There are some amazing soundtracks out there. Meet Joe Black, The Shape of Water, Call Me By Your Name and Mission to Mars are but a few of my favourites, and of course, anything by John Williams, Hans Zimmer or Alexandre Desplat instantly provides the most amazing mood and Continue Reading
Music
Road to Eurovision 2018: Week 2 – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland
What is the Eurovision Song Contest? Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open Continue Reading
Now this is music #105: Loma, Django Django, Jesse Saint John, Becky & The Birds, Bonsai Mammal
Do not be one of the great banal unwashed. That should be the creed for every last one of us, but as we know all too well from the swelling ranks of conservative, unthinking herds around us, not everyone wants to push that envelope, avant that garde and sit Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2018: Week 1 – Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium
What is the Eurovision Song Contest? Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open Continue Reading
Cinema sounds: My three current favourite soundtracks (Black Panther, Call Me By Your Name, The Shape of Water)
Soundtracks are knitted into the soul of every movie you see. Often well done, sometimes not, but where they work, and work superbly, they add immeasurable depth, breadth and spine-tingling, soul-stirring emotion to a film, augmenting stellar performances by the cast. elevating key plot points and ensuring that, Continue Reading
All aboard! What’s happening with Eurovision 2018? (update 2)
Time is tick-tick-tocking on with the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 less than 2 months away! Preparations at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, where Portugal will host its first ever Contest after Salvador Sobral won with the exquisitely-beautiful “Amar pelos dois (Loving For Both of Us)”, are well under way as Continue Reading
Pop Culture Typography: Iconic logos and fonts get a fun musical re-imagining
Ever-more creative and colourful lyric videos have become quite the thing of late for many music artists. Whether as a stop-gap till a live-action clip is filmed or the final promotional product itself, the best lyric videos entrance, entertain and move perfectly in time with the song they’re accompanying. Continue Reading
Now this is music #104: IZNiik, Raindear, Cashmere Cat, VÉRITÉ, Dana Buoy
I love anyone and anything that sits outside the usual boundaries of what people consider “normal”, which if you’re conservative is pretty much anything outside the beige and the banal. Rather than decrying people who push boundaries and are exceptionally, interestingly creative, we should celebrate them, hold them high, Continue Reading
Now this is music #103: Car Seat Headrest, Young Fathers, Ariel Beesley, Black Light White Light, Club 8
Life is too short, way too short, to waste it on artists and songs that say nothing of any consequence. That’s not say that every song you listen should be a philosophical treatise set to music – having some mindless, go-with-the-groove fun can be good for the soul – Continue Reading
Now this is music #102: Troye Sivan, Pond, TRACE, Nilüfer Yanya, Frills
Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of follow-the-leader music out there, bereft of distinctive identity, an assembly of parts that belies its lack of one-of-a-kind inspiration. Thankfully there are an awful lot of immensely-talented people out there creating music that is anything but beige and uniformly the same, and Continue Reading