The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, February 26, 2020 — 5A

With his pale white skin and deep red 
hair, Archy Marshall is more like a human 
embodiment of a cigarette than he is a singer/
multi-instrumentalist. He’s got the voice to 
match, too: gnarled, deep and gruff. Rather 
than let his unconventional appearance and 
voice hold him back, he leans directly into 
it, using the combination to create stunning 
visual art and haunting recorded music. 
His work under his given name is great, but 
his work under the moniker King Krule is, 
somehow, even better. 
As 
King 
Krule, 
Marshall 
creates 
a 
moody, visceral amalgamation of punk and 
jazz (among countless other genres) and 
incorporates various art forms into his 
products, specifically his music videos. His 
videos alone are works of art; add music to 
them and they become transcendent. Each 
of his album covers are designed by him, 
too. He even included a 208-page book filled 
with visual art for his 2015 release A New 
Place 2 Drown. His career under the moniker 

took flight after the release of 6 Feet Under 
the Moon in 2015, carried by underground 
hit, “Easy Easy.” His next release, 2017’s 
sludgy and dark The OOZ, catapulted him to 
alternative stardom. 
Marshall’s most recent release, Man Alive! 
makes his state of mind apparent immediately. 

It opens with “Cellular,” a glistening, bass-
heavy rocker marked by weird horn blasts 
and electronic gurgling. While not outwardly 
downcast, the lyrics detail the disintegration 
of Marshall’s relationships with loved ones 
and his relationship with the world around 
him. The ominous atmosphere defines the 
first few songs of the album, reaching its apex 
at “Stoned Again.”
“Stoned Again” is Man Alive!’s crown jewel. 
The guitar-driven instrumental is sludgy and 
scuzzy, not unlike Southern stoner metal. 
Marshall’s voice is raw and downtrodden, if 
not angsty, delivering disheveled lines about 
the aimlessness of youth with drunken, 

stumbling precision. “Down in the dirt / I 
used to surf with my bucket from Kentucky 
/ I had a scratch card, I scratched so hard 
/ ‘Cause I’m feelin’ fuckin’ lucky, boy, I’m 
feelin’ so lucky,” he sings (shouts?) in the first 
verse, his disconnect with society around 
him almost palpable. With this song taken in 
the context of the previous two, it seems that 
Marshall is only going to spiral deeper into 
this hole as the album progresses.
However, it’s not so. Immediately after 
“Stoned Again,” the tone shifts. “Comet Face,” 
similar in sound and delivery to “Stoned 
Again,” marks a realization in Marshall that 
his mentality is not sustainable. The angst 
and disconnect with society completely fades 
away by the time “Alone, Omen 3” begins to 
play. Man Alive! comes at a pivotal time in 
Marshall’s life — he and his girlfriend and 
frequent collaborator had their first child in 
early 2019. “Alone, Omen 3” is a representation 

of this change. It is a somber revelation that 
the path of life you choose doesn’t matter — 
all that matters is you got to this point at all. 
His words are confident, yet his voice still 
seems unsure, with 
lines like: “The ache 
and thunder in the 
storms of your mind 
/ Soak it in, for 
the rain will pass 
in time / nothing 
wrong in sinking 
low / You’re omen 
of paradise.” It’s as 
if he knows that his 
life and everyone 
else’s is going to 
turn out fine, but he 
just needs to see it 
in action before he 
can believe it. 
The 
remainder 
of 
Man 
Alive! 
continues delving into Marshall’s revelation 
on “Alone, Omen 3,” reckoning with his new, 
uneasy outlook on life and trying to figure out 
how he will move forward. Unfortunately, the 

songs begin to wallow in lethargy, exacerbated 
by the fact that each song runs seamlessly into 
the next. But maybe that’s what makes Man 
Alive! special — it shows a man wrestling with 
his thoughts in real 
time. 
As 
the 
album 
comes to a close, 
Marshall 
drops 
one 
more 
gem: 
“Energy Fleets,” a 
sparse, 
beautiful 
song about turning 
the pages of life, 
eager and unafraid 
to 
see 
what’s 
next. What makes 
“Energy 
Fleets” 
special, 
though, 
is Marshall’s slow 
devolution 
into 
nothing more than 
a 
distorted 
voice 
slowly chanting, “Such a funny life,” as if to 
say that it’s worthless to try to make sense 
of it because life is just going to keep getting 
funnier.

King Krule grows just a little bit on ‘Man Alive!’

MUSIC REVIEW

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

WIKIMEDIA

I heard the piano’s haunting melody before 
I opened the door. Melancholic chords echoed 
through the Dance Building’s underground 
practice room. The production crew, director 
and choreographer stood against the floor-to-
ceiling mirror while the dancers’ bodies moved 
as if suspended in water. All I could hear 
was their feet skidding on the floor, labored 
breathing, the snapping of Hannah’s camera 
and the piano. There was a sign to remove 
shoes, transforming the subterranean space 
into sacred ground.
On that Friday night practice, the entire 
cast rehearsed for “And We Look On,” a 
puppetry and dance performance focused on 
environmentalism. Music, Theatre & Dance 
and LSA senior Isabel Olson described the 
show as “a 30 to 40 minute piece that touches 
on both the natural beauty of our world but also 
the decay and dilapidation that is being caused 
right now by humans.” 
This 
week, 
Olson’s 
vision is coming to the 
stage at the Duderstadt 
Center Video Studio this 
Thursday, Feb. 27 and 
Friday, Feb. 28 from 7 to 
8 p.m.
The 
performance 
is a journey through 
an 
idealized 
world, 
our 
current 
reality 
and the wasteland — a 
representation 
of 
our 
future. Conceived by Olson this past October, 
“And We Look On” uses screen projections, 
puppetry, dancing and original music written 
by Cole P. Abod. 
“Puppetry, to me, simply means animating 
an object and realizing that almost any object 
can come alive,” Olson said. “That became 
a really good metaphor for this show where 
everything we touch in this world is trash. So 
it is bringing to life the beauty of this world 
through waste just spoke to me, as that could 
be puppetry so easily.” 
In her role directing the cabaret dance show 
in the fall of 2018, Olson met Music, Theatre 
& Dance senior Johanna Kepler, a dance major 
and now the “And We Look On” choreographer. 
For Kepler, the scenes depicting the “shadow 
world” presented the biggest challenge (but 
were also the most fun). Staging the transitions 
between having dancers in 3-D and also 
behind a screen required her to stretch her 
imagination. 
Kepler listed packing peanuts, Meijer bags, 
umbrellas and cellophane as just some of the 

recycled items used in the show. She found that 
art through movement and dance is a radically 
different experience from reading a headline 
or statistics, which can desensitize the public. 
“I want the audience to be confronted, to 
reflect and be uncomfortable,” Kepler said. 
“And by uncomfortable, I mean, opening up 
a dialogue that is important to have, but may 
not be something you talked about with your 
friends on a day to day basis.”
While choreographing the piece, Kepler 
wondered how we evoke emotion to spark 
action. 
“The way I’ve been doing that is making 
superhuman moments where there’s a clear 
human connection on stage,” Kepler said. 
Olson was floored by the cast and crew’s 
willingness to take risks and help her bring 
this small idea to life. 
During their break, I sat with the dancers 
on the floor as they stretched, tired but still 
smiling at 7:30 p.m. on a Friday. Senior Matthew 
Standerski, sophomore Atticus Olivet, junior 
Alana Pollard and sophomore Claire Vogel, 
all Music, Theatre & 
Dance majors, spoke of 
their passion for their 
performance’s message 
that combines activism 
and theatre. 
All 
the 
dancers 
mentioned the cross-
disciplinary nature of 
the show, with members’ 
majors 
ranging 
from 
history, theatre, dance 
and art. The group’s 
cross-disciplinary 
membership is a feature they consider one of 
their greatest strengths. 
“Because it’s a piece that didn’t exist before, 
it feels deeply personal. You can point to and 
say, ‘Oh, I remember the day that we decided 
that was going to be in the piece,’” said Pollard. 
“I think the whole piece feels so deeply rooted 
in collaboration. And that’s what makes it feel 
really special.”
Standerski found that though “And We Look 
On’s” uses minimal resources, a production 
can still do so much with so little. He noticed 
how it’s easy to slip into feeling helpless, but 
art is able to show the profound ways in which 
people can make a difference. 
“The cool paradox of it is we’re making 
something beautiful out of the trash and the 
recycled material. And that will live in people’s 
minds longer than the trash that they throw 
away every day.” 
“And We Look On” will perform at the 
Duderstadt Center Video Studio Thursday, Feb. 
27 and Friday, Feb. 28 from 7 to 8 p.m. It is free 
to all audiences.

‘And We Look On’ on the 
world’s beauty and decay

NINA MOLINA
Daily Arts Writer

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

“Man Alive!”

King Krule

True Panther Sounds

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
Black-and-white ‘Parasite’ 
enhances the Oscar winner

92 years after the creation of the Academy 
Awards, the acclaimed South Korean film 
“Parasite” made history as the first non-
English language film to take home Best 
Picture (in addition to Best International 
Feature, Best Original Screenplay and Best 
Director, a sweeping victory that ties Bong 
Joon-ho, “Memories of Murder” director, 
with Walt Disney for most Oscars won by 
a single person in a single night). To the 
delight of fans, “Parasite” was re-released 
in theaters across the U.S., with distributor 
Neon hoping to capitalize on the inevitable 
surge in interest that follows any Best Picture 
winner, let alone one of such historicity.
Alongside this re-release is the special 
opportunity to see “Parasite” in a brand-new, 
yet old-fashioned manner: Neon has greenlit 
the release of a black-and-white version of 
the film, done on the special request of Bong. 
Some might scoff at this practice — at one 
point it was all the rage to colorize old films, 
and now we’ve reached the point where we’re 
decolorizing new films. But this trick isn’t 
completely novel, having been done by recent 
films such as “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) 
— a movie which director Bong has declared 
himself a big fan of — in addition to Bong’s 
own film “Mother” (2009) back in 2013.
So what’s the point? It isn’t some creative 
choice vital to the artistic vision of the film; 
“Parasite” wasn’t made with a monochrome 
palette in mind, unlike 2019’s Best Foreign 
Language Film winner “Roma” (2018). In 
an interview at the black-and-white film’s 
premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival, 
director Bong explains how he, his director 
of photography and the film’s colorist had 
to go back over each frame and correct 
grading in order to make it look pristine. No, 
the answer is not so auteurist, but it’s still 
a matter of personal vision — in the same 
interview, Bong explains that part of the 
decision to decolorize was simple vanity, a 
sort of childhood wish fulfillment. To him, 
many of the classics are black-and-white, so 
why not make his crown jewel project a little 
more classic?
Casting the world in grayscale didn’t 
magically transform the film into some new 
creature; it’s still “Parasite,” with all the 
same thrills and laughs and gasps. This was 
my third viewing of the film, and it remained 
as powerful as my first, and that’s thanks 
to the masterful direction, writing and 
performances — elements that unsurprisingly 
proved stronger than the realism that color 
adds. 

But the decolorization does have its 
consequences, and some of these effects 
were delightfully appropriate to the film’s 
portrayal of class conflict. With only white 
and black and the grays in-between, the 
contrast between the affluent Parks and the 
crafty but low-on-cash Kims is substantively 
starker (the film’s promotional materials, 
with black or white bars placed over the eyes 
of both families, comes to mind). The palatial 
home of the Parks is all the brighter, with 
the glass walls and wide windows letting 
in buckets of whitewashing light. While 
the affluent are graced with lighter tones, 
the Kim sub-basement home is noticeably 
drearier, the dim light beam that leaks in 
from the narrow window feeble in contrast to 
all the deep gray that surrounds it. Without 
the distraction of color, movement and 
performance became more important, the 
sound of Min’s feet sticking to the unclean 
Kim home floor becoming distinct. All these 
elements were there in the color film, but 
in the monochromatic makeover they are 
underscored and augmented.
Other aspects of the film are more or less 
in line with Bong’s aspirational musings. 
He’d be happy to hear that being black-and-
white did lend “Parasite” a slightly more 
old-timey, prestigious feel. At the same time, 
the image quality was anachronistically 
clear and well-defined, lacking the grainy 
texture and slight haziness endemic to that 
era. This visual discordance isn’t a nuisance 
though — in fact, it imbued the film with 
something of a timeless quality. Despite 
being set in and specific to Seoul, “Parasite” 
has resonated with audiences across the 
world.In an interview with Birth.Movies.
Death., Bong himself credits this to the fact 
that “essentially, we all live in the same 
country: Capitalism.” The strangely classic 
yet modern feel of the film made it all the 
more universal.

JACOB LUSK
For The Daily

“And We Look On”

Thursday, February 28 @ 7PM

The Duderstadt Center

NEON

But maybe that’s what makes 
Man Alive! special — it 
shows a man wrestling with 
his thoughts in real time

While not outwardly 
downcast, the lyrics detail 
the disintegration of 
Marshall’s relationships 
with loved ones and his 
relationship with the world 
around him

