When promos of the latest deluxe Pavement reissue – “Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed”, no less – turned up last week, it struck me that perhaps, in 12 months’ time, we might just be talking about a Pavement comeback being one of the key reunions of 2009.
Not that I take much notice of these things, but it did seem fitting that a copy of the new Sunn 0))) album arrived just in time for Halloween. Like most of their crushingly slow meditations on doom, “Dømkirke” would probably be interpreted by many listeners as an apt soundtrack for the gates of hell opening at an agonisingly slow pace.
I was just re-reading my blog on the first Marnie Stern album, “In Advance Of The Broken Arm”, from last year. I mentioned plenty of stuff about Lightning Bolt and Sleater-Kinney (and slyly avoided a couple of other reference points, more of which later), and about how Stern had certain similarities with early PJ Harvey.
And still the Animal Collective fanskeep coming, with a few requests for the durations of the “Merriweather Post Pavilion” tracks. Here they come: bear in mind that “Brothersport” could easily go on for another five or ten minutes as far as I’m concerned.
In 2005’s Brick, Rian Johnson played a cute twist on the high school movie genre, importing the tropes of film noir for a murder thriller set in the halls of academe. The Brothers Bloom, last night’s premier at the London Film Festival, is a similarly knowing piece of work. On face value, it’s a movie about two con men brothers, played by Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody; but, more than that, it’s also a movie about the act of fiction itself.
