On Caetano Veloso’s album Abracaco, feisty as its title is the song “A Bossa Nova E Foda (A Bossa Nova is the Fucking Shit),” with lyrics that are fragmented, ranging over time and space, mentioning jazz, an exercise bike, a stew, a Jewish bard of Minnesota, Rio de Janeiro, the sea, sound waves; and Caetano Veloso’s singing of it ranges from rough chants to whispers.
A review of M Train by Patti Smith
Smith would have us believe that
An interview with Billie Bond
The author of And Then There Was One: A Memoir of My Survival of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Physical Abuse and Mental Illness talks about her new book, about her inspirations, the messages in her book, favourite authors, about the programs she works for, on how it feels to be published, advice for people grappling with similar issues, and lots more.
An interview with Julie Barton
The author of Dog Medicine talks about her book, the writing process, on examining her life, the novel she wrote before Dog Medicine, on writing as therapy, on her dog Bunker and how he saved her, on writing about pain, her other pets, her work-in-progress, and lots more.
Fundamental Facts as Foundation in Music: Dom Flemons, Classic African-American Songsters, and Keb Mo
Folk culture is the culture of ordinary people, often in difficult circumstances. It is culture for everyday use—the way work is done and knowledge is shared and meals are cooked and music is made. The songs emerge from work and play, often in commemoration of fundamental events and relationships—birth, childhood, friendship, rivalry, romance, school, marriage, illness, and death.
A review of A Regicide by Alain Robbe-Grillet
For a novel written in 1947, half-heartedly revised in 1957 and finally published in France in 1978, A Regicide is a disconcertingly contemporary read. Moreover, it is possible to place your finger on exactly why this is so: Robbe-Grillet’s frequent descriptions of nature, of plants and insects and coastline, as fragile and precarious: that’s what strikes home. The island kingdom where an assassination (imagined? actual?) is played out is battened by tempests, beset by drought. Seasons are awry.
Country and Classical: Tomorrow Is My Turn by Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens’s album Tomorrow Is My Turn is a wonderful collection, and very, very impressive, featuring the songs “She’s Got You” and “Up Above My Head” and “Black Is the Color.” Rhiannon Giddens is an artist who brings a vibrant sense of moment and tradition. It is rare for a singer to be engaged by both classical and folk music but that is the sensibility of Rhiannon Giddens. She is a marvel.
A review of The Gestapo by Frank McDonough
In popular imagination, in films and on TV, the Gestapo are generally portrayed as brutal and sadistic thugs. While this is not entirely false – ‘enhanced interrogations’, to use the euphemism, did occur in certain instances – it is misleading when we look at how the Gestapo operated in Germany (the Altreich) itself.
Humor, Intelligence, Passion: Sermon on the Rocks by Josh Ritter
On Sermon on the Rocks, a remarkably fun and satisfying album, Josh Ritter creates an airy atmosphere—beautifully mysterious and sensuous—for “Seeing Me Round.” The sound throughout the album is clear, vibrant, particularly in “Seeing Me Round” and “Where the Night Goes,” about the possibility of romance, in which voice and instrumentation are precisely delineated and warm.
A review of La Di Da Di by Battles
Battles hasn’t been the same without Tyondai Braxton. As much is obvious when you listen to Tyondai’s 2009 Central Market, a haunting homage to Stravinsky’s Ballet Petrushka and the 2008 market crash, beside Battles’ 2011 album, a year after he left, Gloss Drop. Their first album, Mirrored, showed quirkiness that demanded serious attention. More Aubrey Plaza than Zooey Deschanel. Now Battles returns with La Di Da Di, an album as benign as its name, hovering between considerable monotony and death throes.