ARTS Pick: Gavin Riley

During his interactive, choose-your-own-adventure techno-rap show, Gavin Riley might drop his audience into a video-animated scenario about soft serve ice cream. When a video bully asks him if he wants to ditch his swirly cone for a drug called jazz, Riley’s audience can choose his reply: “Get jazzed up!” or “Just say no!” and Riley […]

Parsonsfield brings the best of the past into the present

Named after a town in Maine, folk quintet Parsonsfield formed by happenstance at the University of Connecticut around 2009. “I was beginning college and I really wanted to meet some people that had an interest in old songs like I did,” says member Chris Freeman.  “I was playing guitar and discovering music from all eras […]

Album reviews: Thundercat, Eden Ahbez and Laura Marling

Thundercat Drunk (Brainfeeder) Thundercat (né Stephen Bruner) is a top-shelf guest artist, having loaned his six-string bass and falsetto to Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington and Flying Lotus. With his solo albums, Thundercat has also carved out and completely inhabited his own patch of land, creating something distinct and stable within pop’s ever-shifting world. The opening […]

ARTS Pick: Paul Lewis

As a child in a working-class English family with no musical background, Paul Lewis borrowed books from the library and taught himself to play classical piano while his father worked the docks in Liverpool. Now, at 44, Lewis is one of the leading musicians of his generation, known for his mastery of Beethoven and Schubert, […]

ARTS Pick: 9th Wonder

9th Wonder’s fingerprints are all over hip-hop music. Not only has he released a series of acclaimed albums with trio Little Brother, he’s produced tracks for some of the biggest names in the game—Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu, Jay Z, Destiny’s Child, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Jill Scott, Ludacris, Big Boi and Anderson .Paak, to name […]

ARTS Pick: Cabaret

Producer-choreographer Brad Stoller and his team put a neo-Victorian steampunk costume on the classic musical Cabaret, while using the original themes and context to explore the effect of politics on everyday lives, and the parallels in the current political climate. Set in 1930s Berlin, Germany, the plot unfolds in song around the Kit Kat Club, […]

ARTS Pick: Jeff Miller

Guitarist Jeff Miller is loopy in the best way. His new release is titled Loops, he created a YouTube series “Loop of the Week,” and he operates as a one-man band with the help of a looping pedal that brings together his fingerpicking guitar style, astute vocals and creative rhythm, layering it into a live […]

Movie review: Life lacks in human connection and atmosphere

Space. A previously unknown life form that is both beautiful and completely unknowable. Man’s double-edged quest to understand and dominate over all existence. Life really, really should have worked, and the extent to which it fails makes it the biggest waste of potential so far of 2017, if not the single worst film overall. Life […]