// Category Archive for: Feminism

Music Review: Ambrosia Parsley, Weeping Cherry

By Melissa Bratcher

There’s a compelling, understated darkness to Ambrosia Parsley’s Weeping Cherry. The former Shivaree front woman’s new album has an undercurrent of dread and danger running through: off-kilter keyboards, fiery slashes of guitar, dangerous percussion, and Parsley’s own curious, fascinating vocals. The songs are evocative and rich, experimental and strange. Even the most typical song structure (verse-chorus-verse), becomes a bit twisted in her hands.

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Music Review: Broken Water, Wrought

By Tyler Hodg

Music is constantly evolving and yet at certain moments, it stands completely still. With their latest full-length album Wrought, Washington punk-rock band Broken Water continues to display their musical influences in their own music, creating a nostalgic-sounding record that will remind many listeners of their angst-filled teenage years. Wrought is totally grunge-tastic and is a blatant throwback to a sound that seems to have gotten lost in recent time.

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SXSW Movie Review: The Invitation

By Brad Henderson

Dinner party movies are becoming a favorite of mine. I love the premise of a dinner party because most of time we are dealing with a group of friends and usually the characters are relatively close to one another. These past few years I’ve seen films like Would You Rather, The Perfect Host, Coherence, and now, The Invitation. Each time I’m surprised at the routes the films take and how different each film is in its own way.

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Music Review: Connie Converse, How Sad, How Lovely

By Melissa Bratcher

The story of Connie Converse is both fascinating and distressingly common. After leaving college and heading to New York City in 1949, she wrote and recorded poetic, wry, revealing songs accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Despite intervention and best intentions of friends (animator Gene Deitch and colleague Bill Bernal) who worked to get Converse’s music heard by a wider audience, she abandoned everything. She wrote a series of goodbye notes to friends, packed up her Volkswagen, and disappeared in 1974. No one has heard from her since. She would be 90 now.

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Music Review: Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys, Ionia

By Melissa Bratcher

While they’re marketed as a roots ensemble and a string band, Lindsay Lou & the Flatbellys have a seriously jazzy vibe to them. They play mandolins, dobros, stand-up bass, steel guitar, and take those instruments to an interesting place: playing them percussively, angularly, expressionistically. Lead vocalist Lindsay Lou’s voice isn’t a rootsy voice, either. There’s a dusky richness to her voice, and her slides from chest voice to upper register are elegant though she makes it sound incredibly easy.

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Book Review: Kim Gordon, Girl In A Band: A Memoir

By Noreen Sobczyk

The world of rock music (and music journalism) is one big boys club. And it’s no surprise that the title of Kim Gordon’s memoir, Girl in a Band, is partly in reference to the incessant query “What’s it like to be a girl in a band?” Despite possessing two X chromosomes, Gordon adeptly chiseled her own space in music with her own rules, coupled with intelligence and dignity. As far as her emotions, she has historically played her cards close to her chest, even appearing aloof, but when she performed “Aneurysm” at Nirvana’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, my body tingled and I was momentarily slack jawed. I don’t care what anyone else says about it, and opinions vary wildly, but Gordon’s performance was one of the most visceral, authentic, fearless, perhaps cathartic, but certainly intense moments I’ve ever witnessed in rock ‘n roll.

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Music Review: Lady Lamb The Beekeeper, After

By Melissa Bratcher

On After, Lady Lamb The Beekeeper (a.k.a. Aly Spaltro) unleashes her magnificent, versatile voice in miniature symphonies that are rich in detail and often deliciously surreal. Her songs are packed with moments of everyday (a steaming mug of coffee, watching TV) and a strong feeling of place (her current home in Brooklyn), coupled with inventive melodies. And that voice. Her voice is everything: rough, raw, delicate, fragile, astounding.

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Blu-Ray Review: Starry Eyes

By Less Lee Moore

So much of the success of Starry Eyes rests on lead actress Alex Essoe’s able shoulders. She beautifully embodies the role of Sarah, a budding actress who pines for the role that will catapult her into the pantheon of the Old School Hollywood ladies whose photos adorn her bedroom walls. Surrounded by struggling fellow thespians, one of whom (Erin) wants to cut her down at every opportunity, Alex’s insecurity and fragility is palpable and painful to witness. Forced to pay the bills working at a Hooters-type restaurant, she is thrilled when she gets an audition from the esteemed Astraeus Pictures.

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DVD Review: The Witch Who Came From The Sea

By Less Lee Moore

From the lurid Frank Frazetta-style cover art to its evocative title, The Witch Who Came From The Sea seems like it might be a female-fronted version of The Beastmaster. As intriguing as that possibility sounds, the film is something altogether different and much more profound. Directed by Matt Cimber (Butterfly, Hundra) in 1971, The Witch Who Came From The Sea wasn’t released until 1976, and even then, ran afoul of the MPAA for what they considered gratuitous violence, nudity, and rather dark subject matter.

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Concert Review: Zola Jesus At The Horseshoe Tavern

By Less Lee Moore

January 22, 2015
Toronto, ON

At a time when Internet hype threatens to smother any semblance of genuine talent, it’s difficult not to be cynical. Rest assured, however, that Zola Jesus deserves all the praise. Nika Roza Danilova is the real deal.

For those wondering if Danilova can replicate the powerful vibes of her latest album, TAIGA (review), in a live setting, the answer is yes. Her already-amazing voice is actually better in person than on record, which is kind of astonishing. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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