After putting out two EPs in 2013, BANKS released her debut full-length album Goddess in 2014 and quickly established herself as a frontrunner of the surging minimalist pop movement. Collaborating with a handful of producers including Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and Sohn, BANKS manages to craft a seductive and intense body of work that bleeds emotion. She is vixen-like on some tracks with her voice wailing like a siren, lustful and tortured. On others, she shows a more vulnerable dimension, switching to a softer, more cautious tone.
Goddess is a prime of example of how opposites attract with the polished production often juxtaposed by the rawness and emotion in BANKS’ voice. But perhaps it is this juxtaposition that manages to capture interest throughout the 14-track (18 for deluxe) affair.
I am really enjoying the experimental path pop music is heading towards at the moment and I put my faith in BANKS whose quiet passion is leading the uprising and breathing fire into the revolution.
Deeply moving and atmospheric, The War On Drugs’ third album is nothing short of impressive. Combining foggy instrumentals with Adam Granduciel’s mournful vocals, Lost In The Dream creates a tingling sensation that persists throughout the album.
Granduciel is incredibly creative with his direction of the band’s sound, the most notable example being the opening of the first track “Under the Pressure,” which sounds eerily like a kettle as it starts to heat up on a stove.
Admittedly, Lost In The Dream is an album that requires the listener to be in a specific mental state. While the single “Red Eyes” has gotten its fair share of radio play in recent months, the album as a whole is definitely not meant for sunny Friday afternoons as you leave your last class. Rather, it demands a kind of focus that can be found when writing an essay at 3 a.m. or walking a great distance on a drizzly day.
This is All Yours is a delicious mix of the catchy riffs, and soothing melodies that define Alt-J’s unique sound. The British stalwarts’ lyrics are both poetic and vague, and at times Joe Newman’s vocals are almost entirely unintelligible. The catch here is that discovering the meaning behind Newman’s lyrics as the album progresses is as enjoyable as it is challenging.
“Warm Foothills” is a sweetly charming addition to the album. Its gorgeous harmonies paired with a light-hearted guitar riff and the beautiful imagery that’s offered by the lyrics is a sure-fire recipe for an amazing song. It’s impossible not to feel moved, especially when the voices croon out “I tie my life to your balloon and let it go.”
Alt-J’s sophomore effort is full of equally compelling songs, and is one to seek out for those who are keen on experiencing something a little bit different from their usual fare.
Lykke Li’s latest album, I Never Learn is another thematic step forward for the Swedish songstress that highlights the unavoidability of her favourite topic, heartbreak.
Having explored the immediate pain of a breakup in Youth Novels and charted the effects of ever-clinging despair in follow-up Wounded Rhymes, Li seems to embrace her fate with aptly titled I Never Learn. While riddled with the same mournful darkness as her previous albums, I Never Learn has a more powerful underlying cohesion that results in greater depth than her previous efforts.
“Just Like a Dream” is a standout that put listeners in a somber trance with its consistent deep vocals and powerful drumbeat throughout. The loneliness found in the rest of the tracks will be relatable to anyone who has endured having their heart broken.
The emotions in I Never Learn are devastating when considering how they consume Li, but leave you wanting to delve deeper into both her mind and music.
2014 brought about the resurrection of Ben Howard’s electric licks and transcendent timbre with the release of his sophomore album I Forget Where We Were. Howard’s mellow tone was one that was dearly missed by his nucleus of fans, a following that has grown exponentially since his first venture into the Indie scene. The album features tracks marked by simplicity, yet is intricately layered with eclectic sounds, electric echoes, and an overall permeation of his soulful, burning voice.
The shift from acoustic to electric guitar comes as a surprise, but only works to complement his electrically charged wails. His tracks may build and crash in the background but his whispery voice carries every track from its burgeoning start to the final chord. Among all other galvanic album releases this year, Ben Howard’s second album is a refreshing alcove of soothing tracks that will make you — if even for a second — forget where you are.
Born Tahliah Barnett, FKA Twigs owns an aesthetic that is eerie and unconventional. From her album covers to her music videos, her works emulate a distortion of beauty that adds to her eccentric persona and allure. In LP1, crystalline beats puncture through flesh and bone, though her breathy voice never fails to linger and heal these wounds. The album is filled with punchy beats and crafty synthetic hooks. Her lyrics, though not cathartic, are intimate and relatable.
A standout track is “Pendulum.” It emulates the vibe that defines the rest of the album; beautifully tragic. Twigs manages to convey a desperation that so many of us are familiar with in a way that doesn’t make her a damsel in distress. This song is her autopsy, and though she lays disassembled on the track, you still can’t figure her out.
FKA Twigs manages to merge a cavalcade of electronic beats and orchestral instruments with her tantalizingly warped vocals. She is clandestine and provocative, and every whimper or lustful sigh that fills the occasional silence in LP1 further imposes the mystique behind this extraterrestrial seductress.
Some go to church on Sundays, I listen to What is This Heart?. The emotional expansiveness of Tom Krell’s third record under the How To Dress Well moniker renders it every bit as cathartic as religious gatherings are supposed to be.
While Krell suggests, “ there’s no design, no god,” on opener “2 Years On (Shame Dream),” the message he sends with the remainder of his album is not morose, but rather uplifting. Krell abhors easy cynicism, and this deeply earnest effort serves to counteract it.
The tall falsetto-voiced singer grapples with existential issues deftly, perhaps aided by the work he has done on his dissertation on nihilism and German philosophy. Although the subject matter is lofty, Krell’s honeyed vocals and the immersive production all bring one back down to earth to engage with his demons in an experience that won’t fail to induce tears. Far from depressing, the record combines a whirl of emotions into a rehabilitative sonic experience. If you embrace What is this Heart?, it’ll return the favour.
Through brilliant production, back-and-forth chemistry between Killer Mike and El-P, and willingness to be completely unapologetic in its lyrics, the second collaboration between the duo never feels stale or bloated underneath its middle finger to almost everyone and everything. Run The Jewels 2 is not for the light-hearted or easily offended. Hooks like “Lie, cheat, steal, kill, win, win, (everybody doing it)” set up the duo to aggressively persecute any critics in their way while providing transitions into serious topics such as police brutality, racism, drug usage, war, death, and government hypocrisy.
What makes the album particularly amazing is the ability to balance all of this. Every song could easily be a single on its own due to the ability to stand separated from album context, and the sheer quality of every track from top to bottom. Each feels completely unique from the last. Each invites you to rage and to build up feelings of rebellion against whatever may be holding you down. Good luck finding anything else quite like RTJ2, but look out for the cat-inspired (seriously) remix Meow The Jewels.
When I first heard Alvvays I didn’t think much of it. Their track “Adult Diversion” had been posted on a music blog I followed, and while I liked the song, I never followed up on it. Months later multiple friends of mine started telling me I had to listen to this band that “was like Best Coast, but with better lyrics.” While I could see the similarities, after endless loopings of “Archie, Marry Me,” “Next of Kin,” and “The Agency Group” I quickly realized Alvvays was so much more.
It’s hard to pin down just what it is that makes the Canadian indie-pop’s self-titled debut so compelling. Maybe it’s Molly Rankin’s ethereal voice, or the perfect balance of the “less is more” production philosophy, or even Alec O’Hanley’s expert use of dissonance in his guitar playing. What is clear is that each listen of Alvvays builds on the dreamy summer soundscape that I’ve come to love. Proof that Canada makes music to be proud of; Alvvays doesn’t disappoint.
Annie Clark, better known as the effervescent St. Vincent, has always been somewhat of an anomaly. From her butterfly wing-wearing days touring with Sufjan Stevens to her latest self-titled album, she has never played by the rules, but it’s always worked for her.
St. Vincent is jarring, mismatched, often dark, but always sounds exactly as it should. Without trying too hard, St. Vincent has fashioned herself as an art-pop icon by refusing to be anyone but herself. In a world where the weirdos are rarely celebrated, St. Vincent has delivered the best album of the year, a pop-rock-electronic album that allows for both introspection and intense dance sessions guaranteed to up your self-esteem and overall mood. From the ethereal aura of “Prince Johnny” to the retro simplicity of “Huey Newton,” Clark manages to produce her best album to date that somehow captures the essence of the past and the future effortlessly.
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Xavier Dolan’s Mommy follows Diane “Die” Despres (Anne Dorval), a single mother trying to make ends meet. Her teenage son, Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), has ADHD and is emotionally unstable; one moment he is sweet-natured and the next he is violent. Along with Kyla (Susanne Clément), a quiet neighbour with an idiopathic stutter and her own troubles, the three form an unusual friendship in hopes that their broken pieces will somehow form a whole.
The performances of Dorval, Pilon, and Clément are operatic in scale, with all three turning in tremendous work. The decision to shoot the film in a 1:1 aspect ratio also augments the film, emphasizing how characters in the story are all confined to some form of a boundary.
Mommy is raw, carnal, and positively engrossing. Like Steve, the film is menacingly incandescent, with heavy scenes of violence and grief punctuated by bursts of humour and the warmth of a mother’s irrefutable, almost desperate, love. Equal measures heartfelt and heartbreaking, Mommy is one of the dearest films in 2014, and will tug at your heartstrings without remorse.
The blunt, raunchy, but insightful nature of Chris Rock’s stand-up lends itself brilliantly to Top Five, arguably Rock’s smartest feature to date. The semi-autobiographical film follows Andre Allen (Rock), a sell-out comedian hoping to be taken seriously, and Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson), a Times reporter, through a day of self-discovery wrapped up in not-so-subtle chemistry that ultimately satisfies. During the day-long interview, the pair pose the question, “who are your top five all-time favourite rappers” repeatedly to those Allen interacts with. Allen is reminiscent of comedians like Adam Sandler, who once made genuinely funny movies only to fall from grace and continuously make offensively bad movies.
Top Five allows for the exploration into the precariousness of celebrity, selling out, family, and comedy. The movie, which features cameos from Hollywood’s top comedians, strays from the formulaic nature of the modern blockbuster and ostensibly takes us back to a time where movies attempted, not only to entertain, but to also say something.
A star-studded cast, brilliant cinematography, a script that allows for both unforgettable monologues and snappy back-and-forth dialogue across nearly any combination of characters involved, and a total package of a film that demands repeat watches all make for what could very well be the ceiling of what modern cinema is capable of.
Riggan, played by Michael Keaton, is a washed up actor who used to play in a series of superhero movies. His attempt to reclaim legitimacy comes in the form of a stage production of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” This short plot description does not do the film nearly enough justice given the complexity of Riggan’s situation and mental state, how well developed all of the secondary characters are as individuals, and the vastly different relationships that each of these characters have with one another.
Much of the preview and basic media coverage revolves around how the film is set up to look like one long-take, basically that it has minimal cuts or transitions, that most film fan boys enjoy in any usage for how well these shots are usually framed, what climax or point they attempt to build up to, and the requirements and complexity required by the actors in the scene. While Birdman does follow these conventions, the main purpose is to add emphasis to the parallels between the main characters and their roles within the play performed within the movie – this also spills over with the script in self-referential elements such as Michael Keaton’s own experiences with the Batman franchise or Edward Norton being notoriously difficult to work with on set. While the fine line between losing yourself within the universe of the story and these meta components of reminding the watcher of real life events could very easily backfire, it works for the most part in continuing to blur lines between who they are in real life, who they are in the movie, and the parts they play within the play in the movie.
Everything in the film leads itself to brisk, constant action and sensory overload by constantly switching your expectations for the upcoming scene. Every moment is memorable and unique from every other in the film. This is a must-watch.
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Short, punchy, and at times anxiety-inducing, Whiplash is not a typical film. It centers on an aspiring jazz band drummer and the teacher who pushes him to the brink of insanity. J.K. Simmons is perfectly cast as the loud, abusive conductor, and in a much more subtle way, Miles Teller’s portrayal of the young drummer is just as well cast. From the film’s opening to its climax, their complex relationship plays out in a horrifyingly magnetic performance that stays with the audience hours after the film ends. The finale is satisfying, but unapologetically ambiguous in a way that respects the audience’s ability to imagine what could potentially follow the bizarre “happily ever after.”
Perhaps the most impressive element of the film is its runtime. Part of its effectiveness comes from the fact that an entire tumultuous year in the lives of the characters is played out in just over 100 minutes, leaving the viewer with the concise but undeniably disturbing feeling of whiplash.
While Boyhood got all the credit this year, another coming-of-age film didn’t get the attention it deserved. We Are The Best! is a Swedish movie whose small release and the fact that it wasn’t shot over the span of 12 years probably worked against it. Lukas Moodysson focuses his astute lens on three pre-teen girls who make change rather than a fairly typical boy who passively watches as change sweeps him off his feet.
Bobo and Klara are two best friends who still cling to the notion that punk is not dead in 1980s Stockholm. Frustrated by their tumultuous home life, the two retreat to the community centre to do their homework but are stymied by the noise made by the loud (and horrible) practice of a band called Iron Fist.
Despite their lack of instruments, the two conspire to keep the disrespectful boys from practicing by reserving their own timeslot; thus, their own band is born. What follows is a heart-warming/breaking tale that sees them absorb another lonely girl into their midst and become a full-fledged badass punk unit.
When I first saw the trailers for Guardians of the Galaxy I admit, I wasn’t very impressed. It looked like a rushed, cheesy film that would soon become indistinguishable from the countless other superhero movies that seem to be flooding movie theatres in the last five years. Worse still, I couldn’t help but question the fact that it had a talking raccoon, which – even now – is pretty damn weird.
Instead I found a movie with deep compelling characters, stunning visual effects, and witty dialogue at every turn that proved just how wrong my impressions were. While Guardians of the Galaxy may not be the movie of the year, it possesses a charm that left me laughing even after my first viewing, and is one superhero movie you just can’t miss.
The first thing you notice is the colours. Next, the gorgeous set design begins to permeate the senses. Long before you begin to even fathom the plot or the acting, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel already has you under his spell.
In a year where cinema seemed to be drowning in superheroes and dark storylines, Anderson’s witty and stylish film is a breath of fresh air reminding us that there’s more to the movies than just explosions and fight sequences. Beyond the vibrant plums and the electrifying fuchsias, Anderson weaves an elaborate cat-and-mouse tale that manages to explore the themes of love and unlikely friendships without ever taking itself too seriously.
Newcomer Tony Revolori holds his own as Zero Moustafa, and Ralph Fiennes’ shines as Monsieur Gustav H. (who knew Voldemort could be so adorable?) That said, the film is a constellation where all the stars create a spectacle much bigger than the individual parts.
The year is young and I’m sure you’ve made plenty of resolutions, but let me tell you something: The gym can wait, this film cannot. Make sure you see for yourself what all the buzz around Wes Anderson’s most recent masterpiece is before it gets buried in all of the treasures (fingers-crossed) 2015 has to offer.
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Sparks fly between medical school dropout Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe), and Chantry (Zoe Kazan) amid the skyscrapers, botanical gardens and quirky corners of downtown Toronto. Cut from the same cloth, their witty banter and seamless conversation is every indication of their compatibility. Two people that are awkward together stay together. Unfortunately, Wallace is five years too late, as lawyer Ben has already beaten him to the punch and secured Chantry’s heart. This leaves Wallace with no choice but to prove the age-old fable that guys and girls really can “just be friends.” While, the movie is admittedly unable to escape the clutch of corniness that trademarks every “will they, won’t they” movie, even the most skeptical of romantics must secretly hope that the pair will end up together by the time the end credits roll. This is largely due in part to Daniel’s affable nervousness and Zoe’s doe-eyed charm, but even their chemistry may not be enough for those severely allergic to the word “cute”.
For those, I offer you an antidote: a true cinematographic tour of Toronto. You may have recognized the Harvard bar in Good Will Hunting for its true identity as a bar on Front Street, or New York skyscrapers as Torontonian ones in many Manhattan movies — Toronto has long played the stunt double for other cities in the world, so it is rewarding to see it get credit. As Chantry and Wallace fall in love strolling along Dundas Street, watchers will fall in love with the way the city glows in the rain (if they haven’t already).
There’s been talk of potential Oscar nominations surrounding The Imitation Game ever since its release date in late November. Benedict Cumberbatch, known primarily for his role in the BBC drama Sherlock, stars as brilliant English mathematician Alan Turing, who was responsible for solving the “Enigma” code during the Second World War.
The biopic is loosely based on the experiences of Turing in the 1940s. He was hired by the British government along with a few other code breakers to take part in a clandestine project of grave importance – finding a way to break the Enigma code. If the code was broken (it was said to be impossible) then the British would be able to decipher messages being sent amongst the Germans, thereby revealing planned attacks, co-ordinates, strategies, and other vital information that would aid the Allies in winning the war.
In terms of historical accuracy, this film isn’t quite on the mark. Many liberties were taken to presumably make the film more dramatic, or even exaggerate Turing’s character. Cumberbatch’s Turing has difficulty in social situations, doesn’t understand jokes and doesn’t usually play well with others. He’s a genius – mathematician, computer science pioneer, philosopher and code breaker. He’s also queer, which was illegal in Britain at that time.
Frivolous plot points aside, Cumberbatch portrays Turing brilliantly. He adopts several completely new mannerisms for the role, and the way in which he delivers them is stunning. Overlooking the historical inaccuracies, the film is a roller coaster of emotion that makes for a good watch.
Winner of the 2015 Golden Globe award for Best Animated Film, How To Train Your Dragon 2 once again does not fail to make its audience, no matter what age, feel the uncontrollable need to curl up into a ball and cry. Reuniting man with dragon, the long-awaited sequel explores the values of family, friendship and standing up for what is right.
The film explores the complicated relationship between humans and animals and the damage that can be done when this relationship is not understood. Canadian director Dean DeBlois is no stranger to directing children’s movies that often leave its older audience more stirred than its younger audience. Other than both How To Train Your Dragon 1 and 2, Deblois also co-directed 2002 Lilo and Stitch and Disney’s 1998 Mulan.
The 3-D animation in How To Train Your Dragon 2 is nearly perfect. Regardless of its compelling story, the beauty of watching Toothless soar through the clouds while his silhouette reflects in the crystal clear lake below will leave you wanting to sprout wings and fly off.
