CONCERT REVIEW Mehldau tells the story of pop
Acclaimed jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, on his penultimate U.S. tour date before heading to Europe, treated Sanders Theater to a solo performance last Friday. The venue’s Steinway filled the space, highlighting notes in the upper registers and allowing lower notes to reverberate appropriately. Mehldau entered minutes after 8 p.m. wearing a brown suit, and promptly began after switching the piano bench onstage with one he’d found backstage. “There was another gig before me,” he informed the audience, eliciting laughs and foreshadowing what would be an intimate night.
ALBUM REVIEW The Columbia crew goes to Cali
<i>Vampire Weekend</i>’s debut album in 2008 surfed the crest of the collegiate retro-pop wave (with the likes of <i>Chester French</i>, <i>This is Ivy League</i>). As everyone in the industry knows, a band’s image is as important as music. Although there have been many great musicians, those lacking a visual concept often find themselves eclipsed in popularity by bands with less talent but better taste in sneakers.
DOUBLE SOY LATTE, PLEASE! I’d rather be studying on Newbury Street
<i>If the Student Center has become your all-in-one dining hall, study room, and bedroom, allow me to suggest a simple lifestyle change. Coffee shops and cafés are no longer havens for artsy Mac users with thick-rimmed glasses who work from home. Toting my clunky Dell, visually aided by my contact lenses and armed with full-time student status, I’ll be writing about Boston-area cafés near MIT so that you’ll finally be able to get that Reading Room stench out of your clothes. </i>
ALBUM REVIEW An impressive step backwards
I was a little apprehensive when I first listened to Spoon<i> </i>s new album, <i>Transference</i> — there was just something unexpected about it. I’d identified the indie rock band’s sound to be defined by the cadenced drum beats, crisp piano/guitar pulses, and overall pathological catchiness à la “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” and “Don’t You Evah” from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007). Where was the hook that first drew me into the band?
MUSICAL REVIEW Little Shop, big laughs, bigger plants
The MIT Musical Theatre Guild premiered their IAP show, Little Shop of Horrors, last weekend. Little Shop is a comedy that is unafraid to be over-the-top, with such characters as the tragically low-aiming Audrey (Rachel Williams ’12) and Orin Scrivello (Matthew Cohen ’10), a sadistic biker-dentist who, if you asked him, might very well give “D.D.S.” as his last name.
ALBUM REVIEW Smooth grooves from across the ocean Atakoglu’s new jazz fusion album takes you across continents
Of all the albums I’ve heard this year, Fahir Atakoglu’s Faces and Places certainly ranks as one of the most exciting. Not only is it special for carrying several international styles into the mainstream jazz market (Atakoglu was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and uses artists from Cuba, Brazil and New York in his ensemble), but as a standalone work it is a powerful addition to the jazz fusion library. Rather than passively creating an album that fuses several cultural voices together, Faces is a very blunt, intentional attempt at multiculturalism — its title and piece choices take geography as inspiration. Despite the diverse nature of the compositions, the album seamlessly weaves styles and moods, lending a greater sense of continuity; this is a cross-continental road trip, not your neighbor’s vacation slide show.
Robert Downey Jr. blows everyone else away, still can’t save this film ★★★✩✩
Watching Sherlock Holmes is a bit like going to the circus: loud noises, moving objects and bright colors — but no substance. Although fairly entertaining, Holmes relies too heavily on Robert Downey Jr., who singlehandedly elevates the film above mediocrity as if he were LeBron and Holmes the 2009 Cleveland Cavaliers. Holmes follows the hero (Robert Downey Jr.) and his sarcastic sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) as they tackle a conspiracy to bring down the British government.
A fresh sound made for all people
“A stick, a stone/it’s the end of the road/ it’s the rest of a stump/it’s a little alone” Luciana Souza sings, choosing English over her native Portuguese. It’s also the birth language of Antonio Carlos Jobim, the quintessential Brazilian composer and the artist behind the song itself.
Sherlock Holmes reinvented: shorter, darker and a lot feistier ★★★★✩
This is Holmes as you have never seen him. Director Guy Ritchie took Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebated detective (Robert Downey Jr.) and warped him so much he very well could have been a brand new character. Nevertheless, Sherlock Holmes the movie is a brilliant production that will take you on a dark captivating adventure, with lots of relentless action, veiled mysteries and satisfying surprises.
2009 in Music
<b>Animal Collective</b> <i>Merriweather Post Pavilion</i> — Dropped in January, fans everywhere were calling <i>MPP</i> the “album of the year” as early as March. Despite the band losing its lead guitarist in 2008, <i>MPP</i> is structured similarly to previous Animal Collective albums only more so, displaying beautiful, elaborate-yet-repetitive melodies that enable listeners to either sit quietly and listen, or crank the volume and dance. This album provided two of my “most played” songs of 2009, including “Summertime Clothes” and “Brothersport.” <i>—MLF</i>
The Year in Arts: Taking Our Minds Off the Recession
The year 2009 was one of recuperation and recovery. The country was climbing its way out of economic recession but the crawl was slow and unsteady. The year was marked by several momentous events that showed promise of a brighter 2010 — the inaugaration of Barack Obama, the Dow closing above 10,000 points in October, and finally the markets closing on a good note in December. The S&P500 was up by 24.71 percent for the year and a 2.2 percent GDP growth in the third quarter. Despite all these signs of recovery, 2009’s entertainment scene was split between escaping reality and making the best of it.
SWIFT NATION
Only four years prior to his election as President of the United States in 2008, Barack Obama was a lowly state senator from Illinois. But stand back, Mr. President, because that’s nothing. From 2006 to 2008, American country-pop singer/songwriter/actress Taylor Swift catapulted from local-country gigs in Nashville to fielding two top-selling albums, <i>Taylor Swift</i> in ’06 and <i>Fearless</i> in ’08. Riding on their intense popularity, <i>Fearless</i>’s “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” were made into music videos, both ranking among the most successful of 2009 (yes, Kanye, even better than Beyoncé’s). Also last year, Swift fell into and out of love with Taylor Lautner, star of Twilight’s <i>New Moon</i>. But the Swift engine shows no signs of slowing down — her recent single, “Today Was a Fairytale,” topped the iTunes chart the day after release and Taylor’s silver-screen debut in <i>Valentine’s Day</i> is slated for February 12, 2010.
EXHIBIT REVIEW A Contemporary Outlook On the Role of Music
Music pervades our lives, but is it more than just an accessory? How do you know that it is anything more than a presence in your pocket, barrier to unwanted noise, or to make up for the expanse of empty wall space? The “Seeing Songs” exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts delves into the role of music as an integral part of our lives.
CONCERT REVIEW All Covers, All the Time
Sunday night at Somerville Theatre saw an eclectic pairing of the young Clare and the Reasons with the more experienced bossa-jukebox of Nouvelle Vague. In support of their second album <i>Arrow</i>, Clare Manchon, her co-collaborator husband Olivier Manchon and multi-instrumentalist Bob Hart opened the night with a set of mellow numbers. With Ms. Manchon’s voice the primary foundation for most songs, the backing “Reasons” shuffled between xylophones, violin, makeshift drumkits, keyboards, and even a bowed saw to fill in the gaps. Melodies, such as the chorus for “Ooh You Hurt Me So,” are easy to grasp, albeit due to its repetitive nature. While the songs were simplistic, Ms. Manchon’s lyrics are readily candid and conversational. She even sings a few songs in French, her husbands native language. The last three songs comprised what Ms. Manchon dubbed the “scientific portion of the spectacular,” a closing set which kicked off with the tongue-in-cheek “Pluto.” The song begins in French, addressing the late planet and its recent reconsideration-of-planethood as reported by the <i>New York Times</i>. The verse is then repeated, in English, fully clarifying the message of the song for the majority of the audience.
INTERVIEW Many Reasons to Love Boston
Clare Manchon, lead vocalist and songwriter of Clare and The Reasons, answered a few of <i>The Tech</i>’s questions after supporting Nouvelle Vague at Somerville Theatre on Sunday.
CD REVIEW Kid Cudi Represents New Wave of Hip Hop
I’m a big fan of hip hop. I mean real hip hop, not the buckets of factory-produced horse vomit that passes off as mainstream radio these days. In particular, the next time I hear Jason Derulo say his own name, I will strongly consider seceding from the U.S. But give me a good hip hop album, be it afrocentric, alternative, fusion, gangsta, or political, and I’ll be a happy camper for weeks. Good rappers like Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Nas, and Lupe speak from the soul, and it’s always a treat to peer introspectively into their minds. But part of the pleasure comes from the fact that I’ve got almost nothing in common with the artist. I never grew up in the projects. I don’t know what it’s like to have a gun by my side at all times, and I’ve never gone hungry from lack of money. So what can I expect in an album by a middle-class, suburban hipster from Cleveland, Ohio?
MOVIE REVIEW ★★ ½ Originality is Key to New Gilliam Film
There’s been a fair amount of hype over the new Terry Gilliam film, “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.” Gilliam, a member of the classic Monty Python comedy troupe, is best known for his directorial pursuits of visionary plots and imaginative sequences. Early trailers promised such a classic Gilliam-style production, while Heath Ledger’s tragic passing generated significant buzz for the movie. And though the highly-anticipated film has its flaws, it presents a starkly original storyline coupled with some powerful performances.