Gabriel Orozco at Tate Modern

Gabriel Orozco, DS, 1993

Ripples of complexity pervade this exhibition. Several works reflect Orozco’s preoccupation with geometric forms. Diagrammatic shapes drawn over newspapers; toothpaste spat onto graph-paper to resemble molecular cell structures. A key work is Black Kites, a human skull painstakingly inscribed with a checkerboard design, suggesting a triumph of skill and reason over a symbol of death.

Caribou at Plastic People. 29/01/11

Good old Caribou. Dan Snaith. The nerdy musician who likes maths. His latest work, Swim, was the best album of 2010. (Or the 7^th if you read the Guardian… 17^th if you read Pitchfork.) In fact I’m listening to it on my iPod now, which is a little keen as I’m waiting in a queue to see him perform. I’m outside a venue in Shoreditch, the area that was cool in the early-noughties. Like Camden a decade earlier. When Blur was around. I wait for just under 2 hours sipping John Smiths on the sly. This is Plastic People’s new management. They search through every single wallet.

James Blake - James Blake (Album)

James Blake cannot be accused of lacking ideas. In less than a year he has produced a range and variety of music that could have emerged from an entire career. Back in May, his EP CMYK wove R&B samples into powerful new statements, suggesting an alternative path for the future of dubstep. In his next EP, Klavierwerk, Blake adapted his complex musical production to an unexpected source: his own voice. If the vocal element here was a revelation, his sheer vocal talent was the next surprise, which came in a pared-down cover of Feist’s ‘Limit To Your Love.’ By the release of this single, Blake had confounded the possibility of being pigeonholed. His style was ever-changing, unpredictable and continually exciting.

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz

4/5

This album manages at once to be grandiose and beautifully small. Bombastic tracks like 'Get Real Get Right' sit alongside understated and melodic tracks like 'Vesuvius' (which presents Stevens's voice against his twitching and restless production.) The best tracks combine these elements - 'Impossible Soul', a glorious 25 minute finale, dips in and out of different modes and is almost operatic in its scope and scale. Ultimately, the album is a little overburdened by ponderous tracks like 'Now That I'm Older' and 'Bad Communication' which certainly slow things down, but the best bits ('Get Real Get Right' and 'I Want To Be Well'), complete with Stevens's characteristic wind-instruments keep up the pace.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

2/5
















I'm not sure about Wes Anderson. I find the enforced 'quirkiness' in his movies too calculated and deliberate. Every minor detail exists to congratulate itself and for self-congratulating Anderson-fans to congratulate themselves. Nevertheless, I approached the Life Aquatic with an open mind and in many ways found myself rewarded. It feels like Anderson's most cinematic film to date and touches on themes that - at points - seem genuinely profound.

Midway through the film, Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) confronts his newly discovered father saying, 'You don't know me, you don't want to know me... I'm just a character in your stupid film.' This is a though-provoking moment which points directly to Zizzou's own personal shortcomings. For Zizzou, life is not about authentic moments (the death of a friend, the reunion with a son), but how those moments can be captured and translated into film. The presence of an editing facility on his boat means that his reality is continually tinkered with. Giving detailed instructions to sound and video editors, Zizzou scrupulously converts events into narrative. This leads Zizzou into a kind of unreality: obsessing over the minutiae of recording of events, events lose any meaning.

As well as personal failures, his approach simultaneously leads to creative decay. When the reporter, Jane Winslett-Richardson (Cate Blanchett) suggests that Zizzou's recent work is slightly fake, he pulls out a gun. Nevertheless, this issue of authenticity versus filmed reality is no more than a conceit - Ned and his father's ultimate reconciliation is not convincingly played out, nor is the moment of Zizzou's artistic epiphany that eventually earns him critical acclaim. I suspect it's because Anderson sympathises with Zizzou as a film-maker. Anderson, like Zizzou, is obsessed with the potential of editing (as when the sound cuts out to show the death of an insect) - emotional content usually serves as narrative padding. For me, Anderson is ultimately too partial to self-congratulating references, like a mother reading Proust to her unborn child.