Tag: Vol. 30 No. 46

SQUAREPUSHER In the mid-90s, when Englishman Tom Jenkinson first started releasing music under the name Squarepusher, it was difficult to know what to think of him: with his absurdly busy drum programs and hyperkinetic, Jaco Pastorius-inspired electric bass, he seemed to be making drum ‘n’ bass for Weather Report’s old fans. But over the years, […]

Critic Robin Wood recently cited this stunning 1964 Russian version of Shakespeare’s tragedy as the only one that “could be claimed as having the stature, as film, that the play has as theatre,” and it’s easy to see what he means. Shot in black-and-white ‘Scope, in dank interiors and seaside exteriors every bit as atmospheric […]

Bob Eisen is an elder statesman in the giddy, fluid world of improvisation–a Minister of Silly Walks, though improv shouldn’t be described so flippantly of course. He started the Chance Dance Fest in 1990 and has performed in it every year since; now he returns from New York (where he moved last September) for the […]

DANIELLE HOWLE In the late 80s and early 90s, Danielle Howle sang in the South Carolina band Lay Quiet Awhile, which counted artists as disparate as the Indigo Girls and Fugazi among its fans–the group’s sole album, produced by Fugazi engineer Don Zientara, came out on Amy Ray’s Daemon label. Though Howle’s music has since […]

Following the deep freeze of the Stalin era, the Soviet Union enjoyed a creative thaw that began in the late 1950s, around the time of the Sputnik launch, and lasted until the invasion of Prague in 1968. The relaxation of cultural policies, combined with a pride in national achievements and greater influence from the West, […]

KENNY BURRELL At 70, guitarist Kenny Burrell probably shouldn’t sound as good as he does: though his instrument makes few physical demands, at least compared to trumpet or drums, the passing years still take their toll. But the style Burrell introduced a half century ago has proved extraordinarily durable–all he has to do is invoke […]