joyous

The news that Ambrose Akinmusire likes owls comes as no surprise once you start pondering the watchful patience and swooping accuracy of this California-raised trumpet virtuoso’s jazz creativity for the past 15 years. Showered with plaudits in that time (with comparisons with Miles Davis often among them), Akinmusire shares Miles’ belief that less is more. He called this beautiful trio album Owl Song because his favourite birds’ cool occupancy of their world mirrors this project’s search for space and precious time in a…

Plenty of saxophonists learning the game in the 1950s made John Coltrane their lodestar for his famous ferment of spiritual gravitas and storming improv intensity – but his best disciples took that sound as a call to freedom, not idolatry. The modestly masterful Kent-born saxophonist Paul Dunmall reveres Coltrane’s emotional eloquence to this day, but has also been profoundly affected by the very different, ’trane-influenced digressions of his UK sax contemporaries John Surman and Evan Parker: Surman’s lyrical affection…

Next week marks the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which makes it a great time to catch up with Apollo 10½. Richard Linklater’s semi-autobiographical animation invites us to experience growing up in the 1960’s, with humankind on the verge of landing on the moon. It’s part memoir, part fantasy and a complete and absolute joy to watch.The year is 1969 and we are introduced to 10-year-old Stan (played by Milo Coy and later by Jack Black) at his school in Houston, Texas. During break, Stan is approached by two men…

If you’re in pursuit of the most wondrous sounds your ears can handle, there are lots of things to consider when it comes to headphones. Do you want noise-canceling features to block sounds from the outside world? Do you need lossless audio support for high-definition track playback? What about the age-old wired-vs-wireless debate?One of the more often overlooked considerations is that of closed-back headphones versus their more rare open-backed counterparts. Allowing air to pass through their earcups, they’re often…

Scottish trio Young Fathers have spent the past decade fusing industrial bass with rap, soaring gospel choruses and thundering drums. Theirs is heavy music worn with a melodic lightness, a potent combination that won them the 2014 Mercury prize for their debut album, Dead. After 2018’s Cocoa Sugar, which produced some of the group’s most accessible work in the yearning single In My View, their fourth album is a joyful career highlight.Over 10 tracks, Heavy Heavy retains the band’s urgent energy – the yelps and driving…

Over just 90 seconds, the theme song to season two of hit TV show the White Lotus manages to cram in a chaotic list of sounds: a beatific harp intro, haunting strains of opera, a chorus of yodels – and that famous EDM breakdown.It has spawned thousands of TikToks, many impassioned arguments against the “skip intro” button, and at least one house remix.And now, it has become a dancefloor staple.For weeks, users on social media have been sharing footage of the Emmy award-winning show’s theme song playing in festivals and…

It’s not an insult: the Bradford Movie Makers proudly call themselves a bunch of amateurs. Since 1932, members have been making virtually zero-budget films with rickety production values and acting of a quality that often results in fond mickey-taking among themselves. With this warm and rather wonderful documentary Kim Hopkins finds comedy in their idiosyncratic passion without ever being mean or mocking. A Bunch of Amateurs is a thoughtful film about film-making and has some unexpectedly deep things to say too about…

Sometimes an unexpected smile is all it takes to turn your day around. Well, that kind of cheery surprise doesn't get much bigger than this.Astronomers at NASA have spotted the Sun beaming a remarkable, joyous grin, in a sunny spectacle destined to put a smile on your dial.As shared on NASA's Sun Twitter account, this incredible image reveals the Sun looking positively radiant in more ways than one.Of course, the 'smile' we see here isn't actually a real smile. What we're looking at are coronal holes (the dark patches),…

It’s the summer of 2009. The sun is offering the bare minimum for June, but I have my back to the window, methodically typing out a letter to Lady Gaga. The two-page-long document is full of personal details and intimate thoughts, such as the worry I’ll never feel good enough or fit in at school. I pour my heart out to her and swim in the subsequent dopamine hits of a perfect one-way relationship.I never told anyone about my love for Lady Gaga due to the shame of looking like an over-obsessive fangirl. While there’s now a…

There’s no film festival quite like Toronto. Cannes may have the industry clout, Venice the glitter, gondolas and mosquitoes. But Toronto international film festival (Tiff) has the audience. And what an audience! In previous years, I found the sheer force of a Tiff welcome – loudly vocal, disconcertingly friendly, tirelessly enthusiastic – a little overbearing. But having attended the festival “virtually” for the past two years, it’s a joy to be back among a crowd that is so uninhibited in its passion, so knowledgable and…