Category : Focus

Mustard: Faith in a Mustard Seed review – lacking in spice

(10 Summers/BMG)The fourth album from Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us producer features cloying love songs, odes to Mom and thanks to GodWhen Jesus told his followers to have “faith the size of a mustard seed” he was partly thinking ahead to the career...

Thom Gunn by Michael Nott review – sex, drugs and San Francisco

A sensitive account of the poet’s wild life on the West Coast The subtitle of this biography alludes to a line from Hardy that& Thom Gunn used as the epigraph for his last collection, Boss Cupid: “Well, it’s a cool queer tale.” Gunn’s life was cool a...

Raphael Rogiński: Žaltys review | Jude Rogers' folk album of the month

(Unsound)This searching, soulful release conjures up the spirit of summers spent by the lake and in the forestNamed after a Lithuanian snake spirit that supposedly brings families health and prosperity, Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński’s hypnotic ne...

Crack Cloud: Red Mile review – aggressively tuneful rock about life’s big questions

(Jagjaguwar)The Canadian indie-garage-rockers take the mickey out of pop, punk and the stories we tell ourselves, but strong feeling outweighs the cynicismTrite metaphors, tortured similes and outright cliches are, ahem, ten a penny in today’s pop ly...

‘In all those movies about childhood, I never saw someone who looked like me’: Sean Wang on his debut, Dìdi

The director explains how a desire to transcend race and immigrant identity led to his semi-autobiographical tale of an angst-ridden Taiwanese American teenage skater and an Oscar-nominated short about his grandmothersSean Wang is jet-lagged. He has...

Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good by Eley Williams review – intriguing short stories without neat endings

A fascination with words and symbols provides a unifying theme in this richly ambiguous collection of short stories A courtroom artist sees the features of her date in the face& of a defendant. A woman stranded on the pavement when her office’s autom...

TV tonight: Paris and the Seine star in the Olympics opening ceremony

France pulls out all the stops for the start of the Games. Plus another perilous rescue in the Lake District. Here’s what to watch this evening5.45pm, BBC One One hundred years since the games were last held there, Paris is hosting the greatest spo...

‘Sublime eternal love exists within each one of us’: David Lynch on music, friendship and life’s biggest mystery

The director, along with his collaborator Chrystabell explain – or try to – their new album Cellophane Memories and the magical marriage of music and film‘Where we’re from,” says The Man from the Other Place in David Lynch’s TV series Twin Peaks, “th...

Ice Spice: Y2K! review | Alexis Petridis’s album of the week

(10k Projects/Capitol)The US rapper’s subject matter is lightweight and this debut album only lasts 23 minutes, but funny, snotty lines abound and the music is often viscerally excitingIce Spice is a divisive figure in the world of rap. There are peo...

Joy Gregory unveils billboard art project at Heathrow inspired by asylum seekers

Artist known for photographic work was commissioned to create A Taste of Home in Terminal 4 tube stationThe UK needs more public art that confronts the major issues of the day, according to Joy Gregory, the award-winning artist who has just unveiled...

Ice baths, rare steak and no masturbation: was Walt Whitman the first wellness influencer?

The poet’s strident views, outlined in an 1858 article entitled Manly Health and Training, are remarkably similar to many popular gurus operating in the modern manosphereMen! Do you yearn to be healthy, virile and handsome? To become herculean in sta...

Interpol: ‘I’m very glad we said yes to putting a song in Friends – it was a pretty hardcore moment’

As they gear up for a 20th anniversary tour, Daniel Kessler and Paul Banks answer your questions on getting stuck for two days in snow, playing Glastonbury in the mud and which Killers song they would coverAround the time of Antics [2004] your stage...

John Eliot Gardiner’s departure could usher in generational change for period-instrument performance

At his best, Gardiner’s take on classical repertoire could be thrillingly alive – but after stepping down from his ensembles following a violent outburst, his career is uncertainIt comes as little surprise after the events of last summer that John El...

Inside Out 2 becomes highest-grossing animation of all time

Pixar’s sequel to its 2015 hit has now overtaken Frozen II and Barbie in global ticket sales, reaching $1bn in only 19 daysInside Out 2 has overtaken Frozen II to become the highest-grossing animation of all time. Pixar’s sequel to its 2015 smash abo...

Brawn, bazookas and killer bots: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s finest films – ranked!

In anticipation of his 77th birthday, we appraise the monolithically musclebound Austrian’s action-packed oeuvreArnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito play twins separated at birth. That’s it, that’s the film. The first of three comedies Schwarzenegg...