Ecstasy

It’s hard to think of the last time a band elected to open their debut album with an orchestral overture. But that’s how the Last Dinner Party’s debut begins: woodwind, brass and strings turned up to 11, further decorated with crashing cymbals and shimmering harp. It’s so grandiose, even the director of a 1950s Hollywood blockbuster would have suggested his soundtrack composer dial it down a bit. It’s also bold to the point of seeming faintly provocative, but then if you were in the Last Dinner Party, you’d probably be…

                     From the moment it arrived from England last year, the Last Dinner Party’s “Nothing Matters” was the post-rock rock record that didn’t seem to exist anymore. A beautifully sneaky single, the band’s ode to an illicit encounter opens like the sound of ABBA with a hangover. Then the sweetness falls off, the music starts hammering, and singer Abigail Morris gets to the point: “And you can hold me like he held her/And I will fuck you like nothing matters.” Throw in a screechy guitar solo and Morris’…

Is jazz dead? Yuzuru Tachikawa’s Blue Giant certainly begs to differ. Following three 18-year-old boys who doggedly pursue their musical dreams, the film hits the familiar beats of the coming-of-age anime, yet it also deviates from the format in interesting ways. There are trials and tribulations, quarrels and reconciliation, but what makes Blue Giant really shine is its masterly rendering of the physical ecstasy that emanates from live performance.Jass, the band at the film’s centre, represents three different approaches…

Canadian singer and anti-animal cruelty icon Sarah McLachlan is ready to swap “singing for puppies for singing to people.”McLachlan, known for her hits “Angel” and “I Will Remember You,” will hit the road next summer to celebrate 30 years of her Grammy-nominated album, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.” In a cheeky Instagram video shared Monday, the singer — whose music has been associated with heartbreaking animal shelter commercials since the early aughts — assured her fans that “I’m not here to make you cry while showing you…

Terence Davies was the great British movie artist of working class Catholic experience and gay identity, a passionate believer and practitioner of cinema. And was also a wonderfully stylish and self-assured presence in person, with a gorgeously resonant voice that might have belonged to a stage matinee idol.I raised a glass of rose with a beaming Davies and Mark Cousins at the 2008 Cannes film festival after the triumphant premiere of Of Time and the City, Davies’s wonderful, personal docu-collage about his home city of…

The fan is a necessary but ambiguous figure in sport. A vital part of the spectacle as well as a source of financial support, he (and it’s most often a he) can be a dutiful follower, fierce critic, passive spectator, possessive adulator, worshipful and entitled, and not infrequently all at the same time.This tribal dependency, with all its pain, disappointment and fleeting moments of triumph, has made for some powerful memoirs, such as Frederick Exley’s (loosely fictionalised) A Fan’s Notes and Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch.…

Australia on Saturday became one of the first countries in the world to allow the use of MDMA and magic mushrooms for medical treatment, in a bid to tackle certain mental health conditions.​From July 1, authorised psychiatrists will be able to prescribe the drugs, also known as ecstasy and psilocybin, for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and some types of depression.​Authorities in Canada and the United States allow the medical use of one or both of the drugs, but only in clinical trials or with special…

The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has written a new poem which pays homage to spring, in celebration of World Poetry Day.Plum Tree Among the Skyscrapers is the first in a collection of poems inspired by blossom and commissioned by the National Trust. Its publication marks the beginning of the Trust’s annual blossom campaign, in which the charity will vow to bring blossom back to landscapes across the UK by planting 20m trees by 2030 to help tackle both the climate and nature crises.The collection, which will consist of…

Taylor Russell stars in Bones and All as Maren, a soft-spoken girl who seems to be a loner by choice. As her classmates try to welcome her into the fold, she brushes them off due to her overprotective father’s orders. Here, the trope of popular girls welcoming an outcast into the fold as a cruel prank is flipped on its head. The sleepover, a warm, cozy haze of pastels and glitter, comes to an instant halt when Maren lets her guard down for a moment and opens herself up to intimacy. As the girls give each other manicures,…