Standing inside the Gemeentemuseum’s life-size reconstruction of Mondrian’s Paris studio, the painter’s reputation as an austere recluse seems well-deserved.
Perhaps most famous as the singer in seminal Nineties art-pop band Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier has worked hard in recent years to establish herself as a solo artist in her own right through a series of well-received avant-muzak albums, including this year’s Finding Me Finding You.
The wonderful Estorick collection, tucked away in Highbury Fields in London, is internationally renowned for its collection of modern Italian art, with a core of major Futurist works.
Revolution - New Art for a New World film starts well: the opening shot (main picture) is of young women painting white letters onto a red banner. “We all knew what to paint,” says the voice-over. “Bread, Work, Vote, but the message was ‘Women of the World Unite!’”
The Residents' famous fusion of Fred Astaire’s most dapper top hat’n’tails look with a giant eyeball head is a masterpiece of surreal imagery. The subversive California outfit, who’ve been going for over 40 years, have regularly veered into other visual identities, but it’s their classic monocular showman who appears on the front of the latest album.
Although Wire have regularly fired out albums, ever since their inimitable strain of angular punk first exploded into the Seventies, their later efforts have never quite reached the same coveted cult status as 1977’s Pink Flag or 1978’s Chairs Missing. Silver/Lead does, however, continue the upwards trajectory the four-piece are currently on, sparked by 2015’s frenzied and cathartic Wire.
Un Voyage Á Travers Dans Le Paysage Électronique Français, the French subtitle, goes further. French Touch is the first exhibition to celebrate and dig into France’s electronic music heritage: exploring the lineage which laid the ground for the world-wide success of Daft Punk.
There comes a point in any experimental music festival when you have to accept the silliness and go with it. And at Borealis, that point comes very early.
Christmas came, and brought with it the usual silly-season headlines. "Vinyl outsells digital downloads" came the cries, bringing with them a vision of a plastic phoenix rising from the ashes. The truth was, of course, much more prosaic – digital downloads are falling faster than Icarus as more people take to streaming services and abandon even the most ethereal physical things for an internet full of stuff.
Meanwhile, in the real world, a rather wonderful release by Laurie Shaw, a ludicrously prolific 22-year-old, Ireland-based singer songwriter, passed by with barely a mention. That’s the reality of vinyl releases; many of the most interesting are limited editions put out for love rather than money on shoestring budgets by labels who appear to conjure magic out of thin air.
The beautifully presented, two-record package from Sunstone records is the first release proper by the multi-instrumentalist. It comes on the back of slew of CD-R releases (57 albums to date if his bandcamp site is to be believed) and is a work that reaches far beyond Shaw’s tender years.
The collection of 30 songs certainly doesn’t short change, but there’s much more here than simple value for money. While Shaw’s recording methods could most accurately be described as raw, marked by distorted guitar, sudden stops and occasionally chaotic percussion, they're never out of place with his bursts of vital, energetic psych.
Many will hear (correctly) shades of The Fall, the muscular musicality of The Coral and the energy of punk behind these songs, but there’s also an unashamed sense of American classicism on show here, from Elvis Presley to Don Fleming’s criminally underrated Gumball via Captain Beefheart's straighter moments.
The songs themselves are noisy, spiky and often fun (not least an inspiring cover of Tom Jones’s 1971 hit “She’s a Lady”) and so consistent in their resolute determination to lodge themselves in the listener's subconcious that picking out highlights is an almost impossible task. Having said that, the pummelling powerhouse of “Rights for the Native” segueing into the delightfully introspective “Double Denim” with its opening line, “Decade number two, Still in love with you, I wonder if the future will have boots that zip themselves,” is a moment I could happily revisit a thousand times.
Had I heard this last year, it would have undoubtedly made my end-of-year list, and I suspect that many would agree. It’s a solid argument for buying a turntable, but if you’re not for turning, you can buy the files on bandcamp. Think of it as a late Christmas present to yourself.
Everything about Xam Duo’s debut album, out earlier this month on Sonic Cathedral, has a wonderful sense of self-indulgence: from the freeform, experimental feel, the stretched-out tones and resulting melodies that exist almost by implication, to the mournful squall of the saxophone, buoyed by a stubborn sea of sound.