10 years is a long time between albums, so Scheherazade is a true welcome back to the simple folky rooted songs from Catherine Ann Irwin and Janet Beveridge Bean of Freakwater. For some, this reunion is something special as their 1995 record, Old Paint, is always an album you may hear listed as helping put…
Twenty new shows feature in the 9th annual Melbourne Cabaret Festival. Under the artistic direction of Dolly Diamond (for the second consecutive year), the festival is on right now at Chapel off Chapel, and runs until 1 July. Note that each show has only a small number of performances. The festival includes musical acts straddling…
In the tradition of Forrest Gump, The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir is a wild ride, which combines coincidence with circumstance. It’s a quirky cross-cultural fantasy about a good-natured thief who makes good. Aja (Dhanush) is a poor young fakir (or magician) from the streets of India, being brought up by his single mother, whom…
What happens when water encounters fire? That’s the question behind Pixar’s latest animated adventure comedy, Elemental. A glowing couple, Bernie (the voice of Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi), arrive in Element City and are duly processed. Circumstances have resulted in them leaving their beloved home, Fireland. Element City is a place where each…
Things go bump in the night in the horror-thriller The Curse of the Weeping Woman. It’s the first feature film from director Michael Chaves. James Wan – one of the producers – made an art form out of exploiting the horror genre; specifically the Annabelle franchise. The Curse of the Weeping Woman references the spooky…
Kishi Bashi (Kaoru Ishibashi) has released his third full-length album and it’s quite a departure for the artist. Kishi Bashi’s first two albums have been hybrids of chamber pop and electronic music. That Ishibashi featured the violin prominently in his music gave him a niche that was both different and interesting. That debut album, 151a,…
Electrifying rhythm, dance, drums and more, Argentina’s Malevo is mesmerising machismo. 13 artistes extraordinaire and a four-piece band hold the audience in the palms of their hands for 80 minutes. Created by director, choreographer and dancer Matias Jaime in 2015, the all-male group specialises in what is known as Malambo. That is a traditional Argentinian folk dance…
A slow-burning Iranian movie, Wednesday, May 9 lifts the lid on the role of women and the subjugation of them in a repressed society. It takes a while to unravel the threads, because the story is presented as a puzzle with the pieces being fitted together over time. We first meet a woman with a…
A delightful, poignant, funny, uplifting play with music, The Heartbreak Choir charms its way into our hearts. It features a bunch of quintessential country town Aussies and a Zimbabwean-born immigrant. Barbara (Maude Davey) is the leader of the local choir, which has just had an acrimonious spilt, the reason for which is only revealed as the play…
A 16-year-old by the name of Levi Presley plunges to his death after leaping off the ledge of a tall casino hotel in Las Vegas, so an American voiceover tells us. That may appear to be the start of a horror story, but while the act and its repercussions most certainly are, The Lifespan of a…
