Stephen Reader
Get Shorty
Troy Andrews earned his nickname at a jazz funeral. Only four years old at the time, Andrews was parading with a trombone almost twice his size — his older brother spotted him and shouted “Trombone Shorty!” A couple feet taller and twenty years older, Shorty still hasn’t outgrown that exclamation, or its roots. A bona […]
“Heartland” Gets Some Love
It’s been an awesome year forOwen Pallett. His recordHeartlandhas just been named one of the best of 2010 — and it’s only July. Dusted Magazine, a discerning online music publication, just put out their Mid-Year Roundup. It’s their take on the top 10 albums of the year so far, and Heartland is among them. Pallett […]
Does the Guggenheim Need YouTube?
It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? Until one of the art world’s most renowned institutions began trafficking in amateurYouTubevideos… That’s the turn New York’sGuggenheimMuseum is making. Instead of enlisting high-art hot shots, the museum will look to the masses for their fall schedule. Internet nobodys are currently submitting their video art for […]
360 Staff Pick: Infra
You wouldn’t guess thatInfra, an ambient-classical piecebyMax Richter, was originally conceived as a score for Britain’sRoyal Ballet; nothing about it screams ‘dance’ to me. While the music leaves the choreography to our imagination, it translates into an album quite nicely. Richter contrasts melodic chamber arrangements with subtle swaths of static and electric ripples. Yet the […]
Mama-Say What?
The first-ever disco song, the one that spawned the entire American craze, made its debut in the Top 40 this week in 1973. Only, back then, it wasn’t yet disco. In fact, it wasn’t even American. The song was “Soul Makossa,” and most music historians credit its popularity with disco’s inception. It comes from the […]
“Pale Fire” Redux
One of the highlights of new releases in poetry this fall is a long poem by John Shade that begins with the remarkable line “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain.” It’s all the more remarkable because John Shade does not exist. Shade is a creation of Vladimir Nabokov, and his 999-line poem is […]