Category Culture

Bands often talk loftily about creating worlds, usually in an effort to elevate a handful of tunes into something greater. Some outfits, though, achieve something close to that aim. Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz – the erstwhile virtual band – are just…

Double bass pizzicatos that land hushed and heavy like the start of a summer rainstorm. Upper strings creeping in with the slow squeeze-and-release of repeated suspensions. Then silence. A massive blast of full orchestra, brass-heavy and gut-throbbing. Then more silence.…

Janet Frame’s third novel, published in 1962, after she had spent several years away from her native New Zealand (and now republished by Fitzcarraldo to celebrate the centenary of her birth this year), features a trio of characters similarly seduced…