Dead Academic
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Deniz Cuylan – No Such Thing As Free Will (Review)
Turkish-born, LA-based musician Deniz Cuylan conjures imagistic sounds that combine abstract notions of the sublime with highly resonant emotional affects. His career has seen him work across various genres and setups, scoring for film and television series and even composing… Continue reading
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Arab Strap – As Days Get Dark (Review)
“I don’t give a fuck about the past / Our glory days gone by,” growls Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat on ‘The Turning of Our Bones’, opener to the Falkirk duo’s first album in sixteen years. It’s a proclamatory statement, a… Continue reading
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Oliver Coates – skins n slime (Review)
Warning: This review references sexual assault and explores themes some readers may find unsettling. When celluloid film gets jammed inside a malfunctioning projector, the intense light required to project images onto a screen causes the film to burn up. The… Continue reading
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Slowthai – TYRON (Review)
There is a subtle shift that takes place in an artist’s career between the release of a widely successful album and its highly anticipated follow-up, a shift in the relationship between the artist and their listeners. In the beginning, this… Continue reading
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Learning To Adapt
If you are someone who wishes they could spend more time creating instead of being perpetually stuck in a state of block, then Spike Jonze’s 2002 film Adaptation is essential viewing. This metafilm follows real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (played by… Continue reading
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Sufjan Stevens: Where Has My America Gone?
During the early years of the twenty-first century, commentators on American cultural life had begun to notice a certain social wide attitudinal shift. In the latter decades of the second millennium, a smirking, cynical stance had come to infect everything… Continue reading
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Encounters: Pop by Gas
Inspired by the writings of Elizabeth Smart. Above, nothing but blue, stretching through the brief sweep of my closed-in vision. One faint wisp of white drifts into the frame. Below, green leaves soaked in light quiver on the wind’s faint… Continue reading
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Listening To… Louke Man
I first came across the music of Louke Man while listening to the Harsh Riddims Vol. 4 compilation from Atlanta’s Harsh Riddims Blood Sucking Cassette Co. label. The Toronto producer’s track ‘Differently_’ stood out from the others for its smoothness… Continue reading
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Does Massive Attack’s Eutopia Constitute a New Form for Political Music?
The notion that music can be used as a medium for expressing political or socially engaged ideas is hardly new. Throughout the twentieth century disparate genres were used as vessels for the spread and popularisation of radical ideas, from the… Continue reading
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Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (Review)
Sacha Jenkins’ 2019 documentary mini-series on the Wu-Tang Clan has finally made it across the pond, airing for the first time in the UK last month on Sky Documentaries. For any fan of the Clan it’s a must-watch, and I… Continue reading
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Deftones – White Pony (Review)
Warning: This review contains references to bodily harm, sex, and drug abuse. I’ll start with a confession: Ever since I first listened to it in my early teens, I never quite understood White Pony. I grew up listening to Deftones.… Continue reading
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Politics of Language. Languages of Politics.
At the start of last week’s Premier League fixture between Manchester City and Burnley, as both sets of players finished taking the knee in support of Black Lives Matter, a plane flew over the Etihad Stadium pulling a banner that… Continue reading
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