ARTamental

I love great new music! This gem was dropped off in my Twitter DM, and I can’t stop listening to it! If you’re not familiar, Writtenhouse is a group of 3: Charlie K (The Emcee) with Kush Shalimar & Chris Conway (The Producers). This particular joint was produced by Chris (High five! Sh*t rocks!).

The music is good (which is rare these days), but apparently their live show is indeed something to write home about. Kush & Chris allgedly bring the studio gear on stage and make all the beats LIVE! GTFOH! Can’t wait to see these guys do their thing.

Their debut album, While You Were Sleeping, drops Feb 15th. Enjoy!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Brought to you by Flashlight Worthy Books.

A Woman is a Woman is a 1961 French film by Jean-Luc Godard. It’s a romantic tragedy. A non-musical musical.  An elegy of hope. A sarcastic nod to American films of the same time and genre.  Anna Karina (Angela) is a french Audrey Hepburn, except smarter, more clever, and less planned. Even the film itself is a spontaneous satire of itself considering was written without a script! Godard wrote the script as the actors made it up. Now that’ what I call intrigue.

The plot is simple, but the concept is what makes this movie great and a no-brainer for the Criterion Collection. Angela, an exotic dancer, is dating Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy). Emile is a jerk, Angela is a b*tch, and they play out a very miserable, co-dependent relationship. We’ve all seen these types of couples before. It’s obvious they care for each other and have some kind of spark, but they simply just can’t stop arguing or be honest or do any of the things that people do in a healthy relationship. In the midst of never ending drama, Angela decides she wants to have a baby, and Emile wants no parts of it. Emile suggests that if she wants one so bad then to just have one by the first man she sees and calls his best friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo) in to do the job. Little did he know that Alfred was already in love with Angela, thus the love triangle is born.

I’ve seen this sort of thing in real life so many times. No one is really happy, but the anxiety of doing something else is crippling enough to settle for just existing. It’s a series of unfortunate habits. In the movie (and this may or may not be an exact quote), a lady asks Angela, “What are you thinking about?” And she replies, “That I exist.” I’m sure she was telling the truth.

I love Godard’s tongue-and-cheek approach to nearly everything: Americans,the ridiculousness of musicals, the joy of musicals, love, desire, and expectations. I won’t ruin the ending for any of you that are interesting in checking it out, but if what you hate about American romantic comedies is the unrealistic romance coupled with cheesy slap stick, then I promise you’ll love this film.

Some albums have covers, others have cover art. No one can say what defines one or the other, but we all know when something’s interesting, whether we like it or not. Hip Hop tends to be the worst when it comes to packaging, so it’s always refreshing when some good ones pop up.

I can’t stop listening to this! I always liked it, but for someone today it literally grabbed me and won’t let go.  And because I can’t get it out of my head, I’m going to put it in yours. Go ahead. Press play over and over again. You know you want to…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.