• The Flaming Lips – Oczy Mlody

    January 18, 2017 - By 

    In a typically out-there press release for Oczy Mlody, Wayne Coyne evokes “A future where OczyMlody is the current cool powerful party drug of choice and sleeping is the ultimate cure for everything” – a scenario that takes place inside a hedonistic gated community where people opt out of reality into a fantasy world. Coyne’s conceptualisation of the fourteenth Flaming Lips album proper is incredibly close to that of The Who’s aborted Lifehouse project (that ultimately became the 1971 Who’s Next album), set in a futuristic world where society is hooked up to The Grid via “experience suits” and programmed…

  • Jackie

    January 18, 2017 - By 

    Translating the life of a famous figure to film is notoriously hard to pull off. For every biopic like Capote there’s an Iron Lady; for every Milk, The Doors. Even without the prospect of a leather-clad Val Kilmer to sink a film’s prospects, biopics can all too readily fall foul of audiences: the shopworn rags-to-riches (or maybe rags-to-riches-to-drugs) tropes of the likes of Walk the Line have been ferociously mocked in parodies such as Walk Hard. Kudos to director Pablo Larraín, then, for attempting two biopics in two years. From Larraín, who directed last year’s much admired biopic Neruda (dealing…

  • Glen Hansard @ Seamus Heaney HomePlace, Bellaghy

    January 17, 2017 - By 

    “Imagining a hero On some muddy compound, His gift like a slingstone Whirled for the desperate.” Seamus Heaney – Exposure Having spent the last while in the eye of the Apollo House maelstrom and the ensuing bureaucracy that continues to surround it, the unassuming presence of Glen Hansard in Seamus Heaney HomePlace this evening is – before he even plays a note – testament to the character of a man and artist who doesn’t perceive a hierarchy between musician and listener; celebrity and fan; government and citizen. In much the same way one of his most potent influences in Heaney never entertained the…

  • La La Land

    January 17, 2017 - By 

    After assaulting our senses with 2014’s furiously frenetic Whiplash, Damien Chazelle sets his sights on our hearts in his new film, the romantic musical, La La Land. It seems the young director’s ambitions know no bounds as he transports audiences back to the era of Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in this throwback to Hollywood’s golden age. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star as Sebastian, a talented, but temperamental pianist who dreams of owning his own jazz club, and Mia, an aspiring actress stuck on the never-ending audition carousel in LA. When this pair of down at heel…

  • Manchester By The Sea

    January 17, 2017 - By 

    Kenneth Lonergan makes films about the things that don’t go away. In 2000’s You Can Count On Me, the sudden orphaning of young siblings helps fashion an unsolvable divide between the two in adult life, while in Margaret, which lingered undistributed for years while director and studio fought over the final cut, witnessing a fatal accident sends Anna Paquin’s carefree teenage life spiralling in new, frustrating directions. His third feature as writer-director, Manchester by the Sea, part of Amazon Studios’ effort to chase indie respectability, is Lonergan’s most refined work yet, a restrained but movingly complex portrait of tragedy’s never-ending…

  • Joan of Arc – He’s Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands

    January 16, 2017 - By 

    On their latest LP, He’s Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands, Joan of Arc have rather kindly telegraphed the initial reactions of those unfamiliar with the group in the opening lyrics: “What the fuuuuuuuuuuck?”. That line is immediately followed by sampled, compressed drums smashing in completely out of left field while random electronic bleeps float around the mix and vocals offer up curious anatomy lessons. This is just the first thirty seconds. Let’s rollback a tad and give some extra context. When emo legends Cap’n Jazz split, brothers Tim and Mike Kinsella formed Joan of…

  • Exploding Eyes – Exploding Eyes

    January 16, 2017 - By 

    With an eye cast to longer days, warmer weather, and the promise of a new year, the self-titled debut LP from Dublin’s gritty blues- rock trio Exploding Eyes greets you with a welcoming invitation to something a little less serious and a lot more fun. The album is scattered with callbacks to some of the more classic and legendary rock outfits from the golden age of blues pop culture, such as Cream, Janis Joplin, and even some Lynyrd Skynyrd in some of their softer tracks. Opening up the album in stellar form is the single ‘We Need Love’ – a track…

  • Live By Night

    January 15, 2017 - By 

    Ben Affleck wants you to take him seriously. He’s sorry about the whole Gigli thing. He’s sorry about Daredevil. He’s done his penance and channelled his humiliation into a professional second act, growing a prestige beard and directing safe but highly competent book treatments. They even gave him an Oscar for one of them! When a film journo presented him with Batman v Superman‘s damning reviews and the internet glimpsed the emptiness behind the eyes, the implicit logic was that he was supposed to be above this shit. But even reliably workmanlike directors can make mistakes. Dennis Lehane’s writing has provided several film-makers…

  • Silence

    January 14, 2017 - By 

    Martin Scorsese has to be commended for taking on the adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s 1966 book of the same name, as Silence requires a deep understanding of Japan, its history and its people. And while what he achieves is impressive with the overall outlook and feel of the film, I have to admit that I felt there was problems with the representation of the Japanese Christians for the first half, along with some of the more grim scenes of violence and torture later on. If you are familiar with some of the many classic Japanese films of this era like Rashomon…

  • Half Japanese – Hear The Lions Roar

    January 13, 2017 - By 

    You know when you’re at a party, enjoying a group conversation and a member of your gaggle makes a private joke, the meaning behind you’re not privy to? It creates this terribly awkward and uncomfortable feeling as you’re left wondering what is so funny. From context and reaction, you can infer that something enjoyable, or at the very least interesting has occurred, but you’re completely at a loss as to what that is or what it even could be. Half Japanese is the musical equivalent of that sensation. Within their repertoire, you can hear the stylistic hints from the likes…