To put Maurice Pialat’s 1980 masterpiece Loulou into words is a deceptively challenging task. The premise seems simple: restless Parisian woman Nelly (Isabelle Huppert) is trapped in a dull but financially stable relationship with her boss, the volatile and insecure Andre (Guy Marchand), and…
Every time I come back to Pinkerton, I feel the same hesitancy just before hitting play. Have I finally outgrown this record? Will the second-hand embarrassment of hearing Rivers Cuomo croon “smell you on my hand for days / can’t wash your scent away”…
Few, if any, artists in the history of modern popular music experienced a creative eruption as rich as did Miles Davis did in the years leading up to his temporary retirement in 1975. Already the biggest name in jazz and the progenitor of numerous…
Once seen as a tragic fall from grace, today it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to hear someone sing the praises of the movies Francis Ford Coppola made in the 1980s. Starting with One From The Heart in ’81, the maverick director…
Orcutt and Corsano provide an example of what improvisational albums should sound like, even with the production constraints of a pandemic-driven world. One of the most significant challenges in group improvisation is finding the right balance between the individual and the collective. A “free”…
screen time may be considered only a side project for Thurston Moore, but its cinematic and emotional touchstones make the album an important work in the former Sonic Youth frontman’s solo catalog. Uploaded to Bandcamp with practically zero fanfare early in February, screen time is…
2020 proves that Magik Markers are still able to excite nearly two decades into their career. As young upstarts on the American noise scene of the early aughts, Magik Markers first made a name for themselves thanks to their raucous live shows and the dozens…
Simply reading about Horse Lords could never do their music justice. Given their unusual tuning systems, 20th-century classical reference points, and their band members’ assorted avant-garde credentials, it would be easy to assume that access to the Baltimore-based group is closed off to all…
All the Time is both a breezy bit of oddball dance-pop and a rich record that benefits from deeper listening. While Hamilton, Ontario may not seem like the most fertile ground for cultivating an interest in dance music, the city is actually home to a rather…
Protomartyr’s main draw has always been frontman Joe Casey. With all due respect to Greg Ahee’s wonderfully oblique guitarwork, Casey’s gruff sneer and erudite lyrics are what really set the Detroit post-punk band apart from their contemporaries. He kicks off their latest record, Ultimate…
