to find meaning and happiness out of life's ordinariness.

May 13, 2014

Kyle James Hauser – You a Thousand Times (2014)

Kyle James is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music with a degree in Songwriting and performs what American Songwriter described as, “neo-folk” on banjo, guitar and voice.
Hauser began performing his original songs in 2011 and that year was a finalist at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s troubadour contest as well as The Rocky Mountain Folk Festival and made showcase performances at CMJ and The Toronto International Film Festival.Hauser has since toured extensively, including a showcase at SXSW and opening performances for Brett Dennen, John Hiatt, The Head and the Heart, Mayer Hawthorne, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down and Gregory Alan Isakov.
In 2013, Kyle James returned to the studio to record his sophomore album, “You a Thousand Times”.

Touch Of Sin(Zhangke Jia,2013)

A "brilliant exploration of violence and corruption in contemporary China" (Jon Frosch, The Atlantic), A TOUCH OF SIN was inspired by four shocking (and true) events that forced the world's fastest growing economy into a period of self-examination. Written and directed by master filmmaker Jia Zhangke (The World, Still Life), "one of the best and most important directors in the world" (Richard Brody, The New Yorker), this daring, poetic and grand-scale film focuses on four characters, each living in different provinces, who are driven to violent ends.

7th Floor (Patxi Amezcua, 2013)

In countries like Argentina and Spain where most city folks live in apartments, kids will often ask their parents if they can run down the stairs while Mom and Dad take the elevator. But what happens if the kids don’t appear at the bottom? This is the intriguing high-concept scenario that successfully drives the first hour of 7th Floor.his is Spanish director Patxi Amezcua’s second film; the first, 25 Carat, was a taut, gritty and complex little thriller after which 7th Floor feels like a letdown. Its star appeal should mean that other Spanish-speaking territories follow where Argentina (Ricardo Darin) and Spain (Belen Rueda) have led, but there is too little here suggest that the film will climb the stairs elsewhere.

Stockholm (Rodrigo Sorogoyen, 2013)

About halfway through Rodrigo Sorogoyen's thoughtful, carefully-worked second feature, Stockholm, what at first looks like a dialogue-heavy standard teen romance becomes something far more chilling and interesting. Essentially a low-budget, theatrical-looking two-hander about what the word “love” means now, the film is potently stripped-back on all levels, and although its second act is far stronger than its first, and though rising Spanish actress Aura Garrido tends to outperform her opposite number, it remains both stylish and unsettling. Stockholm has been designed with smart teens and early 20-somethings in mind, and has achieved minor cult status in Spain, suggesting that further fest invitations seem likely.