Grant

YouTube video by KEXP Julia Holter - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

best album of the 2010s, and frankly, one of the most incredible records I've ever heard. can't fully articulate how lovely it was to hear many of the AVIARY songs performed at Turf Club in 2019. though, this vid will give you a decent sense: youtu.be/cy6KJr-49ZY?...

and, read my extensive interview with Leavitt from 2023 for a little more context on the recording process (and influence of PRATI BAGNATI DEL MONTE ANALOGO):
tonemadison.com/articles/spi...

A hand-drawn landscape by Andrew Swiatkowski on a greeting card is placed upright on a hardwood floor. It rests behind a cassette-case copy of Luke Leavitt's CONCERT IN THE SHELL album, which is oriented vertically.

Luke Leavitt was kind to mail me a cassette copy of his new ambient-jazz release earlier this week. please consider picking it up this #bandcampfriday!

lukeleavitt.bandcamp.com/album/concer...

Put together another compilation of local, largely unreleased music. All proceeds will go towards supporting Tone Madison's independent journalism.

All purchases this month will multiply in value, and all purchases made today will help us net a bit more, thanks to Bandcamp Friday.

Buy if ya can!

YouTube video by edible 岡田拓郎(Takuro Okada) - Morning Sun [Full Album]

nothing if not depressed lately. but I will say that I have cherished every listen to this sonically restorative record by Takuro Okada 🌅

the guys (Matt Blair, Brian Courage, Devin Drobka, Will Greene) killing it at Audio for the Arts last night

The semi-improvised parameters of "Inertia Follies" engender its subtly and radically transformative scenes The avant-garde performance-art showcase, which involves six local artists, runs for a final weekend—November 20 through 23—at Broom Street Theater.

"The sequential rhythms of INERTIA FOLLIES are intermittently anxious and contemplative but persistently thrilling. Credit that to director Chelsea Gaspard's guiding belief in the show's improvised components as 'living and breathing and shifting,'" writes @nothingunfinished.bsky.social. 🎭

the best article you'll read this year on the state of gaming and game development in Wisconsin

The Nun V V, by Trance To The Sun from the album Venomous Eve (2021 Remaster)

this record randomly showed up in my suggested Bandcamp feed last week (under "neo-psychedelia"), and I've had it on repeat ever since. Trance To The Sun's breakthrough in every sense. intoxicating, enveloping, majestically murky production. and this song... just exemplary ethereal wave

In its third year, the Black Film Festival commits to deeper regional representation The Nehemiah Center and Justified Anger partner with Madison Public Library to honor Black lives and culture November 12 through 15.

The Black Film Festival returns this year—November 12 thru 15—with screenings and discussions at Fountain of Life Covenant Church and @madisonlibrary.bsky.social locations throughout the city.

Film section editor @nothingunfinished.bsky.social takes a closer look at the scope of the programming.

So thankful I got to talk to @fayeparks.bsky.social at @wortnews.bsky.social about what makes @tonemadison.bsky.social special. If you want to support local, journalist-owned news, go to tonemadison.com/donate/

Three Four Star Video Rental DVD cases are displayed face up on a chair with their Blu-ray catalog cards: OTHER SIDE OF THE UNDERNEATH (1972, dir. Jane Arden), HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND (1986, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi), and GIVE ME PITY (2022, dir. Amanda Kramer).

from the desk of a physical media advocate: take advantage of @4starvideo.bsky.social's 40th anniversary celebration, which continues for two more days this week. over the weekend, I finally signed up for a rental subscription plan (at 40% off!) and took home a few titles I'd been eyeing for a while

LEFT-HANDED GIRL isn't without its kinetic charms, but the Sean Baker narrative formula is wearing incredibly thin. and the score sounds like an utter afterthought, like patched-together muzak. not recommended

hope this piece at least spurs on a couple aspiring experimental filmmakers and video artists in the Madison area to submit a short for the January 21 showcase. as per usual, I'll be there :)

artlitlab.org/events/proje...

if you missed one of the year's best shorts back in May when I presented it at Mills Folly Microcinema (artlitlab.org/events/twinn...) here in Madison, you can now watch on YT ♊

B/W photo of Mr. Doctor posing in Victorian attire and gothic makeup, circa mid-1990s. He extends his left arm out towards the camera and tilts his head down with a sinister expression.

maybe next year, for the 30th anniversary of Devil Doll's DIES IRAE, I'll finally put together that Mr. Doctor (Mario Panciera) costume. a rare excuse to theatrically slink around like a silent-movie villain.

a befitting soundtrack for your Halloween: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hech...

my Chicago International Film Festival experience was basically a tale of polarity: endure some of the rudest, most reckless drivers on the road to sit comfortably with some of the most pleasant, attentive theatrical audiences

Hive of Parasites, by Lychgate from the album Precipice

sounds like Lychgate is continuing to absorb influence from mid-late 2000s-era Daniel O'Sullivan (v laudatory). after THE CONTAGION IN NINE STEPS, an epically elaborate 10th step (in 10 minutes)

imo, a peerless film. in this piece, I tried to capture just how Solondz and his cast relay the trials and tribulations (and trauma) of the junior-high experience and why it's so personally meaningful for this millennial

"Respect, Portland, Chicago and everywhere," writes Rafael Toral in the Bandcamp listening party for TRAVELING LIGHT.

✊💛

An opened CD edition of Rafael Toral's "jazz covers" album, TRAVELING LIGHT, sitting atop a turntable's dust cover.

another beautiful record from Rafael Toral, and companion to last year's transcendent SPECTRAL EVOLUTION. 50 minutes of extended "jazz covers" that ascend into mesmeric abstraction. modulated guitar symphonies of interiority. Toral's rendition of the Gene de Paul tune is sublime

YouTube video by Molto Fresco John Cale - Hedda Gabbler

heard this track (and the rest of ANIMAL JUSTICE) for the first time last weekend. 15 to 20 years ahead of its time. not surprising, tho, from the former VU virtuoso

it should alarm everyone in Southern Wisconsin that we're seeing consecutive days of 86-degree weather in October. no better time than now to reconsider the tenets of veganism and sustainability. (conveniently, there is a fest happening atm at Lunney Lake Farm County Park.)

On The Eve Of Hope, by Nick Hudson 18 track album

#bandcampfriday rec: the new Nick Hudson. in an era of despair, the artist and wordsmith offers a bated-breath vision ON THE EVE OF HOPE

Cropped screenshot of the Metacritic page for ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER shows an excerpt from the film's first glowing "100" review, written Ty Burr at The Washington Post.

we need editors, because ineffectual sentences like this can be pull-quoted: "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER isn't really a political film, but neither is it not a political film." that shouldn't be the first thing anyone reads about the new PTA

Madison folks! Can you support @tonemadison.bsky.social 🙏❤️

continuing my tradition of wearing avant-metal band shirts to these meetings (Genevieve back in April & Wreck and Reference this time)

queer cinema double feature for the unending summer:
BEACH RATS (2017, dir. Eliza Hittman) and BEAU TRAVAIL (1999, dir. Claire Denis)

our publication is the only one in town still devoting substantial space to film analysis (and not primarily offering cursory, compartmentalized arts listicles). help us continue to do so, and support a terrific team of freelancers. 🙏

tonemadison.com/donate/

Donate to Help Us Tell Stories of Dignity at the End of Life, organized by Nathan Deming Hi, my name is Nathan Deming. I’m an independent filmmaker based in E… Nathan Deming needs your support for Help Us Tell Stories of Dignity at the End of Life

if you're passionate about supporting films with Wisconsin ties, this WINTER HYMNS project by Nathan Deming looks impactful