7 minute read
Arts & Culture
from 12 October 2022
’Toban turntable
Alex Braun, staff 3.5/5 Stars
Bedouin Soundclash is a name you maybe haven’t thought of in a minute, but those of us old enough to remember 2004 might have fond memories of its CanCon smash “When the Night Feels My Song.” The song is slightly confounding in all the ways that make the band such an interesting entity — a melding of reggae, folk, punk and pop with very few suitable comparison points.
I’ve always seen Bedouin Soundclash as a sort of proto-Vampire Weekend, another band of hipsters appropriating a wide swath of world music. But its aesthetic vocabulary couldn’t be any further from Vampire Weekend’s initial ironic Ivy League stance. Bedouin Soundclash sincerely cared in a folksy, old-school punk type way, and wasn’t afraid to be openly anthemic.
Their name, Bedouin Soundclash, is heady and puzzling too — evoking ancient nomadic Arab tribes and Jamaican dub parties in the same breath and representing a band that plays a mix of ska, rock, electronic, pop and folk.
Its 20-plus-year career has led the band down many paths, working with artists from the electronic, jazz, pop and punk worlds in equal measure. arrangements and vibraphone.
In general, the sound that Bedouin Soundclash ends up with here is without many clear analogues. The songs themselves are never too off the wall in construction, but the way they’re arranged is never not interesting.
We Will Meet in a Hurricane is an album only Bedouin Soundclash could have made. It borders on cloying sweetness, it’s a little too long and the songwriting is occasionally a bit bland.
However, it’s all vintage Soundclash, and when it works, it really works.
provided Dina Alone / image /
After breaking a nine-year hiatus with 2019’s MASS, the band is back with a new album called We Will Meet in a Hurricane.
The 12-track record is being presented as a sort of back-tobasics, late career return to form. The production is shiny and poppy, but the arrangements are kept to a select number of elements paired together in different ways.
The opening title track is a sugar-sweet ska-pop song that establishes the album’s theme of approaching apocalyptic difficulties with a chipper optimism.
“Longer Days in Shorter Years” is a sauntering and slightly silly, lightly political bar-band rocker with a really infectious hook.
Tracks like “A Torn Jacket with Silver Lining” and “Man from Cascades” have truly strange palettes, mixing Spanish guitars, chirpy ska rhythms, country-ish pedal steel glides, lavish string
We Will Meet in a Hurricane comes out Oct. 21, and will be available on major streaming platforms.
arts@themanitoban.com
A Social-ly awkward scenario
New film captures a familiar Manitoban struggle
Alex Braun, staff
The Manitoba wedding social — an iconic tradition to some, a tacky social scourge to others, but something unique to our province, and one of our numerous questionable points of provincial pride.
Filmmaker Tavis Putnam saw the solicitation of potential social guests as a situation rife with comedic potential.
“I wanted to raise money to make a movie by having a social,” Putnam explained.
“I thought, ‘oh, well there should be a scene at a social in this movie if we’re going to have a social to raise money for it.’ And then the idea of having this guy go around and try to get people to go to a social kind of came to me.”
The movie, A Social, will be playing Oct. 13 to 15 at the Cinematheque, and was shot on a very low budget. The production team consisted mainly of Putnam, who wrote, directed and starred in the film, as well as cinematographer Jesse de Rocquigny and Tom Groom, who handled location sound.
The film’s plot is a familiar one to most in our fair city. Ross, the protagonist, is pestering acquaintances and friends to come to his mom’s wedding social, which is deemed “The Manitoba wedding social to end all Manitoba wedding socials.”
Ross isn’t the most socially smooth guy, and trying to sell someone on actually attending a social is a bit of an uphill battle. The comedic thrust of the movie comes from seeing Ross fumble his way through a series of doomed pitches to a cast of eccentric and recognizable Winnipeg characters.
The social is just one of the dubious points of civic and national pride we in Manitoba cling to, and our flimsy provincial identity as Manitobans and Canadians is something that Putnam hoped to explore in the film as well.
“As a colonial country, it feels like when people talk about Canadian culture they are mostly just talking about white Canadian culture,” he said. “I think that in itself is kind of funny because Canada takes so much from other places.”
The film itself is shot in gorgeous widescreen black
photos / Tavis Putnam / provided
and white, giving it a serene detachment and slight melancholy that adds depth to the cringy comedic situations and quirky characters.
The movie is also set in the dead of a Winnipeg winter, which lends it a uniquely Winnipeg-y lonely coldness, a quality of our fair city that Putnam also hoped to explore.
“To me it is a very isolating place to live, especially in the winter,” he said.
“The city’s so spread out, and there’s essentially no public transit and it’s so sparsely populated.”
The loneliness of Winnipeg informs Putnam’s characterization of Ross, a sympathetically awkward and sincere guy who is desperate for community and belonging.
“This character I sort of see as a very extroverted person who wants a lot of social interaction and wants some kind of community,” Putnam explained. “But he can’t, he can’t get it because his social skills are so terrible.”
Underscoring this desperation is the recurring use of front-facing cellphone camera footage from Ross’s vlog to an imagined audience of fans. These bits filmed in colour also serve as a visual contrast to the bleaker black and white sequences. Beyond these early screenings in Winnipeg, Putnam hopes to get the film on the festival circuit.
A Social is screening Oct. 13 to 15 at the Cinematheque. More information and tickets can be found at winnipegfilmgroup.com/event/a-social/2022-10-13/-30-
arts@themanitoban.com
Sports teams’ schedules
U of M Bisons — Women’s Preseason Basketball
CJOB Tournament Bisons @ Lakehead Thunderwolves Oct. 7 — Final: 70 – 76 Bisons @ Brandon Bobcats Oct. 8 — Final: 81 – 73 Bisons @ Winnipeg Wesmen Oct. 9 — 1 p.m.
U of M Bisons — Women’s Preseason Volleyball
Bisons @ Montréal Carabins Oct. 6 — Final: 3 – 1
U of M Bisons — Women’s Hockey
Bisons @ UBC Thunderbirds Bisons @ UBC Thunderbirds Regina Cougars @ Bisons Regina Cougars @ Bisons Oct. 7 — Final: 1 – 6 Oct. 8 — Final: 2 – 6 Oct. 14 — 7 p.m. Oct. 15 — 3 p.m.
U of M Bisons — Women’s Soccer
Winnipeg Wesmen @ Bisons
Oct. 6 — Final: 0 – 3 Bisons @ Winnipeg Wesmen Oct. 8 — Final: 6 – 0 Bisons @ Lethbridge Pronghorns Oct. 15 — 1 p.m. Bisons @ Mount Royal Cougars Oct. 16 — 2 p.m.
U of M Bisons — Men’s Preseason Basketball
Lakehead Thunderwolves @ Bisons Oct. 7 — Final: 85 – 81 / OT
U of M Bisons — Men’s Football
Bisons @ UBC Thunderbirds Oct. 15 — 4 p.m.
U of M Bisons — Men’s Golf
Canada West Championships Team Final: Sixth place overall
U of M Bisons — Men’s Hockey
UBC Thunderbirds @ Bisons UBC Thunderbirds @ Bisons Manitoba Moose @ Bisons Bisons @ Regina Cougars Bisons @ Regina Cougars Oct. 7 — Final: 6 – 4 Oct. 8 — Final: 8 – 7 Oct. 11 — 7 p.m. Oct. 14 — 7 p.m. Oct. 15 — 3 p.m.
U of M Bisons — Cross Country
Stewart Cup Oct. 15
Valour @ Edmonton
Valour FC
Oct. 8 — Final: 1 – 3
Winnipeg Blue Bombers
Edmonton Elks @ Blue Bombers Oct. 8 — Final: 11 – 48 Blue Bombers @ BC Lions Oct. 15 — 9 p.m.
Winnipeg Jets
Preseason: Calgary Flames @ Jets Jets @ Calgary Flames Regular season: New York Rangers @ Jets Jets @ Dallas Stars Jets @ Colorado Avalanche Oct. 5 — Final: 0 – 5 Oct. 7 — Final: 5 – 3
Oct. 14 — 7 p.m. Oct. 17 — 7:30 p.m. Oct. 19 — 7 p.m.
