Over two previous albums, this Seattle-based outfit weren't easy to pigeonhole (alt.country, boho-folk, indie.something?) but were always interesting because of that, not least for singer Peter Quirk's distinctive vocals which were "quirky" for want of a better word. Here, however, they really throw in some visceral, edgy material (the abrasive and tense Black Leaf, the psychedelic spook voodoo of Outer Realms) alongside brooding backwoods menace (Falls where an Appalachian Doors get old time religion and quit town in a hurry) and strange, evocative narratives (Haller Lake). Quirk's singing has become stronger and more tar-coated, the arrangements for small string parts and keyboards are more complex and there are discreet influences from drone music, blues and Middle Eastern melodies alongside their strong core of alt-folk.
Things falter a little around the midpoint (Clever Creatures sounds like Lou Reed gone to Texas, the harmonica-embellished Haystacks you might have heard from the likes of Peter Case and the Waterboys) but the dreamy folk of Distant Sures and unexpected Indo-electronica of Faze Wave redeem things.
An interesting and worthwhile direction from a band which has always been worth hearing and seldom delivers the expected. If they are new to you, here's where you make their strangely compelling acquaintance.
2011年7月6日星期三
2011年6月20日星期一
Rescue Pets of the Week
Thinking about adding a furry friend to your family? Consider rescuing a pet from an LA Animal Services shelter.
The North Central Division serves Hollywood residents seeking to adopt and picks up lost pets in the area.
The pets included in our photo gallery are just a sample of the many that are available in their online adopt-a-pet database.
Rescue Pets: Inexpensive and Easy
The maximum cost for a resident to adopt a dog is $122. The maximum for a cat is $76. The fee includes vaccinations, spaying/neutering, microchipping and, for dogs, the first year license fee.
The shelter is at 3201 Lacy Street in Los Angeles.
Hours of operation: Tuesdays through Fridays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The North Central Division serves Hollywood residents seeking to adopt and picks up lost pets in the area.
The pets included in our photo gallery are just a sample of the many that are available in their online adopt-a-pet database.
Rescue Pets: Inexpensive and Easy
The maximum cost for a resident to adopt a dog is $122. The maximum for a cat is $76. The fee includes vaccinations, spaying/neutering, microchipping and, for dogs, the first year license fee.
The shelter is at 3201 Lacy Street in Los Angeles.
Hours of operation: Tuesdays through Fridays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
2011年5月5日星期四
Off-Roading
Every few years, the Western stirs and lets out a muffled croak, although the sound could just as easily be gas escaping from its bloated corpse. The wagon-train movie, however, is well and truly dead, its bones bleached by the sun and coated with exhaust fumes. Who can imagine a time at which it might take weeks to effect a river crossing, months to traverse an expanse a jet can fly over in minutes?
The rap on Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff, inspired by an ill-fated episode in the history of the Oregon Trail, is that it's pointlessly distended and narratively slight — in other words, slow and boring. And while it's positively zippy compared to the events it depicts, it's clear that Reichardt and her screenwriter, Jon Raymond, mean to convey something of the endless drudgery of a desert crossing, made worse by the dubious navigational skills of Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), a self-mythologizing mountain man with a Buffalo Bill beard and a twang as thick as tar. Large stretches pass without dialogue, and shots of the wagons rolling across the parched ground are a constant refrain.
The scope of the real 1845 expedition is drastically reduced, from 200 wagons to three, a move in keeping not only with the budgetary restrictions of an independent film, but also with Reichardt's desire to whittle the settlers' ordeal down to its core. Details of place and origin are shaved away, leaving only the present tense. We glean little about the three couples undertaking the journey, apart from their immediate responses: the Gatelys (Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano) grow hysterical; the Whites (Shirley Henderson and Neal Huff), anxious; the Tetherows (Michelle Williams and Will Patton), resolute. Their abstracted journey inevitably lends itself to allegorical readings about a nation adrift in the desert, especially once the settlers capture an Indian (Rod Rondeaux) and try to persuade him to lead them out. But though Reichardt and Raymond both point out the story's contemporary echoes in interviews, it cripples the film's resonance to reduce it to a parable of Bush-era folly.
More than a political tract, Meek's Cutoff functions as a sculpture in time, a careful stock-taking of the settlers' progress, both forward and back. When the Indian first appears in the landscape, Reichardt uses the loading of a flintlock rifle to generate almost unbearable tension. In a long shot that reduces her to a hazy figure in the midst of open space, Williams fires a shot into the air, and then reloads, a process that takes a half-dozen steps and what feels like several minutes. Then, she abruptly cuts away on the sound of the second shot, increasing its impact and incidentally demonstrating that the film's "real time" is nothing of the sort. Reichardt and Raymond don't use conventional tools to propel their story forward, but it moves at its own calculated pace.
The rap on Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff, inspired by an ill-fated episode in the history of the Oregon Trail, is that it's pointlessly distended and narratively slight — in other words, slow and boring. And while it's positively zippy compared to the events it depicts, it's clear that Reichardt and her screenwriter, Jon Raymond, mean to convey something of the endless drudgery of a desert crossing, made worse by the dubious navigational skills of Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), a self-mythologizing mountain man with a Buffalo Bill beard and a twang as thick as tar. Large stretches pass without dialogue, and shots of the wagons rolling across the parched ground are a constant refrain.
The scope of the real 1845 expedition is drastically reduced, from 200 wagons to three, a move in keeping not only with the budgetary restrictions of an independent film, but also with Reichardt's desire to whittle the settlers' ordeal down to its core. Details of place and origin are shaved away, leaving only the present tense. We glean little about the three couples undertaking the journey, apart from their immediate responses: the Gatelys (Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano) grow hysterical; the Whites (Shirley Henderson and Neal Huff), anxious; the Tetherows (Michelle Williams and Will Patton), resolute. Their abstracted journey inevitably lends itself to allegorical readings about a nation adrift in the desert, especially once the settlers capture an Indian (Rod Rondeaux) and try to persuade him to lead them out. But though Reichardt and Raymond both point out the story's contemporary echoes in interviews, it cripples the film's resonance to reduce it to a parable of Bush-era folly.
More than a political tract, Meek's Cutoff functions as a sculpture in time, a careful stock-taking of the settlers' progress, both forward and back. When the Indian first appears in the landscape, Reichardt uses the loading of a flintlock rifle to generate almost unbearable tension. In a long shot that reduces her to a hazy figure in the midst of open space, Williams fires a shot into the air, and then reloads, a process that takes a half-dozen steps and what feels like several minutes. Then, she abruptly cuts away on the sound of the second shot, increasing its impact and incidentally demonstrating that the film's "real time" is nothing of the sort. Reichardt and Raymond don't use conventional tools to propel their story forward, but it moves at its own calculated pace.
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