‘It needs to be loud’: Jozef Van Wissem’s one-man mission to make the lute rock again

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The Dutch ex-punk and Jim Jarmusch bandmate talks about his passion to free up a hidebound repertoire and make its strings ‘a real pop instrument’ Nobody can accuse Jozef Van Wissem of doing things by halves. The musician, very likely the world’s most notorious contemporary lutenist, owns a sonic arsenal of eight of the string instruments: some bespoke, and all boasting remarkable features. With them he has created a huge body of work, nearly 50 titles to date. Another album, This Is My Blood is released this May. Each Easter, Van Wissem settles down to compose a new record. He finds the peace of Warsaw, where everyone has “gone away for the holidays”, more amenable for work than “noisy” Rotterdam, where he also has a flat. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/lIktvjD via IFTTT
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Marcel the Shell With Shoes On review – bijou stop-motion animation will win you over

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What should be an irritating story about a tiny talking shell with shoes trying to find his family is somehow funny and beguiling

Here is a genuine oddity: a weird little hothouse flower of a film that looks as if it might crumple at the slightest breath of wind – but is actually very resilient. It’s a quirky stop-motion animation, developed from a series of online short films, whose comedy frequency takes a little time to tune into. You have to wait a bit to hear its batsqueak, and before this happens there is a real and understandable danger that you will simply find it insufferably annoying. The film appears to exist in the Venn diagram-overlap between twee and hipster, which isn’t for everyone – but let it grow on you, and there is a real sweetness and gentleness in its absurdity, a savant innocence and charm.

The idea is that the film’s director, Dean Fleischer Camp, is staying in an Airbnb after the collapse of his marriage; this house itself has become available for rental because the couple who own it have split up. Fleischer Camp becomes aware that there is someone else in the house: a tiny mollusc called Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) with a single, blinking human eye and dinky little human shoes. Marcel is a calm, childlike figure who talks with absolute candour in his tiny voice to Dean about his own problems and Dean’s.

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