A surprise day ticket to a festival is always welcome, but having not heard too much about ‘End of the Road’ before I wasn’t sure of what to expect. Enthralled particularly by the prospect of Sufjan Stevens in the evening, I went caring little else about what I did all day. But thank god I turned up early enough to make the most of the rest of what this little festival had to offer. It was the tenth anniversary of the event, set in the quite idyllic Larmer Tree Gardens. The place completely suited the slightly alternative vibe that the organisers were going for. Every so often one would stumble across a peacock, fairy-lit woodland or a meditation session, perhaps by the ‘free bookshop’.

We made it in time to catch the end of Slow Club’s set; a duo who have definitely moved on since their acoustic days of ‘Because We’re Dead’ and ‘Christmas TV’, but still managed to capture the audience with a real stage presence. Before enjoying more of the main stage, we made it to the comedy tent, set in a little glade, to see Phil Jupitus reciting some humorous haikus – a far cry from his ‘Buzzcocks’ persona, with much more solemnity.

The proportion of female artists in the whole lineup, not only as singer-songwriters but also in bands, really impressed me. Just while walking around we heard Stealing Sheep at the garden stage. Apart from one or two tracks, I knew little of this band, but it didn’t seem to matter with the energy their psychedelic pop created so easily. Girlpool’s punk and Saint Etienne’s dance-inducing sound were also great, but the girls that really stole the show were The Unthanks.

These Tyneside sisters’ eccentricity cannot be denied. Their manipulation of traditional Northumbrian folk into a rather haunting (and definitively experimental) storytelling device really drew in the crowds. The set climaxed, not only with a surprise tap dance (of course), but the brass and string accompaniment brought an already captivated audience to a state of palpable jubilance. Their album Mount the Air was released in February, and definitely should be given a listen.

The headline act made the evening. Slightly dubious about how Sufjan Stevens’ sound would translate to a live performance, I would now highly recommend catching what is remaining of his European tour. His multitalented and peripatetic band moved round from keys, to trombone, to guitar, to vocals with ease. The unique vocals he has brought to his records allowed a lot of otherwise sombre tracks to really lift the crowd. The brass element to his earlier works, such as ‘Come feel the Illinoise’, were not forgotten, much to the excitement of the fans, many of whom had initially been drawn in by this atmospheric concept album. Sadly no encore was permitted, much to the dismay of many – really a testament of how successful the set was.

I couldn’t recommend ‘End of the Road’ enough. Slightly more expensive than some similarly sized festivals, it’s definitely worth it. The line up (which included Laura Marling on the Sunday) had an eclectic mix of everything alternative, folk and Americana. And if this doesn’t sell it, the woodland dens and occasional peacock sighting seals the deal for me.

After the inexplicable underperformance of lead single ‘I Really Like You,’ Emotion, Carly Rae Jepsen’s third album, debuted outside of the top 10 on the US album chart. After similarly lacklustre debuts in Australia, Japan and Canada, the year’s best pop album is in danger of being buried. I encourage you to buy it now for some great 80s-tinged pop, and so you can feel a vague sense of smugness when it inevitably crops up on decade best-of lists in 2020, that will all uniformly describe its low sales as a “tragedy,” leading to a general lament over the modern pop industry and probably a suggestion that it was oversgadowed by Taylor Swift’s similar but less fantastic 1989. Save pop music, buy Emotion on iTunes.

★★☆☆☆

Two Stars

What’s an It-girl who missed her moment? That’s the question confronting Halsey, who emerges from the prerequisite haze of tightly orchestrated internet hype to deliver her debut LP, Badlands. A human personification of the most carefully cultivated Tumblr blog of 2012, Halsey’s particular brand of art pop and big, empty beats now, unfortunately, seems awkwardly dated. In autumn 2015’s cold light of day the album’s synthy production appears as the shimmering leftovers of reigning alt-queens Lana Del Rey, Lorde and Sky Ferreira.

The album does have some good songs. ‘Colors’ offers a lovely, sad, romantic vision of love and loss, whilst ‘Haunting’s melody is catchy and the closest thing the album comes to feeling fresh. ‘Drive’ is also a nice tune, even if it comes across as a Broods knock-off.

So Halsey is many things. Underconfident is not however one of them. Throughout Badlands she does seem preternaturally confident in both delivery and attitude (her vocal on Roman Delivery and the album’s lone fantastic song, ‘Ghost’, show glimpses of a star) yet this also manifests as self absorption. As any self respecting millennial will argue, this is not in itself a criticism – many of her contemporaries tackles their narcissistic tendencies with insight and prescience – but Halsey kind of just breeze’s past it. It is not to be examined and is therefore rendered uninteresting. A surprising amount of the album is devoted to imagining what other people think about her – fans, lovers, adoring hangers on. It makes her hard to warm to – the kiss of death for any budding pop star. “I’m heading straight for the Castle, they want to make me their Queen” is the album’s first hook, whilst on Young Gods “You know the two of us are just young gods, And we’ll be flying through the streets with the people underneath.” So good for her I guess, but it doesn’t make for particularly engaging song writing.

She does have a knack for conjuring images and mood, but in doing so she leans far too heavily on cultural signifiers which work to murky the interesting aspects of her songwriting. She buries personal revelations beneath icons and symbols that are transparent attempts to grab at cool points. There’s an element of calculated curation at work here that is manipulative, somewhat embarrassing, and ultimately self destructive. The album’s second single, New Americana, is a particular low point on this front. Its reheated, anthemic production and mind numbing chorus “We are the New Americana, high on legal marijuana, raised on Biggie and Nirvana” is moving in the sense that your eyes will roll right out of your head. Who knew that someone, anyone, heard a couple of Imagine Dragons album cuts, and thought “I want more of this.” The whole enterprise induces a shiver of revulsion.

Great art makes you feel things, I guess.

★★★★★

Five Stars

Director Pete Docter has been behind some of the most emotional premises ever cooked up by computer animation veterans Pixar. Remember that scene at the end of ‘Monsters Inc.’ where Sulley leaves Boo in the human world for the final time? The opening ten minutes of ‘Up’? Few audience members can sit through those scenes without shedding a few tears, and that’s putting it mildly. I challenge you similarly to view Docter’s latest offering, ‘Inside Out’, with dry cheeks.

‘Inside Out’ tells the story of twelve-year old Riley. Her role is not so much the lead character, as the setting of the film. Uprooting Riley from her life in Minnesota when her father gets a new job in San Francisco, the film alternates between showing the changes that physically take place on the outside – such as moving into a filthy San Francisco apartment (watch out for a dead rat which looks suspiciously like ‘Ratatouille’s’ Remy here…), and moving schools – as well as the inside of Riley’s mind. 

The inside of the mind is represented in part by ‘Headquarters’, an abstract interpretation of the mind’s control centre populated by five emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). The film explores the emotional fallout (as rendered through these internal manifestations) when Riley begins at a new school and, simultaneously, Joy and Sadness get stuck in the depths of Riley’s mind, deep within long-term memory. With Riley’s mind left in the hands of Anger, Fear and Disgust, her outward behaviour rapidly changes as these emotions govern without Joy’s firm leadership to keep their influence at a minimum.

This constant juxtaposition between the world in Riley’s head, and the way it affects the external world, both directly and indirectly, is an interesting concept which allows the film to work on two levels. On the one hand there’s the dynamic race back to ‘Headquarters’ which Joy must undertake to resume control. This is a ceaselessly creative and visually mesmerising spectacle which takes us into the depths of ‘Imagination Land’ and ‘Dream Productions’, a Golden Age Hollywood-inspired film studio where a team of mind-workers create Riley’s dreams – Joy’s odyssey gives the film an action packed thread which is sure to satisfy younger audiences. On the other hand, as the film progresses, we begin to catch sight of the bold and thought-provoking message at its core, a message of such sophistication that all audiences will be able to take something away. 

At five years in the making, ‘Inside Out’ is one of the longest Pixar films in development, and Docter has spoken of the difficulty in creating a world which accurately reflects the workings of the human mind. Part of the film’s originality derives from the intricacy with which the mind has been conceptualised. From Riley’s core memories, which power different aspects of her personality (represented in different ‘Personality Islands’), to the storage of countless memory orbs in the depths of long-term memory, and a hilarious sequence taking place in abstract thought; the complexities and mysteries of the human mind have been brilliantly illustrated and integrated as parts of this world. There is even a train of thought, literally. 

Pixar has suffered something of a critical backlash over recent years, with 2011’s ‘Cars 2’ being widely panned, and the studio’s followups ‘Brave’ and ‘Monsters University’ faring only slightly better. Accusations that Pixar had lost its ‘mojo’ and was being co-opted by Disney into a tumult of sequels ensued. Does ‘Inside Out’ mark a turning point for the studio? Can first time feature-film director Peter Sohn’s ‘The Good Dinosaur’ in November 2015 sustain the quality this summer release has set? ‘Inside Out’ certainly shows something of a return to form in the creative culture of Pixar, and judging by the breathtakingly beautiful trailer for ‘The Good Dinosaur’, it will not disappoint either. 

Last but certainly not least, praise must also go to Michael Giacchino’s truly mesmerising score. From the second the Disney and Pixar logos appeared at the start of the film, and Giacchino’s musical cues sprung delicately through the darkened theatre, I was captivated. Known for his work on this summer’s blockbuster ‘Jurassic World’, and the Oscar winning score for Docter’s previous film ‘Up’, he does not disappoint here. There are moments towards the latter half of the film featuring a very special character called Bing Bong (Richard Kind) where the score only serves to amplify some of the most heart-wrenching storytelling the company has come up with. Can you really fail to love this pink-cotton candy, part cat, part elephant, part dolphin creation of Docter’s? You’ll have to see the film to find out.

A visit to the beautiful capital city of France is a visit that many people have undertaken in their lives: and if they have not yet, they hope to do so in the future. There is something about Paris that pleases everyone. The city is undeniably charming with its magnificent history, reputed works of art, and diverse architecture that make it one of the most visually impressive places to visit in the world; so much so that there is a certain level of expectation for tourists who visit Paris. Everyone wants to marvel at the graceful white buildings that line the Seine, sitting on a roof-top bar eating macaroons. Everyone wants to get a picture with the Mona Lisa, buy a book at Shakespeare & company, and practice a few lines of broken French at a ‘typically French’ bistro on the Champs-Élysées. As charming as it may be to spend a romantic week at the ‘capital city of love’, this is a largely idealised misconception of not only Paris as a city, but French lifestyle as a whole. 

Parisians have been aware of this for many years however. The idealisation of Parisian and French culture is something that many have long recognised as a way of selling overpriced merchandise to eager tourists. Yet increasingly, this idealisation of French culture has begun to leave a deep imprint on social mentality within the capital, particularly in relation to art and architecture. There is no better example of this than the unnecessary laser-cleaning of ancient buildings which is becoming increasingly common in France and in other countries across Europe. 

One of the first laser cleaning projects was conducted in Italy on the portal of the cathedral of Cremona at the start of the 1980s. Since then, it has been frequently used to help clear up unintelligible ancient documents and paintings, though the risk of damage remains an ever present problem. The use of such cleaning methods on historic buildings was at first reserved simply for those most badly damaged by centuries of pollution. One recent example are the magnificent stained-glass windows at Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The restoration work took seven years from start to finish and was completed on time for the 800th anniversary of the birth of King Louis IX. The stained-glass panes, that had previously been covered in a layer of traffic pollution, were restored to their previous conditions and their colours were once more distinguishable.

For 12th century works of art (though already restored numerous times throughout the ages) that had been on the point of being lost to the world for good, laser cleaning was a much-needed treatment. Yet it seems that besides a few necessary cases, the French have begun to take laser-cleaning to an entirely new level. Laser cleaning is now to be the fate of an increasing amount of historical buildings across the capital. The supposed intent: to restore these architectural works to their ‘previous splendour’. The Pantheon for example, at the heart of Paris’ Latin Quarter, has been cluttered with scaffolding for a number of years. That which has emerged from this thorough cleaning process has been transformed from a sandy grey to a beautiful beige colour, clean and undeniably aesthetically appealing. But to what extent is this truly what the Pantheon looked like originally? And how much has it really been redesigned by an increasing desire to mould Paris fittingly to the expectations of a touristic culture?

Yet Paris is not the only area of France experiencing the effects of this deeply saddening modern perception of architectural beauty.  France is famously dotted with some of the world’s greatest gothic architectural masterpieces ever made. Often mingled into the ordinary French landscape, many of these vast gothic cathedrals tower over their native French villages and towns. The French however, have decided that an extensive laser-cleaning project of many of these old delicate works is appropriate even to such structures that are not in any need of cleaning. With the intention of ‘restoring the buildings to their intended appearance’, what they wish to do is transform these aged, medieval structures into polished, dazzling white monuments that fulfil tourist expectations and increasingly, their own expectations of what great art should look like.

Nantes Cathedral, an example of this new cleaning-mania, is an elegant white building in the historic centre of Nantes. Though very beautiful, the cathedral is confusing to anyone with the slightest knowledge on architecture. The building gives the appearance of being entirely new; as if construction was finished only yesterday. In the name of ‘restoring’ the building (which was in reality only completed at the end of the nineteenth century), the extensive laser-cleaning it underwent for a number of years has as a consequence wiped away a layer of the original surface. Many, in an attempt to justify these actions, have claimed that Nantes cathedral amongst other significant architectural masterpieces, was covered in a layer of soot and dirt which had to be removed to attain the work’s original appearance. But why do the French (and at this point it is necessary to add that the French are not the only country to have adopted excessive laser-cleaning) think that restoring a building to its ‘original’ appearance, makes it the ‘right’ appearance? Is a work of art only a work of art in its original birth state? A building has a life, and removing layers of supposed ‘dirt’ or colouring, is removing valuable layers of its history and its life. 

The huge controversy over Duveen’s cleaning of the Elgin Marbles in London, after the Second World War, brought to light some very important issues on the matter. The curators at the British Museum at the time were quite happy to turn a blind eye to Duveen’s ‘cleaning’ of the Elgin Marbles because they knew the outcome would fulfil their idealised perception of what classical sculpture should look like: pure and flawlessly white. The press and the majority of people, then as now, were outraged at this shocking removal of the surface of the ancient Parthenon sculptures. Yet there is not a huge difference between this supposed ‘horrifying cleaning’ of the Elgin Marbles, and the present-day laser cleaning of already perfectly satisfactory historical structures. 

Indeed both have removed layers of supposed ‘dirt’. Both fulfil our modern societies’ expectations of a ‘beautiful’ work of art, without the necessary regard for the work’s history. Both have rendered the works a product, no longer of the past, but of the present. 

So, which are better: e-books or paper books? Chances are you – and everybody else on the bus – has an opinion. You only need to type the words ‘kindle debate’ into Google to be overwhelmed with over seven million hits. Somewhat ironically, a lot of ink (or perhaps keyboard keys) have been used over this question. 

Ever since kindles emerged in 2007, they’ve sparked controversy and galvanised thel book community into action. But is this debate even worth having? Does it matter in what form people are reading books? In a world where literature has to fight tooth and nail (or should that be spine and cover) against countless other avenues of entertainment and media, surely it’s important to encourage reading in any form. A way to read literature anywhere, and to carry thousands of books in one slim tablet, looks from this angle like the answer to every bookworm’s prayers. And yet there is such animosity against the humble kindle. There is even a National Indie Book Day (March 21^st if you’re planning a boycott of Amazon.com) where people are encouraged to eschew electronic books and celebrate local independent bookshops and their physical, paper progeny.

So what’s the argument championing the paper form? Only a cursory glance at Google will bombard the amateur researcher with so many justifications for the incredible value of physical copy, the unending mental benefits of books and the vital perfection of paperbacks that the reader is left wondering how humanity could possibly survive without them. Just six minutes of reading a physical book, we are told, reduces stress by 68%, keeps the brain functioning on a high level, and staves off Alzheimer’s. This is not, apparently, true of the e-book: a Norwegian 2014 study found readers of Kindles were ‘significantly worse’ at remembering the order of events in a novel than those who read it in paperback. Anne Mangen stated: “the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print book provides”. And then there’s the emotional attachment the public have to their dear old paper Penguin pals. Countless childhood memories of bulging shelves, bright covers and hours spent searching fondly for ‘that specific book’ means it is incredibly difficult to abandon paper copy completely. E-books also contribute significantly to the death of independent bookshops: sales of print books fell by over 6.5% in 2013, and the trend has continued. Although ‘indie bookshops’ have recently made a comeback on the highstreets, e-books are undoubtedly a threat to this endangered breed.

But if e-books are really ‘sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything’, why do we keep on using them? Why are there so many enthusiastic kindle-ites extolling their fully-charged literary virtues? Well, Kindles are incredibly easy to use, to store, and to carry. You can purchase a huge amount of literature through them for almost nothing (the complete works of Dickens is 2p), and explore new writing that might not have otherwise been discovered. It can enlarge text for the hard of sight, it has a light to read in the dark – it even contains a dictionary.  Who wouldn’t want the entire book-world right at their fingertips, at the touch of a pad?

It is at this point that I have to admit that I am biased – I work in an independent bookshop myself, and have been indoctrinated to shun e-books. Yet, despite my rigorous toeing of the party line, I can see their appeal. Yes, I cannot imagine ever finding a fond message penned into the front of a kindle cover or finding old train tickets amongst its non-existent pages, but I’m still envious of my friends who have entire slim, sexy, personalised libraries that they can carry around in their pockets. And surely, as mentioned earlier, the point of these different approaches is simply to encourage and enable reading in any form? I’m convinced e-books and paper books can work together to make the world a more literary, and happier, place. Just don’t drop either in the bath.