WHEN A MOVIE becomes a mass culture phenomenon, like Barbie, any negative criticism of it runs the risk of coming off hysterical. Any meanness toward it becomes the mirror version of the reactions of fans who see the movie in the theater again and again, who cry during certain scenes each time, and who tell the world about it on social media with a great sense of pride and purpose, or even with a certain amount of shock about its power over them.
I recently completed the road trip of a lifetime. I struck out from Napanee, Ontario, to Los Angeles, California – a 2,800-mile trip that I had been planning since before Covid times. I wanted to take this time to think deeply about our overreliance on cars and our love affair with the open road.
In 1775, a Swiss watchmaker named Pierre Jaquet-Droz visited King Louis VI and Queen Marie Antoinette, in Versailles, to show off his latest creation: a “living doll” called the Musician. She was dressed in a stiff rococo ball gown and seated at an organ...
In 2017, I was trying to write How to Be an Antiracist. Words came onto the page slower than ever. On some days, no words came at all. Clearly, I was in crisis. I don’t believe in writer’s block. When words aren’t flowing onto the page, I know why: I haven’t researched enough, organized the material enough, thought enough to exhume clarity, meticulously outlined my thoughts enough. I haven’t prepared myself to write.
This week, the article that really jumped out at me was from the New York Times, titled "Americans Head to Europe for the Good Life on the Cheap". The title is obviously a bit cheeky and sensationalist, implying that Americans are flocking to Europe solely to live well for less money, however, the article touches on a broader scope of focus, including digital nomads, the appeal of a European lifestyle, and how countries like Spain, Greece and Portugal have courted foreigners and corporations, hoping to bolster their own economies. The article also raises some important points about how foreign investment into real estate can disrupt local communities inflating housing costs and upsetting local residents.
In the 1980s, Japanese ambient music emerged as a unique genre that combined traditional Japanese sounds with electronic music. This movement was primarily inspired by Brian Eno’s groundbreaking album “Music for Airports”, which had a profound impact on Japan’s burgeoning minimalist music scene.
Shygirl’s “Alias” is less than twenty minutes long, yet it’s weighty with the jolting hyperpop and club music that the London electronic artist has been making for the past few years. Each song is meant to show off a different side of her personality, a tactic that frees her up to play with a frenzied palette of sounds: “SLIME,” co-produced by the like-minded Scottish experimentalist ...
With performances racked up beside Grimes, The xx and Battles, GIUNGLA’s (aka Ema Drei) propulsive modus operandi sports an all-encompassing gloss. It’s bolstered on her recent singles by the production acumen of Luke Smith, known for his work with Foals and Depeche Mode, amongst others.
Oneohtrix Point Never, a.k.a. Daniel Lopatin, has released a fantastical new video for “Long Road Home.” The single appears on his upcoming album Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, out October 30th via Warp.
Co-directed by Charlie Fox and Emily Schubert, the clip features a courtship between two demonic creatures who become one in the end — an homage to Georges Schwizgebel‘s 1982 short Le Ravissement de Frank N. Stein.
When she’s not busy writing songs for the biggest stars in pop, Julia Michaels sometimes releases music of her own. Her work has been impressing us for a while now, and today’s new single “Lie Like This” is especially appealing.
Tipped as “one to watch” by NME, Mixmag, Billboard, DJ Mag and BBC R1’s Pete Tong, TSHA is a London based producer who is quickly emerging as one of the most exciting young artists around. Her forthcoming EP “Flowers”, without doubt her most ambitious and accomplished body of work so far, will be released on Ninja Tune on Friday 13th November.
The nostalgia at the heart of ‘Summer Of Now’, the final track from James Blake’s new EP, is something that we all seem to be yearning for of late. The track’s narrator repeatedly references the summer of 2015, in this context a happier, almost rose-tinted time, comparing themselves unfavourably as “the summer of now”.
Porches’ Aaron Maine released a new album, Ricky Music, at the beginning of the year right as lockdown started. This summer, he’s remixed Girlpool and helped out his bud Dev Hynes to remix Tame Impala, and today he’s back with a new song of his own, “I Miss That.”
Released October 2, 2020. We are pumped about this FULL LENGTH album from the dance-beat maestro of fun The Polish Ambassador! Put on your yellow onesie space suit, folks, and comfy shoes (or none at all) and let’s get groovin. Try out the first track and we’re going to venture to say you might get hooked. This one’s called “Time’s Running In” and is fully bodied at 12 tracks.
Some moments on Slowthai‘s incendiary 2019 debut ‘Nothing Great About Britain’ saw the Northampton rapper take a much-needed breather from being the album’s in-yer-face master of ceremonies. Both the chopped-up sample-heavy ‘Gorgeous’ and ‘Original Pirate Material’-style ‘Toaster’ saw Slowthai reflect on the ups and downs of his tough upbringing, back when “responsibility [was] another chapter“.
