REVIEWS

Christopher Wool at the Guggenheim

Christopher Wool’s self-titled retrospective runs until January 22^nd at the Guggenheim. The exhibition fills the coils of the museum’s rotunda with a large sample of Wool’s work since the ‘80s—including digitally warped sikscreens, text pieces, photographs, and nods to No Wave and graffiti.

Wool had his breakthrough between ’86 and ’87, when he started using paint rollers incised with floral patterns and geometric designs. Like Warhol, Wool consciously allows the mechanized processes of reproduction to become a part of his art.

Due to the large body of similar pattern pieces done in the past decades, Wool’s early work may come off as somewhat unoriginal and uninspired—something out of Target’s Pop Art section.

However, Wool is a versatile artist that remains relevant today. In good form, he continues to question and tweak art through an applied knowledge of technology. Nowadays, Wool uses digital processing to warp the scale, color, and resolution of his paintings.

In the “gray paintings” done in the past decade, faded black enamel on linen reveals subtle tensions of composition and space. Wool is the kind of artist whose art tries to say something about what it is. He describes the gray paintings as an attempt to harness the forces of doubt and repression into creativity.

The blocky and disjuncted letter paintings stand out as an example of the exhibition’s ‘meta-ness’. In pieces like Trouble (TRBL), Wool maintains the form and order of language, while stripping away letters and manipulating spacing. The overall effect is tense and somewhat troubling.

Wool doesn’t shy away from pop culture references either. In Apocalypse Now, he samples a quote from the film of the same name, coming up with the post-conceptual mantra, “SELL THE HOUSE SELL THE CAR SELL THE KIDS.” The price realized for the piece at Christie’s was $26,485,000.

The retrospective also includes lo-fi photographs of bleak urban environments, taken in New York and across Europe. In the 90’s Wool would find a way to reform his older work through photography—by taking a photo of a finished picture, transposing it to silkscreen, and reassigning it to a new canvas. He also creates hybrids by manually reworking the doubles.

Of course, Wool isn’t without his share of critics. Dave Hickey called his work an “academically palatable brand of designer-punk.” And Adriane Searle from The Guardian recently tweeted, “He. Is. Just. Not. That. Good.”

It’s not hard to find beef with Wool’s work—whether you think it’s pretentious, dry, or just mediocre. I won’t be the last one to say that he’s a tad overrated. However, it’s important to keep in mind context.

Wool reinvigorated painting when he broke out, by helping make the medium relevant again to avant-garde practice in the late 20^th century. He also inherits and synthesizes notable techniques from the American artistic tradition—such as Abstract Expressionism’s painterly gesture, Pop Art’s use of reproductive technologies, and using language a la Conceptual Art from the ‘70s.

As you walk up the Guggenheim’s ramp, traversing Wool’s artistic phases—notice two things. Firstly, Wool is an artist who is highly aware of the time he lives in (as well as his place in art history, channeling Warhol and Pollock). Secondly, he takes chances, and chances are the lifeblood of art.

For more information on hours or tickets visit Guggenheim’s website here.

Christopher Wool — Trouble. 1980. Enamel and acrylic on aluminum.

High Marks for Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

by Dane Benko

Viewer beware, you are entering into the lost land of imagination, after the warmth of Hollywood’s carefully placed and critically lauded hits have faded and you settle down to bed, intending to hit up the cineplexes over the next few weeks for a bit of catch-me-up before all those award shows hit, and upon scanning the listings, have the horrifying misfortune of seeing the new releases. It has arrived: January, Hollywood’s graveyard of zombie franchises.

And what better to start the toss off into lonely auditoriums than a new spin-off of the wildly successful Paranormal Activity series. The Marked Ones has all the warning signs of a train wreck: they’ve stopped numbering the iterations, the release was pushed back from the franchise’s annual holding space as the go-to Halloween movie, and except for a couple announced cameos, it’s dropping the lineage of the previous installments in favor of a brand new cast. You could almost say it was… marked… for failure?

Except I basically had all that written before I’d seen it. It’s actually a lot of fun, and if you’re getting tired seeing the giants of Hollywood clash over golden figurines, you might as well jump in for the ride.

Helmed by franchise writer Christopher Landon, The Marked Ones follows Jesse and Hector, two best buds recently graduated from high school, staving off boredom in their run-down apartment complex by toying around with the new camera Jesse’s received for graduation. Between smoking pot and pranking each other, the two manage to start poking their camera into places they don’t belong and end up finding a strange ritual they don’t understand performed by Anna, the old woman downstairs, who they quickly decide must be some bruja.

Which isn’t really enough to distract them from setting off fireworks and other shenanigans, until Carlos the school valedictorian shows up and offs the old lady in a spectacular manner while Jesse notices a strange mark appear on his wrist, not to mention suddenly acquires spectacular abilities of strength and levitation. Which is all well and good for his YouTube channel until strange noises start upsetting the electronics and his behavior starts to get weird.

Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones screenshot — “Yo Mr. White, what’d you do to my eye?” Oh wait, wrong Jesse.

From there it’s all exorcisms and shaky cam as Jesse and friends venture progressively deeper into lower levels of the bruja’s hellhole and even follow up on trying to find what caused Carlos to go loco. Ali Rey makes her appearance to provide tie-in and exposition, and the audience tries to tell the characters what not to do as they immediately proceed to do precisely that.

However what makes the movie really roll is the friendship between Hector, played by Jorge Diaz, and Jesse, the headlining Andrew Jacobs. As horror protagonists, they do predictably stupid things, but as Latino teenagers just trying to spend their last summer together and get laid, they’re those really goofy guys you know from that one party we don’t talk about.

Like how a good children’s movie will provide some references that will go over the head of the kiddos so that the adults can have a laugh, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones contains enough bumps, screeches, and scratches to keep the 14 year olds on edge while using the same elements of surprise and shock for some rather good slapstack pratfalls and screwball Spanglish. The found footage style lets the story jump cut and fast forward through all the boring stuff until Hector manages to get the neighborhood gangsters to pull out the big guns (literally) and it’s all Cholos versus Brujas in some empty plastic-and-dust mansion somewhere up in mapped but unmarked gringo territory.

It’s worth the price of admission as long as you allow your b-movies to be packaged in a brand name. The Paranormal Activity series has managed to keep a legitimate cult following from its beginnings as an actually independent breakout hit through its progressively commercial sequels (and prequel), and The Marked Ones indicates that the filmmakers are willing to expand the world and make it playful.

Journeying Inside Llewyn Davis

by Dane Benko

The trailer for the new Coen brothers movie was a surprisingly dry tease. With stilted, almost Mumblecore dialog in desaturated imagery over Bob Dylan’s folk chords, the trailer sold the movie as any other 20-something inspired indie flick. To frustrate the viewer further, it cuts to black before the audience even hears Llewyn’s first acoustic strum. Upon unwrapping, however, Inside Llewyn Davis proves to be a box stuffed full of the Coen brothers’ best working habits, complete with amusingly dysfunctional failures of characters, dialog that variously nips and bites, and for what it’s worth, the best folk soundtrack for a movie seen since… well, the Coen brothers’ other folk-inspired Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Inside Dave Van Ronk album cover — Take note of this cover.

Oscar Isaac takes up the role of a couch-surfing New York folk singer in 1961, who is also a physical amalgamation of early Bob Dylan and his colleague Dave Van Ronk (the latter comparison is revealed explicitly by the cover of Llewyn’s new solo album Inside Llewyn Davis, which remakes the cover of real life album Inside by Dave Van Ronk). The movie begins in media res with an answer to the cutaway of the trailer, by settling right in to a concert at The Gaslight in Greenwich Village (again, Van Ronk’s old haunting grounds). After a pleasant introductory song you get used to the smoky enchantment of the place, rendered by new(ish) Coen brother collaborator Bruno Delbonnel (Roger Deakins was busy shooting Skyfall, so the brothers hired the director of photography from their Paris, je t’aime short). Once the piece is over, however, events quickly turn brutal, as Llewyn apologizes for hitherto unknown drunken actions of the night before to his barkeep friend, and then gets kicked and beaten outside the bar.

It turns out that the beginning is a bookend device and the background to these events are strung out from there. Llewyn Davis is feckless at best: sleeping in an unending circle of his friends’ couches, dropping his equipment off hither tither, and trying to run away from either some crushing responsibility or inner demons, it only becomes clear later which. He’s the existential and dramatic counterpoint to a slapstick hero, his thoughts always one step behind his own actions, resulting in a cascade of negative consequences.

Within the first couple of scenes he loses his upscale professor friend’s cat and is chewed out by Jean (Carey Mulligan), girlfriend of Jim (Justin Timberlake) for possibly getting her pregnant. Situations never really settle from there. As Llewyn Davis traverses the lonely New York City landscape, staving off fatigue and rolling over his debt against time into higher interest rates, we get further insight into the nature of his base circumstances. It turns out that he’s being left behind as Jean’s and Jim’s careers start to blossom, the folk scene starts to crystallize, and Llewyn has to make a decision between finding work and dedicating himself to his art. Thus the odyssey starts, as Llewyn seeks a way to get cash from his agent, the cat back to the Gorfeins, and the attention of record executive Bud Grossman, not to mention come to terms with his defiantly hidden feelings for Jean. This journey will bounce him up and down Manhattan’s west sides and between New York and Chicago, while running him into a variety of Coenish characters such as John Goodman’s appearance as a batty and overweight jazz musician.

As a central character, Llewyn can sometimes be difficult to stomach. With an abrasive personality, caustic attitude, and a constantly burning frustration, he’s every deadbeat mooch you’ve ever been friends with, except slightly more parasitic. Nevertheless the Coens actually manage to not only provoke sympathy, but actually all out empathy for his character. For all his screw-ups he doesn’t have much of a choice, and ultimately his inner motivations come down to things and people he’s lost well before the movie started. The trip he takes doesn’t operate quite like a Hero’s Journey, but rather is the medium through which we gain insight into his past. Thus the movie elegantly lives up to its name.

Whether audiences will muster it will be a different question. Inside Llewyn Davis is inverse O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Where the latter is colorful and fun the former is drab and so dry it crackles. Where the O Brother sold its soundtrack, the soundtrack sells Llewyn Davis. And rather than adapting The Odyssey with folk music, Llewyn Davis structures folk music history around an odyssey. The result is the exact type of movie that excites critics but depresses audiences.

Album Review: Clams Casino — Instrumentals 3

by Rio Toro

Clams Casino: Instrumentals 3
Similar Artists: Araab Muzik, Prefuse 73, Holy Other
Genre: Left-Field Hip-Hop
Label: Self-Released

When people say “this guy is one of the best producers in the world” — and that’s something people say a lot when referring to New Jersey’s Mike Volpe (AKA Clams Casino) — what about him are they exactly referring to? Now, I’m not saying that Clammy Clams isn’t one of the best producers in the world, as few really do compare to this one in terms of style and a sense of forward thinkingness in regards to hip-hop beats, but we also get the feeling that he’s capable of doing much more in the way of artisticness. As it stands now, Clams has put out only a small handful of tracks that have remained memorable as purely instrumentals, and the micro-genre he briefly enacted known as “cloud-rap”, can pretty much be named DOA. Maybe I’m demanding too much from a producer who has yet to release a full-length worth of original material, but despite the quantitative amount of work he has done, there has only been a marginal amount to truly sink our teeth into, and that really bugs me.

Of course, tracks don’t have to be memorable to be great, and for the most part, Clams Casino is still making music that is enjoyable to listen to. Unfortunately, this third (and apparently final) instrumental mixtape marks the blandest appropriation of his style thus far, and it would have been easy to dismiss entirely if not for some distraction worthy highlights. And the more I think about it, aren’t those occasionally stunning highlights — such as “Motivation” and “Realist Alive” on Instrumentals 1 and “I’m God” on Instrumentals 2 — what has really garnered Clams Casino so much attention in the first place? His incredible and even slightly under appreciated Rainforest EP on Tri-Angle is the closest he has yet come to putting out a coherently solid listening experience, and for now at least, that will have to continue being the only one.

Anyway, the highlights here lean towards the previously unreleased ones. There are three of these, three A$AP Rocky beats, three Mac Miller beats, one for DOOM, one for Mikky Ekko, one released for Flying Lotus’ radio station on GTA 5, and one remix. It’s an odd assortment of tracks to say the least, and since Clams has moved away from the outward and easily identifiable sampling (“Cold War”, “Illest Alive”), many of them leave little to hold on to other than a slyly choreographed production technique here and there. The best standalone track of the ones intended for vocals/rapping is the breath of fresh air that is “Pull Me Down” — a warmer and more smoothly paced track from the bunch that was also co-produced by Mikky Ekko. The definitive standout though — the one that can compare to his best productions to date — is “Cry For Me”, which places glitchy, warbling vocals over a solid kick drum based groove and some of the most pleasing textures yet heard from the producer. Aside from those two highlights though (plus the GTA V track, I suppose) there’s nothing here to sway your opinion on the producer one way or another. In fact, it’s way more likely to make you become bored with him.

What many people will, and should use this mix as — as it works much more smoothly than listening to the tracks in unison — is to combine it with all of Clams Casino’s other instrumental work and put it on shuffle. Here the wealth of his capability becomes more visibly apparent, and the compilation can work perfectly for night drives in urban environments (permitting that you have the car stereo to handle these often layered and uncompromising tunes). If this is the end of his instrumental mixtape phase though, we should be happy, because it’s a sign that Clams is moving on to bigger and better things. For now, listen to these instrumentals, be happy with them, but just don’t get your hopes up that they will offer you any more than a momentary glimpse into the power of a producer who will undoubtedly grant us more fulfilling statements further down the road.

Track Listing:
1.) Crystals*
2.) Hell
3.) Cry For Me*
4.) Pull Me Down*
5.) Lvl
6.) Bird Call
7.) Freeze
8.) Haunt*
9.) Melthru
10.) Bookfiend
11.) Cold Feet
12.) Wizard
13.) Youforia*

Album Highlight – *

Album Review: Beyoncé – BEYONCÉ- Queen is Back

by Rio Toro

Beyoncé: BEYONCÉ

Similar Artists: Janet Jackson, Ciara, Missy Elliott, Jenifer Hudson

Genre: Pop, Contemporary R&B

Label: Columbia

2013 is over, and overall, it’s been a pretty great year for me: I’ve started a new job, moved into a new apartment, and got accepted to graduate school. It’s been so good, in fact, that I think I owe it to myself to strip myself of my reservations and really fucking enjoy this new Beyoncé record. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to enjoy a Beyoncé tune or two in the past, but digesting her work through repeated and immersive listens to one of her full-lengths is something that until now I didn’t have the effort to do.

And as it turns out, what a record BEYONCÉ is to finally become accustomed to this era defining pop singer through. The secretly released record is already being hailed as a career highlight for the artist, as here she dabbles in themes that are darker, more sensual, and more complex than her previous work — one such representable track being the monstrous and intricately woven highlight “***Flawless”. She’s returning to some of her grimier, more southern influenced sounds with big breakneck beats and ominous, ghostly textures on tracks like “Haunted”, which couldn’t be further from the soul bearings of her last record, 4. Here Beyoncé is proving that even though she may be a mother quickly approaching her mid 30’s, she can still sound young, modern, and increasingly relevant regarding the current state of femininity. In other words, this queen isn’t ready to retire quite yet, and as she points out on “Blow”, she can still get her ‘cherry turned out’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean). What BEYONCÉ is really about though, is the artist’s life cycle, and all the endless phases that have come along with it: hence her reasoning behind making this a ‘visual’ album. There’s quite a lot of Beyoncé backstory tucked into the corners of this release as well — told through cleverly placed vocal snippets — and it’s enough to make you feel a connection with a woman who otherwise lives a life that is incomparable to anyone else’s.

What I found to be the most striking with BEYONCÉ though, is how overtly sexual it is. Particularly on “Rocket”, which is gorgeous and sensual in the way that only D’Angelo can do better. At 6:32 though, it’s also too long, as you could say about the album in its entirety. With the bulk of these tracks being over 5 minutes, BEYONCÉ does occasionally fall into some of the same pitfalls of Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 experience — another 2013 album that proved to be a strong reevaluation of one of pop music’s biggest icons. I mean, how long can we truly continuously listen to someone with a perfect voice, singing about their perfect life, living in a perfect home with a perfect family?

But for the most part, it does work — mostly for the fact that we know Beyoncé has had to work violently hard to get to the point she is at now. As clearly told through the opening beauty queen inspired number “Pretty Hurts”, the main theme of BEYONCÉ is a debunking of society’s unrealistic interpretation of perfection. Beyoncé wants to show us how she’s just a regular human being: she gets jealous, she gets drunk, and she wants to impress people — specifically her husband, Jay Z: who unlike his wife, hasn’t done an adequate job of impressing us through his increasing age with a string of noticeably sour verses (including one here on “Drunk In Love”).

With the exception of perhaps “XO”, these 14 tracks are far away from the cookie cutter pop songs that have been endlessly rehashed through the decades in mainstream pop. Both in terms of spot on vocal delivery and interesting, layered production, BEYONCÉ — while not 100% perfect – pretty much beats out every other major pop release of the year. It might just be filled with more rawness and honest emotion than you’ll get out of Katy Perry’s Prism, Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, and Miley’s Bangerz combined.

Track Listing:

1.) Pretty Hurts*

2.) Haunted*

3.) Drunk In Love

4.) Blow

5.) No Angel

6.) Partition*

7.) Jealous*

8.) Rocket

9.) Mine

10.) XO

11.) ***Flawless*

12.) Superpower

13.) Heaven

14.) Blue*

Album Highlight – *

Year End List: Best albums of 2013

by Rio Toro

Excuse me for the misleading title, but these are not the best albums of 2013 — saying something as extensive as that would be beyond my reason for making this list. Keep in mind, this is not necessarily because this year didn’t produce albums that could be called “the best”, but because of my predicament of being only 1 person, I clearly could not have listened to, as well as properly digested every single one of them. With that being said, these 10 picks are the albums I have deemed to be the most special; the ones which have impacted me as an individual and are perfect despite any minor or major flaws they may have. Through my travels, I have come to the conclusion that best-of lists aren’t about being “correct”, but about an expression of one’s individuality, and most importantly, a representation of our freedom to love any piece of crap we choose to.

So yes, I have decided to limit this year-end list to but 10 albums. I had originally planned for it to be 20, but then I thought it might as well be 25, and if it was going to be 25, it might as well be 30, or any other random number. So I decided to do away with attempting to commemorate every album I enjoyed this year (I only had about 5 negative reviews, so there were quite a lot) and instead focus on the ones that were always in the back of my head; the ones that happened to latch on to memories and grab hold of something real that was going on in my life through these past 12 months.

What writing album reviews has really taught me though, is that there is no album no matter how horrendously bad or typical, that I can’t derive some sort of pleasure from. Maybe this means that I shouldn’t be a critic, as when I think about it, there wasn’t one album I listened to this year that some part of me doesn’t love and admire. Even the ones I wrote negative things about I find myself returning to time and time again, and it really makes me feel bad for critics who are known for writing excessively negative and scathing reviews. I mean, music is supposed to be enjoyable right? Saying something like “we need bad albums to make the good ones be good” is just ridiculous, and can be equated to a religious conservative saying that gay marriage ruins marriage for everyone else. Anyhow, I sure am happy that I enjoy music as much as I do, and I continue to pray every night that I don’t wake up deaf. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my reviews throughout this year and can see why I’ve chosen these as my top 10.

P.S. — I cheated on this list, a lot… (There is a particularly ugly tie, I’ve included EPs, mixtapes, as well as lumped together releases from artists who had more than one release over the past 12 months)

Runner Ups: Kelela: CUT 4 ME, Neko Case: The Worse Things Get…, Baths: Obsidian, Julia Holter: Loud City Song, Forest Swords: Engravings, Wolf Eyes: No Answer Lower Floors, RP Boo: Legacy

10.) James Holden: The Inheritors

I still have yet to make up my mind between whether The Inheritors is a noise record, a chill out record, or one disguised as the other. I do know, though, that it’s the reason Boards of Canada’s Tomorrow’s Harvest didn’t come anywhere close to making this list. Built out of long, single take analog keyboard improvisations, these 15 tracks are all about balancing the unfolding chaos that ensues when an artist has access to such a massive horde of equipment. James Holden fully harnesses the ability to create stirring, raw, and off balanced compositions with his virtuosic talent. No matter whether he was chronicling free jazz, hauntology, krautrock, trance or techno, The Inheritors never once lost its drive/

9.) James Blake: Overgrown

This release doesn’t quite fit in with the others in my top 10. Unlike my other choices, Overgrown isn’t what one would call experimental. It’s not boundary pushing, and the sound it offers ventures closer to the mainstream than I’m usually accustomed to. But being the Blake fanatic that I am, I really forced myself to listen to Overgrown a lot, and its transformative secrets were soon revealed to me. Truly though, what we have here is actually a rather straightforward soul record that draws as much from Joni Mitchell as it does from the UK bass scene. If until now Blake has been in a state of constant flux, this is by far his most reserved and contemplative release yet. It’s no misstep for a producer as immaculate as Mr. blake though, as this is a record that proved to provide a draw unlike any other this year. With a chilly, isolated vibe that feels as though it was carved out of ice, to the deeply passionate and often profound lyricism, to Blake’s newfound vocal prowess that matches the oft used sub aquatic bass pulses with ease, Overgrown can stand right up with James’ greatest accomplishments.

8.) Arcade Fire:Reflektor/Kanye West: Yeezus (tie)

I find it funny that what were arguably the two most anticipated albums of the year also turned out to be the two most polarizing. Even a mention of one of these two albums on Facebook or Youtube will get you spammed by two varying sides to the unsolvable equation. You may feel like you’ve already heard enough about them, but the way I see it, whenever the line of approval is cut in a way like it is with these two albums you know something genius must be at work. Polarization isn’t the only thing these two masterpieces have in common though. In fact, besides Yeezus being brief and Reflektor being extensive, they pretty much offer identical listening experiences. Both are obsessed with pushing boundaries, draw heavily from the influence of their producers, have thematic elements about the warped state of humanity, and proudly declare themselves to be a work of art. When it comes down to it though, whether you liked these albums or not, these were the absolute essential albums you couldn’t not listen to if you were part of 2013. I’d personally argue that this also makes them two of the most important. If this is the sound of cockiness and overindulgence and pretentiousness, these words have never sounded better and meant more.

7.) Arca: &&&&&

This year saw some truly extraordinary and adventurous mixtapes — most notably from the likes of 18+, Le1f, and Kelela — but the most jaw dropping one for me was by far Arca’s &&&&&, whose alien tendencies have yet to diminish from my mindset throughout the extensive time I have spent with it. With this release, his production work on Yeezus and FkA Twigs’ EP2, the enigmatic producer dominated on all fronts this year and made a pretty undeniable case that he is one of the true forces to be reckoned with in electronic music. His music represents the current extreme of where beat making can go, and how far samples can be mutilated to the point of taking on entirely new forms. If you had half an hour to kill in 2013 , there were very few ways to do it that were better than this.

6.) These New Puritans: Field of Reeds

This spot was a fight between this album and Julia Holter’s Loud City Song for the year’s best orchestrally based indie record. To be honest, Julia Holter crafted an equally compelling statement, but for some reason, I’ve listened to Field of Reeds countless more times and feel an compulsive attraction towards it. The album has a certain elusiveness to it that I still to this date am unable to shake – and I’m happy continuing this undying trend until my listens reach the triple digits. Maybe it’s just my obsessive personality, but no matter how many times I listen to Field of Reeds I’ll still be dying to listen to it again in a week no matter how many other great albums I seem to find elsewhere. The orchestrations are the perfect mix of grand and minimal, the cast of characters is varied and cohesive, and I haven’t heard the type of rare beauty present here since Sigur Ros’ finest achievement, ( ).

5.) Oneohtrix Point Never: R Plus Seven

There were a whole lot of artist transformations that occured this year, but i’d say none were as fluent and as gapless as R Plus Seven. Daniel Lopatin’s new world was so fluent, in fact, that is was hard to see exactly how much had changed since the artist’s previous release, Replica, without comparing the two side by side. R Plus Seven brought all the abstract noises, found sounds, and vintage synthesizers of Replica hurdling into the 3rd dimension. These were some of the most labored over and sublimely intricate electronic manifestations of the year, as well as some of the most stripped down and otherworldly atmospherics — like a dystopian epic and a lazy Sunday wrapped into one. It’s the kind of music that makes my brain amazed it can even comprehend such a thing. It wasn’t necessarily the compositions that made this release so great though. For every time I listened to R Plus Seven, I found myself lost in existential thought, dreaming about some absurd idea that would never make sense within our world. This is music about escaping reality and concentrating on the components of life that aren’t really there. It’s the year’s best thinking man’s (or woman’s) record, in a sense.

4.) Dean Blunt: The Redeemer + Stone Island

Now this guy is a real screw up, isn’t he? Everything he puts out is sorely crafted, crumbling at the edges, only warranting a spin or two for a laugh. Only somehow, through our mocking, this music manages to grab a hold of something internal, and when it hits you it might just make you realize why you love music in the first place. All joking aside though, I always “liked” The Redeemer. Truly, I did. But I didn’t think it would be an album I would enjoy coming back to time and time again as the months went on. I thought of it as being too damaged to truly love. Admittedly, its impact didn’t entirely sink in until Stone Island: a secretly released sequel which furthered the majestic orchestrated sounds of its predecessor. These two releases together continue to stand as a grand expedition of heartache, lost souls, and the power of music in overcoming life’s greatest torment: the relationship.

3.) Burial: Truant/Rough Sleeper + Rival Dealer

The bookends of 2013 were over taken by surprise releases from London’s finest, AKA Burial. With Truant/Rough Sleeper in January and Rival Dealer in December, the producer took on a wealth of new ideas and crafted what I consider to be quite inarguably his two best releases to date. In fact, if this whole reviewing process were entirely up to me (god damn you editors!) this would have been at #1, as half of these other albums wouldn’t have even existed without Burial in the first place. Ok, maybe that’s a blanket statement, and I wouldn’t say it’s true for the next artist down the list who may have in fact…oops, I’ve already said too much! Anyway, read my reviews if you want to learn more about these stunning releases. Off to number…

2.) The Knife: Shaking The Habitual

No other album to come out this year feels as permanent as Shaking The Habitual. Contrary to popular belief, this is a complete, unmovable statement that is 100% worthy of its sky high ambitions. Not one sound or electronic ripple could be taken away or replaced to make this release any better than it already is. And although at its surface — the schizophrenic patterns, 20 minute ambient stretches, themes about gender/identity crisis — it may seem like a hard left turn for a supposed “pop” group, Shaking The Habitual is really just a continuation of what The Knife have always done best: atmosphere and sounds. Through their 12 year career they’ve continuously pushed and twisted and scrambled their formula until they’ve arrived at a new, ultimately meaningful destination to make an album (or opera) about. With its cinematic worthy running time and emphasis on extremely mutilated found sounds, Olaf and Karen have undoubtedly put out their most challenging and mystifying work yet, but unlike most double albums, it’s devoid of what one would call “filler”, and continues to be rewarding through innumerable amounts of playthroughs.

1.) Autre Ne Veut: Anxiety

This was an easy pick for me. Even if “Play By Play” was the only great song on this album — which it’s absolutely not — it still would have been album of the year for being the most groundbreaking and inspiring pop song of the last several years. Autre Ne Veut speaks towards the apex of human creativity and imagination just as Grimes and Death Grips did last year. But there’s something I find even more special about Autre though. The way he channels all his energy into belting out one awkwardly sung phrase after another; the way he grabs hold of the listener’s attention through abrasiveness, only to come off like Whitney Houston a moment later; and how he does all of this with a desperate, bleeding intensity that lays his innards scattered across the floor for us to inspect. As one would expect, the effect this sort of music has is beyond polarizing, but luckily, in my case, this demented form of pop music gives me insurmountable pleasure. These are the songs stuck in my head all day, the ones I (try to) sing in the shower, as well as the ones that inspire me to try my hand at creating my own “pop” music. Autre Ne Veut may not be the future of where pop music is headed, but with Anxiety, Arthur Ashin has made a perfect and masterful album of what pop music is truly about, as well as the heights that this tainted genre can still take us in 2013.

Album Review: Burial – Rival Dealer

by Rio Toro

Burial: Rival Dealer
Similar Artists: oh stop it already
Genre: YES!
Label: Hyperdub

This past week I’ve found myself to be sucked into the holiday spirit of things; the shopping for gifts, the classic movies, the caroling. It’s a mood that, for one reason or another, I haven’t really been in for the last several holiday seasons, and I was beginning to think I had become incapable of finding it again. Part of why I have been able to rekindle this feeling this year is because it has been snowing, and another part may be because the school I work at had a heartwarming pot-latch ceremony, but mostly, it’s because the new Burial EP is out, and boy oh boy does it make my heart glow.

Despite the use of bells, glowing synth textures, and happy melodies that conjure images of figure skaters and snow cones, it does feel a bit off the mark to call Rival Dealer “Christmas-y” — especially because the opening track, with its drilling baselines and rough, shuffling edges, is one of the most dissonant works to the artist’s name. Instead, Rival Dealer’s main theme is one of hope — it’s an experience about finding out who you are and being true to that person no matter how hard you may be struggling. William Bevan himself has even said (through a text) that this EP is intended for anti-bullying purposes. This may sound super corny, and maybe it is, maybe this release isn’t as “cool”, or as “dark” as what Burial has become known for, but it’s undeniably more human, and it’s arguably more relevant to the evolving music scene. It’s funny, because with each release, Burial has moved away from the success of his breakthrough, Untrue, to build something that, well, feels more true.

This newfound honestness that affords us listeners an inkling of information towards the personality of the man behind the music is huge, because William Bevan is an artist we formally still know so little about; even if he is becoming increasingly adept at drawing us into his heart solely through the use of his music. So many theories have came up about who Burial is that it has become a bit of a joke. This release is sure to stir up even more questions regarding his personal life, as it feels like a sort of coming out statement for the artist. In terms of overall sound, this isn’t quite what one would call a reinvention though. He’s still sampling vinyl crackle, ending tracks abruptly, and harnessing emotive, pitch-shifted vocal samples with nuance and delicacy. The difference is that now, it seems as if these elements are all trying to tell us something; as if these three tracks provide the liner notes to a grand story of overcoming in the face of adversity. While this broader influence is a direction that Bevan has been toying with ever since he started putting out 10+ minute tracks with his 2012 Kindred EP, here it is done in a more efficient and provocative way. The untreated vocal sample that closes the EP — taken from Lana Wachowski’s coming-out speech during last year’s Human Right’s Campaign — is the most striking example of this (as well as one of the best moments for music in 2013), but there are many others as well. In other words, this is the closest Burial has gotten to making an actual concept album.

So Rival Dealer isn’t just a continuation of the high water mark period that Burial has been in ever since 2012’s Kindred — it’s a rebirth of his ideals into the most meaningful statement he’s yet summoned. And it’s easy to see why Bevan would be propelled to push his work this far off the grid. After all, he already changed the face of electronic music (as well as many other fields of music) with 2008’s magnificent Untrue — an album that’s importance is impossible to overestimate — so now it seems he has his goals set on changing the way we hear music itself, and how it can be used as a tool to open portals to new worlds. Both “Rival Dealer” and “Come Down To Us” exceed the 10 minute mark, and they feel like flowing streams of consciousness, unobstructed by hate and fueled by deep, passionate love and understanding. They exist as a sort of guardian angel, each measure providing consolation to the world’s most downtrodden and confused victims. Through these lengthy track times Burial is able to guide us through his realm of fairy tale magic as he gifts us with constant surprises and a state of complete immersion. The music all flows through you like a dream: holding onto you with full force until evaporating into the air and leaving you with its imprint on your memory. The 13 minute “Come Down To Us” is arguably the main highlight. We are first introduced to the track’s noir setting with a lonely voice saying “Excuse me, I’m lost”, and through the track other voices arrive to comfort this lost soul, helping her realize who she is and what her purpose is. An elegiac sitar melody plays in the background as this story is told, gently unfolding into multiple phases. I don’t know about you, but a supposed “dubstep” producer just made me cry. This is what I call capability.

Track Listing:
1.) Rival Dealer*
2.) Hiders
3.) Come Down To Us*

Album Highlight – *

Guild Wars 2 – It’s Wintersday!

by Tim Morris

Guild Wars 2 is bringing you a White Christmas!

Avid MMO gamers will be pleased to know that Guild Wars 2‘s Wintersday events have returned to Tyria! Players can venture to the now snow-covered Lion’s Arch and participate in all kinds of fun activities! Snowball fights, escorting caravans with gifts, battling malfunctioning toys, a bell choir mini-game that is reminiscent of Guitar Hero, and Toypocalypse, where you must protect gifts from angry toys, are all part of this content update. Alongside this content is a boatload of new achievements, along with titles, gift boxes, loot bags, and a whole lot more to satisfy your Christmas spirit. In my estimation, this is the best update to the Guild Wars 2 Living Story since Halloween’s Mad King Returns event.

As someone who missed out on Wintersday last year due to being burnt out from the game (followed by losing my account password), this content is all new to me. While running around Tyria, I’ve instantly felt deprived for missing out on all the fun from a year ago. Unwrapping huge gift boxes in the open world, only to have them explode and release hostile armies of angry toys was certainly a fun surprise, though in the higher level zones this becomes more of a hassle to deal with than it’s really worth; one can simply bypass the boxes, however, so the choice is up to the player. The player vs. player Snowball Mayhem activity features two teams duking it out in a winter wonderland. Players are awarded points for defeating opponents as well as carrying a gift back to their base. Another piece of content that I found entertaining was the new dungeon, where you help Toymaker Tixx keep his workshop under control and operating smoothly. There is much to do this Wintersday, and so ArenaNet has stated that these events will persist for a month, until January 10th. After all the flops that the Living Story has produced since Halloween (namely the entire Tower of Nightmares arc), this is one update that I’m going to miss once it’s gone.

One more update to the game is the release of ascended armor. With ascended weapons and trinkets already in the game, armor will allow players to complete their gear sets and maximize their effectiveness. Naturally, it’s a huge grind to gain all the materials needed to make the armor, and taking a shortcut by buying completed components on the trading post is going to leave a huge hole in your virtual wallet. Unfortunately, not all characters are on an even playing field when it comes to crafting these goodies. While heavy and medium classes have had opportunities to craft items that can also be used on armor in the weaponsmith and huntsman professions, light classes have had no previous method of acquiring the cloth needed to make their armor. My two level-capped characters are both light classes, so it’s an inconvenience for me. However, removing all biases this is something that should have been addressed prior to the release of the update. I’m still going to make at least one set of ascended, it’s just going to take me longer than some of my friends who play warriors and thieves.

As always, this Guild Wars 2 content update is free to download and will do so automatically once you start up the game. Happy hunting!

For more information about Wintersday, click here

Album Review: Logos – Cold Mission

by Rio Toro

Logos: Cold Mission

Similar Artists: Jam City, Rabit, Vangelis, Girl-Unit

Genre: Grime, Pirate-Radio, Post-Apocalyptica, Ambient, Extra-Terrestrial

Label: Keysound

February 28, 2028,

The last time they came it was when I was fast asleep, dreaming of the constellations perhaps, only to be awoken by three disquieting jolts at the front door; the reaction caused a loud, penetrating boom that ricocheted through the dismantled hallways of the apartment building. It was immediately apparent to all of us — these were no ordinary knocks. They came from no neighboring friend asking for food for their young, no friendly door salesman offering household supplies. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” There they were again, this time even more forceful and alarming than they had been before. From outside the boarded up windows I could hear the sounds of police issued nightsticks crashing down on the cold metal handrails leading up to our quarters. Each crack of the whip created a resonating ringing sound that rang into the ether, stinging my ears with their vibrancy. Within seconds the front door swung open, breaking the lock into metallic, crystalline shards. I attempted to get up out of my cot, but my legs wouldn’t budge, for I knew so much as a creak in the bed springs or a tilt in the floorboards would draw me unwanted attention. Instead of running like my mind insisted, I held my breath, listening for the oncoming action… (Why those men were there at that moment I still can’t say for certain — a random search and seize procedure I assume — but what I do know is that they’ll be back, and soon, next time without leaving any scraps.)

Shattering glass, the cocking of a shotgun, and the dreadful ambience of the coming police raids: these are the sounds that have continuously replayed in my head ever since the 2025 uprising. It was three years ago today in fact, where the crisis first began, and that’s why I’m writing this note now. Someone somewhere I’m sure must be celebrating the occasion as they toast their wine and feast on their bread, but for those of us living in one of London’s many abandoned districts — whose outlet for satisfaction lays buried within the rubble of our crumbling city — it’s another reminder of the brutal times we’ve been living in, as well as the ones that lie ahead.

I often find myself craving for the days when us citizens lived out our lives as mindless, meaningless drones — working deliriously for our corruptors without so much as a hint about the struggles we would later have to face. Instead, London has been fragmented into nearly uninhabitable sectors. The unluckiest of us live in a state of constant turmoil, everyone from the young to the old are forced to live in grime-ridden, disease spewing apartment buildings with minimum power/supplies, waiting on our heels for some kind of definable end to arrive. This past year alone, murder rates have risen to an uncountable level, and there are no signs pointing towards an end to any of the violence. Every week, it seems there’s another story about more clan leaders being executed, more of the so-called safe havens being overtaken by a government run district.

Recently, the authorities have started using a newly developed weapon in attempt to slow down some of the more forceful of the rebellion units — or at least this is what we originally thought was happening. You see, the most watchful of us believe there’s something inhuman lurking amongst us. I’ve seen it myself, no more than a few hundred yards away in fact — if only faintly through the dense entrapping fog. Out from this strangely geometric figure emitted a bright, luminescent beam of blue light, instantly enveloping its target in a sort of dome shaped cocoon. Then, the dome slowly hovered around the target until everything, including the geometric being itself, was turned to nothingness. The sound this occurrence makes though — a penetratingly deep, sub bass roar — is enough to cause you to fall to your knees at its utterance. The reverberating echo of the sound forever repeats in your skull, long after the rays of the light have faded into blackness. No carcass, no ashes, and no blood stains are left at the crime scene for the following day’s inspectors, as if all the townspeople had just dreamed the occurrence. This, as well as many of the other rumors all seem to point towards something unmistakably alien among us — some kind of shape-shifting being that only takes on its natural form during the wee hours of the night, a blood thirsting creature working for neither side of the Earth’s equation, and a larger part of the secret that’s still being hidden from us.

Something good is coming though — it seems everyone can sense it — something greater even than hope itself, more indisputable than fact. From the beginning of this month, a gap has begun to open in the sky for a few hours at a time, directly to the north of us. During these brief moments, when I’m able to stare up at the celestial heavens, it all seems so different than how I remember it. Some stars are bigger or wider, others are shifted around and out of place. It’s as if the higher powers of the universe have thrown this foggy blanket on top of us so we wouldn’t notice their godly hands switching the pieces around. Whenever this astronomical reference closes off however, all my thoughts seem to decease before they form into a coherent whole. All patterns become dispersed and drowned out in the cataclysmic atmosphere of the environment. It’s the main reason why I haven’t been able to write this sooner, and why most days I am but a slave to the harsh winter climate, at a loss to process any new information. Lastly, before I forget, I did happen to see something else traveling through the night sky on its last visit — a blazing blue comet, as bright as can be and hurdling towards the Earth.

Track Listing:

1.) Ex 101*

2.) Stasis Jam

3.) Surface Area

4.) Swarming (feat. Rabit)*

5.) Sea Wolf*

6.) Alien Shapes (Feat. Dusk & Blackdown)

7.) Menace

8.) Cold Mission

9.) Night Flight

10.) Wut It Do (Feat. Mumdance)*

11.) Atlanta 96 (Limitless Mix)*

Album Highlight – *

Sweet Spot at Philip Marie

by Jaime Kohl

You know you are home when you taste the love on the plate. When you walk into John Philip Greco’s second home, Philip Marie, you can feel that homey draw. You can taste the passion of the chef in each perfectly cooked muscle and shrimp that he will present to you. And if you have a palate that leans towards the sweeter side; you will find yourself a new regular spot.

From the opening bite you can taste the sweet tilt of the meal. There was a cornbread that seemed like a cross between a bread and dessert piece. The warm, crumbling cornbread was sweet and grilled with a sweet butter sauce, but the crispy rosemary I truly enjoyed. I just needed more balance, maybe just some white pepper; and maybe something else. But none the less I did not want that level of sweetness to start out a long meal. But the crust on this bread and crisp rosemary was delicious….the rest just not as much.

Chef Grecoo officially opened up the meal with a perfectly balanced salad. Bitter arugula with sweet raisins, cranberries and currents in a warm Israeli couscous and beet salad; all dressed with bright lemon vinaigrette. This was one of the highlights of the meal. Although there was sweetness in the dish everything was brought into balance. The bitter and sour notes sang just as loud as the sweet ones.

Next off was butternut squash soup with breadcrumbs. This bright orange soup was one noted and really in need of some additional flavors. Butternut squash is delicious and naturally very sweet and often needs acid and or bitterness or just something else to bring it together. The breadcrumbs did offer some salt and slight contrast in texture in the first moments that followed the food being presented; but quickly became soggy and quickly got lost.

Now these are a few of my favorite things; bacon, oysters, spinach and goat cheese. The Five Eastern Roasted Oysters with crispy bacon, creamed spinach and goat cheese presented on a bead of pink Himalayan rock salts provided some of the most deliciously flavorful bites. But, if I didn’t see the oysters with my own eyes I would not have known they were there. Now this is a delicious and savory dish; but the main ingredient was hiding at the school dance like a wall flower. I would order this again, but I wouldn’t need the oysters to be there.

I couldn’t resist questioning the Captain Crunch crusted Mediterranean Sea Bass. I was wondering how anyone could keep this dish from turning into an odd dessert, but Chef Greco knew just how to do so. He crusted the branzino fillet with a mixture of captain crunch and panko breadcrumbs. It was served over some fresh tagliatelle with a tahini sauce and grilled fennel. The fennel and tagliatelle are delicious. I happen to love the way that fennel can transform with different heat applications. The grilling left a great char and caramelized some of the sugars in the fennel its self leaving and interesting and beautiful contrast to the sweet and tender fish. Although the tagliatelle and tahini were delicious they did not obtain the same marriage of flavor that some of the other pieces on the dish had. There was just something about the tahini that was not in line with the rest of the plate.

The Tuesday night clam bake. Well this is just dam good. The broth that Chef Greco creates with the chardonnay base is the perfect base to permeate the delicious and fresh seafood. Despite the perfect cook on the shrimp and muscles, the delicious half lobster (with all the major cracking of the shell taken care of) and clams, the broth stole the show. The dish is the Tuesday special costing $18.95, and is served with a baked potato and corn on the cob; it’s a steal. There are nightly specials served and I look forward to trying the rest of them. Be sure to check out the other nightly specials. And this winter there will be a great deal of game meats served as the winter menu arrives.

Dessert was a vanilla pound cake with spiced poached pear, grand marine sauce and fresh dense whipped cream. The pears were delicious as was the sauce but the pound cake was just there as a contrast in texture; which was nice, but honestly not needed. I would have just loved a bowl of those pears and sauce.

Chef Greco sat down with me for a little and shared with me some of his story. Philip Marie is the first restaurant Chef Greco opened, he also is the proud owner of 123 Burger Shot Beer, Bamboo52 Sushi Bar and Lounge and Posh Bar and Lounge. But Philip Marie is he’s first and your first always will have a special piece of your heart; and he proudly wears that piece of his heart on his sleeve as he cooks here. He has a sweet tooth; if you do too, this is where you need to eat. The restaurant opened when John Philip and his wife Suzanne Marie Greco returned from their honeymoon and decided to go all in and sell everything they owned to opened up 16 years ago here in Manhattan; the restaurant turn over capital of the world. But with great effort the husband/wife team opened up their New American restaurant and they have been in the same place (where every other restaurant but one has come and gone) since 1998. This is a quality place that you can feel the warmth from the leadership to the table staff. It was a pleasure dining under Chef Greco’s guidance.

REVIEWS

Guild Wars 2 is bringing you a White Christmas!

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