Pina

My Rating: 4/5

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I’m not really a fan of modern dance though I also admire the beauty it turns out.......nevertheless, I do know the name of the legendary German choreographer, Pina Bausch, for her redefinition of modern dance with delicate touches and expression to the human life that you and me also possess……… and also watched once of their performance….

In addition to Wim Wenders, it makes sense we need to see this movie or you can say documentary to pay tribute to Pina Bausch……it’s also rare to see 3D art film and the effect is very good indeed……the documentary is mainly filmed with interviews with dancers worked for Pina Bausch and telling their feeling to work with Pina........weaving together with the absolutely stunning photography of dance performance cut under the Wim Wenders’ unique movie language & atmosphere (a bit reminding me the vibe of Wings of Desire, Faraway, So Close, etc…)………it’s a impressive documentary in simplicity, beauty and faith to truly reflect the works and philosophy of Pina even you are not a dance or Pina’s fan……..    

     

Jenny Hval - Viscera

My Rating: 3.8/5

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It is my first time to listening Jenny Hval’s music and the album is also her debut under Norwegian music label, Rune Grammofon. As I’m die hard fan of Rune Grammofon, so I meet Jenny Hval’s unique music and see her complex strange music world…..

Viscera is a very eclectic album with assorted influences and expression of emotion and feeling of her sensual world and her body of lust…….at times, her music reminds me the music vibe of Dead Can Dance with those middle east like mysterious string sound…….then she suddenly transforms her music to as those poetry female singer-song-writer like Kate Bush, P J Harvey, etc with those full-of-personality protest-song-alike folk rock stuff with jazzy influence sometimes…....turning to another side of the LP, she even goes back to 60s hippies’ apocalyptic folk song style with her finger-pick acoustic guitar stuff accompanied with her unique high-pitch vocal singing like an emotional social activist with worrying concerns of living world…….coming to end, Jenny Hval leads us going back to a ghost-like Norwegian forest with her psychedelic weird folk music that packs with the dreamscape vibe of loneliness, isolation, escapism, etc…….’Viscera’ is a really ‘rich’ album with lot of sensual and personal tales and music styles bringing audiences travel through ever changing dreamscape, landscape and soundscape also!!!  

            

Mountains - Air Museum

My Rating: 3/5

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I‘m not really an die-hard ambient music fan, but I do like some cool ambient artists with well blended minimal electro ambient drone and beautiful acoustic sound. Mountains are one of them amongst the poet-like Eluvium, etc……their ambient stuff is like making you being at a isolated sea shore or mystery-like forest in a cold foggy early morning seeing a beauty image (whatever the object you can imagine!) moving close and far out of your reach……..really a cool beautiful meditative listening experience!!

After their last album ‘Choral’ under Thrill Jockey in 2009, the duo Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp of Mountains come up with this new release ‘Air Museum’ which the new direction has just shocked me to dead…..they just abandoned their signature soul of acoustic sound and totally focused on exploring in synth noise and electro pulse sound…..a bit like heading to those Avro Noto or avant techno stuff with more cold, isolated, angular, mechanical, emotionless nature…….I don’t like it honestly!!!    

Balmorhea - Live at Sint-Elisabethkerk

My Rating: 3.5/5

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Balmorhea is one of my most beloved band nowadays………the whole story discovering this Austin-based band is so memorable for me and such sweet surprise is still one of my driving forces why I love and keep digging in indie music……their 2008 album ‘Rivers Arms’ is one of my all-time classic that I keep placing aside of my CD player for in-case I need to listen beautiful songs like “Baleen Morning’, etc ……their beautiful, melancholic and thoughtful chamber/post rock music is just too unique too lovely…..

This Balmorhea’s new release is a live album recorded in a church in Belgium……most songs are selected from the last 2 ‘not-too-excellent’ albums ‘All Is Wild, All Is Silent’ (2009) and ‘Constellations’ (2010) and the songs performed are not quite the same as what you hear in album…….the concert ‘air’ feeling is very strong and the recording quality in term of scale is not really good……in addition to the songs selected are rather in atmospheric side, so the album comes out a bit disappointed and unable to draw audience into the mood and vibe I expected……not bad for fans to enjoy the band’s works before their next new works, but certainly not for new people wanting to have good introduction in the band’s music!!!   

Midnight in Paris

My Rating: 4/5

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I always have expectation from Woody Allen even at his such old ages………Midnight in Paris didn’t make me disappointed…....the movie talks about a Hollywood screenwriter travels with his fiancée to Paris and has funny and strange time-traveling adventure back to 20s of Paris at every midnight meeting famous authors like Hemingway, etc and surrealists like Dali, etc…….As a trilogy with the ones in Barcelona and London as well as this one in Paris, Woody Allen seems coming back to his creative peak under such fresh European background……..a special movie full of strange idea, clever fun, middle-class irony, intellectual nostalgia that we are longing for!!!      

Wires Under Tension - Light Science

My Rating: 3.8/5
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Because of the excellent Balmorhea, I begin to notice the emerging music label, Western Vinyl, and their chamber/classical-influenced post-rock or indie-pop bands/music in last couple of years…….as recommended by friend, I made a trial listen in their new band, Wires Under Tension, which in fact I didn’t even notice the band is from Western Vinyl as they really have a awful band name and also the old-fashioned unappealing album cover design seems just like from light years ago…….

Nevertheless, what matters here is music, in that sense, this South Bronx-based 2-man-band is really a surprise package and has created a superb debut album that is full of great/unique instrumental/post rock music in fusion with violin-leaning chamber music, electronics, samples, jazz jam rhythm……..the thirty-something minutes music comes out to be very rich, packed, high-pace, energetic and also full of detective-investigating-chasing alike cinematic vibe……..reminds me something like Slow Six for the beautiful violin/chamber stuff, Mouse On The Keys for the exciting electronic/jazz jam, etc……as a debut album, it’s no doubt a huge success!!