book actress

M83’s lush, expansive sound already made their albums feel twice as big as they were, so an actual double album from Anthony Gonzalez and company was inevitable. However, onHurry Up, We’re Dreaming, he doesn’t use that extra space to top the widescreen nostalgia of Saturdays = Youth; instead, he fills it with songs that cover more sounds and moods than any of M83’s previous work, resulting in a collection of impressionistic moments rather than a grand statement. The album begins with two songs that reaffirm Gonzalez’s flair for the unapologetically epic music that makes him a rarity among artists in the 2010s, electronic or otherwise. He recruits Zola Jesus’ Nika Roza Danilova for “Intro,” and her unusual mix of frostbitten edge and vulnerable warmth channels the huge emotions Gonzalez favors perfectly. Meanwhile, “Midnight City”’s sleek neon tones show just how far he’s traveled from Saturdays = Youth’s ornate sound. However, the album’s first disc goes even farther afield with the tender piano instrumental “Where the Boats Go”; “Raconte-Moi Un Histoire,” where a child imagines a world where everyone turns into jungle frogs over bouncy synths and guitars, and “Soon, My Friend,” which ends the first half of the album with symphonic grandeur and Beach Boys harmonies.

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’s second disc sounds more traditionally M83, from the triumphant-yet-heartbroken “My Tears are Becoming a Sea” to the thrilling rush of “New Map” and “Steve McQueen.” Despite the sprawl of the album’s size and sounds, Gonzalez holds everything together with wide-eyed enthusiasm. He handles most of the vocals here, singing with a yelp that evokes Howard Jones on “Reunion” and “OK Pal” — and while this album is as indebted to the ‘80s as Saturdays = Youth was, it somehow feels less steeped in nostalgia. Gonzalez displays his uncanny knack for making unfashionable sounds fresh again with “Claudia Lewis”’ un-ironic slap bass and “Splendor”’s children’s choir; it takes guts to use these sounds and brains to use them well, and fortunately, he has both. Unlike Saturdays = Youth’s wall-to-wall epics, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming offers ebb and flow, with interludes like the dreamy “Echoes of Mine” and “Klaus I Love You” tipping the album’s balance toward atmosphere instead of pop songs. More than any of M83’s other albums, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming feels like a destination to explore; while it may not be quite as striking as Saturdays = Youth, it delivers a welcome mix of classic sounds and promising changes.

The most impressive thing on Class Actress’ debut full-length album Rapprocher is the voice of Elizabeth Harper. Her rich, powerful, not to mention thoroughly enchanting vocals give the retro-synth pop sound a strength and impact that eludes most bands who chart a similar musical course. Of course, without songs and a decent overall sound, an amazing voice is just an amazing voice. Luckily, the songs and sound are up to the challenge and Rapprocher turns out the match of nearly any synth pop album of the last few decades.

Harper and her bandmate Mark Richardson create a sound that nods to the past but is totally modern at the same time. The synths are clunky like like they were in ’80s, but are also atmospheric and fuzzy like the chilled bedroom practitioners of the 2010s. Richardson conjures plenty of emotion from the simple melody lines and washes of sound, and the beats he comes up with are never less than perfect. Those aforementioned melodies are hooky and memorable, filled with melancholy grace and radio-friendly, singalong choruses. Quite a few of the tracks here (“Weekend,” “Hanging On,” “Need to Know”) would sound right on a comp of forgotten gems of the ’80s, a few would count as greatest hits of the era. The highlights here are the stunning “Love Me Like You Used To,” a close relation to Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps,” with Harper sounding nearly as destroyed and raw as Karen O (which is really saying something); “Limousine,” which has a decadent Glass Candy feel, but with even more rain spattering on the windshield, and the heartbreakingly insistent “Keep You.” Above it all is Harper’s voice. The amount of emotion and pain she can put into a single line of lyrics is enough to twist even the coldest new waver into a lump of tears, and the occasional glimpses of happiness that creep in will keep you glowing for hours. She is a singer to treasure, and even a lousy album that featured her would be worth hearing. All the better that Rapprocher is such a perfect blend of vocals, music, and songcraft. You’d have to go a long way to hear a better synth pop album, no matter what decade you examine.

Bad as Me is Tom Waits’ first collection of new material in seven years. He and Kathleen Brennan — wife, co-songwriter, and production partner — have, at the latter’s insistence, come up with a tight-knit collection of short tunes, the longest is just over four minutes. This is a quick, insistent, and woolly aural road trip full of compelling stops and starts. While he’s kept his sonic experimentation — especially with percussion tracks — Waits has returned to blues, rockabilly, rhythm & blues, and jazz as source material. Instead of sprawl and squall, we get chug and choogle. For “Chicago” — via Clint Maedgen’s saxes, Keith Richards’ (who appears sporadically here) and Marc Ribot’s guitars, son Casey Waits’ drums, dad’s banjo, percussion and piano, and Charlie Musselwhite’s harmonica (he appears numerous times here, too) — we get a 21st century take on vintage R&B. Indeed, one can picture Big Joe Turner fronting this clattering rush of grit and groove, and this album is all about groove. Augie Meyers appears on Vox organ and Flea on bass to guide Waits’ tablas and vocals on “Raised Right Men,” a 12-bar stagger filled with delightful lyrical clichés from an America that has passed on into myth — Waits does nothing to de-mystify this; he just makes it greasy and danceable. The slow, spooky “Talking at the Same Time” is still in blues form albeit with ska-styled horns to make things more exotic, as Waits waxes about the current state of economic affairs. He showcases history’s circular nature as he bridges our national narrative from 1929-1941, and up to the present day: “Well it’s hard times for some/For others it’s sweet/Someone makes money when there’s blood in the street…Well we bailed out all the millionaires/They got the fruit/We got the rind…”

Rockabilly rears its head on “Get Lost,” with David Hidalgo strutting a solid ’50s guitar snarl above the horns. Dawn Harms’ violin and Patrick Warren’s keyboards add textural dimension to Hidalgo’s and Ribot’s arid guitars on the apocalyptic blues of “Face to the Highway,” with Waits offering startling, contrasting images in gorgeous rhymes. This track, and the two proceeding ones — the forlorn carny ballad “Pay Me” and the wasted lover’s plea in the West Texas mariachi of “Back in the Crowd” — set up the latter half of the record, where there are more hard-edged blues and rockers, such as the spiky stomping title track, the cracked guitar ramble in “Satisfied,” and the clattering, percussive anti-war rant “Hell Broke Luce” (sic). Between each of these songs are ballads. In the jazzy nightclub blues of “Kiss Me” and the country-ish folk of “Last Leaf” lie lineage traces to Waits’ earliest material: the latter features Richards in a delightfully ruined vocal duet. Indeed, even the set-closer “New Year’s Eve,” with Hidalgo’s guitars and accordion in one of Waits’ signature saloon songs, quotes from “Auld Lang Syne” in the song’s waning moments to send the platter off on a bittersweet, nostalgic note, reminding the listener of Waits’ use of “Waltzing Matilda” in “Tom Traubert’s Blues” all those years ago. Brennan’s instincts were dead-on: it was time for a set of brief, tightly written and arranged songs — something we haven’t actually heard from Waits. Bad as Me is an aural portrait of all the places he’s traveled as a recording artist, which is, in and of itself, illuminating and thoroughly enjoyable.

This week Allmusic editor Heather Phares kicks off our new video feature as she discusses some brand new music releases, including albums by Coldplay, Kelly Clarkson and Justice.

The Spectrals are the work of young Louis Jones, and after a run of impressive singles that built from fuzzy, lo-fi pop to a more refined but still scrappy sound, the band’s first album is out this week on Slumberland. Bad Penny is filled with smart, chipper pop tunes that will appeal to fans of the recent wave of bedroom whizzes like Beach Fossils, but also to those who fondly remember Prefab Sprout. We asked Jones to send along a list of some of this favorite things….

First, a track from the album:
Spectrals – Get A Grip by Slumberland Records

Lager Top
This is where you 3/4 of a pint of lager and top the rest up with lemonade….a pint takes the edge off life, and a lemonade top takes the edge off a pint. It’s just superb really, this is my thing.

Dave Edmunds’ version of “Let It Be Me“
I’ve always had a thing for the Elvis Costello/Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds/Rockpile connect– I got into it all from my dad — but I’ve been zoning in on Dave Edmunds recently. His version of this song (which is one of my all time songs as it is) is just ace, it’s like he tried to out “Everly Brothers” the Everly Brothers. Him and Nick Lowe do some others of theirs on the bonus disc for Rockpile “Seconds of Pleasure” too, “Poor Jenny” “Crying in the Rain”…etc. They really got it.

Sky Sports
I’ve always liked football even though I’m rubbish at it. we just recently got Sky Sports on the T.V. at my house and I’ve been watching nearly all the football which I could never do before. I watch teams I don’t like or have any ties to just because I’m in love with watching it again, I’ve also been watching golf and darts.

Fulltone OCD guitar pedal
It’s not healthy to be so into guitar pedals, but i just recently got this for playing some of the new album live and it’s mad. I had in my head a Mick Ronson/Marc Bolan sound, but it sounds more like the T-Rex off of Jurassic Park. I can tell my band hate it.

Real Estate – Days
This record really blew me away, It’s easily one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard. They are just the best band doing it right now – I can’t wait to go on tour next week with them and hang out and watch them play it.

This weekend, we’re celebrating the coming release of the Beach Boys’ SMiLE Sessions on Tuesday, first with a look at the single that preceded it: “Good Vibrations.” Check back tomorrow for the full taster of The SMiLE Sessions.

“Good Vibrations,” the Beach Boys’ 1966 entry into the best-single-of-all-time sweepstakes, announced the coming era of pop experimentation with a rush of riff changes, echo-chamber effects, and intricate harmonies, plus the very first theremin ever heard on a pop record. The natural grace of the song belied the months of recording and mountain of tape reels it required, however. Though Brian Wilson’s self-described “pocket symphony” was his masterpiece, its creation effectively put the coda on his production career and he was never the same again.

“Good Vibrations” began its long journey through popular culture in February 1966, more than ten months before it was released. It was originally slated for the Beach Boys’ brilliant 1966 LP Pet Sounds, though, by April, Wilson realized that he couldn’t possibly devote the time he needed to finish the song for the album deadline. After Pet Sounds appeared in May 1966, the Beach Boys were praised around the world as the ambassadors of truly intelligent pop music. American record-buyers virtually ignored the album, though, leaving Wilson no choice but to prove to everyone that the Beach Boys — not the Beatles — were the most forward-thinking rock & roll band on the planet. He worked feverishly during the summer and fall, recording dozens of takes to create hundreds of individual musical snippets that eventually resulted in 15 to 20 different versions of the song. Wilson moved from studio to studio — Western, RCA, Goldstar, Columbia, then back to Western — searching for the right sound, and used more than 90 hours of recording tape. In the end, “Good Vibrations” cost over 50,000 dollars to produce, making it one of the most expensive singles recorded up to that point.

Finally released in October, “Good Vibrations” immediately stormed to the number one slot, driven by sales reported to have reached almost 100,000 records per day in the first week (with an additional tens of thousands back-ordered). It eventually sold over 1,000,000 copies. The single is so catchy it’s no wonder radio stations played it to death, but “Good Vibrations” is an amazingly free-form song. It’s just barely connected to the verse-chorus-verse standard for pop songs, continually switching from section to section — all of them just partially related — in a fragmented style that allies it with the cut-and-paste efforts of ’60s experimentalists like William Burroughs. It utilized every one of the session-master instrumentalists Wilson had collected during the previous few years, plus a few unlikely instruments including cellos and a theremin. The latter, an electric instrument whose invention dated to 1919, produced an eerie, high-pitched tone that modulated its pitch and volume based on the player’s hand movements above and next to the instrument. Radio listeners could easily pick up the link between the title and the obviously electronic riffs sounding in the background of the chorus, but Wilson’s use of the theremin added another delicious parallel — between the single’s theme and its use of an instrument the player never even touched.

Though its influence has been lasting, “Good Vibrations” was rarely reprised by other acts, even during the cover-happy ’60s. Its fragmented style made it essentially cover-proof, and artists attempting to try have usually stamped their own style on the song — from Groove Holmes to the Troggs and Charlie McCoy to Todd Rundgren and Psychic TV. Wilson himself revisited it in April 2004 when recording a new version of SMiLE, and in 2011, when Capitol finally issued The SMiLE Sessions collection, an entire disc of the Deluxe Edition was given over to original 1966 sessions.

Goodbye surfing, hello God! The title of Jules Siegel’s 1967 magazine feature on Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys sums up how well the group was outliving the early-’60s beach fad — and revolutionizing pop music in the process. During 1966, the twin shots of Pet Sounds in May and “Good Vibrations” in October announced first that the group had entered the vanguard of pop music and then, not content with mere critical praise, seized control of the singles charts with a chart-topper as catchy as it was complex and costly to record. Early on, though, “Good Vibrations” had actually been slated to appear on Pet Sounds, which reveals the long odds on whether Wilson could ever finish an entire album of his pocket symphonies (at least, in the time frame of a label circa 1966).

Nevertheless, beginning in August of 1966, he began planning a new album project, first called Dumb Angel and later SMiLE. Working from the ideas in his head, he and his studio musicians and bandmates recorded continually during late 1966 and early 1967, putting down hours of tape during dozens of sessions. He labored over every note and, more than that, every tone, often asking his musicians or the Beach Boys themselves to revise when the results didn’t match his conception of the music going on inside his head. Such care and control produced music that was far beyond Pet Sounds, and when the impressionistic themes and lyrics of collaborator Van Dyke Parks were added,SMiLE began shaping up as the most unique LP ever produced by a pop group. That much is perfectly clear after listening to Capitol’s release of The SMiLE Sessions, the first official SMiLE release ever. (As most music fans know, the album was never completed, although elements of the whole have trickled out ever since.) Each version of the SMiLE Sessions set begins with a re-creation of what a mono release of SMiLE could have sounded like, with a track listing patterned after Wilson’s 2004 recording, Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE. Each version also includes some SMiLE sessions in stereo, in order to hear Wilson’s working method in the studio. Peeling away the layers from these tracks, several instruments at a time, reveals more of the music’s magnificence, how each element combined in ingenious ways to become the songs that have entranced Beach Boys fans over the years. The sessions and studio chatter also reveal how much of The SMiLE Sessions were a family affair; far from the previous conception of Wilson holed away in the studio with a coterie of handpicked musicians, virtually all of the Beach Boys make themselves heard with suggestions and contributions both vocal and instrumental (and beside the infamous credits of Paul McCartney, even Brian’s wife Marilyn, a singer in her own right, is heard on backing vocals).

It’s difficult to object to anything about The SMiLE Sessions, considering the time and care invested into the entire package (which becomes yet more lavish with the varying Deluxe Editions available). Still, Brian Wilson’s 2004 re-creation of SMiLE hangs over this set, and not just because SMiLE lost much of its mystery and taboo after Wilson re-recorded it. The choice to studiously re-create his 2004 rendition may have eased the burden of a difficult and controversial compiling process — although thousands of hours still had to be spent compiling these sessions — but it also forced principal reissue producers Mark Linett and Alan Boyd into giving listeners a version ofSMiLE that wasn’t in stereo, even though roughly 80 percent of the tracks were available that way. (For the record, the liner notes state that mono was used because that would have been Wilson’s original choice in 1967, and also because not enough of the basic tracks were available in stereo.) As it stands here, having a full SMiLE album in mono and a collection of sessions in stereo immediately positions The SMiLE Sessions as something less than a true bootleg beater — which will undoubtedly lead fans back to extra-legal means (at least, any time they want to hear a virtual mixdown of these glorious recordings in true stereo).

Quibbles aside, everything about this package is richly detailed, immensely pleasing, and overall a wonderful experience. All of the CD editions include copious bonus tracks, including nine minutes of a cappella vocals (“SMiLE Backing Vocals Montage”), whose beauty and fragility will help listeners realize that the Beach Boys obsessed just as much over their vocalizing as their music. Deluxe editions add essays from several angles, reminiscences from those who were there, and original artwork and photos from the period. True, no one will ever know what effect a SMiLE release in spring 1967 would have had on music or pop culture, and with the music so circular and the lyrics so obtuse, it’s likely that SMiLE would have become merely a curio of psychedelic excess rather than a work that truly transformed culture. But regardless, it shows Wilson’s mastery of pure studio sonics and his ability to not only create distinctive pop music, but give it great beauty as well. That has inspired musicians for decades, and it will continue to do so. [The SMiLE Sessions is available in several different editions, all of which begin with a re-creation of what a mono release of SMiLE could have sounded like. The two-CD packages add one disc of sessions tracks, while the Deluxe Edition box set includes a total of five CDs, two LPs, and two 7" singles -- including the one disc and double-LP ofSMiLE in mono, three discs of SMiLE sessions in stereo, and one disc of sessions from the "Good Vibrations" single. The Deluxe Edition box set also features a 2' x 3' poster and a 60-page hardcover book, all packaged inside a three-dimensional shadow box lid.]

he most impressive thing on Class Actress’ debut full-length album Rapprocher is the voice of Elizabeth Harper. Her rich, powerful, not to mention thoroughly enchanting vocals give the retro-synth pop sound a strength and impact that eludes most bands who chart a similar musical course. Of course, without songs and a decent overall sound, an amazing voice is just an amazing voice. Luckily, the songs and sound are up to the challenge and Rapprocher turns out the match of nearly any synth pop album of the last few decades.

Harper and her bandmate Mark Richardson create a sound that nods to the past but is totally modern at the same time. The synths are clunky like like they were in ’80s, but are also atmospheric and fuzzy like the chilled bedroom practitioners of the 2010s. Richardson conjures plenty of emotion from the simple melody lines and washes of sound, and the beats he comes up with are never less than perfect. Those aforementioned melodies are hooky and memorable, filled with melancholy grace and radio-friendly, singalong choruses. Quite a few of the tracks here (“Weekend,” “Hanging On,” “Need to Know”) would sound right on a comp of forgotten gems of the ’80s, a few would count as greatest hits of the era. The highlights here are the stunning “Love Me Like You Used To,” a close relation to Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps,” with Harper sounding nearly as destroyed and raw as Karen O (which is really saying something); “Limousine,” which has a decadent Glass Candy feel, but with even more rain spattering on the windshield, and the heartbreakingly insistent “Keep You.” Above it all is Harper’s voice. The amount of emotion and pain she can put into a single line of lyrics is enough to twist even the coldest new waver into a lump of tears, and the occasional glimpses of happiness that creep in will keep you glowing for hours. She is a singer to treasure, and even a lousy album that featured her would be worth hearing. All the better that Rapprocher is such a perfect blend of vocals, music, and songcraft. You’d have to go a long way to hear a better synth pop album, no matter what decade you examine.

The release of an Iranian actress sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison after appearing in a banned film highlights the need to release other detained filmmakers in Iran, Amnesty International said today.




Marzieh Vafamehr, who was arrested after starring in the Australian film My Tehran for Sale was released Monday night. One scene in the film shows her without the head-covering Iranian women are required to wear, while she appears to drink alcohol in another.

The actress seems to have been released after an appeal court reduced her imprisonment to three months and overturned the flogging sentence.

“In recent months an increasing number of filmmakers and actors have been targeted for persecution in Iran. While the release of Marzieh Vafamehr is a welcome development, it is deeply worrying that three filmmakers are still being held in Tehran’s Evin Prison," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa

“Their continued detention illustrates the Iranian authorities’ desperate efforts to stifle any form of dissent. These people have done nothing except sell their documentaries to a foreign broadcaster or make a film about a banned director.. They should be released immediately and unconditionally,” she added.

Three documentary directors - Hadi Afarideh, Naser Saffarian, Mohsen Shahrnazdar ; and producer and distributor, Katayoun Shahabi were arrested on 17 September 2011. All four are believed to have sold their films to a variety of broadcasters, including the BBC’s Persian service.

The Iranian authorities say filmmakers cannot cooperate with foreign satellite channels without permission.

Cooperating with the BBC or the Voice of America is particularly controversial. Police chief Esma’il Ahmadi-Moghaddam recently said it was tantamount to working with enemy security services and will be treated “seriously”.

Three of the group - Hadi Afarideh, Naser Saffarian and Mohsen Shahrnazdar- have since been released on bail, but Katayoun Shahabi is thought to remain in custody.

Another film director, Mehran Zinatbakhsh, is also believed to have been arrested in September and is being held in Evin Prison. The exact charges against him are not known.

Documentary director Mojtaba Mir Tahmasb also remains in prison after being arrested on 17 September 2011. He was jailed after making the documentary This is Not a Film, about the life of banned film director Ja’far Panahi.

Panahi was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in December 2010 after being convicted of “acting against state security”” and “propaganda against the system”. He was also banned from travelling abroad and talking to domestic or international media,

Another internationally celebrated director, Mohammad Rasoulof was given a six year jail term at the same time as Panahi after being convicted on similar charges. He later had his sentence reduced to one year on appeal. A travel ban against him was lifted in May this year.

Both Panahi and Rasoulof remain free awaiting the implementation of their sentences.

Amnesty International considers all these filmmakers to be prisoners of conscience, detained solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression in their work.

The right to freedom of expression includes the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media”.

The rappers teamed up to record an album, “Watch the Throne,” earlier this year and they have taken their double act out on the road with their tour of the same name.




The shows kicked off at Atlanta’s Philips Arena on Friday and the hip-hop stars delighted the crowd by performing their solo hits and their new joint material.


Although West was raised in Chicago, he was born in Atlanta. To the crowd’s delight, he and Jay-Z played up the Dirty South connection several times


Jay-Z struggled through the first few tracks due to problems with his earpiece, and stopped the show so the technical problem could be rectified, telling crew members, “Can you please turn my ear up so I can hear ATLANTA?,” before continuing with the gig.”


Jay-Z repeatedly told the crowd to “put your diamonds up,” and they repeatedly complied, pressing their index fingers and thumbs together.


The pair played joint tracks including “Otis,” “Gotta Have It” and “Run This Town,” while they also performed Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” and West’s tracks including “Stronger,” “Power” and Heartless

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