Album Reviews

561 articles
With all the conversations around abortion access lately, @midwest_access_coalition and @kytranshealth wanted to talk about using non-gendered language in your discussions. Trans people, especially trans People of Color, are disproportionately affected by abortion bans, yet trans people are almost always left out of these conversations. Instead of saying Women, simply use ✨PREGNANT PEOPLE✨ or ✨PEOPLE WHO NEED ABORTIONS✨ Trans people will need the help of abortion funds more than ever if Roe falls and it’s imperative that they receive our support, respect and validation. Reposted from @unrseattle who reposted from @kytranshealth 🏳️‍⚧️ #TransHealth #Abortion #AbortionFunds #Trans #Dobbs #ProAbortion #PracticalSupport #Prochoice #AbortionIsHealthCare #TransRights
New interview with OHYUNG @ohyungli is up by Miles Ginoza @weeaboo.diaspora ~ read it at https://bit.ly/redefineohyung /// The early afternoon sunlight is streaming into OHYUNG‘s New York apartment when we meet over video call to discuss their latest album, imagine naked!, released this spring as a double cassette tape on NNA Tapes. There’s a peaceful energy and contemplative slowness to our conversation that feels in step with the ethos of the album, an expansive two-hour journey through eleven ambient pieces. As we unpack the album, OHYUNG — or Robert Ouyang Rusli — speaks with an assured humility rooted in the understanding that their artistic practice is grounded in self-fulfillment. “I wouldn’t consider it cutting edge music,” they admit. “I feel like it serves an important purpose for me as an exercise of stillness and also just something that calms me down.” When the upcoming release of imagine naked! was announced earlier this year, to call it a surprise wouldn’t exactly be fair. While OHYUNG has never made an ambient album before, their previous records have had brief moments of ambient bliss amidst a dizzying melting pot of experimental hip-hop, avant garde noise, chopped and screwed beats, freeform jazz, heartfelt shoegaze, and frenetic jungle and club music. Still, OHYUNG has gained a reputation for maximalism and a short attention span in their music making, and this move to focus solely on ambient music feels like a curveball. “I think a big part of my practice is playing with the unexpected,” they reflect. “I enjoy—for better or worse—making something that I feel people don’t expect me to make based on what I’ve made before.” /// Photos by Acudus Aranyian READ THE INTERVIEW: https://bit.ly/redefineohyung #AsianMusician #AsianMusicians #NNATapes @nnatapes #AsianAmericanMusician #AsianAmericanMusicians #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #ExperimentalMusic #MusicJournalism #AlbumReview #AlbumReviews #MusicFeature #MusicFeatures #MusicMagazine #AmbientMusic #OHYUNG #AmbientMusician #AmbientMusicians #ExperimentalMusician #ExperimentalMusicians
New interview with OHYUNG @ohyungli is up by Miles Ginoza @weeaboo.diaspora ~ read it at https://bit.ly/redefineohyung /// The early afternoon sunlight is streaming into OHYUNG‘s New York apartment when we meet over video call to discuss their latest album, imagine naked!, released this spring as a double cassette tape on NNA Tapes. There’s a peaceful energy and contemplative slowness to our conversation that feels in step with the ethos of the album, an expansive two-hour journey through eleven ambient pieces. As we unpack the album, OHYUNG — or Robert Ouyang Rusli — speaks with an assured humility rooted in the understanding that their artistic practice is grounded in self-fulfillment. “I wouldn’t consider it cutting edge music,” they admit. “I feel like it serves an important purpose for me as an exercise of stillness and also just something that calms me down.” When the upcoming release of imagine naked! was announced earlier this year, to call it a surprise wouldn’t exactly be fair. While OHYUNG has never made an ambient album before, their previous records have had brief moments of ambient bliss amidst a dizzying melting pot of experimental hip-hop, avant garde noise, chopped and screwed beats, freeform jazz, heartfelt shoegaze, and frenetic jungle and club music. Still, OHYUNG has gained a reputation for maximalism and a short attention span in their music making, and this move to focus solely on ambient music feels like a curveball. “I think a big part of my practice is playing with the unexpected,” they reflect. “I enjoy—for better or worse—making something that I feel people don’t expect me to make based on what I’ve made before.” /// Photos by Acudus Aranyian READ THE INTERVIEW: https://bit.ly/redefineohyung #AsianMusician #AsianMusicians #NNATapes @nnatapes #AsianAmericanMusician #AsianAmericanMusicians #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #ExperimentalMusic #MusicJournalism #AlbumReview #AlbumReviews #MusicFeature #MusicFeatures #MusicMagazine #AmbientMusic #OHYUNG #AmbientMusician #AmbientMusicians #ExperimentalMusician #ExperimentalMusicians
Waiting for the Carnival (2019), an engrossing documentary by Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Gomes, opens with a swath of billboards set against a stark landscape. Showcasing models in skin-tight blue jeans, the billboards welcome the viewer to Toritama, a Northeast city that produces 20% of Brazil’s denim exports. Nearly everyone is employed in jeans there, whether as a boutique designer, factory owner, or wage laborer. Every Sunday, its market square teems with sellers hawking their wares at thousands of stalls. Throughout the year, they dream of Carnival, a springtime festival that offers a rare reprieve from work. Gomes, whose father’s work as a tax auditor often brought him to the town, serves as a perceptive while ambivalent tour guide. The view of the billboards from the back, rickety stilts exposed, is an apt metaphor for his project: to grasp the panoramic consequences of an exploding industry. Upon returning to the region as an adult, Gomes was baffled. “When I passed by the road in Toritama, I saw the billboards in the middle of nowhere with jeans models, with paradise, and I said, ‘Oh my god, what’s that?’ The driver told me, ‘Toritama now is the Brazilian capital of jeans’ . . . ” he recalls. “When I got to Toritama, the city was completely polluted, the noise was completely oppressive, the city was a mess. I said, ‘Wow, this must be England in the first Industrial Revolution, like a hundred-fifty years ago, that people work, work, work. And the people don’t have free time to enjoy themselves.'” “I was interested in the human environment,” he continues. “I was interested in the people — what changed in the way that they think about life, the way that they dream, the way that they think about the future.” /// READ THE INTERVIEW w/ Director Marcelo Gomes by Alison J. Smith @alison.j.smith: https://bit.ly/redefinejeans #SeattleFilm #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #SeattleFilms #SeattleFilmmaker #SeattleFilmmakers #FilmJournalism #DirectorInterview #NYFilmmaker #BrazilianFilm #BrazilianFilms @icarusfilms_ #DocumentaryFilm #DocumentaryFilms
Tracing the last century of Kauai’s history and its representation in film, Anthony Banua-Simon’s documentary, Cane Fire (2021), begins with a mystery: what happened to the never-released romance White Heat (1934)? White Heat was the first film to feature Kauai, Hawaii’s fourth largest island, and since then, more than sixty films have been shot there. For Banua-Simon, White Heat is far more than just an interesting bit of trivia. It may offer an elusive glimpse of his great-grandfather, an immigrant from the Philippines who worked over Kauai’s sugar and pineapple plants and stumbled into acting as an extra. The revelation that his great-uncle Henry followed a similar trajectory, from laborer to film crew member, inspired Banua-Simon to dig into Hawaii’s overlapping onscreen and offscreen histories. Indeed, Cane Fire masterfully weaves together an array of films, from blockbuster to pulp. What may initially strike the viewer as escapist fantasies turn out to mirror the political concerns of the era, particularly anxieties over organized labor. In peeling back the layers of mystique constructed by these films, Cane Fire provocatively reimagines Hawaii’s representation. /// READ THE INTERVIEW w/ Director Anthony Banua-Simon by Alison J. Smith @alison.j.smith: https://bit.ly/redefinecane Cane Fire screens at Brooklyn Art Museum @bamfilmbrooklyn from May 20 to June 2 in Brooklyn, NY. It screens at Northwest Film Forum @nwfilmforum June 4-15 in Seattle, with in-person Q&A on June 4. #SeattleFilm #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #SeattleFilms #SeattleFilmmaker #SeattleFilmmakers #FilmJournalism #DirectorInterview #NYFilmmaker #HawaiianFilm #HawaiianFilms #AnthonyBanuaSimon #NewYorkFilm #NewYorkFilms @anthonybanuasimon #DocumentaryFilm #DocumentaryFilms
Tracing the last century of Kauai’s history and its representation in film, Anthony Banua-Simon’s documentary, Cane Fire (2021), begins with a mystery: what happened to the never-released romance White Heat (1934)? White Heat was the first film to feature Kauai, Hawaii’s fourth largest island, and since then, more than sixty films have been shot there. For Banua-Simon, White Heat is far more than just an interesting bit of trivia. It may offer an elusive glimpse of his great-grandfather, an immigrant from the Philippines who worked over Kauai’s sugar and pineapple plants and stumbled into acting as an extra. The revelation that his great-uncle Henry followed a similar trajectory, from laborer to film crew member, inspired Banua-Simon to dig into Hawaii’s overlapping onscreen and offscreen histories. Indeed, Cane Fire masterfully weaves together an array of films, from blockbuster to pulp. What may initially strike the viewer as escapist fantasies turn out to mirror the political concerns of the era, particularly anxieties over organized labor. In peeling back the layers of mystique constructed by these films, Cane Fire provocatively reimagines Hawaii’s representation. /// READ THE INTERVIEW w/ Director Anthony Banua-Simon by Alison J. Smith @alison.j.smith: https://bit.ly/redefinecane Cane Fire screens at Brooklyn Art Museum @bamfilmbrooklyn from May 20 to June 2 in Brooklyn, NY. It screens at Northwest Film Forum @nwfilmforum June 4-15 in Seattle, with in-person Q&A on June 4. #SeattleFilm #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #SeattleFilms #SeattleFilmmaker #SeattleFilmmakers #FilmJournalism #DirectorInterview #NYFilmmaker #HawaiianFilm #HawaiianFilms #AnthonyBanuaSimon #NewYorkFilm #NewYorkFilms @anthonybanuasimon #DocumentaryFilm #DocumentaryFilms
Sweetheart Deal @SweetheartDealMovie, a cinéma vérité-style documentary from local filmmaker Elisa Levine @ElisaLevine99, follows the trajectories of four sex workers on Aurora, and eschews feverish commentary in favor of unvarnished truths... Sweetheart Deal‘s four subjects — Krista (formerly Amy), Kristine, Sara, and Tammy — brim with wry humor and startling honesty about “being dopesick” and “turning tricks.” In the decade or so of filming between 2011 and 2021, they splinter off then reconnect, make amends and give apologies, all while being pulled relentlessly back into Aurora’s undertow. Each cycles in and out of Elliott’s RV, gradually shifting from casual acquaintances to close friends. “Everybody who’s out there on Aurora: you don’t know what their background is,” says Levine, who felt it was important to highlight the disparate backgrounds of these women, but also their solidarity and similarity. “They could come from a family of millionaires or they could come from a life of poverty. Once you get out there, [with] the intensity of what you have to deal with every day, just trying to survive there — everybody’s on an equal playing field. Nobody cares where anybody else came from. So that was something that was surprising and interesting and sad. Even people who came from a better-off background and had more opportunities to go into rehab more times and things like that over the years — they still very often fall back into the addiction.” /// READ THE INTERVIEW w/ Director Elisa Levine by Alison J. Smith @alison.j.smith: https://bit.ly/redefinesweetheart Initially viewed at @SIFFnews #SeattleFilm #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #SeattleFilms #SeattleFilmmaker #SeattleFilmmakers #FilmJournalism #DirectorInterview #ElisaLevine #SweetheartDeal #AuroraAve #AuroraAvenue #Streetwise #DocumentaryFilm #DocumentaryFilms #GabrielMiller #CinemaVerite #Highway99
For many Seattleites, Aurora Avenue has for years been synonymous with prostitution, drug trafficking, and general urban decay. For those unfamiliar with the region, it’s a stretch of Highway 99 running from the city’s north to south, which Kurt Cobain famously frequented during his last days. Sweetheart Deal @SweetheartDealMovie, a cinéma vérité-style documentary from local filmmaker Elisa Levine @ElisaLevine99, follows the trajectories of four sex workers on Aurora, and eschews feverish commentary in favor of unvarnished truths. With striking cinematography from the late Gabriel Miller, the film meditates on Aurora’s neon signs and endless lots, often blurred by rain, to moody effect. Sweetheart Deal rejiggers the viewer’s perspective from that of the driver whizzing along to that of a woman on the street corner eyeing those passersby. Partly inspired by the landmark 1984 documentary Streetwise, a profile of homeless Seattle youth, Levine sought to juxtapose the picture-perfect version of Seattle with its darker twin. /// READ THE INTERVIEW w/ Director Elisa Levine by Alison J. Smith @alison.j.smith: https://bit.ly/redefinesweetheart Initially viewed at @SIFFnews #SeattleFilm #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #SeattleFilms #SeattleFilmmaker #SeattleFilmmakers #FilmJournalism #DirectorInterview #ElisaLevine #SweetheartDeal #AuroraAve #AuroraAvenue #Streetwise #DocumentaryFilm #DocumentaryFilms #GabrielMiller #CinemaVerite #Highway99
All bets are off in Luv, Me, when two Asian roommates battle because one decided to create a dating app profile for another. Attempts to make up over K-Dramas fall short, but unexpected conversations offer bridges towards reconciliation. (Nicolas Jara & Yen Dinh, United States, 2022) /// May 8 is the last day to catch Translations 2022, a hybrid festival of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive films from around the world! An initiative of @threedollarbillcinema, Translations features short films, feature films, and networking events which are available virtually from May 5-8, 2022 — plus an one-day in-person engagement at @nwfilmforum on May 7. Check out our top picks from their eight short film programs over at https://bit.ly/redefine2022translations #SeattleFilm #TransgenderFilm #TransgenderFilms #NonbinaryFilm #NonbinaryFilms #GenderExpansive #GenderExpansiveFilms #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #ThreeDollarBillCinema #FilmJournalism #TransFilm #TransFilms #AsianFilmmaker #AsianFilmmakers #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #ThreeDollarBillCinema #FilmJournalism
As evidenced by its title, 17 Minutes with Nora showcases a slice of the daily drama experienced by one young adult — especially when the danger she faces in the streets suddenly affects her home life. (Imanol Ruiz de Lara, Spain, 2021) /// Translations 2022 returns with a hybrid festival of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive films from around the world! An initiative of @threedollarbillcinema, Translations features short films, feature films, and networking events which are available virtually from May 5-8, 2022 — plus an one-day in-person engagement at @nwfilmforum on May 7. Check out our top picks from their eight short film programs over at https://bit.ly/redefine2022translations #SeattleFilm #TransgenderFilm #TransgenderFilms #NonbinaryFilm #NonbinaryFilms #GenderExpansive #GenderExpansiveFilms #BlackFilmmaker #BlackFilmmakers #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #ThreeDollarBillCinema #FilmJournalism #TransFilm #TransFilms
How to Not Date While Trans by Nyala Moon @nyalamoonfilms - Fast-paced, punchy, and full of witty banter, How to Not Date While Trans takes viewers through the highs and lows of dating as a trans woman. Beyond the jokes, it also showcases the struggles and disappointments, through many a dating escapade. /// Translations 2022 returns with a hybrid festival of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive films from around the world! An initiative of @threedollarbillcinema, Translations features short films, feature films, and networking events which are available virtually from May 5-8, 2022 — plus an one-day in-person engagement at @nwfilmforum on May 7. Check out our top picks from their eight short film programs over at https://bit.ly/redefine2022translations #SeattleFilm #TransgenderFilm #TransgenderFilms #NonbinaryFilm #NonbinaryFilms #GenderExpansive #GenderExpansiveFilms #BlackFilmmaker #BlackFilmmakers #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #ThreeDollarBillCinema #FilmJournalism #TransFilm #TransFilms #NyalaMoon
BIRTHDAY BOY by Judith Corro (Panama) is an out-of-body experience, creatively showing the disorientation and dysphoria when one is disrespectfully misgendered on one of the most significant days of their lives. /// Translations 2022 returns with a hybrid festival of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive films from around the world! An initiative of @threedollarbillcinema, Translations features short films, feature films, and networking events which are available virtually from May 5-8, 2022 — plus an one-day in-person engagement at @nwfilmforum on May 7. READ ALL SHORT FILM PICKS: https://bit.ly/redefine2022translations #SeattleFilm #TransgenderFilm #TransgenderFilms #NonbinaryFilm #NonbinaryFilms #GenderExpansive #GenderExpansiveFilms #AsianMusician #AsianMusicians #REDEFINEmagazine #REDEFINEmag #FilmReview #FilmReviews #ThreeDollarBillCinema #moonyeka #Filipinx #Sensual #FilmJournalism