When Alethea Leventhal was a child, she’d sit for hours at the piano in her mother’s Charlottesville home, singing, playing chords and experimenting with sounds. She remembers obsessively listening to songs like Jimmy Ruffin’s 1966 Motown hit “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” pressing play over and over again and using that piano to figure out […]
When Alethea Leventhal was a child, she’d sit for hours at the piano in her mother’s Charlottesville home, singing, playing chords and experimenting with sounds. She remembers obsessively listening to songs like Jimmy Ruffin’s 1966 Motown hit “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” pressing play over and over again and using that piano to figure out […]
Ben Wheatley’s obvious joy of filmmaking is contagious. It’s clear from everything he’s ever made that movement, color (or lack of it, as in A Field in England) and the extremes of human behavior compel him to create unique, kinetic films with an energy that bridges the gap between raw inspiration and technical perfectionism. Even […]
In 2013, Chance Dickerson was working as a teaching assistant in the ESOL (English as a Second Language) department at Albemarle High School and he wanted to share his love of music with his students. So he set up an “underground studio” in an English class book closet and began teaching the ins and outs […]
There’s something a bit off about The Realistic Joneses. “Maybe it’s me,” you think at first. You’re sitting so close to the middle-aged couple you’re practically on top of them. She’s talking about the beauty of the night air and the owl she can hear in the distance. He’s staring down at hands twisted together, […]
Kendrick Lamar DAMN. (Aftermath) After the world-beating To Pimp a Butterfly and the casual but satisfying demo album untitled unmastered., anything Kendrick Lamar put out in 2017 would have drawn scrutiny; signs of falling off would have been magnified—even a sequel to Butterfly could have been slammed as predictable, lazy. DAMN. is neither. Released on […]
Kaoru Ishibashi ditched his violin for samplers, sequencers and electronics on Sonderlust, the third album released under his pseudo name Kishi Bashi. The composer—largely known for his mastery of the violin, which led him to accompanying Regina Spektor, Sondre Lerche and Of Montreal on tours—just couldn’t muster the inspiration to pick up the stringed instrument. […]
From the Avett Brothers to Widespread Panic, this year’s annual Lockn’ Festival lineup is a who’s who of dusty rock music, but it’s not just household names. Since the festival’s inception, the Rockn’ to Lockn’ battle of the bands has made it possible for Virginia acts to make their Lockn’ debut. Twelve bands, including local favorites […]
Sometime in either 1984 or 1985 two junior high school kids with no interest in friendship were seated next to each other in typing class. It turns out they had even less interest in typing, and through a bit of distracted goofiness, including fusing the words wuss and penis, Ween was formed, and history was […]
As a young boy moving about the Midwest with his family in the 1950s, Junior Brown became a good listener, and what he heard was country music “growing up out of the ground like the crops—it was everywhere; coming out of cars, houses, gas stations and stores like the soundtrack of a story.” Brown took […]
Merging the profound with the trivial, Will Eno’s absurdist script for The Realistic Joneses plays out like a tough-topic sketch comedy. When new neighbors arrive, two couples get to know each other through unlikely circumstances that bring them together and push them apart in unexpected ways. The Hollywood Reporter calls the story a “mordant, melancholy […]