So. It’s January. You’re back at work with memories of the festive period as fresh in the mind as the bastard behind the eyes still lingering this morning.
Fear not though. We live in a city that continually offers the plink-plonk-fizz of the Alka-seltzer of cultural remedy and, even as the first solar flare pierces the horizon of 2010, opportunity abounds.
Let’s start with the old-old-school.
The British Museum is playing host to an epic exhibition on the Aztec ruler Moctezuma, whose name roughly translates as “he who is angry in a noble manner”. Ultimately, he was the fall guy to the Spanish invasion but the legacy of the Aztec’s ritual and architecture is revealed in exhibits being seen in the UK for the first time ever.
As I know you all enjoy getting your own hands dirty, to tie in with this, the British Museum is hosting two one-day Mexican sculpture workshops with the ceramic artist Tiburcio Soteno.
These will take place on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th January from 11:00 – 17:00 and cost £30 or £20 for concessions. Very limited places so book soonest.
The Host Gallery is, well, playing host to an affecting show from photographer Rena Effendi.
In her first UK exhibition, her images highlight and explore the lives of those living on and affected by the 1700km long BTC pipeline that flows through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.
Tuesday 12th January also sees the gallery as the setting for an evening conversation with the artist herself.
FREE
Flipping over to the contemporary, place-to-be Berlin art scene, SilberkuppeRooms Without Walls take over the Hayward Gallery Project Space with their exhibition. Usually an independent contemporary art space in Berlin, the group use this opportunity to reflect on the collective cultural scene in the two decades since the fall of the Wall through the medium of pop and art.
FREE
In the main Hayward Gallery, in a slightly less free exhibition is a 50 year retrospective of Ed Ruscha, an important figure in both the pop-art and beat movements.
Sticking with the Southbank Centre, that loveable scamp and one man vocal orchestra, Shlomo is still Artist in Residence.
His long running Music through Unconventional Means series continues with the Concerto for Beatboxer and Orchestra.
Working with one of the most exciting UK composing talents, Anna Meredith, Shlomo will be performing the Concerto alongside a full orchestra made up of parts from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightment and Philharmonia Orchestra.
Tickets are £20 or £10 for concessions
On the gig front, as usual, there is a veritable smorgasbord (love that word!) of aural delights to partake in…here is a little selection to swill around before deciding whether to spit or swallow…
And one to consider in Spring when those lambs are a-leaping…
Moving swiftly on to that bastion of trendy noisecore bands and fine film, the ICA, there are a couple of interesting celluloid additions.
That doyen of eclecticism, Jim Jarmusch, has a new release, The Limits of Control, and he of Being John Malkovich fame, Jon Malkovich takles JM Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel in Disgrace.
Another new cinematic release that has been hotly anticipated, not least in my household, is the Ian Dury biopic, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Starring the much underrated Andy Serkis in the lead role, this opens in cinemas this weekend including at The Barbican, Screen on the Green and The Ritzy.
A late recommendation, and I have it on very good authority that the new Mexican film Voy A Explotar (I'm Gonna Explode) is a bit of a cracker. I think it only prudent to take the advice of a source as reliable as this.
Showing at The Barbican, tonight at The Ritzy and at The Renoir.
January also strikes me as an excellently apt month to remind oneself of the experience of Waiting For Godot and we are blessed to be able to have the opportunity to see one of the finest actors around leading this. Magneto. Sorry, my bad, I meant Gandalf, of course.
Running from the 21st January for 11 weeks.
In other more cosy theatrical surroundings, the Arcola Theatre is running a mini German season featuring their new production Innocence showing from the 6thth January. There are the usual pay-what-you-can evenings on Tuesdays but also the opportunity, should you be young and fresh-faced enough (alas!), for a FREE ticket… – 30
Alongside this, between the 10th and 17th Jan, the Arcola Bar will be turned into a 1989 Berlin bar for an interactive recreation of the night the wall fell and the 15th and 16th will play host an evening of Kurt Tucholsky music, a satirist, writer, poet and cabaret singer of the Weimar Republic. These are both FREE.
Given my penchant for musical obsession and geekery, I am taking the liberty of including a segment with my current soundtrack to life.
Naturally, you also have the liberty of ignoring this but I can assure you that, as anyone who knows me can attest, I have impeccable taste in music… ;)
Fever Ray – Fever Ray. The new solo project from Karin Dreijer Andersson of famously reclusive sibling electro duo The Knife. Dark, haunting and mesmeric. Get yourself lost in this.
Birds Demo – Kuryakin. Little known Swedish duo making beautiful music by exchanging samples through the post. It’s all about the Scandinavians…
Snowdonia EP – Mechanical Owl. This falls under that unfortunate moniker of ‘folktronica’. Despite that happenstance, this veers between tender indie and cultured electronica. With a bit of Stuart Murdoch-style storytelling thrown in for good measure.
Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know – Múm. One of my favourite bands, ever. Consistently innovative, always beautiful, defiantly intricate. Their new album hits the heights again after the only very good, rather than brilliant, Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy. In case of emergency of never having heard Múm, follow these simple instructions.
- Stop whatever it is you are doing right now.
- Use Spotify to immediately fill this gaping hole in your life
- Go out and buy this album to satisfy those long-term cravings.
- And relax.
Cymande – Cymande. Depending on your musical leanings Cymande are either a band you worship or a band you have never heard of. A band from Birmingham making Rastafarian-influenced funk doesn’t immediately sound promising but even on the first listen to this album, subsequent artists who have begged, borrowed or stolen from them start to pile up in your head, from A Tribe Called Quest to The Fugees to DJ Yoda. Impossibly tight.
Although not on this album, to really put a bounce in your stride, and the roll into your stroll check out Brothers On The Slide. Fuck yeah…
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