In mid-October, while promoting an upcoming anniversary show, the fantastic American blog-turned-label Exploding in Sound’s Facebook page posted a live performance under a caption heralding the quartet as “EIS, the next generation.” The post seemed apt. The Pennsylvania/New York-based band, Palm, has one foot in the ’90s-esque, oddball guitar rock[Read More…]
Arts & Entertainment
Keep up to date on local art, new albums, and everything entertainment-related.
Album Review: Purpose – Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber’s last few years have been tumultuous, to say the least. At the beginning of his career he was a teen idol who—likely under the direction of a PR team—always said and did the right things. Then, as he grew older, he developed more individuality; ultimately manifesting itself in[Read More…]
Pop Rhetoric: Adele’s “Hello” and discussions of identity
In the last few years, female artists have taken an incredibly strong stance on feminism, creating art that focuses on the tense dialogue surrounding gender, race, and identity. Whether this requires a change from their old style or leans into their existing art depends on the artist: For someone like[Read More…]
Nudism & Cubism: Dana Schutz exhibit sheds new light on Cubist painting
Painter Dana Schutz’ exhibit mixes the experimental vigour of modernism with a personal and approachable style. The work has a clear relationship to cubism, representing figures in an atypically, fragmented manner, but it does not share the clinical eye that is representative of the movement for which Picasso is known. Rather[Read More…]
McGill English department’s “In the Next Room” flicks back to a complicated era
The McGill Department of English’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) is all about electricity. The play takes the audience to early 20th century Saratoga Springs, New York, a time when on-off switches were a technological marvel, a Victorian-level of propriety was imposed on every[Read More…]
Album Review: Made in the A.M. – One Direction
After a glistening and highly successful five years of ultra fame, One Direction are now officially on hiatus. 2015 was full of tabloid-worthy escapades for the British-Irish boyband. Most notably Louis Tomlinson became a baby daddy, and token brooder Zayn Malik ditched the gang for good. Their hotly anticipated fifth[Read More…]
Album Review: Dark Sky Island – Enya
Irish singer-songwriter, Enya, is all alone. In a music industry filled with electronic, pop, and alternative sounds, each battling for their right to be heard by an audience intent on new, it’s a breath of fresh air when recording artists who sound like absolutely nothing else are still making music.[Read More…]
Horror and hilarity converge on TNC stage in Blue Heart
Strange and elusive energies crackle with abandon on the Tuesday Night Café (TNC) stage in Caryl Churchill’s unnerving Blue Heart, a production of two one-act plays performed as a set. Teasing apart cruel dimensions of language and longing in a theatrical experiment in form, the self-sabotaging construction of the play suggests[Read More…]
Album Review: 25 – Adele
Some singers shoot for critical reception; others for commercial success. Some aim for none, some for both… and then there’s Adele. The British sensation—officially Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE (yes, she’s an order of the British empire now), literally started from the bottom. Born in Tottenham, U.K., and raised by[Read More…]
Shaking up Shakespeare: Players’ Theatre gives new spin on timeless classic in Fortinbras
Centuries after its composition, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet remains a powerful cultural force in the world. Its oft-quoted words, “to be or not to be” are particularly salient with the approach of final exams. The breadth of its impact on popular culture, ranging from James Joyce’s Ulysses to Paul Cernea’s Hamlet[Read More…]