"12 Years a Slave" director Steve McQueen's next feature film will be about black American icon Paul Robeson, as revealed in The Guardian today. McQueen, who won the Best Picture Oscar for "12 Years" earlier this year, said this is the dream movie he wanted to make after the brutal IRA striker drama "Hunger" (2008).
"But I didn’t have the power, I didn’t have the juice," he told a New York audience at the Hidden Heroes awards, honoring civil rights activists murdered by the KKK in the 1960s.
McQueen has wanted to tell the story of Robeson— singer, actor and activist whose father escaped slavery and who shepherded anti-imperialist movements that landed on the McCarthy blacklist—since he was a teenager. One of the director's previous artworks, a digitally projected ream of documents entitled "End Credits," tributed Robeson in 2012.
Recent Governors Awards honoree Harry Belafonte is apparently involved in the Robeson film project. No further details yet, but we do know McQueen his HBO drama "Codes of Conduct" starring Devon Terrell is currently in the works.
His name is Konstantin De Winter and he is a producer/singer/songwriter from Belgium working under the alias "Calfskin" primarily in the indie synthpop/new wave genre. Over the years his work has been compared most of all to Depeche Mode, however it's also influenced by such major synthpop/new wave artists as Pet Shop Boys, OMD, New Order etc.
Here’s the clip
Bella Union are delighted to announce the signing of hotly-tipped Manchester-based electronic-pop duo BERNARD + EDITH. Already firmly established within the city's underground music scene, Greta 'Edith' Carroll and Nick 'Bernard' Delap draw on influences ranging from Fever Fay and Portishead via Cocteau Twins, David Lynch and Kate Bush to create the most deliciously dark art-pop/soul. Earlier this year the band released their debut single 'Poppy' on the excellent SWAYS Records to much acclaim.
Ahead of their performance at the Lexington tonight supporting labelmates Ballet School, Bernard + Edith have just unveiled an inventive and atmospheric video to WURDS, their hypnotic first single for Bella Union.
Bernard + Edith will be playing a single launch show at the Eagle in Manchester on Wednesday 3rd December.
Fellow Manchester-based artist Jamie Lee of the band MONEY has penned the below idiosyncratic bio-cum-tribute to Bernard + Edith:
“Perhaps Bernard and Edith would think that what I'm about to say is going too far. But I remember drinking with vocalist Edith in a bar in Manchester and talking about how her and Bernard come to creating their songs. Edith observed: "Rather than say 'let's go out' or 'let's watch TV' I say, 'should we make a cheeky song?' And he says 'Alright then'." And that laughter I've come to know so well erupts from her maniacally, childishly, freely.
Edith's singing style reminds me of the kind of emancipatory freedom of the modern American school of writing. Her melodies are uninhibited by traditional rules of structure - she moves where and when she feels the impulse to; and knowing the woman behind the voice I see that the impulse in her can be as chaotic as it is beguiling. She is like a bouquet balanced precariously on the edge of a table unsure of whether it will fall and break - hinged between extreme goodness and feeling on the one hand and on the other, chaos and perhaps even madness. Lyrically, again, the comparison is relevant: "cos poppy says she loves me and I'm feeling right" is as naked, unpretentious and brave as the revolutionary poet Robert Lowell's assertion; "why not say what happened?" that triggered his confessional movement producing and influencing writers from Sylvia Plath to Anne Sexton - a place where the uncompromisingly personal and high-art met in the middle. This applies to Bernard and Edith too. A place explored by Daniel Johnston and Arthur Russell - it is the artful balance between a highly private expression and having the skill and intelligence to communicate that to the world. It is testing the limits of what a person can say within their art but also lends a universality to their language and style. Having mentioned these artists, there is clearly a strongly cathartic drive to why Bernard and Edith even exist at all - it is art being made for the right reasons - for the love of it! It is esoteric but never indulgent, original but not reactionary or avant-garde, otherworldly but unpretentious.
It is my belief that whatever art is, it is the direct opposite of whatever money is. It is made by the maker to save oneself briefly from the inevitable and in doing so (where the craft comes in) may end up saving other people briefly too. Bernard + Edith make their music from home and (I cannot help but feel) predominantly for each other - a kind of covenant to their particular and special bond.”
WURDS will be released 1st December on Bella Union.
On the eve of her first large-scale performance in years supporting Jesus and Mary Chain, solo-artist and ex-member of cult pop group Strawberry Switchblade, Rose McDowall and Night School Records are proud to announce an extensive archive project commencing in 2015. Spanning Rose’s 34 year career, the project will include reissues and unreleased recordings alongside unseen photographs and new sleeve notes.
Rose McDowall began her career in her hometown of Glasgow, operating within the nascent punk scene with her first group The Poems. After a meteoric rise to pop stardom with Strawberry Switchblade (along with friend Jill Bryson), McDowall submerged herself in the post-industrial landscape, recording with the likes of Coil, Boyd Rice and Current 93.
Shortly after, she began recording with her own group Sorrow, before disappearing into the underground, re-surfacing for occasional performances only.
At the personal invitation of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Rose McDowall will support the band at Glasgow’s Barrowlands on 21st and 23rd November.
Punch Drunk Presents the first live KMFDM concert recording in over ten years. Cut from over 50hrs of live concert footage and including exclusive interviews with Kapt’n K, Lucia Cifarelli, Jules Hodgson, Steve White, and Andy Selway. STAY TUNED.
Click on the KMFDM-site to see the trailer.
