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.

New Radiohead album! - The King of Limbs

So the week started with the devastatingly exciting news that Radiohead are releasing a new album. Not much is known about it, but it's being released this weekend (19/02/11). As you might expect its going out in an unusual way, as the world's first Newspaper Album. This is what it looks like:


Have a look at this soundcloud for a selection of as-yet unreleased tracks that one fan thinks might make it onto the album.

*UPDATE 19/02/11*

The full album is now available to listen to here

New Events

Two new exciting events added here

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.

Philippe Parreno at the Serpentine

In the final weeks of this brilliant show, I went again to the Serpentine Gallery and asked myself: is this a new era of exhibitions?

Entering the gallery I am hit by a sense of bewilderment. There is nothing happening. The house lights are on and all I can hear is music from another room. A gallery assistant asks me if I need help – I decline, enjoying the confusion. She tells me that dog-walkers in Hyde Park often confuse the Serpentine for a public toilet. I smile politely and go in search of the sounds.

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.

Three Thousand - These New Puritans

Amazing track from These New Puritans new album, Hidden. Full album review on the way... 

Caribou - Jamelia

Brilliant track from Caribou's last album, Swim. Caribou will be playing at the Shepherd's Bush Empire on 22nd February (details here).

Café M

This is a photo I took of some Tea and Nachos in a cafe in Berlin.

Nameplate

This is a 'facebook' nameplate. A sequence of profile pictures collectively describe a person.

A Book Label

This is a design for a book label. Set in Big Caslon

Internet Art

By Oscar O'Sullivan

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.