BreakestraHit the Floor(Ubiquity)Breakestra turned heads by taking the breaks — repetitious, rhythmic detours that arise midway through classic funk, acid jazz, soul or R&B songs — and stretching them into long live jams. But on Hit the Floor the 10-piece group from LA offers up their own original break-based tracks. Fans of Grand Theft Bus, […]
Sean Flinn
Posted inArts + Music
Ocote Soul Sounds and Adrian Quesada
Ocote Soul Sounds and Adrian QuesadaEl Niño y el Sol(Aire Sol Records)Calling himself Ocote Soul Sounds, Martin Perna of Brooklyn-based Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra and Adrian Quesada, founder of Austin, Texas, band Grupo Fantasma, have created a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist. Imagine a long road trip in an old car, heading south and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Beastie Boys
Beastie BoysThe Mix-Up(EMI)The Beastie Boys demonstrated their live instrumental chops on now-classic albums such as 1994’s Ill Communication. Thirteen years later the trio goes all instrumental on The Mix-Up. And do they ever mix it up. They come out of the gate with a STAX-soul-like track, “B For My Name,” and move quickly into spy […]
Posted inArts + Music
Destiny’s child
The interior lives of kids are far more complicated and mysterious than adults believe. Sometimes it takes a 15-minute short film and a filmmaker like Adam Garnet Jones to reveal the youthful mind, and to remind the rest of us of the power of that long-forgotten state. Cloudbreaker, which screens Friday at the Mi’kmaq Native […]
Posted inArts + Music
NeoCraft Exhibits
Mary E. Black Gallery (1061/1096 Marginal) Start the day at the south end of the waterfront with The New Cartography of Craft: Charting a Course from Regional to Global. Immerse in every imaginable craft practice in one room. Sally Ravindra’s rounded pottered forms (vases and other vessels), Maria Rakel’s clothing shot through and shaped with […]
Posted inArts + Music
Big horn
Stephen Hughes laughs often and easily during conversation, out of sheer enjoyment from talking about what he’s doing. A vocalist, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, Hughes founded The Blown Gasket Orchestra with seven of his closest musical pals. Some of them go way back—for example, Hughes and guitarist/vocalist Jon Andrews first met during grade eight in Port […]
Posted inArts + Music
Pop quiz
More pop explosion:Tonight’s Listings | Blog | Playlist | Photo Blog | Public photos | Video | CD Reviews | Stories Apostle of HustleAndrew Whiteman, an integral member of the Broken Social Scene collective, taps into the solo-terrain bandwagon with Apostle of Hustle. The trio present themselves at the Marquee on October 18. “I’m a […]
Posted inArts + Music
Eyes on the prize
Downstairs at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, what you see in the Sobey Art Award exhibition is the work of five young artists from across the country. The five regional finalists in this year’s running—the first year of the annual iteration of the award—are as follows: Moncton-based Jean-Denis Boudreau (Atlantic), Michel de Broin (Quebec), […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Shifting gears
The tentative agreement that kept Metro Transit buses rolling and ferries chugging this week has been sent to HRM council and to membership of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 508 for ratification. Details of the five-year contract will not be made public until the agreement is ratified by both sides. During negotiations that ran […]
Posted inArts + Music
Table talk
In North America, we don’t share tables with strangers in public places. We’d sooner give up our spot right away, decline the request to share, or begrudgingly agree, only to rush our dinner, beer or coffee, and get gone. Even families are reportedly spending less time at the dinner table together. These social realities run […]
Posted inLifestyle
blind faith
Michelle Butler Hallet shows great empathy for her characters in her short stories and in her new novel, Double-blind, which she’ll read from at Word on the Street this weekend. Psychiatrist Josh Bozeman narrates the story of his own work with a secretive research group, the losses that plague him, the damage he’s done in […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Student body building
Bryan Maycock, chair of NSCAD University’s foundation program, strides down the wide, open corridor on the second floor of the university’s new port campus. He goes right into tour mode—his enthusiasm and anticipation for kicking off the inaugural year in the south end waterfront location is evident. The 200 to 240 foundation students will bypass […]
