Music: A Subversive History

By George Grella

NOV 2019 | Music

Songs about fucking and killing—that would have also been an appropriate subtitle for this scintillating new book from Ted Gioia. He’s already written three valuable books about the place of music in society and human experience, Healing Songs (2006), Works Songs (2006), and Love Songs: The Hidden history (2015). Music: A Subversive History builds on those by digging down into the fundamental nature of music, how it is made and how it affects us.

Tallinn Music Week

By Martin Longley

OCT 2020 | Music

There was a pivotal juncture shortly before this year’s Tallinn Music Week when fortitude bloomed and the organizers threw themselves into realizing 2020’s already postponed conference-cum-festival—the Estonian government giving permission to operate at a reduced venue capacity—across the city’s broad range of indoor and outdoor stages. Braving a steady domino-fall of cancellations by visiting international acts, as red-patches proliferated, TMW understandably placed the emphasis on indigenous artists, covering most styles, including rock, jazz, folk, hip hop, electronica, ambient, pop, and modern classical.

Painting without Edge

By Suzanne Silver

OCT 2020 | Critics Page

I write about the edge in my own painting as a way of situating myself in the world and figuring out how to receive it.

Video Tryouts for an American Grammar Book

By Farid Matuk

APRIL 2020 | Critics Page

Farid Matuk is the author of The Real Horse. Redolent, a book-arts collaboration between Matuk and Colombian artist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez, is forthcoming from Singing Saw Press.