Demob Happy

MP3s that have caught my attention this month include Beach House’s ‘Gila’, taken from their new album ‘Devotion‘. Slowcore dream pop informed by The Velvet Underground and Nico, Gila is the highlight of an album of similarly melancholy and somnabulant tunes. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the obliquely titled ‘Recent Bedroom’ by Atlas Sound, from their [...]

Beach House - Gila [ 4:46 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Atlas Sound - Recent Bedroom [ 3:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Oceans of Venus 7/10 Dengue Fever are a group of eclectic LA hipsters fronted by a bona fide Cambodian pop star (Chhom Nimol), who make a heady brew informed by retro spy-movie soundtracks, psychedelia, lounge jazz and rock and roll. Apparently influenced by organist Ethan Holtzman’s trips to Cambodia in 1997 when a unique local [...]

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The 1000-page song 7/10 ‘The Executioner’s Song‘ was one of two non-fiction works, along with ‘Armies of the Night‘, that won Norman Mailer the Pulitzer Prize. Is it an archetypally weighty tome for an author who seemed to pride himself on tacking the big subjects of his era with bawdy gusto. It concerns itself with [...]

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Bloodier, less simple 9/10 In ‘No Country for Old Men’ the Coen brothers return to Texas and the noir-western hybrid of their first film ‘Blood Simple‘. An adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s equallly bloodythirsty and apocalyptic novel of the same name, the film captures the spirit of the author’s work while providing a platform for their [...]

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Protoype Meadows 4/10 Shane Meadows’s first movie set the template for his more accomplished later work. Bob Hoskins excepting, Twenty Four Seven features a cast of largely non-professional actors, a liberal use of improvisation and a typically tragic-comic approach to realist drama. Set mostly in and around the working class midlands, Meadows’ films draws comparisons [...]

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