November
27
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Articles at the Essential
Pop over to The Essential and check out what they’ve got going on.
I’ve got some recently published articles there:
Feature Article: Emotional Resonance
The Essential asked me to write a piece about the emotional connection we have to one particular song or album and why we feel that way, and I chose Mazzy Star’s song Disappear, from the album Among My Swan, which was critical music as I took the journey away from God and religion into the (semi)autonomous world of post-christian atheism. You can read about how that was for me here…
My Mistress
There is a tentative marrying of French-themed chic BDSM and uniquely Australian creepy suburban angst (think Snowtown) that My Mistress hints at but never quite pulls off. It imbues the film with a sense of a missed opportunity and the strange idea that a larger, more interesting film sits just slightly off camera. Read more here…
Dust – I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
Completely disinterested in buzz words like “momentum” and “content is king”, noir-ish indie band I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness have been sitting on their sound for the last eight years since the release of Fear Is On Our Side. Read more here…
Hieroglyphic Being – The Seer of Cosmic Visions
Jamal Moss and his multiple monikers – Hieroglyphic Being, I.B.M., IAMTHATIAM, The Sun God – is the brains behind the record label Mathematics, self-described as being centered on such concepts as quantity, music, structure, space and change and the academic discipline that studies them. Perhaps it is this study that keeps Moss’ focus squared solely on his product, releasing him from the material trappings that can accommodate the critically “safe” world of house music and allow him to form a bridge, or at least the start of one, between tandem worlds of dance music and the experimental electronic that takes dance music culture as its primary inspiration. Read more here…
Stars – No one is Lost
No matter how you feel about their music, Stars is a group that have always known exactly what they’re doing, even if that understanding is defined by the dual pillars of what they are not – not “cool”, not buying into “rock star” – and what they are: “stars equals an engulfing universe as well as spurious celebrity”. Read more here…
Good assessment of new Stars album! The band have indeed created an album with plenty of variety. For my top 100 songs of 2014 I’m highlighting the touching ballad What Is To Be Done? , which can bring a tear to your eye. Trap Door could have been sung by Morrissey. The single From The Night has a memorable chorus.
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Hey Chris! I agree with what you’ve said here – its an album that i have gone back to a lot since it first came out, and I agree with all your points, especially the Morrissey one. It’s a really nice little album.
thanks for stopping by.
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Will you be doing year-end lists for music and/or film? It can be tricky if you haven’t heard/seen everything you wanted to yet. This year I managed to keep up pretty well on both accounts, though there are still a few new films out in dec and jan to see.
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The Essential want me to do a list for experimental / alternative music 2014, and for the first time I’ve agreed to do that, but generally I hate lists and don’t touch them at all. Instead I might devote December to music and plays and films I missed in 2014 that I really want to write about – things I’ve seen/heard and not seen and heard. I might do a piece looking at the year in film and theatre, and music I thought was really good.
Are you going to write end of year look backs?
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I’ve already started 🙂 Ranking my favorites seems pretty ridiculous tho as it keeps changing. Look forward to what you have in store for us!
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