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(11/08/17 6:16am)
alt-J and Bishop Briggs played in Sprint Pavilion Nov. 1 on a crisp Autumn evening under a bright moon shadowed by a sparse few clouds. Though it’s doubtful the aesthetic was coordinated by some sleep-deprived concert manager, the two bands were truly at home under these conditions.
(10/18/17 4:42am)
Depending on where Rupi Kaur looks, she will find the good, the bad and the ugly in response to her poetry. If she looks in certain publications, she will find her work compared to Jane Austen, the Harlem Renaissance and the Bloomsbury Group. If she delves deep enough into academia, she will be told that her “Technopo(e)litics” presents “(de)Colonial AestheTics and Spatial Narrations in the DigiFemme Age.” If on the other hand, she reads Buzzfeed or The Concourse, she’ll find herself accused of plagiarism.
(09/12/17 2:55am)
Like most indie rock made by white males, The National’s latest album, “Sleep Well Beast,” is about the struggle to make it in New York City. It’s a loosely-structured and largely fictional trip through a winding path of neuroses, political projections and self-medication that ends at the hallway where it began, bidding the beast to — as the album’s title promises — sleep well. “Sleep Well Beast” is immersive and evocative throughout, but rarely coherent.
(03/15/17 4:15am)
The Shins’ big break came in 2004 when its song “New Slang” played in Natalie Portman’s clunky headphones near the beginning of the film “Garden State.” The song and the movie gave new life to what would become an indie rock cliche suburban ennui, emotional disconnect and generational malaise packaged into a bittersweet chorus. Though the brand was potent, The Shins never settled too comfortably into this box.
(03/06/17 3:26am)
The faces at Miranda Lambert’s show at John Paul Jones Arena were not the usual ones seen at a Charlottesville music venue. Harley Davidson tank-tops and Cabela’s hats were proudly on display, Southern accents were flashed and Bud Light was flowing. Whatever bubble University students inhabit was memorably burst by the Lambert crowd. The audience’s enthusiasm for the show was both electric and profoundly mystifying for neophytes to country music.
(02/23/17 6:22am)
Considering Kwame Alexander generously agreed to talk at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning, it wouldn’t be unusual if his responses were a bit subdued. Yet somehow, even at that hour, he spoke with electricity and conviction about his poetry and the passions behind it.
(02/09/17 3:25am)
Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl halftime show was surprisingly palatable, especially given the rumors that she would deliver a “definitive” statement on politics. Still, the sheer amount of praise thrown at her has effectively triggered the collective gag reflex of music highbrows everywhere.
(10/27/16 2:25am)
Leonard Cohen’s latest album “You Want It Darker” is as dark as the title implies, but it has a terrific backstory. Drawing parallels to the mythologies surrounding Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor” or Renoir’s “The Bathers,” Cohen recorded it ailing in a hospital chair. On the album’s back cover, Cohen admits, “My recovery, if not my survival, depended on my getting back to work.” This narrative permeates the work he has produced. Even in the bleakness of the album’s vision, Cohen operates with necessity and lucid clarity.
(10/20/16 1:08am)
Perhaps the most interesting thing about a conversation with John Paul White is how much his public persona differs from his private one. In conversation, he speaks in a thick, welcoming drawl rather than the agitated, breathy alto of his new album, “Beulah,” in which rarely approaches a Southern lilt.
(10/16/16 4:38pm)
Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation” opens around a fire. Around the fire sits a group of slaves cloaked in a thick blue light and spectral dust. The elder of the circle exhorts the slaves to follow young Nat Turner, who carried a birthmark deemed auspicious by ancient African tradition.
(09/29/16 3:29am)
Unobtrusively set at the end of the Downtown Mall, six photographs comprise an exhibit titled “Landscapes of Slavery and Segregation.” Perhaps to complement the Freedom of Speech Wall which they face, the pictures show reconstructions of the living quarters of slaves in Virginia’s history. Visitors are invited to engage with each picture by choosing a number which leads to the recording of a contemporary historian’s explanation of the picture.
(08/23/16 1:45am)
When the lights first dimmed at J. Cole’s show Saturday evening, John Paul Jones Arena was packed with first-years. After the obligatory dorm room string-lighting were hung, collages compiled and unnecessary furniture assembled, whole halls successively made their entrances into the stadium, often in chains of 20 or 30.
(05/11/16 8:23pm)
Charlottesville’s hipster crowd packed the Jefferson Theater with a dense grove of diversely bushy beards for singer-songwriter M. Ward. If the audience was unfamiliar with Ward’s talent outside of his role as Zooey Deschanel’s quirky counterpoint in “She & Him,” this show proved to them his experience as both a songwriter and virtuosic guitarist.
(04/19/16 4:05am)
Writing an un-effusive review of “Hamlet” is a little bit of a nightmare. Though writers are discouraged from superlatives, self-important purple prose and vague tangents about how a work of art addresses the human condition, shouldn’t a review of “Hamlet” be just a little tinged with purple, or at least a soft violet? How is one supposed to not call “Hamlet” phenomenal when it is, objectively, such a phenomenon?
(04/14/16 1:16am)
Entering a practice session of the Charlottesville Sacred Harp ensemble feels a little like time travel. Though the ensemble gathers in the open, naturally lit space of the Charlottesville Friends’ Meeting House, the shared musical experience feels better suited to coarsened, 18th-century settlers singing around a fire. For the chorus’s most recent gathering, nine people of all ages and vocal parts came together to sing. The group compensated for their numbers by collectively singing at the top of their lungs.
(04/13/16 4:45am)
Amazon, Netflix and Hulu only began making and marketing TV shows a few years ago, but in this short period they have unleashed an abundance of short-season romantic comedy shows available to binge-watch online. On Netflix there are “Master of None” and “Love,” on Hulu there’s “Casual” and on Amazon there’s “Catastrophe.” These shows utilize the freedom of internet television to construct less traditional, more centered narratives than would be found on broadcast television. “Catastrophe” is probably the fastest paced of them all.
(03/25/16 1:19am)
Matisyahu has a monopoly over the Hasidic, beat-boxing, reggae vocalist brand. Initially, the novelty of seeing a man with pe’ot and skullcap beatbox surprised listeners into existence for Matisyahu. His experience evoked Chaim Potok’s “My Name is Asher Lev” or the ’60s phenomenon of the Medical Mission Sisters to a 21st century audience. In 2011, however, he startled his audience by shaving the pe’ot and losing the skullcap. Though this rebranded his career, it certainly didn’t end it. In his most recent phase, Matisyahu is touring college campuses across the country and will visit the Paramount Theater this Saturday.