Skip to content
Account Login Winnipeg Toll-Free: 1-800-561-1833 SK Toll-Free: 1-877-506-7456 Contact & Locations

Our Sights & Sounds for May/June 2016

Wednesday, Apr 27, 2016 at 9:56pm

Here's what we're watching and listening to this summer...

Music CDs & LPs

Matthew Barber & Jill Barber. The Family Album. CD. $16.99. Vinyl $22.99. Jill Barber has carved out a unique niche in the Canadian music landscape with her distinctive voice and repertoire, while her brother Matthew Barber is a Toronto-based troubadour known for his soul-searching ballads and clever hooks. Together they join forces on this 11-track collection of songs written by the renowned Canadian siblings themselves, as well covering tunes by such notable Canadian musicial icons as Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Ian Tyson, Gene MacLellan and more. (Outside Music. April)

Charles Bradley. Changes. CD $19.99. Vinyl $30.99. The 67 year-old soul singer's remarkable, against-all-odds rise since the release of his 2011 debut No Time For Dreaming continues with his third album. Having earned the moniker “The Screaming Eagle of Soul," the onetime James Brown impersonator is at his most versatile and complete on the new album which is anchored by the twin themes of love and heartache. These themes are epitomized by the title track when Bradley turns a Black Sabbath ballad about a breakup into an agonizing paean to his late mother. (Outside Music. April)

Kamasi Washington. The Epic. 3-disc CD Set $29.99. 3-LP Vinyl Set $57.99. A longtime sideman for Raphael Saadiq and Erykah Badu, the American jazz saxaphonist takes centre stage with his debut album. An extravagant love letter to soul jazz, John Coltrane (various periods) and 1970s fusion leaders like Miles Davis and Weather Report, Washington creates a generous musical canvas which he uses to widen the definition of jazz by flirting with elements of R&B, hip-hop, funk, soul, and string arrangements. (Outside Music. 2015) Catch Kamasi Washington at the 2016 TD Winnipeg International Jazz Fest in June.

Look after the jump to see what we're watching this summer...


 

DVDs & Blu-Rays

Arabian Nights directed by Miguel Gomes. 3-disc Blu-ray set. $54.99. The three-volume, six-hour film by acclaimed Portuguese director Miguel Gomes is an ambitious fusion of documentary, comedy, fantasy, vérité, and parable that portrays Portugal and the austerity measures imposed on it by the European Central Bank and others during the present financial crisis. At the heart of the film is a nesting doll-style journey down the political rabbit hole that is modern Portugual, elevating a seemingly surreal story into the realm of beautifully composed and intellectually stimulating satire. (KRK.May)

Janis: Little Girl Blue directed by Amy Berg. DVD. $19.99. Janis Joplin is one of the most revered and iconic rock & roll singers of all time, a tragic and misunderstood figure who thrilled millions of listeners and blazed new creative trails before her death in 1970 at age 27. This in-depth documentary presents an intimate and insightful portrait of a complicated, driven and often beleaguered artist. Joplin's own words tell much of the film's story through a series of letters she wrote to her parents over the years, many of them made public here for the first time. (KRK. May)

Buster Keaton: The Shorts Collection 1917-23. 5-disc Blu-ray set. $64.99. As new generations of viewers discover the magic of silent cinema, Buster Keaton has emerged as one of the era's most admired and respected artists. Behind the deadpan expression and trademark porkpie hat was a filmmaking genius who conceived and engineered some of the most breathtaking stunts and feats of visual trickery, while never losing sight of slapstick cinema's primary objective: laughter. This collection features 2K restorations and includes all 32 of Keaton's extant silent shorts filmed between 1917 and 1923, plus bonus material. (KRK. June)

Mustang directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven. DVD. $21.99. In a village in Northern Turkey, five free-spirited teenaged sisters splash about on the beach with their male classmates. Though their games are innocent fun, their family overreacts and removes all "instruments of corruption," like cell phones and computers, and subject the girls to endless lessons in housework in preparation for them to become brides. As the eldest sisters are married off, the younger ones bond together to pursue a future where they can determine their own lives in this timely portrait of female empowerment. (KRK. May)

Categories: Music, Saskatoon, Winnipeg

More articles from music-and-movies