Hard Times, Easy Listening: 10 Albums for Autumn 2020
Music has been a most necessary balm in 2020 and will remain one in the post-summer months. This list offers a brief repository of albums that gleam in ways particularly autumnal.
Matt McKinzie
Matt McKinzie is a Boston-based filmmaker, screenwriter, essayist, photographer, performer, and poet. His work has been showcased in numerous galleries, collectives, and publications, including the Film-Makers' Cooperative of New York, Studio 550 of Cambridge, and Hygienic Art. He currently works as Editorial Director of EM Magazine
Jamila Woods’ “SULA (Paperback)” and Creative Ancestry and Self-Love in the Age of “List” Activism
In Jamila Woods' latest single "SULA (Paperback)", Toni Morrison and her 1973 novel of the same name are not static literary phenomena. They are an artist and artwork as galvanizing and alive as Woods herself.
Defragmenting Bodies: Yoko Ono’s ‘Fly’ at 50
In her 1970 avant-garde short Fly, Yoko Ono works within the same parameters as directors like Alfred Hitchcock or Takashi Miike. Yet, she posits the intermixture of her celluloid images as reconstructive effort, not a destructive one.
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Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ and Finding a Place to Be During Coronavirus
Shuttered inside our homes, contending with the COVID-19 outbreak, Nick Drake's third album promises rebirth and renewal: the pink moon is coming.
Reclaiming Small Spaces: Chantal Akerman’s ‘Saute ma ville’ and the Art of Social Distancing
Chantal Akerman’s 1968 short film Saute ma ville directly reflects our current state, serving as a meditative text on the art of staying home.
Parallelism and Deliverance in Barbara Loden’s ‘Wanda’ and Natalia Leite’s ‘Bare’
Natalia Leite's 2015 film Bare picks up where Barbara Loden's 1970 film Wanda left off, each acting, indirectly, as the proto- and fourth wave- feminist renderings of the other.
In Appreciation of Camille Billops and Her Films
Camille Billops moved beyond predictable and well-tread ground to open up space for new narratives in her films—about Black families, Black women, and Black middle-class life—that pulled on her distinctive and unapologetic worldview.
Joni Mitchell’s Fearless Jazz Debut, ‘Ladies of the Canyon’ at 50
Joni Mitchell's foray into jazz was not an impulsive change. Rather, jazz has been the constant, undulating beneath industry demands and topical concerns that called for the acoustic guitar or the Appalachian dulcimer.
Critical Discussion Transforms Art: Haile Gerima, the L.A. Rebellion, and Cinema as Life
Haile Gerima's Bush Mama remains a critically transformative film, particularly in its most subliminal, yet important, proclamation: the days of separating "art" and "artist" are over. For in Black cinema, those days never existed to begin with.
Patti Smith’s ‘Wave’ Turns 40: Why the Punk Poet’s Pop Album Is Also Her Greatest
Wave's status as Patti Smith's most unapologetically pop album reveals the most authentically "punk" gesture of her career: rejecting the idea that her genre capabilities begin and end with that four-letter word.
‘Morning Glory on the Vine’ and Joni Mitchell’s Amalgam of Craft
Joni Mitchell's latest book denotes the next step in the Joni evolution, and indicates that perhaps those different languages for her—of visual art, poetry, and music—will finally be held in equal regard.