ARTS Pick: Taarka

Prism Coffeehouse presents Taarka, a husband-and-wife-led team formed in 2001 in Portland, Oregon, by David and Enion Pelta-Tiller. The band, whose name is derived from a term in Indian cooking used to describe the sound of spices roasting, blends Virginia-rooted bluegrass and jazz with classical elements to form an eclectic and energetic gypsy-jazz. Sunday 1/10. $15-17, […]

ARTS Pick: Marian McLaughlin

Experimental folk musician Marian McLaughlin has a trance-like effect on her audiences thanks to her stream-of-consciousness delivery that is at once delicate and multilayered. Her exploratory approach to music is inspired by French social revolutionary Guy Debord’s concept of dérive (also the name of her first release), where an individual sets out on a spontaneous […]

Film review: DiCaprio suffers beautifully in The Revenant

It may seem sarcastic or strange to praise a movie for having an unengaging story to tell, but in the case of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, its lack of reliance on narrative is precisely its saving grace. Thanks to unnecessary yet spectacular attention to detail, unrelenting technical perfectionism and a pathological commitment to discarding […]

January First Fridays Guide

Local artist Aaron Eichorst believes in the power of a positive perspective on influencing personal success. His exhibition, “Inner Outlook,” is an artistic manifestation of his personal attitudes and temperaments over four years, and follows a previous series that featured a style called grotesque—an intricate incorporation of fantastic human and animal figures interlaced with architectural […]

New year notions: Local artists look ahead at 2016

Ah, the new year. That time when thoughts turn to starry-eyed dreams, impossibly slim waistlines and the vague notion that if we could just pull away our bad habits like Clark Kent’s suit jacket, we’d find Super(wo)man underneath. After two years interviewing local artists (and 31 years living as one), I can officially say that […]

ARTS Pick: Donna the Buffalo

For the past 20 years, Donna the Buffalo has been uniting audiences with its rhythmic and groove-heavy tunes. Self-described as a band “for the people,” this New York-based group incorporates elements of Cajun, rock, folk, country and a bit of a moral message to create meaningful music you can dance to. The band partnered with […]

Fruitful endeavors: Michael Clem issues second solo album a decade later

Since moving to Charlottesville from Northern Virginia in 2008, Michael Clem has become a staple of the city’s music scene. Having played bass and sung harmony and lead vocals for nearly two decades for the nationally acclaimed Washington, D.C.,-based quintet Eddie from Ohio, whose shows and records frequently featured world-class players such as Béla Fleck, […]

Dynamic Duo: MoJa embraces lifelong musical lessons

It isn’t the quest for red-carpet accolades, social media props, YouTube views or Spotify listens that drives MoJa. The Charlottesville-based quartet, co-fronted by violinist Morwenna Lasko and guitarist Jay Pun, wants to make better art. “We don’t view making music as a commercial enterprise,” says Pun. “Rather, we think of it as a continual process […]

What we want: WarHen Records keeps going for local music

Last October, Warren Parker sat at his dining room table with a set of alphabet rubber stamps, a blue ink pad and a few dozen 7″ vinyl records with blank white labels laid out edge to edge. Letter by letter, he stamped the labels: Beams, A, WarHen. Once the ink dried, he flipped the records […]