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Arts
Tuesday, October 4, 2016 — 5
The Altar, R&B artist Banks’s
newest release, is the very
embodiment
of
post-breakup
anger,
vindictive
stormy skies and
the entire month
of October. This
album is basically
Lady Macbeth in
music form, and its
collection of omi-
nously
magical,
deeply
powerful
and altogether all-encompassing
songs are haunting in their raw
honesty.
In The Altar, Banks is pos-
sessed by the ghost of failed rela-
tionships past, and it comes out in
the form of sensuous vocals and
constantly
stimulating,
heavy
beats. It’s the kind of album you
want to perform a séance to,
and, more importantly, it’s the
kind of album that really show-
cases Banks’s growth as an artist.
Through The Altar, she immerses
the world in bleak shades of grey
and gives whoever is listening
a glimpse into the chaos of her
own emotions. Beautiful in its
humanity, The Altar is alive with
the bittersweet aftertaste of past
memories.
The Altar’s incantation com-
mences with “Gemini Feed.”
Wonderfully
complex,
with
the contrast between vulner-
able vocals dripping in saccha-
rine regret and a dense, steady
background beat adding interest
in their dissimilarity, “Gemini
Feed” is Banks showing the lis-
teners that while she has been
wounded, she is not meek. This
song
(and
consequently
this
entire album) projects iron will-
power in every well crafted note.
Banks is holding nothing back,
and this dedication continues
throughout the rest of the album.
Like a phoenix rising from the
ashes of its demise, Banks seems
to
take
strength
from her own past
undoing to produce
songs as impacting
as “Gemini Feed.”
Since her debut
album,
Goddess,
Banks’s voice has
truly
developed
and
matured;
on The Altar, she explores her
boundaries to their fullest poten-
tial while still managing to never
lose sight of her central identity.
The immensity of dark, formida-
ble songs that had only been hint-
ed at in Goddess is fully explored
in The Altar. Through pulling
from discreet R&B rhythms and
adding unexpected alternative
twists, Banks has pushed her
vocals to new heights while still
managing to hold onto the same
ominously erotic ambiance that
she established with iconic favor-
ites such as “Waiting Game” and
“Begging For Thread.”
On The Altar, songs like “Fuck
With Myself” and “Poltergeist”
hold their main attraction in their
background music. Constantly
shifting electronic rhythms and
stimulating, disjointed beats are
perfectly balanced, with Banks’s
crooning hovering over the entire
song like a transparent sheet.
“Trainwreck” is very similar; it
is not afraid to be dramatic, to be
intense, to push the confines. The
song’s fast-paced, very stream-
of-consciousness lyrics perfectly
match the swirling vortex of
anger and passion that this song
inspires.
However, The Altar does not
solely consist of spite-fueled,
chaotic power anthems. It has
moments of deep vulnerabil-
ity that Banks does not shy away
from through muted instru-
mentals and quiet melodies. For
example, in the song “Lovesick,”
Banks
unashamedly
chants
“please call me your baby, baby,
baby / look how long that you
have kept me waiting” over an
unobtrusive, decidedly simple
tune. The songs “Mother Earth”
and “To The Hilt” are especially
noteworthy in their use of quiet
instruments in place of Banks’s
usual
brazen,
alt-pop
beats.
“Mother Earth” speaks of pain-
ful yearning over simple guitar
strums while “To The Hilt” fea-
tures Banks’s lovely voice flow-
ing solo over muted piano chords.
These two songs allow the album
to take a break, take a breath and
gently reflect; they not only pres-
ent Banks’s impressive range but
also help balance out the album
as a whole, making it a more
cohesive piece when looked at
from start to finish.
Overall, The Altar is well con-
nected, with songs that differ
enough to be interesting, but
still mesh well together to make
the album a collective work of
art when listened to from begin-
ning to end. To put things sim-
ply, this album is commanding.
Banks takes control of every one
of her songs and dictates every
note, every lyric and every beat
with purpose and intention. As
the season begins to change,
The Altar is not only a perfect
soundtrack to rainy evenings
and hideously grinning jack-o’-
lanterns, but it is also a reminder
that there is always grace in vul-
nerability.
HARVEST RECORDS
Always important to stretch before exorcising.
Banks exorcises the ghosts of her
past relationships on ‘The Altar’
The R&B singer is filled with post-breakup anger on new release
What is “love?” What forms
can it take? How do you know
when you feel it? These kinds of
romance-based,
open-ended ques-
tions are at the
center of up-and-
coming
Chicago
rapper
Mick
Jenkins’s
debut
album, The Heal-
ing Component, in
which he channels
gospel rap, record-
ed dialogue and
pensive
produc-
tion in his search
for answers.
It can go unsaid that love is a
tired topic in music. It drives the
ballads and the radio tracks and
every third song on every album.
But as artists do, Jenkins tries to
put a new spin on an old concept
in this album.
In some ways he’s successful.
There’s a remarkable sense of can-
dor here, particularly on the spo-
ken word interludes. The album
opens on one such interlude, as
Jenkins and a female friend go
back and forth over whether she
truly understands “The Healing
Component,” the album’s name-
sake. The laughs and pauses feel
genuine — far less staged than
the lion’s share of similar album
antics. Most intriguing of these
dialogues is “This Type Love?”
in which Jenkins and presumably
the same woman discuss whether
you feel love differently from rela-
tionship to relationship. Jenkins is
uncomfortable making a conclu-
sive decision, even as the woman
pushes him to give an answer.
These are the kinds of talks for the
quietest hours of the night, after
the party has finally died down
and everyone wants to be “real.”
Jenkins has no issue pointing
that candor at big names in the
industry, too. He questions Kanye,
interpolating
a
line from Yeezus
— “When the real
hold you down, you
supposed to drown”
— but turning it
around: “Wait, wait,
that
don’t
sound
right.” And he takes
shots at Drake for
not giving credit to
those who helped
him,
asking
“If
Drake ain’t hold-
ing down Quentin Miller why the
fuck would I ever give any credit
to you?” There are a number of
genuine critiques on this album,
bemoaning the lack of substance
in rap today and begging to bring
the culture back to something
meaningful.
But it’s that self-righteousness
that can get Jenkins into trouble
musically. He has big ideas, and
there’s an admirable ambition
here, but there are times when
that ambition stretches itself thin
on The Healing Component, like a
miles-long pool sinking only a few
inches deep.
Take the album’s title: “The
Healing Component.” It’s clearly a
stab at a “concept album” (whatev-
er that means anymore), but that
huge, overarching thesis meant to
drive the album seems more like
a truism than anything else. “The
Healing Component is love,” Jen-
kins says (it’s also quite obviously
acronymic for THC, the main
active drug in marijuana).
While that’s all nice and tidy,
Jenkins’s “Healing Component”
never dives deeper than that, and
no further explanation is attempt-
ed. This kind of cliché preaching
found throughout his lyricism can
be frustrating at first, but becomes
nearly galling when Jenkins sets
himself up as a better-than-you
figure in a number of the dialogues
— “Like she’ll be tryna like ... level
the playing field all the time. I’m
just like yo, reality is like, you not
as stressed as me, you don’t have
as much shit going on as me …”
Thus, listening to the album
front to back can be both tiring
and unfulfilling — a product of
occasional redundancy. Still, a
number of tracks find their foot-
ing to walk the line between ambi-
tion and groundedness. “As Seen
in Bethsaida” is an immediate
standout, with Themind’s vocal
hooks balancing out Jenkins bit-
ing verses. The track name is a
reference to Jesus, but the actual
lyrics are far more universal, not
based in a single religion but on the
wide-reaching struggle of Black
Americans, and people in general.
“Strange Love,” which takes shots
at Tyler Perry (among others) for
making the lives of Black Ameri-
cans a minstrel movie, digs deeper
than the majority of the album can
manage. And “Daniels Bloom”
is a brooding, dark track which
remains potent listen after listen.
Missing, though, are the clear-
headed, uncluttered efforts like
“Jazz” from The Water[s], or the
immediately arresting tracks of
Wave[s], like the standout “Alche-
my.” The result is that The Healing
Component loses its memorability
in Jenkins’ discography, a worry-
ing effect for a debut.
Nonetheless, Jenkins shows
enough promise to remain rel-
evant in 2016. His sophomore
effort, though, should hit a bit
harder.
FREE NATION
“Pull my finger.”
MATT GALLATIN
Daily Arts Writer
Chicago MC’s debut album is ambitious but falls short of greatness
B-
The Healing
Component
Mick Jenkins
Free Nation /
Cinematic Music
Group
Mick Jenkins stumbles
on ‘Healing Component’
ALBUM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW
The media industry has always
struggled
with
the
“nobody
knows” dilemma — the uncertain-
ty of the success of
a media product
despite
whether
it utilizes known
talent and formats
that have been suc-
cessful in the past.
With regards to
film, John Krasin-
ski’s (“The Office”)
directorial effort “The Hollars”
falls perfectly into this trap as a
movie with all the right ingredi-
ents that form a bland and tasteless
stew overall.
Also
starring
Krasinski
—
American’s button-nose, white
bread dreamboat — “The Hol-
lars” features a family that comes
together to provide support for
Sally Hollar (Margo Martindale,
“August: Osage County”), the
matriarch, who is suffering from a
softball-sized brain tumor. During
their few days together, each mem-
ber of the family confronts their
own issues and somehow rectifies
them by the end of the hour-and-
a-half film.
On the surface, this film seems
to have potential. It contains all
the formulaic components of a fun,
feel-good movie. Its main attrac-
tor is its star-studded cast, which
includes Krasinski, Martindale,
Anna Kendrick (“The Last Five
Years”), Charlie Day (“It’s Always
Sunny in Philadelphia”) and Rich-
ard Jenkins (“Jack Reacher”) — all
seasoned actors who have made
incredible movies and TV shows.
Even singer/song-
writer/American
icon Josh Groban
slides
his
way
onscreen.
The
film’s snappy folk
playlist and simple
cinematography
work to create a
charming
home-
town aesthetic. It should have been
easy to produce a simple but enter-
taining family comedic drama,
something simple but somewhat
enjoyable.
Instead, “The Hollars” is indis-
putably painful. It tries so hard
to be a quirky, feel-good comedy
that it ends up forced and stiff. The
actors don’t play off each other
well at all; Krasinski fails to deliver
his iconic boyish charm, and he
has absolutely zero chemistry
with Kendrick, who does her best
to smooth over his flat jokes. The
entire family ensemble is uncon-
vincing. The film centers around
their rocky family dynamics, but
it is hard to understand where the
root of their drama is as the film
provides no context. Their forced
animosity and angst is matched by
dialogue with a tone reminiscent
of the awkward small chat one
makes with the parents of their
roommates that they really don’t
like. The final resolution of the
family issues seems forced as well,
with no basis in anything genuine.
The movie is filled with uncom-
fortable and confusing moments.
John’s (Krasinski) ex-girlfriend
(Mary-Elizabeth
Winstead,
“10 Cloverfield Lane”), also the
wife of Jason (Day), aggressively
kisses him in her home, and it’s
never brought up again. Further,
John and Rebecca (Kendrick) get
engaged and deal with planning
his mother’s funeral, then Rebec-
ca immediately goes into labor at
the actual funeral. Perhaps most
disturbing is Martindale’s trau-
matic screams as she begs not to be
taken into surgery, which transi-
tions sharply to a family serenade
of “Closer to Fine” by The Indigo
Girls. Overall there’s a huge pac-
ing issue, as the film is slow until
the very end, when too much hap-
pens too quickly. The consequence
of this is a lessening of the actual
gravity of the high and low points,
with everything seeming insin-
cere.
The film’s problem is that it tries
to inject humor into tragedy in
clever and quirky ways. In actual-
ity, the movie is too lighthearted
in its actual serious moments.
Overall, it has a jarring effect that
leaves the viewer unsatisfied and
annoyed. The entire film is a relent-
less question of “is this touching,
or dumb?” — overwhelmingly, the
answer is the latter.
SYDNEY COHEN
Daily Arts Writer
Despite an A-List cast, ‘The Hollars’
fails to balance comedy and drama
D
“The Hollars”
Sony Pictures
Michigan Theater
FILM REVIEW
The myth of JT LeRoy, the liter-
ary avatar of writer Laura Albert,
is alive and well in Jeff Feuerzeig’s
(“The Devil and
Daniel Johnston”)
documentary
“Author: The JT
LeRoy Story.”
JT
was
ini-
tially
a
persona
created by Albert
during phone con-
versations with cri-
sis hotlines. Under
the recommenda-
tion of her therapist, she started
to write and publish stories under
the name “Terminator,” before
authoring two novels and a short
story collection under the name
JT LeRoy. The books were instant
hits in grungy artist communities,
and JT quickly became a literary
“It” boy.
Albert kept up the act by
employing her sister-in-law Savan-
nah Knoop to play JT. Savannah
made public appearances, did
book signings and mingled with
the artistic elite wearing an awful
blonde wig and dark sunglasses.
Albert was Speedie, JT’s British
friend and confidant.
“Author” isn’t about unmasking
JT. The mask comes off within the
first thirty minutes of the film. It
seems like it wants to be about why
JT was created, but doesn’t com-
mit to answering that question
thoroughly. What “Author” does
become is a platform for Albert to
defend and perpet-
uate the myth of JT,
and for her to prove
his reality, how-
ever metaphorical it
might be.
The
central
narrative
of
the
formation and evo-
lution of JT is inter-
spersed with home
movie
footage
from Albert’s childhood, and in
voiceover she chronicles struggles
with abuse, bullying and low self-
esteem. The information hidden
here is the key to understanding
the “why” that is neglected in the
rest of the film. But it’s too little
and it comes too late.
The
biggest
problem
with
“Author” is that it doesn’t know
where to spend its time. Too much
time is spent following JT through
repetitive red carpet events and
celebrity phone calls, and most of
the talking head time is taken up
by Albert defending the creation
and reality of JT. The secondary
characters who were sucked into
Albert and JT’s orbit aren’t given
space to tell their stories, stories
which — at least in the case of
Savannah — have the potential to
elevate the film above other docu-
mentary work on the same subject.
“Author” might be worth watch-
ing only for the bizarre recordings
of celebrity phone conversations.
The standout is a conversation
between JT and Courtney Love, in
which Love pauses the conversa-
tion to do a line of cocaine and the
subtitles read “snorting sounds.”
The dream of the ’90s is alive!
The most surprising — and
potentially the most interesting
— aspect of the film is how Albert
and her entourage were able to fool
so many people for so long. Their
accents are absurd and Savannah’s
costume looks just what it is — the
wig is obvious and the over-sized
sunglasses are laughable. So many
people believed something that, at
least in retrospect, seems so obvi-
ously fake. Maybe that says some-
thing about the willful ignorance
of the masses or the narcissism of
celebrity.
The informative content of
“Author” is fascinating for anyone
who hasn’t heard the story before,
but the emotional content falls
flat. “Author” suffers from a weird
sort of heartlessness, in which
emotionally potent content is pre-
sented in a way that warrants little
to no emotional reaction from its
audience.
In ‘The JT LeRoy Story,’ an author
self-examines her public persona
C+
“Author: The JT
LeRoy Story”
Amazon Studios
Michigan Theater
A
The Altar
Banks
Harvest Records
ALBUM REVIEW
SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Arts Writer
MADELEINE GAUDIN
Daily Arts Writer