Thursday, July 31, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Indie's most influential tastemakers put on Chicago bash By JOHN LYNCH MgnagingArts Editor Before I heard any band play at Pitchfork Music Festival 2014, I took one lap around Chicago's Union Park and already knew that I was in for a weekend of bizarre sights, sounds and tastes. Lining the boundaries of the festival grounds were countless food options - stands giving out free Twinkies, next to stands giving out free goat milk ice cream bars, next to stands selling Philly Cheesesteaks for nine dol- lars. There were grown men and women walking around holding pink tickets (Pitchfork's currency for alcoholic beverages), looking like children at the prize coun- ter of a Chuck-E-Cheese. There Thursday, July 31, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Bittersweet final performance was a typewriter next to a board called Missed Connections, where romantic festival-goers had begun to advertise their anonymous affection for one another, typing up and posting sweet messages such as "dear friend, i am gypsy that likes to get wild in the back of the church van. now listen close, I have euros. i will trade them for a good roll in the hay. xoxo, sonia the lioness." And, of course, there was the music and everything that came with it: 3 stages, 43 acts, one jam- packed Union Park and countless moments of crowd-induced claus- trophobia. Saturday began with a perfor- mance from Twin Peaks, a young Chicago band whose lead singer was wheelchair-bound with a cast on his leg and whose music sounded like a distant cousin of Elvis Costello circa My Aim Is True. Halfway through the set, the band's bassist acknowledged a fan-made sign that said "Thank You, BasedGod" - marking the first of many appearances by the physically absent, yet somehow ever-present Lil B. Later, Pusha T showed up 35 minutes late to his set, of course prompting the crowd to chant "We want BasedGod" repeatedly while they waited. Unfazed, Pusha came on stage and ran through a 15 minute-long slew of featured verses from Kanye West songs and tracks from My Name Is My Name, boasting "Greatest rapper alive, I know who's living!" and signingoffby shouting"BasedGod my dick!" I saw St. Vincent do her best impression of an android rock star before leaving early to check out FKA Twigs, a rising enigmatic R&B star, who slithered around the stage and told the crowd, "I didn't go to university, so I'm in the university of life." The most notable performances of the day, however, were Detroit rapper Danny Brown, who showed up on time and really got the crowd moving (re: moshing) with energetic tracks from his most recent album, "Old," and Neutral Milk Hotel. Jeff Mag- num's still-crisp and powerful voice led the band as they closed off the night by playing almost all of "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea," and since they had requested that there be no recording of any kind during the set, the jumbo- trons next to the stage were black and all I could see was a mostly bearded band that looked eerily like the cast of Duck Dynasty, but nonetheless, I was quite content. On Sunday, I realized that I could use my press pass to get into the pit for the first three songs of each act, so I used this to my advan- tage and got close-up to Deafheav- en, a shoe-gazey metal band that shifted between subtle instrumen- tal lulls and screaming, thundering breakdowns from their seemingly demonic lead singer. The highlight of the day, and probably the festival, for me was Earl Sweatshirt, who had previ- ously stated that he was canceling all of his summer festivals due to mental health reasons, but none- theless showed up and provided Pitchfork with some much needed comic relief. In addition to being perhaps the best performing rap- per at the festival, he was also the most entertaining. Earl came out to Journey's "Don't Stop Believ- ing," attempted to get a reaction out of a dude with a "dress shirt and aviators" that he insisted on calling "Brent," and questioned the crowd about whether or not Chicago had a weird historic meat district. The festival closed out with Kendrick Lamar, who I have now seen four times and continue to be incredibly disappointed by. His live band was fantastic, but he still struggled to command the crowd, forcing us to repeat the words of his choruses until every last per- son became disinterested. I had tried to get into the pit again for the first three songs and somehow got escorted to the area behind the stage, where I ran into Young Chop, a famous Chicago produc- er, and then proceeded to cap my weekend at Pitchfork off with a celebratory free Twinkie. 'A Most Wanted Man' features everything that made Hoffman great By AKSHAY SETH ManagingArts Editor The worst part about sitting through Philip Seymour Hoff- man's last major performance is how quickly one realizes that the genius actor was at the peak of his AMost career in those final months Wanted leading up to his Man death. Playing aging German Liusgate spymaster Gun- State Theatre, ther Bachmann, Raveand he tackles the Quality16 role with the familiar, grim insight we've come to expect. He stares off in pensive thought. He drags away on cigarette after cigarette, mutters a terse "good" to convey any sense of approval, and when the time finally comes, uses that bulking frame to prop up those moments of outraged physicality - a physicality which so often transforms his portray- als into such memorable tests of strength. What's uniquely apparent from Anton Corbijn's "A Most Wanted Man" is the way it can be viewed as a darker carbon copy of the kind of characters Hoffman has been bringing to life his entire career. Gunther Bachmann is a tortured man. Partly because of the horrors he has witnessed in his tenure astan intelligence officer in the post-9/11 West, but mostly because he's acutely aware he represents a fading way of doing business, an idealism that's no longer permissible in a world of suicide bombers and electronic espionage. So it becomes clear minutes after Isaa Karpov, a half- Russian, half-Chechen Muslim with past ties to terrorist organi- zations, shows up on the streets of urban Hamburg that things won't end well for anyone involved. But Bachmann doesn't turn away. Karpov, the only son of a dead Russian crime lord, has arrived in Germany to claim a 10 million Euro inheritance left in his name. To get here, he's had to escape Turkish and then Rus- sian prisons, both places where he faced brutal torture for his involvement with extremist reli- gious sects, the specific natures of which are left unexplained. The first people he reaches out to are an innocent family living in a quiet Muslim neighborhood that in turn makes further con- tact with a young lawyer (Rachel McAdams, "Sherlock Holmes") who then tries to help Karpov secure his wealth with the help of a shady banker (Willem Dafoe, "Out of the Furnace"). Here, Bachmann steps in with his team of black ops offi- cers tasked with singling out and eliminating possible threats akin to Mohammed Atta, an al-Qaida affiliate who orchestrated the 9/il attacks from the safety of Ham- burg. The veteran German spy eventually hopes to use Karpov's wealth to draw out a terrorist financing cell headed by an out- wardly moderate Muslim intel- lectual, though his team's efforts are closely monitored a group of American officials. This melange of departmental politics and its diluted arguments about jurisdic- tion serve to inflate the ultimate question we're meant to consider: is all the planning, chasing Cor- bijn uses to tighten his thriller at all significant in the grander scheme of things? Are Bach- mann's labored efforts, further emphasized through Hoffman's labored, brooding performance, at all relevant? As Bachmann iterates in a cru- cial scene, it is all, at the end of the day "to make the world a safer place. Whatever that takes." The real answer, of course, is much simpler. The Americans always win. In the film's powerhouse final act, Hoffman again uses those that outraged physical- ity to convey helpless rage. It's an empty, hollow scream of anger more human than the trails of icy formalism flowing through the rest of the movie, and above all, a reminder why the late actor will always be remembered as a man who only opted for roles which pushed him to explore new depths through the darkest of characters. Like many of the other people Hoffman brought to life, Gunther Bachmann's only real flaw is that he's naive enough to think the world is willing to accommodate his desires. In "Capote" and "Boo- gie Nights," it was unattainable love. In "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," it was the freedom wealth and power can afford. In "25th Hour," itwassex. In"A Most Wanted Man," it's some sort of confirmation that what he's doing will have weight in the world. And it does - the man Bachmann seeks is wanted, hunted by his peers. But the cruel irony, and this film's brilliance, is in realizing it's for the wrong reasons, always for the wrong reasons. Shabazz Palaces' stellar 'Lese Majesty' New Hip-Hop album Digable Planets, the group's masterful 2011 debut slow-building ambient drone on and you're carried inexorably Butler helped album Black Up, following a path the track "Dawn in Luxor," lead- along the album's 18 tracks until brings an exciting, open Hip Hop up paved with samples stretched to . ing into an exposition of space- you emerge, accompanied by the to a whole new their breaking point, hauntingly age metaphysics that would sound of dripping water, at the unique sound realm of sonic M minimalist rhythmic arrange- seem perfectly at home in a Sun end of the closer "Sonic Myth possibilities by ments and echo-laden verses Ra monologue: "The light hath Map For The Trip Back." By ADAM DEPOLLO fusing jazz and Shabazz filled with stream-of-conscious- names, just like the heavens and While the production on Lese OnlineArts Editor rap into a style Palaces ness imagery and challenging the stars / Reclaim us to further Majesty - provided by Catherine that would even- aphorisms. along the spaceways." Snatches Harris White of THEESatisfac- After the 1995 dissolution of tually give rise Sub Pop Shabazz Palaces' latest release of cryptic imagery evoke ancient tion, Erik Blood and Thadillac the innovative alternative hip- to a number of Lese Majesty - an anglicization of African kingdoms and drug- - is consistently stunning, listen- hop group Digable Planets, Ish- influential art- a French term referring to offense induced ecstasy within the same ers hoping for the sharp imagery mael Butler, known as 'Butterfly' ists, ranging from J Dilla and Mos given to a royal - retains some of line. Lustrous melodies reminis- and innovative rhyme schemes in the trio, largely disappeared Def to Flying Lotus and even Ken- the elements that made Black Up cent of Indian ragas float over of Black Up will likely be disap- from the music industry until his drick Lamar. so innovative, but is altogether a pounding bass drums and cavern- pointed by a number of individual triumphant return as the leader of As leader of Shabazz Palaces, different animal. ous, droning synthesizers. The tracks on this new release. But- the Seattle-based outfit Shabazz Butler once again took Hip Hop The new LP opens its first beat flows effortlessly into the ler's lyrics occasionally become Palaces in 2009. As a member of down an entirely new path on suite, 'The Phasing Shift,' with a next song, "Forerunner Foray," See PALACES, Page 8 LEFT: Detroit-based rapper Danny Brown perfoms on Saturday, July 19th at Pitchfork Music Festival 2014. RIGHT: Festivalgoers relax at Chicago's Union Park, where the festival was held.