Reviews

The Lion King: Film

The Lion King

Director: Jon Favreau

Walt Disney Pictures/Fairview Entertainment

This version of The Lion King is so technically dazzling, so bereft of heart, so wide-missing of any emotional mark, so utterly digital and soulless that even though I knew Jon Favreau was the director going in I was still stunned to not see Peter Jackson’s name somewhere near the top of the credits. It’s overly long, and the production sheen of such remarkable innovation sweeping itself like a magic wand all over and across any semblance of good old-fashioned storytelling – a video-game’s cold pixel-world where once there was the warmth of a classic Shakespearian tale – well…all hallmarks of Sir Peter-of-Wellywood… Read More »

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July 18, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

RNZ Reviews: July 2019

Once a month or so I have a chat on RNZ on their Afternoons show with Jesse Mulligan. These things start – randomly and stop in much the same way. I hope to keep doing this. For a while at least. I think I started in December of 2015, so now four years into it or so…

I’ve been doing more features this year so haven’t been in every month to do reviews but I was back recently to talk about a couple of great new albums and play a track from each.

I played a track and talked about Theon Cross’ Fyah and Faye Webster’s Atlanta Millionaires Club.

You can hear the chat and songs here.

I also wrote about Theon Cross’ album here and Faye Webster’s album here.

So you can click there to read those reviews.

Click here to check out the previous reviews.
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July 17, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Mark Mulcahy: The Gus

Mark Mulcahy

The Gus

The Mezzotint Label/Mark Mulcahy

Across the last decade it’s been a time of personal tumult and musical magic for Mark Mulcahy. The death of his wife (in 2008) has meant that any and all musical releases are instantly read as a form of public grieving.

There was the brilliant pick-yourself-back-up Dear Mark J. Mulcahy, I Love You – which sounds like the finest Posies/Westerburg/Marshall Crenshaw collab you could imagine (and what power-pop fan isn’t always imagining that?). Then, in and around another solo album Mulcahy re-formed both of his cult-bands, Polaris and Miracle Legion. Legion counts amongst its hardcore fans both Michael Stipe and Thom Yorke. Mulcahy songs are so well written they stay there. Like Joe Jackson songs. Nick Hornby writes essays about them. They are often the distinctly American versions of the sorts of songs Kevin Rowland inhabits. Read More »

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July 8, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Theatre: The Aliens

The Aliens

Direction: Cassandra Tse (written by Annie Baker)

Te Whaea Basement Theatre (July 4 – 13)

An Annie Baker play changed my life – and I’ve yet to see a production of it…you see, I was so blown away by hearing her interviewed, reading about her, seeing the works available that I took a chance on the script for The Flick. Read it in a single sitting and returned to it the next day. It was the keenest set of observations. It was bleak and beautiful all at once. A celebration of the beautiful losers I’ve been drawn to in the works of many great songwriters, visual artists and writers across theatre, short-stories, poetry and novels.

The Aliens (produced by Red Scare Theatre Company) and performed at Te Whaea’s Basement Theatre (July 4-13) is, to my knowledge, the first professional presentation of Baker’s work in New Zealand. Let’s hope we see more as a result of this fine effort.

Written in 2010 The Aliens takes its name from one of the bands that KJ (Jack Sergent-Shadbolt) and Jasper (Jonny Potts) spontaneously created. They’re two 30-year-old dropouts with big dreams inside their small lives; they know Bukowski and music and they care about art above all. They spend their days out back of a cafe in the staff area. They’re not mean to be there but the new kid Evan (Dryw McArthur) doesn’t have any power over them. He just wants to keep his head down and do a good job clearing tables and putting the rubbish out the back – until its time for him to return to his studies.

KJ and Jasper have a stranger power over Evan though – almost instantly. He’s mesmerised by their knowledge – and by their shoe-scuffing life-knowledge.

This is a Mountain Goats song come to life, it’s Richard Linklater’s best work without the desperate cling of a hip soundtrack.

It’s writing so profound – so perfect – that to just deliver it would almost be enough. But director Cassandra Tse and the talented cast know that the real magic is in the spacing and phrasing; the placing of the words and the pacing of the lines. For as we find out more about each character we see and then feel levels of vulnerability.

The humanity in and of this play all but bursts from the stage. It’s the finest kind of heartbreak.

And it’s a must-see piece of local theatre. Truly a brilliant amalgam of the write cast and crew putting a genius-level script in to place. It’s a 21st Century Waiting For Godot – a play about nothing, and therefore everything; a play about the magic that resides deep within inertia; the story of multiple unlikely – crucial – friendships, a mirror held up to the struggle of just getting by. Beautifully created on the local stage, so perfectly realised. It stays with you for days after.
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July 4, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

V/A: Vox Lux [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Various Artists:

Vox Lux [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Three Six Zero Recordings/Columbia Records

Straight up, I’ll tell you that I fucking loved this movie! And I would have been prepared to love the soundtrack just for the Scott Walker score. And when I say that I mean just for exisiting – I was on board with the idea before hearing it, or seeing the film. I’m glad I got to the film first and then took in the soundtrack as its own thing after. This is a case of a soundtrack really only working if you’ve seen the film, for the score – and most definitely the songs – are characters in the film. Read More »

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July 3, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Jon Ronson: The Last Days of August

Jon Ronson

The Last Days of August

Audible Originals

Of the many forms Ronson has arguably mastered (columns and book-length essays, TV and radio documentaries) it seems his great strength, now, is in the narrative investigative podcast. Working with Audible to serve them up as seven-episode podcasts that double as, essentially, an audiobook (they can be devoured in a sitting or two) Ronson’s latest, The Last Days of August builds on links from his last two projects.

His first foray into Audible podcasting was The Butterfly Effect – a look at the porn industry, and how if pornography is, for the most part, “free” then what is the cost. And who is paying? From interviewing kink-goers and givers through industry stalwarts he sought to understand the world.

His next project is linked to both that – and his still-relevant/recent-ish book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.

August Ames – born Mercedes Grabowski – was a porn star who took her own life at the end of 2017. Her husband, pornographer Kevin Moore sent out a tweet in the January of 2018 blaming cyber-bullying for Ames’ death.

She had been, erm, gang-banged on Twitter. She had tweeted that she didn’t want to work with “crossover” talent (male porn-stars who are bi or work “gay for pay”). Many from the industry called her on bi-phobia, homophobia, tore into her for a tweet that she sent out arguing that she should be informed about her co-workers and it should be her choice to turn down a scene.

She was publicly shamed.

So you see how this becomes a story Ronson has to tell.

And across the seven 30-ish minute episodes Ronson and co-producer Lina Misitzis weave a tale that starts off almost Pure True Crime only to look inward; questioning the motivations behind telling that sort of story – behind selling it – and deciding instead to find out about both August Ames and Mercedes Grabowski. Maybe she was never listened to – maybe she had a story that deserved to be told.

Ronson skillfully humanised the porn industry with The Butterfly Effect; examining the tension around exploitation – who is winning and just how is the game played.

Here it’s the same – though a darker truth is revealed. Piece by piece we enter into a 21st Century update of An Inspector Calls. Did you kill the porn-star August Ames? Were you complicit in her death?

With each new project Ronson is taking the pulse (and counting the toll) of the way we operate in this modern world. Not since Janet Malcolm has the role of the interlocutor been so brilliantly called into question – while the role is still fulfilled to full, clear obligation even with a knowing complicity.

The Last Days of August is frightening, harrowing, fascinating and a must-listen audiobook/podcast series.
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July 2, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Eric Reed: Everybody Gets The Blues

Eric Reed

Everybody Gets The Blues

Smoke Sessions/Smoke Sessions Records

Eric Reed has established himself as a fine modern jazz pianist – he has the soft hands of Oscar Peterson and exquisite phrasing of McCoy Tyner but he folds in pop and rock listening influences along with his deep gospel roots (his father was a Baptist preacher). Read More »

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July 2, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Vox Lux: DVD

Vox Lux

Director: Brady Corbet

Madman

Vox Lux comes from actor/director Brady Corbet. It’s the 30-year-old’s second full-length feature and it’s something of a Sunset Blvd. for the me/#metoo generation; a 21st century masterpiece.

Spanning 1999-2017 and narrated – brilliantly, exacerbating the fable-like quality of it – by Willem Dafoe, the film tells the coming of age and then comeback of Celeste Montgomery. Played as a teenager by Raffey Cassidy and then as an adult by Natalie Portman, Celeste survives a school-shooting tragedy to become an overnight sensation thanks to her memorial song.

We watch her pushed and pulled through the industry with a brilliant slime-role for Jude Law as the manager.

When we meet Celeste again in the film’s second act she is thoroughly unlikeable. Smug, entitled, desperate to retain (or regain) fame. And Portman alternates swagger and insouciance as her Celeste, a teen mum made over now as a Gaga-esque stadium pop star must once again negotiate national tragedy; must be seen to be a knowing responder all the while capitalising on it.

This is a film about the ugliness and loneliness of celebrity and the weird lure of fame. It is a film about the millennial world and the soullessness of it. Wisely it has been created and acted out by people that know that world and pain. This isn’t about blaming previous generations – it’s about observing and trying to understand the madness of this current world.

Brilliantly, Sia writes the songs for Portman and Cassidy to perform. Sia’s songs are another star in this film – there’s something knowing here too, given Sia has been in this role forever, the songwriting that hides within the songs.

Scott Walker’s score is another crucial element.

And Corbet’s direction is sublime. He’s disgusted by the modern world but he’s made a thoroughly modern film – technically assured, sometimes dazzling but with story to the fore and plenty of spaces between the words; plenty of ghost-notes.

When Portman’s Celeste performs the songs – giving an actual show and dance – it seems to sum up the vacuity of it all; we forgive the dismal things she says and the way she goes about saying them for a moment close to her and her songs, no matter how meaningless it all might be.

Rats in a cage. All of us.

Vox Lux is compelling, profound. My favourite film in some time.
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July 1, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Theon Cross: Fyah

Theon Cross

Fyah

Gearbox

There’s something very exciting happening around jazz in London – I say ‘around’ because it’s a throwback, in part, to late-90s club culture, it’s ‘world’ music for want of a term, it’s not just jazz but jazz informs every aspect – even if the horns venture into shronking-good afrobeat, free-form funk and filth.

The latest cab off the rank is Theon Cross – maybe you know him, as I did, from his crucial contribution to Sons of Kemet, one of the bands leading the way in this funkified Arts Festival.

In fact Cross’s solo debut – pure fire as the title hints – features three distinct bandleaders working together for the great good: drummer Moses Boyd (The Exodus, known for collaborating with Ed Motta, Gilles Peterson, Sampha, Floating Points and many others), saxophonist Nubya Garcia (NÉRIJA, MAISHA) and Cross (Kemet) bringing his tuba to the fore.

The trio is joined on a couple of tracks by guitar (Artie Zaitz on Candace of Meroe and CIYA) as well as Tim Doyle’s percussion (Candace) and Cross’ brother Nathaniel joins to duel with his trombone on the album closer (CIYA).

But for the most part it’s Boyd laying down sinewy funk, hard-edged jazz, even light R’n’B syncopations (Letting Go) and jittery King Sunny-styled afrobeat (Candace of Meroe) while Cross and Garcia take turns soloing and holding the bottom end. You’ll be frequently gob-smacked by the power and dexterity of Cross’ horn-blowing, right out of the gates with opener, Activate. His short bass-note riffs propel the tune while Garcia spits her truth in a dizzying weave of tenor sax. But just as often it’s Garcia on mantra-like sax riffs so that Cross’ nimble-fingers get to dance (Radiation).

It’s utterly joyous, mesmeric music – all at once the best upbeat party (for one – or for however many you care to introduce to this album) with just enough stylistic range (the hip-hop of The Offerings, the dark edges and inner relentlessness of LDN’s Burning, the broken-beat future-jazz of Panda Village, the soft waft within the ballad-form that supports CIYA).

There’s such skill in the playing – huge experimentation made instantly accessible.

This is in line to be one of my favourite records of the year. It’s like the small-combo version of Kamasi Washington’s giant plan crossed with the best memories of James Hardway and the late 90s/early 00s acid jazz explosion.

It’s a reminder, too, that tuba was once a powerful instrument in jazz- pre-swing, particularly. Recent years have found it cumbersome, not cool, whatever. Cross changes all of that here. Ultimately giving hope to a whole new generation of musicians.

The main thing though – is that from hints of N’awlins through to a future jazz could never have envisioned for itself – the music on this album is just glorious.

I love it so much.
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July 1, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

V/A: Peggy Gou – DJ Kicks

Various Artists:

DJ Kicks: Peggy Gou

!k7 Records

A really great DJ mix album should mean you really don’t spot any sore thumbs; you don’t care if a song that’s not really to your liking is included – because in and of that moment it sounds good, or at least sounds like it is meant to be there since you’re really buying (and buying into) the taste of a music maker you respect or at the least are curious about…

Peggy Gou’s music became known to me with the release of her Once EP.

Here she completes one of her dreams – making a DJ Kicks mixtape.

She’s made the sort of mix that I love – I’m interested in every moment of it because I want to know what motivates here as DJ, as music-maker, as music-lover…

So I’ll wait for Aphex Twin – which I know I’m getting (Gou’s a fan, and it’s no disappointment to hear Vordhosbn folded in on the end of Black Merlin’s Kundu) and if I don’t really care about R-Tyme’s Illusion (which I didn’t) I’ll find a way to enjoy it in the context of this 75+ minute mix (and I did) given I’ll hear all manner of magic and oddities dating back to 1983 and moving as far forward as the present day; in particular there’s a killer run from JRMS (3) through Shade of Rhythm (Exorcist) to Kode9 (Magnetic City) and The System (Vampirella).

Gou is expert at assembling a mood-tape that reflects where she’s been, where she’s going, where she came from, where she might go next…and it happens all it once and the vibe is good and chill and forward-thinking and retro – all of it, all at once.

I mean that’s what this stuff is about right?

That’s what I look for and listen to in a mix from the DJ Kicks/Late Night/Back To Mine series’ – and as I wait for more new music from Gou I’ll listen to this and wonder at what points she found – and loved – Spacetime Continuum, Pearson Sound, Sly and Lovechild and I:Cube.

DJ Kicks, as a series, has hardly ever let me down. This entry is one of my favourites. A great late-90s/early-00s vibe – which has permeated the best of Peggy Gou’s own work to date; a mix of favourites and songs I’m hearing for the first time.

I love it.
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July 1, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Caroline Easther: Lucky

Caroline Easther

Lucky

Good World Music

The winning combo is having something to say – and the right way to say it; having songs and having a voice that push those songs into (the right) place. So it is with Caroline Easther’s solo debut; a long-time-coming project that collects up songs from a musician who has been steadily writing and singing as a frontperson or co-frontperson (Let’s Planet) as well as a pedigree playing drums in several great bands (The Chills, Verlaines, Beat Rhythm Fashion) and assisting as a multi-instrumentalist and duet partner/backing/harmony vocalist with Barry Saunders and Hobnail (again among others). So it really is no surprise that Lucky is as good as it is – it’s not luck, and if anyone’s lucky it’s the audience.

Opening modern country weepie I Believe You Tonight sets the tone and takes on that western-swing torch ballad setting in much the same way as the very finest of Nicole Atkins’ work.

From there it’s to Go-Betweens-esque indie pop (Anything For You) and country balladry (Down) almost turnabout. Your Footsteps Falling is upbeat jangle-pop with just enough of a country flavour sitting in underneath, Find Me could have been a Fur Patrol set-closer back in the day. The shuffle of Jaguar Boy hints at her work with Hobnail and Saunders – with a really great vocal performance to carry it.

The charming waft of instrumental, Goodbye Little Boy, has wordless vocals to carry it out whereas Meg’s Song is frontloaded with story before drifting off via a lush guitar solo that is all space and hue and very reminiscent – in the very best way – of some of Paul Kelly’s very best work.

The nine originals all shine here. A class musician – writer, singer, player. And then to close we have a duet with Barry Saunders on the staple, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry. Their voices blend like scotch on the rocks and a very good night. It’s the perfect send-off to a faultless record.
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June 30, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Bill Hickman: Crossbones

Bill Hickman

Crossbones

Independent/CD Baby

Wellington-based singer/songwriter Bill Hickman has been a journeyman musician across the last two decades – an Irish band here, original rock there, sitting in as a sideman, opening for others, playing his own songs when his name’s top of the banner. A jobbing player, constantly honing his craft.

There’s class to the recording, writing and playing on Crossbones – his latest solo release. A talented cast helping him out with Cameron ‘Dusty’ Burnell contributing mandolin, lap steel and guitars, Alan Norman on piano, Hammond and accordion, Darren Watson offering the bass, Adam Crawford on drums and percussion, John O’Connnor adding guitars, the backing vocals of Kim Bonnington and Hamish Graham and of course Hickman’s own acoustic and electric guitars and lead vocals.

On the gruff but contemplative opener, Finish My Drink, it’s like the worlds of grunge and Americana-infused modern country have never been closer. Johnny Cash storytelling and Chris Cornell’s way with a song combining here. The most obvious (vocal) touchstone is Ryan Adams. And if he’s a dirty word these days, it’s hard to deny his musical influence across the last decade and a half and Girls in Cars feels like Ryan Adams at his very best. Six Beers Down places the Ryan Adams influence back in his Whiskeytown daze…

And for all the lovely playing across this album (Dusty’s mandolin an obvious highlight on Six Beers Down for example) I really think the songs pick up in the second half of the record.

Some more grunge-era oomph to Everybody Knows, the gorgeous guitar work – and just the sonics – on Mr. Mercedes 2 and the spritely band playing on Gravel. Hickman has a well-honed sound and approach now, so well established in his various roles across so many gigs and Crossbones is full of bar-room wisdom, earnest country folk and acoustic blues musical ideals and the spit and grit of the closing title track is a real deal-sealer.

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