Digging For Fire
Improvised, corkscrewed dialogue and loose body language. The mumblecore moniker wraps itself around director Joe Swanberg’s existential opus about the suppressed desires of a modern adult couple. The contemporary malaise of thirty-somethings has been explored, ad nauseam, recently. Here, however, we are not tracing the lines of a disheveled manchild whose confidence bobs and weaves through a plume of weed smoke....
Listen To Me Marlon
Re-branding a Legend Review written by Robert D. Patrick As of late, documentaries seem to be tiring of the Ken Burns batting stance. Panning over pictures, ad nauseam, will not suffice. Audiences are younger and less adept to the vibrating string scores and mousy historians of old. With Kurt Cobain: About a Son, Montage of Heck, and now, with director Stevan Riley’s Listen To Me Marlon, directors are beginning to use the...
Interview w/ Cactus Is
Werner Herzog or Errol Morris in Outer Space Interview by Robert D. Patrick The dewy, moon lacquered reverb of Indiana based group, Cactus Is, creates a hushed landscape of empyrean madness. Only a month away from our website being aesthetically overhauled, band members Bob Mathison and Noah East agreed, begrudgingly, to have their interview posted to the old, element rusted Cinema Spartan. In this exclusive exchange, Cactus Is...
Interview w/ Emily Whittemore
Emily Whittemore’s kaleidoscopic palette of colors are orchestrated with fine-tuned chaos. From Twitter to canvas, the Houston born artist – also known as Lil Escher, Sexy Tonya, and Cool Hero Person (to me, anyway) – is a voice that reverberates with knowledge, talent, and a barbed knack for words. Even though my website’s interface needs a makeover and I cant afford it, Whittemore took time to field...
Interview w/ Advance Base
Interview curated by Robert D. Patrick Owen Ashworth’s meticulous latticework of emotion is quietly powerful. The soft lilt of sadness, rolling back like sea foam, populates a landscape of forgotten memories and bruised reveries. Ashworth, once known as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, now releases albums under the Advance Base moniker. We caught up with the songwriter before he christens his tour in Bloomington, Indiana on...
Interview w/ Screaming Females
Marissa Paternoster On Social Media to Pitchfork Media Interview curated by Robert D. Patrick There’s no confusing Marissa Paternoster’s fine-tuned howls and propulsive guitar playing. Screaming Females, a three-piece band from New Brunswick, New Jersey, have been lauded by every publication from The A.V. Club to the Los Angeles Times for their electric stage presence and “triumphant” albums. Fresh off...
Interview w/ Vetiver
‘I’m Not Certain if Format Fetishizing Helps Musicians or Not.’ Interview curated by Robert D. Patrick The hushed, gossamer-like vocalizations of Vetiver’s Andy Cabic ethereally dot the airy instrumentation on “Complete Strangers,” the band’s sixth full-length album. The Virginia-born lyricist and singer muses over the tenuous ebb of traveling, time, and mortality in a way that only few can. Before...
Interview w/ Surfer Blood
“People Can Really Rise to the Occasion in a Time of Crisis” Interview curated by Robert D. Patrick Ethereal guitar jangling and surfboard wax. The sun baked, saltwater ebb of Surfer Blood’s melodic ballads cascade over the band’s newest LP, 1000 Palms. Frontman John Paul Pitts emits haunting but carbonated sonnets, this time on the group’s third full-length endeavor. From playing well-respected...
Aloha
And John Krasinki Starring: Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper Review written by Robert D. Patrick If Aloha had been insufferable, the headline would have been different. “Ha, Why Me?”, “Lei Me Down to Sleep,” or “Oh, no! Ahhh!” But Cameron Crowe’s wistful, sun-strafed luau of the soul came breaking into the shoreline, all foamy and comforting. Aside from a few dramatic footnotes with very obvious...
Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World
Skull and Cross Tomes Review written by Robert D. Patrick Dark Star, the title of director Belinda Sallin’s charcoal-colored hagiography, lets you know precisely enough about its subject. Sharing the name with a Grateful Dead song, and, more modernly, a terrifically catchy Polica track, Dark Star knows where to clamp its fangs. Swiss artist Hans Rudolph Giger inspired everything from the storied Alien franchise to countless, uh,...
