// Category Archive for: Feminism

Music Review: Nikki Lane, All Or Nothin’

By Melissa Bratcher

On her second album, All Or Nothin’, Nikki Lane (with the help of producer Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys) lets fly with incredibly hook-filled songs about drinking, smoking pot, one night stands, and crappy ex-boyfriends. Nikki Lane is a hard one to pin down: her music easily thematically fits into the “outlaw country” camp, and her voice is a magical mix of Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield, and All Or Nothin’ is crazy with the steel guitar of country, but she’s not exactly country. The most striking tracks on All Or Nothin’ sound like they’re straight off of the Red Bird label, the early ’60s girl group record company founded by Leiber and Stoller.

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DVD Review: Suzanne Vega Live: Solitude Standing

By Jeffery X Martin

The problem with being a hardcore fan of any artist is the constant desire for more. We want new songs. We want new versions of new songs. We want a tour. We want new videos. We want it all, and we want it now, sooner if possible.

The new Suzanne Vega concert DVD, a show from Rome filmed in 2003, is great for those who haven’t had the chance to see her live. It’s a stripped-down affair, with Vega on acoustic guitar and vocals, Mike Visceglia on bass, and a translator, Valerio Piccolo. It has the earmarks of a small, intimate show. We would have a better sense of that, if we were ever shown the audience outside of some silhouette shots.

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Music Review: Lowell, I Killed Sara V.

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto and London-based Lowell has the kind of voice that veers dangerously close to being exploited in an iTunes commercial. Which is why it’s significant that her new EP I Killed Sara V. opens with the blisteringly original “Cloud 69.” That music and those lyrics could never be used to sell hybrid cars. The crush of percussion and synths and the descending “oooooh” in the chorus make the heart pound faster. It’s an extraordinary song and unlike anything else I’ve heard.

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DVD Review: The Punk Singer

By Brad Henderson

Kathleen Hanna was my dream girl growing up. It all started when I went to a record store and found a copy of Reject All American by Bikini Kill. I had no clue what it was but the cover intrigued me. I gave it a shot because it only had a 99-cent price tag.

I left the store with a few CDs that day (mostly punk) and listened to them throughout the rest of the week, but that night I popped that one in and it did a number on me. First, it sounded completely badass. It was raw and ferocious. The lyrics were well thought out and this girl singer was not fucking around. Between “Rebel Girl” and “Statement of Vindication,” this was the best album that I’d heard in years. I immediately found out who Kathleen Hanna was and tracked down everything she put her hands into.

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Music Review: Suzanne Vega, Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Pentacles

By Jeffery X Martin

Suzanne Vega is one of the few survivors of the Great Folk Uprising of the Eighties. Her career hit its heights with her single, “Luka,” which was later covered by The Lemonheads. The British producing team, BNA, turned her a capella tune, “Tom’s Diner,” into an international dance hit. You know. “Doo do doo DO doo do-doo DO.” That one.

As it happens with some artists, as Vega matured as a performer and songwriter, her presence on the music charts decreased. Some of her best works went practically unnoticed (why people never caught onto her album Songs in Red and Gray is one of the great mysteries of our time).

After a seven-year break, Vega is back with Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles, a fascinating mix of bitterness and release, spirituality and despair.

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Music Review: Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs, All Her Fault

By Melissa Bratcher

There’s a delightful ramshackle quality to the newest album by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs. All Her Fault has a spontaneous, lively sound, and wickedly witty lyrics. It’s the kind of album that is not only instantly engaging, but also gets better with each listen.

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DVD Review: Concussion

By Less Lee Moore

The tagline on the DVD for Concussion is the kind of lurid text that implies we’re going to watch a Lifetime movie from the 1990s: Wife. Mother. Escort. When you examine the plot—middle-aged wife and mother gets hit on the head and then creates a secret life as a prostitute—it doesn’t do much to dissuade that notion. Yet Concussion isn’t a cautionary tale and the head injury doesn’t produce dissociative fugues; no one gets blackmailed, kidnapped, or murdered. It’s a frank examination of dissatisfaction and desire that could easily be transposed onto a heterosexual relationship, but in Concussion the married couple are lesbians with two kids.

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DVD Review: Violet & Daisy

By Less Lee Moore

With more than 300 films screening in a ten-day time period, the Toronto International Film Festival makes time management a challenge. Rumor has it that some film critics will leave a screening after ten minutes if they’re not fully engaged. I’m going to bet that there were quite a few who walked out on Violet & Daisy at TIFF 2011. That would have been a big mistake.

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Music Review: I Break Horses, Chiaroscuro

By Less Lee Moore

Chiaroscuro is defined as “the technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation.” It’s a ideal name for the second album from I Break Horses, the musical project from Swedish singer/songwriter Maria Lindén. Rather than a contrast between light and shade, however, the songs on Chiaroscuro are a study in the interplay between the retro synths of ’80s shoegaze and the more contemporary flavors of techno and EDM. In a way, Chiaroscuro reminds me a lot of School of Seven Bells’ Ghostory, but while that album was crystalline ice, these songs are like smoldering embers.

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Music Review: Shelly Bhushan, Something Out Of Nothing

By Melissa Bratcher

With a voice as soulful as Shelly Bhushan’s, Something Out Of Nothing could have taken a straight R&B route, and she could have thrown in boatloads of melisma to impress. Instead, she’s turned in an album full of interesting, unexpected arrangements and thoughtful lyrics, and presented them with her gorgeous, versatile voice. Something Out Of Nothing is a stealth charmer.

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