Bob Wake
Playfully and at times painfully self-aware, Rick Moody flees from conventional storytelling as if from the West Nile virus or Enron stock. His relentlessly clever stories and novels have always taken the path of greatest resistance. Overripe highbrow prose ...
Mark Jennett
The eerie soundscapes created by Julianna Raye and producer Ethan Jones are superficially reminiscent of the collaboration of Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti. However, while “Falling“ will forever be associated with that weirdest of all American small towns, David ...
Mark Jennett
Although she has been a fixture on the Canadian musical theatre scene for many years (with roles in Piaf, Jacques Brel is Alive And Well And Living in Paris, The World Goes ‘Round, Blood Brothers, The Roar of the ...
Bob Wake
Robert W. Norris’s Looking for the Summer is a graceful autobiographical novel that breathes fresh life into a perennial genre: the spiritual bildungsroman. The theme of a questing expatriate who renounces Western materialism in favor of an exotic pilgrimage ...
Mark Jennett
Courtenay Day sounds a like a world weary Liz Callaway - clear and pure but slightly cracked around the edges. It’s not a great voice but she knows what to do with it. Warm, with an edge of vulnerability, ...
Mark Jennett
A couple of recent releases feature benefit concerts devoted to two of the greatest theatre composers of the twentieth century. Both were recorded in Los Angeles and feature many of the same performers. Most of the material is familiar ...
Andy Hughes
The key word here is ‘unofficial’. Tom O’Neil is an American film critic and commentator and he’s been around long enough to be able to sift out the facts and figures from the morass of self-congratulation and financially motivated ...
Mark Jennett
Be careful what you wish for. When I reviewed Lisa Richard's first CD, Born To Entertain, I suggested that, since the most interesting tracks were the lesser known pieces, it was a shame that she hadn't chosen to stretch ...
Phil Freeman
Electronic music seems to have one specific, defining characteristic: it must be made on keyboard- or computer-based instruments, not with guitars and drums. The Canadian trio, The New Deal, have decided that’s a little restrictive for their tastes. They ...
Mark Jennett
Five albums - released between 1972 and 1982 - represent the years between Springfield's critical peak with Dusty in Memphis and her temporary return to commercial form with the Pet Shop Boys and the Reputation album. Although many of ...
