It’s been 5 years since I last compiled an end-of-year list. Or at least, I can find a list from 2013 and don’t recollect having completed one in the time that has followed.
The key driver behind this neglect is that I have discarded my career as a cultural critic for a more stable one, in a field more welcoming to mediocrity. This is relevant as the change in professional circumstance has altered how I confront culture. For instance when I once viewed festivals as richly indulgent and overwhelming for the attendee, today I relish the opportunity to dedicate extended time to a cultural activity.
The Berlinale and London Film Festival were calendar highlights for me as was the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Within their programmes ‘las Herederas’ (tr. the Heiresses) tells a tale of a couple who have squandered their inheritance, with the film commencing as their finances begin to impact their life together. It’s a beautiful tale of human vulnerability portrayed well by Ane Brun.
Susperia revives the Giallo classic. It has been many years in the making and the timing of this release couldn’t be more ideal. Set in West Berlin amid the chaos of the Baader Meinhof campaign, Palestinian hostages, and shadow of fascism past and present. The movie celebrates a variety of artistic practices, from the architecture of the dance company building, full of deceptions, devils and hidden rooms. The beautiful music by Thom Yorke, contemporary dance, couture and theatre. The film shows us that art is our moral compass to escape populist movements, terror and fascism. I appreciate the original occupies a unique place in the cinema canon, but this revival is the developed, refined version. It’s a shame many viewers weren’t persuaded at the time of release.
Happy as Lazzaro was my favourite from the BFI LFF competition. An Italian village is living in feudal penury as a tobacco empire, long since prosperity, continues to extort the workers with land rents that always exceed their revenues from produce. Within this tragedy is Lazarus who, hampered by naivety, seeks a more moral path. It seems coincidental that I have been drawn to three new releases that all deal with morality and decisions.
The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival is a reliable forum for new discoveries. This year’s highlight was Francesco Filidei’s Finito ongi gesto performed by the Divertimento Ensemble. The piece features a number a faint sounds, ruffles, squeaks and taps. All performed in a compelling, sympathetic way. It opened up a whole new way to think about music. It was like a magic trick. Performed successfully it makes the audience believe in a new realm of possibilities. It made me feel like I had unlocked a new room in music. That life is filled with infinities.
I would love to recommend ‘asymmetry’ by Lisa Halliday and ‘Florida’ by Lauren Groff. The first is two stories that observe how all the relationships we can recognise in our lives, between governments and citizens, banks and customers, companies and employees, parents and children. None of them are equally weighted. There is always a power imbalance, a structure that deballasts our relationships. Given this setting how are we to create a symmetry for the relationships we can control. Is it foolish to attempt parity with my girlfriend? Where is the precedent to guide us? Halliday plays with this comic thought and writes without a word out of place.
The second book is a collection of short stories. What astonishes me by Groff is that she is able to write so many different characters, tell so many different stories, and in a multitude of styles. She has a desk full of different skills which she calls upon through her writing. To highlight this achievement she elects the state of Florida as the parameter to set all her stories. What happens within the state’s borders surprises and moves with each page.
Spending most of the year between Manchester and London opened up the spoils of the capital, specifically its theatres and galleries. The Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern diarised his life in 1932. The Parisian concubine, the countryside retreat. The combination of his sculpted faces, where they come to life as I moved around them from close inspection. Their exploded features become real as you spin. It not that they are meant to look real from a flat, drawn-back angle. He compares the different media in paintings that feature his sculptures or a vase.
I greatly enjoyed ‘summer and smoke’ (Tennessee Williams) at the Almeida. As the blossoming life of Alma a parson’s daughter meets the descending havoc of a student medic, their lives become entangled. Will the girl bring faith and salvation to the hellraising nihilist, or will her life also be consumed by the destruction. A concluding line that life’s beauty is found in small mercies touched me at a time when my work and responsibilities were seeming relentless.
It has taken some time for me to liberate music from professional analysis and introspection. I’m sure this change of approach has altered the substance of my listenership, freeing me from the duty of having to indulge new releases. A punishing requirement I no longer sooth with endless bruising noise.
On a Thursday night in the village DJ Sprinkles reconstructed classic house music part by part. Each track extending out beyond the length of a symphony. The crowd was brimming with friends. The music soothed the mind as I danced my cares away. It made me realise that things I had considered frustrations were thoughts without use nor importance.
My most played musician this year is Willie Colón, a Nuyorican (Puerto Rican-New Yorker, typically the Bronx) trombonist whose career from an early age found him making music with the most exceptional minds. With his playing prominent in the mix the resulting albums routinely innovate and surprise. His most famous partnership was with vocalist Hector LaVoe but none of the records they made should be described as duets. The piano and percussion work on El Juicio (1972) by Joe Torres, or on tibiales Louis Romero reveals a dancefloor of styles. I particularly like the guitar playing on El Baquine de Angelitos Negros (1977), a record with an expansive contributor list with Cuban and Brazilian players. My current favorite Colón track is La Banda; to be found on Alsalta Navideno Vol II a Christmas record with forgivable cover art.
With live bands on protracted and discomforting tours, I’ve come to expect that there’s only a certain level these groups can perform at. We are all limited. Sons of Kemet defied this silly notion and played at a level that I thought existed only in legend. Their second performance of the day at Band on the Wall was a breathless showcase of the group’s breadth and ability. A pleasure to watch people perform at such a high level.
Attending the Rolling Stones at Old Trafford was a nervy affair. I wanted to be part of a cultural event that has continued since the group formed. Their tour. From the British palladia whose roofs were screamed off in the 60s. Though the tragedy of Altamont, the craziness, the excess and destruction. I wanted our timelines to overlap. I came to realise how close to my heart I keep their songbook. I can taste every word, every organ melody, every kick drum. Mick Jagger, in his infant like joy, casts a carefree light. I could see how audiences would fall dizzy, enthralled by his liberation. When teenagers wear outlandish clothes or refuse to conform it is mocked by the sensible adults. But Mick absorbs those woes, the cynicism. If the frontman’s role is to be the salesman for the music, to get the audience on board with the art, Mick is unrivalled. And in his persuasion, has become the father of radical adolescence. A hero and a shining light.
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