ARTS Pick: The Dexateens

In 2011, Alabama garage rockers The Dexateens were on the verge of a breakthrough when they broke up. The band left an entirely finished album, Teenage Hallelujah, unreleased, sitting in storage, collecting dust and tantalizing die-hard fans for the better part of five years. But Teenage Hallelujah’s moment has finally come, and the band has […]

Lulu Miller on the fulfillment of making ‘Invisibilia’

When Lulu Miller was a kid growing up in Newton, Massachusetts, in the 1980s, she’d peel away from her family to write. She’d take reams of computer paper—the kind that’s one long, continuous accordion sheet with tearaway perforations on the sides—from her dad’s printer and write for hours. It felt like sledding, she says, like […]

ARTS Pick: Carl Broeml

When you are the lead guitarist for a beloved indie-rock band, you get appearances from cool musician friends on your solo record, as is the case for Carl Broemel on his 2016 release, 4th of July, featuring Neko Case, Laura Veirs and some bandmates from My Morning Jacket. While Broemel is known for his guitar […]

Liv Ullman discusses artistic relationship with Ingmar Bergman

Fifty years after their first collaboration and twelve since their last, the personal and professional relationship between Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman stands as perhaps the most towering and productive in all of film history. Ullmann is often described as Bergman’s “muse,” a term that somewhat applies given her appearance in twelve of his films, […]

ARTS Pick: BASK

Tagged on Sonicbids as Americana, rock, country, doom post-metal and psychedelic stoner rock, Asheville’s BASK shrugs off classification with a note to fans: “Most of all we want you to listen without concern for what you are hearing. To listen only for the sake of hearing.” Judging by the slew of rave reviews for its […]

Big Blue Door’s Joel Jones is making it up as he goes

  Less than two weeks before their final showcase, members of Joel Jones’ Improv III class warms up by standing in a circle, eyes closed, counting to 20 as a group. Only one voice can speak at a time and if someone interrupts another, they have to start again. It’s a practice in awareness, a […]

ARTS Pick: Kontakte

By the time Karlheinz Stockhausen’s mug appeared on the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 (top row, fifth from the left) with dozens of other adventurous artists, the German musician had established himself as a bold composer and an electronic music pioneer known for being among the first to […]

Six films that break through at the Virginia Film Festival

Always Shine Writer-director Sophia Takal’s psychological thriller Always Shine is a thoughtful exploration of the performative nature of all social interactions, whether between actor and director, business and customer, individual and society and even between supposed best friends. Beth (Caitlin FitzGerald) and Anna (Mackenzie Davis) are both actresses living in Los Angeles who have had […]

ARTS Picks: ‘Dappled Things’

The multimedia, multi-artist show “Dappled Things” is named for the opening line in “Pied Beauty,” a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins that speaks to the natural magic of pattern and rhythm. Local artists, including Dean Dass, Cate West Zahl and Stephanie Fishwick, source the written word for inspiration by transforming text such as love letters, […]

The Packard Campus’ careful care of audio-visual heritage

Fred Ott, a magnificently mustachioed employee at Thomas Edison’s lab in Menlo Park, was known among his colleagues for his comedic sneezes. On January 7, 1894, Ott sneezed in Edison’s Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey, in front of a camera operated by William Heise. Two days later, on January 9, film director […]