Things I watched, listened to, ate and read this week #4
An album review
Album of the year?
The Femcels with their captivating debut I Have To Get Hotter, made up of 16 tracks, with an average track time of 2 minutes 2 seconds, built from a genre mash-up that you could label blitpop, or, if you’re with me on this one, pop genius.
In an age of cultural fragmentation and where in-cohesion is the given gear we select and accept for the onward journey through this deeply confusing landscape, The Femcels have managed to make an album that is entirely cohesive using all that we might consider to be the ruin of cohesion itself. This is all glitches. Bits. Fragments, and it adds up to make for a great, great album that might just nudge the cultural needle a little.
There are layers here. Tracks like The Indiest Girl in School, at a mere one minute and 39 seconds, has Congolese-style guitar lines set against a bed that sounds a bit like OMC’s How Bizarre and Van Bran 3000’s Drinking in L.A., with lyrics that begin by discussing exactly how the lyrics should be. The whole album is like this. This is proto-meta pop, deconstructionist songwriting and should not be dismissed on first listen.
The Femcels are on tour right now.
A restaurant review
Italian food where people once drank beer
I was invited to Aldo’s in Bradford by my sister and her friend — and my occasional cosmetic surgeon — Natalie.
As priorities have shifted in Bradford, many of the old pubs have been turned into carpet shops or Tescos, and in this case, an Italian restaurant.
While some are bemoaning the demise of the great British pub*, others are tucking into beautiful Italian food, shoulder to shoulder, in a city that still has space for well-put-together pubs, whilst demonstrating its famous business prowess with nimble adjustments to an ever-changing market.
Aldo’s is owned and very much hosted by… well, Aldo. Aldo is the kind of host you might have seen in movies, commanding his domain minus the filter that has been crowbarred into all business owners as we operate in a state of shit-scared operandi, fearful we might lose whatever white-knuckle grip we have on our own customer base. Aldo is here to welcome you to your table and say whatever the fuck he wants to say as he does so. Inspired by Aldo, I included a swear word in the previous sentence. Unlike Aldo, I'm already regretting it.
Dressed in Italian finery, seemingly cut to display the many hours spent at the gym, it is fair to say they just don’t make them like Aldo anymore.
Case in point: I went to the bathroom and returned to find him in my seat, eating my olives. With my cocktail stick. This is Goldilocks, if I had some, only set on the A658, Bradford.
The food was exceptional and the bill was fair enough to encourage a second glass of beautifully balanced Malbec before rolling home in my sister’s car, full of good food and wine, with the many aspects of that bizarre city in the rear view.
Good on this place, and all places like it that thrive as they swim upstream. I’ll be calling into Aldo’s again, but if Aldo starts eating my main course… I guess, considering his bulk, I’ll just pay the bill and say nothing.
*Pub fans-CAMRA members, I am with you. Support your local, of course.
A book review
A glorious debut to leave your bath water cold
Cyrus is an addict in recovery living in Iowa. His mother is dead, his father half-dead but still alive and then later, dead. His uncle, alive (just), but back in Cyrus’ place of birth, Tehran. Unsurprisingly, Cyrus, a hipster in his early 30s, is obsessed with death and seeking to write a book about finding meaning in death, about what it might mean to be a martyr.
A book about death then, but nowhere near as bleak as it might seem. At the heart of the story there are a couple of love stories that, like seeds planted in a war zone — war is an unavoidable backdrop here — have a tricky start, but you’re as dead as everyone else in this novel if you don’t find yourself gunning for them to flourish.
There are lines in this book that are so beautiful, if I could write one line like that which Kaveh Akbar is adorning every page with, I would die happy. I spent a couple of hours in the bath with Martyr! and one line got me so bad I only realised I had closed the book and had been staring at the ceiling with dewy eyes when the water froze me to consciousness. You may ick at my sentimentality here — but that’s what this story does.
The ending will leave you with some questions, but for a book about death, the question we must all provide an answer to, it seems fitting that Martyr! might leave us reaching for answers.
You can buy your copy of Martyr! here. Fans of poetry may also enjoy his book Calling a Wolf a Wolf, a revealing insight to life as an addict, living in America, having fled Iran.
A film review
A state-of-the-times love story about how the skeletons we once locked in the closet now have the key to get out
Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) fall in love and, after two years, decide to get married. One night over drinks with maid of honour Rachael (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamdou Athie), Emma reveals something she did in the past. The consequences of a historical action wrap their fingers around the neck of present day love.
This is a film about hypocrisy and empathy and what you can, and cannot, deal with in those you care for. It’s about imagination and being punished for having one, about boundaries and how far the line is drawn before we place the flag in the ground that says boundary here.
At 105 minutes, this is a fun jaunt, and a frequently funny film that balances cringe and comedy perfectly. It also says something about the hypocrite inside all of us.
I regret watching this alone. I would have loved to have asked someone whose side they were on out of the two leads. Do let me know your thoughts if you get to see this solid film.
Consider the Rich Mix as your place to view.