Page 28 - Trending_012819

Entertainment
Review: Deerhunter balances bleak with upbeat on new album
By RAGAN CLARK, Associated Press
Deerhunter, “Why Hasn’t Everything Al- ready Disappeared?” (4AD)
Leveled, steady, Bradford Cox coaxes, “Come on down from that cloud/And cast your fears aside.”
That perfect line leads Deerhunter’s “Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?” — cradling listeners in choruses that describe imminent oblivion.
Deerhunter’s latest album is bleak, but in such a way that invokes a sense of calm in
an anxious, disparaging world. Fading time, fading individuality, a fading world: these
are realities frontman Cox and bandmates — Lockett Pundt, Moses Archuleta, Josh McKay and Javier Morales — have accepted.
Consistent with their past work, “Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?” can’t be boxed into a single genre, with punk
and pop tones among others. As the group’s eighth LP, the band is comfortable in its own lack of sonic cohesion. The harpsichord on “Death in Midsummer” provides a Western tinge, yet avoids being nostalgic with the layering of synth.
“Detournement” adds deep distorted vocals to a Radiohead-like atmospheric track, sounding futuristic. “What Happens to Peo- ple?” adds jaunty keyboard to an upbeat track and sounds hopeful when it asks, “What happens to people?/They quit holding on.”
The unity of the album lies in the theme it draws from introspection and extrospection: Deerhunter sees the world for what it is, but repeatedly asks the question, what can we do with it? A seeming acceptance of disparity is shown through the pairing of dark lyrics with pleasant musical composition.
“No One’s Sleeping” decries the country’s
“duress” as “violence has taken hold,” yet, if
it weren’t for Cox’s deadpan voice and the subject of the lyrics, you might be fooled into thinking it was a much happier song. The group could be reflecting on times today or an apocalyptic setting as Cox sings out, “No one’s sleeping/The village green is nocturnal finally/Follow me to golden pond/There is peace — the great beyond.”
Deerhunter challenged the texture of
their sound and context of their lyrics and produced a complex and pleasing result: a musical journey into their ideas of death and the beyond.
A self-proclaimed sci-fi album about the present, “Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?” proves again Deerhunter can rise to the challenge of reinventing their sound without losing themselves — without disappearing.
Review: ‘Nowhere Child’ is Christian White’s stunning debut
By OLINE H. COGDILL, Associated Press
“The Nowhere Child: a Novel” (Minotaur), by Christian White
A young woman’s fond memories of her happy childhood and loving parents are turned upside down when she learns she may have been kidnapped more than 28 years ago in “The Nowhere Child,” a stunning debut by Christian White.
The perceptive plot of “The Nowhere Child” works well as a story about the ex- tremes that one will go to protect loved ones as well as a tale about what makes a family. White skillfully creates a credible story filled with surprises and realistic characters worth caring about.
Kim Leamy has a quiet life teaching pho- tography at a school in Melbourne, Australia. Her loving mother, Carol, recently died but
she has a solid relationship with her support- ive stepfather, Dean. While she isn’t as close to her half-sister Amy, she knows she can always count on her.
Kim’s life changes when she is approached by an American, James Finn, who tells her that she may be Sammy Went, who was kidnapped from her home in Kentucky when she was 2. Kim doesn’t believe him. She has her birth certificate and her family has always lived in Australia.
Not only does James have reams of pa- perwork, he also has a DNA sample that he surreptitiously took from her that definitely proves that Kim is Sammy, and that he is her brother. Kim finds it hard to believe that the warm, happy home in which she was raised was the result of a crime. She agrees to go to Kentucky with James to find out what could
have happened.
White seamlessly moves “The Nowhere
Child” from the present, as Kim tries to
piece together a lifetime of lies, back to the incidents 28 years ago that may have led to an abduction.
White shows life in a small Kentucky town, the Went family divided by religious fanati- cism and a spiritual leader who encourages snake handling without deriding small towns or religion. Despite the evidence that James presents, suspense mounts as the plot ex- plores the decades-old secrets that the Went family held close.
The appealing Kim’s confusion over wheth- er to doubt her childhood or accept this new dysfunctional family adds to the tension in “The Nowhere Child.”
28 | TRENDING