As hinted at in the beginning of the weekend, Brian Weitz, better known as Geologist to fans of his much-loved main band Animal Collective, is bringing his solo act to towntonight at the Miniplex at 8:30 p.m. Expect a lot of loops and sounds undergirding ashocking amount of hurdy gurdy playing from the man himself. […]
The Miniplex
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Music Tonight: Friday, Feb. 20
Cooper Crain is busy, both as a member of noted Chicago drone band Cave and asone third of Bitchin Bajas, with a more explosive and fancy-free approach to theirexperimental jaunts through the airwaves. I think of track ‘Skylarking’ as a goodexample of the group’s sound, which unfolds like a synthetic barn swallow migratingthrough the transcontinental […]
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Music Tonight: Wednesday, Nov. 12
Sometimes I have nothing to accompany me as I type up this column other than the howling ghosts of regret and loneliness that course through the space between my ears like a cruel, spectral turbine. And sometimes I have some swanky new tunes to accompany the ceaseless screams from the abyss torn into existence by […]
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Music Tonight: Friday, Oct. 10
Michael Beach is a soundmaker from Melbourne, Australia who has found a home in North American hi-fi sets with his releases on outré rock label Goner Records. Known for his vibrant stage presence, you can see some of that lightning captured in the bottle that is the Miniplex tonight at 8:30 p.m. Also on tap […]
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A Return to Messy Heroes
CAUGHT STEALING. For a quarter century (give or take) Darren Aronofsky has had me chasing the dragon of what he can do. The challenge inherent in this, of course, is that the thing I want him to do, what I see as his high-water mark, rarely coincides with what he wants to do. Requiem for […]
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Greed and Getaways
RELAY. A hundred years ago, in 2016, David Mackenzie directed Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay Hell or High Water. That story, set against and amongst the devastation wrought by the 2008 collapse of the criminally exploitative American mortgage securities racket, is about individual desperation in the face of remorseless corporate greed. It is also a thrilling heist/pursuit […]
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Night Always Comes
NIGHT ALWAYS COMES. Since 2007, Willy Vlautin has been publishing novels about the new American West, which means he specializes in stories about life at the end of empire, lives lived in the absence of opportunity and the presence of addiction, poverty and the occasional fleeting opportunity. The books draw a taut line between Reno […]
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The Dreamy Terror of Weapons
WEAPONS. There is a moment in the highly anticipated horror movie Weapons when Josh Brolin, playing a distraught father asleep in the bedroom of his missing son, wanders in a weird, mysterious dream that claws at his grief and ends with a grotesque shock that jolts him awake. Scrambling at the covers, he shouts, “What […]
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Music Tonight: Saturday, Aug. 2
The Miniplex is hosting Los Angeles band Dummy tonight at 8:30 p.m. The group is relatively new, with its 2021 record Mandatory Enjoyment on Trouble in Mind records making a big splash in the underground music scene for its excellent stitching of ambient landscapes filled with pop guitar song work. Sacramento’s San Kazakgascar is as […]
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The Superman of Our Time
SUPERMAN. As a kid, I imprinted on Christopher Reeve’s Superman like a baby chick. And when, in my 20s, I saw him in a trench coat on a Metro North train, tossing a patient if perfunctory grin at a drunk shouting, “Superman!” across the car, my attachment felt vindicated. Whether David Corenswet carries the mantle […]
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Cronenberg in The Shrouds
THE SHROUDS. It’s a fascinating thing, having spent the better part of a lifetime with the work of revered artists, to watch them age in the weird, liminal space of their output. In the past, they would often end up back at the bottom tier of an industry that no longer had a use for […]
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Music Tonight: Tuesday, July 15
The Miniplex has a good one going on tonight at 8 p.m. for all you lovers of keys and electronic flourishes buttressing tropical beats and kinetic sonic paintings. Headliner Kolumbo is an electro-tropicalia quartet centered around the impressive keyboard mastery of Frank LoCrasto, also known for his work with Cass McCombs and Fruit Bats. On […]