What I watched, listened to and read this week #12
Music-An EP 4
I love this band. They’re from Dublin. They are on their first EP and songs like The Man Who Seeks Pleasure and Blue and Gold sound so deeply rooted in the Irish tradition I had to go looking to check they aren’t old traditionals. They’re on a sell-out tour and I have three tickets for one of their dates. Have a listen to The Man Who Seeks Pleasure on some good headphones and see if your breath isn’t taken away. I was listening to it on a run through some woods in the North of England as the sun rose a few weeks ago and I had to stop and take a seat. Just me and the woods and whatever other weirdos were hiding in the trees at that time. It was spectacular.
If you like the EP, you can buy it here or you can stream it here.
Books
This week I read the essay Hyperpolitics by Anton Jäger. It is an essay, but one with an author’s narrative flair. It will take you through a couple of hundred years of mass political behaviour in about a two-hour read.
The book is an attempt to understand why politics feels so present in our lives while, at the same time, feeling increasingly disconnected from anything tangible.
You’ll go through several stages of modern politics, from the emergence of mass political parties and organised movements, through the more established party politics of the twentieth century, and eventually towards the much more fragmented politics of today, a political world where engagement is constant and highly visible, but where parties, movements and other forms of collective organisation have become weaker.
Fascinating, well-written stuff and especially recommended to those of us who are wired into the news with a morbid eye on global affairs, without really doing anything meaningful about any of it.
I bought this from a Waterstones because I liked the cover. Online here.
I also wasted seven hours of my life this week on a Dolly Parton biography that was a real bind to get through. A true endurance test. If anyone knows of a good Dolly Parton biography let me know.
Movies
I’ve been busy getting the Autumn term underway so time spent in a cinema seems like a distant dream. An opportunity, then, to point you in the direction of Bird, a beautiful film available to watch right now on iPlayer.
Bird tells the story of a young girl brought up in a chaotic environment. She befriends a man while out in a field. At the time of the meeting, she is hiding from the horrors of life; he is looking for his childhood home. Barry Keoghan plays the father. He reportedly turned down mega millions to take the lead role in Gladiator 2 just so he can be in this film. Although his bank balance might be ten or so million dollars lighter, he made the right call
This had a limited cinema release so it's cool it is on iplayer.
Another film that isn’t getting a mass release, but one that I have been excited about since I first heard of it, is a biopic of the jazz pianist Bill Evans called Everybody Digs Bill Evans. The Guitar Social has a tenuous link to the director, Grant Gee. He has worked with TGS Records producer Jerry Chater on two acclaimed music documentaries, Radiohead: Meeting People Is Easy (1998) and Joy Division (2007).
Jerry told me about this film back in January and I have been looking forward to seeing it all year. It’s shot in monochrome by cinematographer Piers McGrail and tells the tragic story of one of the world’s greatest musical minds dealing with grief and addiction. You need to Google for screenings — this is on a limited run. Some of the screenings include a Q&A with Grant Gee.
I’m off to see it twice. I have one ticket for a screening at The Garden Cinema and one at the Rio. Can’t wait. If you like jazz and independent film, I would definitely get on this one. I don’t think you’ll get many chances to see it on a big screen. Garden Cinema in Covent Garden or The Rio. There’ll be others. Get on Google.