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Music in the air

Wide array of fall releases slated from Mika to Yoko

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Newly out singer Mika’s new album drops in October. (Photo courtesy Girlie Action Media)

This season brings listeners a combination of whole new sounds, including new works from Mika and the Pet Shop Boys, along with re-imagined and re-worked throwbacks as Nina Simone is honored and Barbra Streisand releases never-before-heard songs from earlier parts of her career.

Folk-rock musician Melissa Etheridge’s newly released album, “4th Street Feeling,” takes listeners back to her hometown Leavenworth, Kan. Etheridge describes 4th St. as the main drag of downtown and this is the first time where she takes lead guitar to sing the bluesy sounds of her home.

Released earlier this week, the Pet Shop Boys’ new album “Elysium” is the 30-year-old group’s attempt to infuse the music with fresh sounds by recording in Los Angeles with Kanye West associate Andrew Dawson. The first single “Winner” was revealed in July and it was performed before the Olympic tennis game along with “Always On My Mind” and “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” in Henman Hill, Wimbledon.

Also just out is Amy Cook’s new album “Summer Skin” where singers as diverse as Robert Plant and Patty Griffin join her for the project she calls highly melodic and catchy.

The day after, Nelly Furtado’s latest album “The Spirit Indestructible” released and it is her first English language album in six years. Three years in the making, Furtado has returned to her “Whoa Nelly!” origins with a pop and R&B combo.

The multi-platinum out star Mika releases his new album “The Origin of Love” on Oct. 16. His third album, every aspect of “The Origin of Love” was put together completely by Mika over two years. He flew all over the world to put together a large amount of collaborators including Greg Wells, who has worked with stars such as Rufus Wainwright, Katy Perry, Elton John and Adele.

Yoko Ono has linked up with Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Thurston Moor to produce “YOKOKIMTHURSTON” coming out Sept. 25. The album has only six tracks, however it still appears to be lengthy based on their first single “Early in the Morning,” which is 14 minutes long. The announcement of the new album came to surprise many fans since Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore split after 27 years of marriage last October.

Seattle-based rapper, Macklemore (also known as Ben Haggerty) has a new release “The Heist LP” coming out Oct. 9.  The previously released single “Same Love,” which showed Macklemore’s support for same-sex marriage, is included on the track along with “Can’t Hold Us” and “Make the Money.”

While some artists are producing new modern sounds, some are putting fresh twists on the old. Meshell Ndegeocello comes out with “Pour Une Ame Souveraine: A Dedication to Nina Simone” on Oct. 9, a tribute to legendary singer and pianist Nina Simone who died in 2003. The juxtaposition of Simone’s lyrical clarity against the unclear style of Ndegeocello, who’s bi, appears in many of the album’s songs.

Also reimaging older numbers is Tori Amos, whose newest album “Gold Dust” comes out on Oct. 2.  This year marks the 20th anniversary of Amos’ first album “Little Earthquakes,” and her new album includes several numbers spanning her career re-recorded with the Metropole Orchestra. The idea for the album was conceived in 2010 when Amos was invited to perform with the orchestra and she enjoyed hearing her songs being played in this style. She wanted the renditions of her songs recorded.

Also working somewhat within that vein is Aussie diva Kylie Minogue, whose “Abbey Road Sessions” drops Nov. 6 featuring 16 of her songs re-imagined and re-arranged with full orchestra. It will also include one previously unreleased cut, “Flower.”

Barbra Streisand is sharing 11 unreleased numbers that span from 1963 to the present in her album “Release Me,” which is available on Vinyl on Sept. 25 and on CD on Oct. 9. Many of the tracks were extra recordings that did not make it onto the original albums. The tracks include songs such as “Willow Weep For Me,” recorded in 1967 for the album “Simply Streisand,” and a version of Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going Rain Today” with Newman on piano and Streisand singing.

Leona Lewis is finally releasing her third studio album “Glassheart” on Oct. 15. The album was originally scheduled to release last fall, but was pushed back several times to add more recording sessions. Lewis performed the first single “Collide” on Simon Cowell’s new game show “Red or Black?” Later in September 2011, she performed this single along with the title song “Glassheart” at G-A-Y nightclub in London.

Freshening up the later part of fall is Taylor Swift with her studio album “Red” slated for Oct. 22.  Swift is known for her tumultuous and emotional style, often pulling from her past relationships as inspiration. Her new work promises to be no different as the first released single “We Are Never Getting Back Together” might be the next breakup anthem. It’s up to listeners to figure out which past loves she is singing about in which tracks, as the singer is not giving any names.

On Oct. 23, Diamond Rings — a one-man outfit consisting of gay singer John O — releases “Free Dimensional,” which he says retains the melodicism, clever juxtapositions and lyrical honesty that garnered him kudos for his “Special Affections” project.

“What’s different this time around is how the songs were conceived and produced,” he said in a press statement, referring to his increasing comfort with “high tech bells and whistles.”

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HRC releases ‘Queer Renaissance Syllabus’

Beyoncé’s hit album inspired curriculum

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Beyoncé performs at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., on Aug. 6, 2023. The Human Rights Campaign has released a curriculum that her "Renaissance" album inspired. (Washington Blade photo by Isabelle Kravis)

In a move aimed at celebrating the beauty, brilliance and resilience of the LGBTQ community, the Human Rights Campaign unveiled the “Queer Renaissance Syllabus” that Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” album inspired. 

Curated by Justin Calhoun, Leslie Hall and Chauna Lawson of the HRC’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Program, the syllabus includes a variety of academic articles, essays, films and other media rooted in Black queer and feminist studies. Each piece is directly inspired by the tracks on Beyoncé’s Billboard 200-topping dance album, “Renaissance.”

Beyoncé’s album “Renaissance” stands as a cultural milestone, celebrating the Black queer roots of dance music while shedding light on overlooked Black queer artists. Inspired by her late-Uncle Johnny, the album not only garnered critical acclaim but also shed light on the often marginalized contributions of Black queer artists. Winning four Grammys and yielding chart-topping hits like “Break My Soul” and “Cuff It,” the album sparked discussions about economic impact and cultural representation.

Amid its success, legislative challenges arose, with Florida and Texas enacting bans on DEI initiatives in public colleges. Recognizing the album’s transformative potential, HRC developed the “Queer Renaissance Syllabus” to leverage its impact for education and activism.

Tailored for educators, youth-serving professionals, DEI practitioners, higher education leaders and admirers of Beyoncé’s artistry, the syllabus aims to encourage meaningful discussions, enrich lesson plans, and explore innovative ways to honor the vibrancy and significance of LGBTQ individuals and their culture.

With six themes anchoring the syllabus, ranging from “intersectionality and inclusivity” to “social justice and activism,” it provides a comprehensive exploration of various facets of LGBTQ experiences and expressions. Fan-favorite tracks from the album are paired with scholarly readings, offering insights into empowerment, self-acceptance and the transformative power of artistic expression. The syllabus also reinforces HRC’s efforts to highlight, amplify and re-center Black and queer voices.

By providing links to articles, books, podcasts and interviews, each associated with a song from the album, it celebrates the rich cultural heritage and contributions of the Black queer community.

The concluding section of the syllabus includes Beyoncé’s tribute to O’Shea Sibley, a young Black queer person who was murdered in Brooklyn, N.Y., last July while voguing to “Renaissance” songs at a gas station. HRC also includes a statement that condemns hate crimes.

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Movies

Neo-noir ‘Femme’ offers sexy, intense revenge fantasy

A work of real and thrilling cinematic vision

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George MacKay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett star in ‘Femme.’ (Photo courtesy of Utopia)

They say “revenge is sweet,” and it must be true. Why else would so many of our popular stories, dating all the way back to “Medea” and beyond, be focused on the idea of getting “even” with the people who have done us wrong?

It’s a concept with obvious appeal for anyone who has felt unjustly used by the world – or, more accurately, by the people in it – but that has particular resonance, perhaps, for modern queer audiences, long used to being relegated to the status of “victim” in the narratives we see on our screens. In “Femme” — the new UK indie thriller helmed by first-time feature directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, now in limited theatrical release and expanding wider over the next two weeks — it provides the irresistible hook for a gripping tale of calculated vengeance in the face of anti-queer violence. Like the best of such stories, however, it’s as much a cautionary tale as it is a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

Set in London, it centers on Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), aka Aphrodite Banks, a popular drag performer in the city’s queer club scene who, after a performance one night, steps out in full costume to buy a pack of cigarettes and becomes the victim of a traumatic “gay bashing” incident at the hands of a young man goaded to violence by a thuggish gang of friends. Months later, though he’s recovered from his physical injuries, he is still deeply affected by the inner scars that linger. Robbed of the confidence that allowed him to perform, he’s withdrawn into a reclusive life, until concern from his friends and housemates prompts him to finally venture out into the world for a night of cruising at a gay sauna – where he encounters his bully doing the same thing. 

Unrecognizable and anonymously masculine out of his drag persona, Jules finds himself beginning a dangerous and duplicitous game in which he plans to “out” his former attacker – whose name, as he learns, is Preston (George MacKay) – in the most humiliating way possible. As his scheme begins to play out, however, he encounters an obstacle: in getting to know the closeted Preston, he is surprised to discover not only empathy for someone living their life in terrified camouflage, but a mutual attraction that develops despite the horrific history between them.

Framed as a self-described “neo-noir” story, a designation that implies a certain flavor of moral ambiguity as much as it does a tense and shadowy tale of intrigue or a psychologically complex tone, it’s a movie that relies heavily on style in order to sell its conceptual premise. Realistically, we might question the boldness that permits our protagonist to enact such a potentially hazardous scheme, but in the context of its genre trappings we are lulled into accepting it. And while most of us are likely “jaded” enough to question the possibility of tenderness between its two leading characters, the accepted conceits of the film noir form are enough to sell it to us – or at least allow us to grapple with it alongside Jules, whose righteously Machiavellian master plan is threatened by the feelings he “catches” in spite of himself.

That, of course, is part of the whole point. “Femme,” though it establishes itself by virtue of its very title as a testament to the struggle to “pass” for straight in a world that places a value judgment on perceived adherence to a strict norm for gender and sexuality, hinges on the idea that such things aren’t quite as clear-cut as we want to make them. Despite the black-and-white certainty we cling to when it comes to the subject of abusive or toxic relationships, there’s an emotional component that can only be ignored or dismissed at our peril, and even our most resolute intentions can be undermined by the shades of gray we discover in our hearts. 

Freeman and Ng – who also wrote the screenplay, adapting their own BAFTA-nominated short film from 2021 (starring Harris Dickinson and Paapa Essiedu) into a feature-length expansion – seem bent on challenging our snap judgments, on forcing us to sympathize with our oppressors by showing us the ways in which they, too, are prevented from living a fully authentic life by the expectations of their cultural environment. Even more challenging for many modern audiences, perhaps, may be the unavoidable observation that, in enacting his plan of revenge, Jules crosses the line between being a victim and being a victimizer – a fine point that may trigger uncomfortable implications in a social environment that has become marked by divisive moral constructs and hardline ethical posturing.

Before we scare you off with discussion of high-concept themes and “culture war” rhetoric, however, it’s crucial to bring up the elements that lift “Femme” above and beyond the level of so many such narrative films and makes it a somewhat unexpectedly potent piece of cinematic storytelling – and all of them have to do with the skill and intention behind it.

As to the former, the movie’s first-time directors manage a remarkable debut, steeping their film in moody, genre-appropriate visuals and murky morality. They pave a path beyond the easy assessments proscribed for us by conventional thinking, and force us to follow our sympathies into a disquieting confrontation between what we “know” as right and what we feel as true; at the same time, they push back against any natural sentimentality we might have about the situation, stressing the toxicity of the relationship in the middle of their film, the ironically-reversed insincerity of its dynamic – and, perhaps most importantly, the reality of the defining circumstances around it. While we might find ourselves longing for a happier resolution than the one we expect, the film makes no pretense that these two men might overcome the deep denial and traumatic associations – not to mention the calculated lack of honesty on the side of its de facto protagonist, to achieve some kind of “happy ending” between themselves. Nevertheless, we hope for it, in spite of ourselves.

That delicate dynamic works largely because of the movie’s lead actors. Both Stewart-Jarrett (“Candyman”) and MacKay (“Pride”, “1917”) deliver fully invested, utterly relatable performances, finding the emotional truth behind their interactions with as much palpable authenticity as they bring to the chemistry between them. They force us to abandon our preconceived ideas about each character by finding the human presence behind them, and it makes the story’s final outcome feel as heartbreaking as it does inevitable.

As for intention, “Femme” – which premiered at last year’s Berlin International Film Festival and went on to gather acclaim across the international film fest circuit – might be a little hard to take for the easily triggered, we won’t deny it. Still, it’s a work of real and thrilling cinematic vision that goes beyond easy morality to highlight the tragedy that comes from being forced to live behind a mask for the sake of societal acceptance. It’s also exciting, smart, and unexpectedly sexy – all of which make it a highly- recommended addition to your watchlist.

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Out & About

Trans Day of Visibility is here and here’s how to celebrate

Howard County LGBTQIA Commission to host Columbia event

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Howard County LGBTQIA Commission will host its inaugural event celebrating Trans Day of Visibility on Sunday, March 31 at 4 p.m. at Busboys and Poets in Columbia, Md.

The purpose of this inaugural event is to create a welcoming and inclusive space that celebrates and amplifies the voices of the trans community and its allies, highlights the joy and resilience of trans and non-binary individuals everywhere, and elevates their voices and shares their diverse experiences. 

This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite

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