Latvia Were Robbed…

Gutted. Latvian entry for last night’s Eurovision Song Contest, Tautumeitas, barely scraped into the top ten, but I thought they were genuinely brilliant. They looked like sexy alien goddesses styled by HR Giger, the staging looked like a show by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and the gorgeous song, Bur Man Laimi, felt like a folkContinue reading “Latvia Were Robbed…”

Album Review: Ezra Furman- Goodbye Small Head

As the culture wars rage on, Ms Ezra Furman plays in the rubble, seeking diamonds. This is a return to form after the slightly disappointing previous album, All Of Us Flames, which seemed at times like she was coasting through a more commercial sound. There are no such problems here. As the transphobic laws wereContinue reading “Album Review: Ezra Furman- Goodbye Small Head”

Lost In Music: Adam and the Ants- Kings Of the Wild Frontier

Two decades before Meg and Jack, there was only one white stripe that mattered: the warpaint over the nose of Britain’s biggest pop star: Adam Ant. His look was so iconic that kids copied him everywhere: indeed, me and my cousin Audrey, inspired by his style, attempted to emulate said stripe one summer, using tennisContinue reading “Lost In Music: Adam and the Ants- Kings Of the Wild Frontier”

Overlooked Classics: The Devil and Daniel Johnston

This beautiful documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig focuses on the much missed cult singer songwriter and artist Daniel Johnston, a sensitive and thoughtful portrait of a troubled, gifted soul. Although the director takes a linear, somewhat conventional approach to Johnston’s life, he was absolutely unique, whether drawing comics and painting, or creating his beautiful, brittle music.Continue reading “Overlooked Classics: The Devil and Daniel Johnston”

Kate Bush Is Our Goth Big Sister

Photo: Ian Harrison I can still remember the first time I saw the divine Kate Bush,after all this time. I was only little, she was performing on Top Of the Pops, and she both fascinated and terrified me, singing Wuthering Heights. I thought she was possibly a witch. Now I know she is. Her wideContinue reading “Kate Bush Is Our Goth Big Sister”

The purity of the page

I’m such an overthinker, it’s ridiculous. I worry that my words aren’t ever enough. I worry that my neurosis will somehow spill out. I worry that my pain, past trauma and anxiety will smudge the purity of the page. I worry that it’s all part of the worry, that sharing is egotistical, that I’m notContinue reading “The purity of the page”

Film Review: Nope (2022)

When siblings O J and Emerald (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) inherit their father’s horse wrangling business following his tragic death, they are also forced to confront bizarre, ectoplasmic alien entities coming from the clouds, threatening earth’s very existence. What to do? Film it, or it didn’t happen, and put it on ‘Oprah’. They are,Continue reading “Film Review: Nope (2022)”

Film Review: England Is Mine (2017)

Jack Lowden as Morrissey. Most music biopics rise and fall on the strength of their leads capturing the essence of a performer, not a simple impersonation or caricature, which would be so easy to fall into. But then, this film’s focus is on the early days of a man who eschewed empty cliches, forever breakingContinue reading “Film Review: England Is Mine (2017)”

Album Review: Model/Actriz- Pirouette

This simply has to be one of the best albums of the year. A mash up of so many exciting elements: the dancefloor burn of mid-noughties American artists like LCD Soundsystem; wild experimentation of no wave and sheer filth of glam at its sleaziest. It’s night time music for seduction or moving under neon lights.Continue reading “Album Review: Model/Actriz- Pirouette”

Kidcore: The Aesthetic That Refuses To Grow Up

A clearly delighted model. Maybe we do become a facsimile of what we once were in our youth, but Helena Bonham -Carter, who frequently makes the “worst dressed” lists in style magazines, remains a style icon to me, a goth in the punky Victorian mode, or what came to be known as “steampunk”. I likeContinue reading “Kidcore: The Aesthetic That Refuses To Grow Up”