Aurelia Butler

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    The Onscreen Apartments That Made Them Want to Live in New York

    Twelve designers, architects and others reflect on the movie and TV homes, from SoHo lofts to houses on the park, that inspired them to move to the city, and informed their aesthetics.Moving to New York is almost always a decision informed partly by fantasy. It’s impossible to escape the fictional versions of the city that proliferate in books, art, music — and, perhaps most vividly, in movies and television shows, with their typically romantic (and typically misleading) depictions of rent-stabilized studios and affordable brownstones. To coincide with T’s New York-themed home-design issue, we asked a handful of designers, architects and other creative people about the film and TV interiors that shaped their vision of the city they now call home.John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow in the 1968 film “Rosemary’s Baby.”Paramount Pictures/Getty ImagesToshiko Mori, architect: “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968)Moved to New York in the late 1960sI came to New York from Japan with my family to attend high school. One of my first assignments at the summer school I attended that year was to write an essay comparing the 1967 novel “Rosemary’s Baby” by Ira Levin with the film adaptation by Roman Polanski. The building in the movie is called the Bramford, but the exteriors, famously, were those of the Dakota on the Upper West Side. What struck me about the movie’s apartments was their aspect of interiority — the way they seemed to harbor secrets. I also remember their small, framed views of high-rise New York City buildings. Even though the film is, of course, a horror story and the building turns out to be cursed, “Rosemary’s Baby” only made me more excited about living in New York. Coming from Japan, I was used to stories about ghosts and evil spirits. So in an absurd way, it made the city feel more familiar.Jean Arthur in the 1937 film “Easy Living.”© Paramount Pictures/PhotofestJohn Derian, 60, designer and retailer: “Easy Living” (1937)Moved to New York in 1992I was a child who on Saturdays watched every old movie on TV: the 12 o’clock, the two o’clock, the four o’clock and, if I could get away with it, the six o’clock. One of my favorites was the screwball comedy “Easy Living,” starring Jean Arthur. The movie takes you all over New York through multiple dwellings, from a mansion on Fifth Avenue to a little room in a boardinghouse where Arthur’s character lives for seven dollars a week, culminating in an over-the-top Hollywood Regency-style suite at the fictional Hotel Louis with sky-high ceilings, a grand piano and an ornate plunge tub. “Wow,” I thought. “All this in one city? Sign me up!” I still love the smoke and mirrors of a good set, and I’m basically doing the same thing today in my shops, creating a little fantasy.Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger in the 1989 film “Batman.”© Warner Bros./PhotofestStephen Alesch, 57, designer: “Batman” (1989)Moved to New York in 1994Growing up in Milwaukee and later in the Los Angeles area, I loved Batman comics. When Tim Burton’s “Batman” came out, I ate it up. The Gotham of the film was Manhattan exaggerated, and the neo-neo gothic sets blew me away. I loved the shadowy wet streets, the balconies up high in the mist, the buttresses and water towers. One interior that particularly struck me was Vicky Vale’s (Kim Basinger’s) penthouse, with its shiny tile walls and sweeping steel arch covered in rivets. During my first stay in New York in 1991, I couch surfed with friends and walked the streets for hours, taking in the Chrysler Building, Tudor City, the fire escapes of the Lower East Side. I couldn’t help seeing the city through a noirish lens. Within a few years I moved to New York for good, and I still push for rivets on projects and try to add a vaulted buttress wherever I see an opportunity.Tracy Camilla Johns in the 1986 film “She’s Gotta Have It.”© Island PicturesLoren Daye, 48, interior designer: “She’s Gotta Have It” (1986)Moved to New York in 1996I was 21 and living in Chicago when I first saw “She’s Gotta Have It.” Much of the film takes place in Fort Greene, but the protagonist, Nola Darling (played by Tracy Camilla Johns), lives in a semi-empty loft in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, among scrap pieces of wood, buckets of paint and her collages. The loft is painted almost completely white and has incredible arched windows and geometric light fixtures suspended from the ceiling, the whole space anchored by her bed at the very center. The bed has a latticed headboard where she lights dozens of candles every evening — it’s like a shrine to her sexuality. That room was my dream, representing freedom, honesty and self-realization. A year after I saw the movie, I arrived in New York. In 2003 I finally found a place in Fort Greene and I’m still here.Geraldine Page in the 1978 film “Interiors.”© United Artists/PhotofestBilly Cotton, 42, interior designer: “Interiors” (1978)Moved to New York in 2000When I moved to New York to study Russian history at Hunter College I had no inkling I would become a designer. But I do remember watching Woody Allen’s “Interiors” — I think my parents had the VHS cassette — when I was a kid in Burlington, Vt. The matriarch of the story is Eve, an interior designer played by Geraldine Page, and the film’s rambling, sparsely furnished apartments formed my idea of an extremely glamorous New York. Now, looking back at the movie’s spare, monochromatic interiors, I feel like they’re oddly prescient of the current trend for entirely beige, cream and white spaces. But they’re also sort of timeless. This city throws so much visual energy at you on a daily basis, and I love the idea of having just a couple good things you can take with you from place to place.Catherine Deneuve in the 1983 film “The Hunger.”© MGM/UA/PhotofestTal Schori, 43, architect: “The Hunger” (1983)Moved to New York in 2003I grew up in the New York suburbs in the 1990s and the city always held a somewhat intimidating allure for me. This was epitomized in the noirish vampire movie “The Hunger,” which I first saw as a teenager. David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve play the undead lovers John and Miriam Blaylock, who live in a luxurious prewar townhouse near Central Park. Dramatically lit through sheer curtains, the house, with its high ceilings, elegant French doors, paneled walls, ornate moldings and opulent stone cladding, exuded a certain languid luxury and dark transgressiveness. I was seduced. By 2003, I had arrived in New York, renting a modest one-bedroom in a 1960s brick co-op in Ditmas Park.“Hey Arnold!” (1996-2004).© Nickelodeon/PhotofestJared Blake, 33, furniture designer and retailer: “Hey Arnold!” (1996-2004)Moved to New York in 2005To me, Arnold’s room in the Nickelodeon series “Hey Arnold!” is legendary. The show is set in a fictional city called Hillwood, but there’s no doubt in my mind it’s modeled on New York. Arnold had a Murphy bed, a skylight, track lighting, a giant water dispenser and a funky red rug kind of like the one in “The Shining” (1980), but more mod. I was born in New Jersey and moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when I was 7, but I visited New York four times a year to see my dad, who lived in Harlem. I think I knew early on that the city was where I was meant to end up. It’s been 16 years since I arrived, and I’m realizing now that I may have subconsciously created my version of Arnold’s room in my apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. I have a Murphy bed and track lighting, and the whole vibe, like Arnold’s, is very eclectic. I’m just missing the skylight.Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in the 1986 film “9½ Weeks.”© MGM/PhotofestFarrah Sit, 41, furniture designer: “9½ Weeks” (1986)Moved to New York in 2005I grew up in Kingston, N.Y., just two hours away, and when I was a kid, the sensory overload of New York City — the noise, the stink, the heat — was intense for me. So the interiors in “9 ½ Weeks” were a revelation: an expression of austere minimalism and an aspiring art school kid’s dream. Elizabeth’s art gallery loft was a light-filled box that seemed to float above the chaos of the city. John’s monochromatic, museumlike penthouse, with its furniture by Marcel Breuer and Richard Meier, was luxurious and restrained. These spaces played with light, shadow and texture, expressing an aesthetic that resonates with me to this day. After 18 years living in New York, I still respond to the intensity of the city by creating a feeling of serenity in my work.Meryl Streep and Jeff Daniels in the 2002 film “The Hours.”Meryl Streep and Jeff Daniels in the 2002 film “The Hours.”Fabiana Faria, 37, retailer: “The Hours” (2002)Moved to New York in 2007Meryl Streep character’s in “The Hours,” Clarissa Vaughan, lives in a rustic, rambling, flower-filled home in downtown New York where she often hosts parties. I first saw the movie when I was 14 and living with my parents in Caracas, Venezuela. I wanted to believe that one day I would have a home in New York like that where I would host gatherings of interesting people and be able to walk everywhere, dropping by the butcher or the florist, who both knew me. There are several scenes in Clarissa’s wonderful open kitchen, which has a big stove, hanging pots and wood floors. When I moved to the city I had no illusions of living in such luxury — I shared a two-bedroom with three other roommates on Roosevelt Island — but I held on to that vision of a warm, lived-in, well-loved New York apartment.Parker Posey in the 1995 film “Party Girl.”© First Look Pictures/PhotofestLuam Melake, 36, furniture designer: “Party Girl” (1995)Moved to New York in 2011When I first saw “Party Girl,” I was 22 and living in San Francisco. Posey’s character, an aspiring librarian who prioritizes fashion and parties, struck me as a shinier reflection of my life as a clothing-obsessed pseudo-librarian — I worked at a bookstore — who earned a living basically just to dress up and hang out. Posey’s character lives in a dingy loft in Chinatown that mainly houses her wardrobe and record collection. It’s a flexible space that she transforms for each party. When I was 24, I moved to New York with just my books and clothes and lived in a series of odd spaces around Chinatown. I was always out — and absolutely thrilled to be here. I’m still a fashion-forward librarian now, at Parsons, and I make flexible furniture designed for better social interactions. I spend less time at parties and more time imagining them.Jeffrey Wright in the 1996 film “Basquiat.”© Miramax/PhotofestMinjae Kim, 34, artist and designer: “Basquiat” (1996)Moved to New York in 2015I was in high school in Korea when I first saw the artist Julian Schnabel’s “Basquiat,” a movie about navigating the New York art scene that feels more and more authentic to me as time goes by. I was struck by Basquiat’s East Village apartment, covered wall to wall with his own work, and by the loft apartment of the fictional artist Albert Milo (played by Gary Oldman), where art handlers carried around paintings big enough to be theater backdrops. I was captivated by the romance of living among one’s own work, in a space oriented around the creation of art. The film was inevitably a reference for me when I moved from Seoul to Spanish Harlem and even again last year, when I moved to Bed-Stuy, into my first apartment by myself.An apartment set for “Friends” (1994-2004).©NBC/PhotofestEny Lee Parker, 34, furniture designer: “Friends” (1994-2004)Moved to New York in 2018I grew up in Brazil and, like many middle-school-aged millennials around the world, I religiously watched “Friends” to learn English. The décor of the apartments — the purple walls in Monica’s apartment, the La-Z-Boy chairs in Joey and Chandler’s — didn’t exactly provoke design envy. But I loved how the spaces were a safe, warm environment for these six friends to be themselves. I moved to Williamsburg after grad school, and funnily enough, it was much like “Friends.” Me, my then-husband, my best friend and her then-boyfriend shared a unicorn of an apartment: a rent-controlled three-bedroom, three-bathroom with a private rooftop. We hung out, ate our meals together and threw a few parties. I still love the idea of having friends over, ordering Chinese food and sitting around the coffee table while we eat from takeout containers. More

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    The Chaos and Clarity of the Replacements’ ‘Tim’

    Listening to a remaster of the band’s 1985 album with fresh ears.Deborah FeingoldDear listeners,I have adored “Tim,” the 1985 album by the Minnesota rockers the Replacements, for decades — nearly every growl, guitar lick and snare hit have been imprinted upon my memory since I discovered it as a teenager — and yet I just learned some of its lyrics last week.That was what happened when I first heard a wildly illuminating new mix of the album being released today under the name “Tim: The Let It Bleed Edition.” If you already know “Tim” as well as I did, this mix is a revelation: Phantom riffs emerge from the ether, once-muted drums sound stadium-sized, Paul Westerberg’s singing is often (if not always) understandable. It’s a fascinating opportunity to hear the importance of mixing and to compare different production styles.And if you’ve never heard “Tim” before? I’m almost jealous, because now you get to bypass all the baggage and what-if’s and experience one of the greatest American rock records of the 1980s on its own terms.When we fall in love with an album, we often become affectionate toward — maybe even defensive of — its imperfections. But “Tim” is a special case: The original album sounded thin, compressed and distant, as though the band were playing on the other end of a kid’s string-and-tin-can telephone. It was hardly the best way to present these songs. Produced by Tommy Erdelyi, a founding member and later studio wizard of the Ramones, “Tim” didn’t pack the sonic punch of the Replacements’ previous album, the cheekily titled 1984 masterpiece “Let It Be,” though Westerberg’s songwriting had grown stronger.Formed in Minneapolis in 1979, the Replacements combined the anarchic fury of punk and hard rock with the sorts of timeless pop melodies written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney — or by the unsung musical hero to whom they’d later dedicate one of their best songs, Alex Chilton of Big Star. By 1985, the Replacements were critical darlings with a cult following and three increasingly ambitious albums under their belt, but mainstream success still eluded them. There was a feeling that “Tim,” their major-label debut for Seymour Stein’s Sire Records, might change that.It didn’t. The Replacements had a perpetual self-destructive streak that was equal parts frustrating and endearing, and they found the promotional process too corny to take seriously. The album’s title, for one thing, is a head-scratcher.* The music video for the “Tim” single “Bastards of Young” was just a long, slow zoom shot of a speaker. Their notorious “Saturday Night Live” performance in early 1986 got them banned from the show.“Tim” was hardly the commercial breakthrough that the label had hoped for — it peaked at No. 183 on the Billboard album chart. The lead guitarist Bob Stinson already had one foot out of the band during the recording sessions, and it would be his last Replacements album. The LP has served as an enduring snapshot of the original lineup’s final days, and over time it has found its own intergenerational legion of devotees.Now, 38 years after its initial release, the record has gotten the warm, muscular mix it always deserved at the hands of Erdelyi’s frequent collaborator Ed Stasium, a veteran producer and engineer. If the original mix of “Tim” sounded like eavesdropping on the band performing on the other side of a wall, Stasium’s new mix makes it feel like you’re in the middle of the room, dodging Westerberg’s spittle and catching whiffs of the Replacements’ ever-present aura of cigarettes and booze.If you couldn’t already tell, I’m quite excited about this new mix. With this playlist, I’ve cobbled together a kind of alternate version of “Tim” that leans heavily on the Stasium mix but also includes a couple of bonus tracks, demos and a few instances where I think the original Erdelyi mix works best.I’d encourage you to listen to Stasium’s version of “Tim” in its entirety; even if I don’t agree with every single choice he made, the overall spirit of the project makes me grateful that it now exists.But if you want to dig a little deeper into the album’s lore, or just learn a bit about production choices and mixing, turn your dial to the left and crank up this playlist.Listen along on Spotify while you read.1. “Hold My Life (Ed Stasium Mix)”Here is the ultimate Westerbergian mantra of arrested development: “Hold my life until I’m ready to use it.” (It was also my unofficial theme song during a monthslong stretch of post-collegiate unemployment.) Since this is a song about indecision and stasis, Westerberg’s delivery is appropriately mumbled, but Stasium’s new mix makes the guitars ring out loud and clear. (Listen on YouTube)2. “I’ll Buy (Ed Stasium Mix)”The original mix of “Tim” leaned heavily on reverb, and this new version of the rockabilly show tune “I’ll Buy” shows what a disservice that did to Chris Mars’s sharp, energetic drumming. The percussion really pops here, as does Westerberg’s enunciation: I truly did not realize he was saying “it’s fine, fine, fine, fine, fine” in the first part of the chorus, despite having heard this song approximately one million times. (Listen on YouTube)3. “Kiss Me on the Bus (2023 Remaster of the Original Mix)”Possibly a contrarian opinion, but I like the compressed, faraway sound of the original best. That gauzy remove makes the song feel that much more like a romantic reverie. (Listen on YouTube)4. “Dose of Thunder (Ed Stasium Mix)”Bob Stinson was growing estranged from the band by the time “Tim” was recorded, and he plays on just five of the album’s 11 tracks. His presence on this version of the hard-hitting, storm-chasing “Dose of Thunder” finally looms as large as it should have all along. Plus, who knew that Westerberg was making a “Wizard of Oz” reference on the bridge? Not I. (Listen on YouTube)5. “Waitress in the Sky (Alternate Version)”The album’s catchiest, most tongue-in-cheek tune — an affectionately irreverent ode to Westerberg’s flight attendant sister — is a bit of a lark, so I like this alternate version, first heard on the 2008 expanded edition of “Tim,” because it doesn’t take itself seriously. That Westerberg flubs one of the lyrics is totally in line with the song’s spirit. (Listen on YouTube)6. “Swingin Party (Ed Stasium Mix)”On the new mix, the atmosphere of this introspective, mid-tempo number — covered many years later by the alt-pop star Lorde — provides plenty of space for Westerberg’s aching vocal and some floating guitar flourishes not heard on the original. (Listen on YouTube)7. “Bastards of Young (2023 Remaster of the Original Mix)”Stasium’s mix makes this anthem of young-adult disillusionment sound like the huge hit it always deserved to be. But I believe “Bastards of Young” to already be a perfect, A+, 10-out-of-10 rock ’n’ roll song, with no possible room for improvement, even when it sounds like it’s coming out of the blown-out speaker from the audaciously low-concept music video. (Listen on YouTube)8. “Lay It Down Clown (Ed Stasium Mix)”As with “Dose of Thunder,” some of the most revelatory moments of Stasium’s work come on the album’s heaviest songs. “Lay It Down Clown” has never sounded so wonderfully shambolic. (Listen on YouTube)9. “Left of the Dial (Alternate Version)”Shortly before the proper “Tim” sessions began, the band got a chance to work through new material and record some demos produced by its hero, Alex Chilton. None of the Chilton sessions made the final album, but this expanded edition premieres some of those recordings. I like the loose, unpolished sound he captured on this early cut of the band’s classic ode to the indie underground. (Listen on YouTube)10. “Little Mascara (Ed Stasium Mix)”Stasium really punches up Bob Stinson’s presence on this song, a Westerbergian character study of marital dissatisfaction that draws equally from Tennessee Williams and the Who. (Listen on YouTube)11. “Here Comes a Regular (2023 Remaster of the Original Mix)”The gut-wrenching closing track on “Tim” marks a crucial step in the band’s inevitable shift from playing party songs to playing my-drinking-is-taking-a-toll songs. Again, there’s something about the hazy glow of the original that works, as if it’s taking place in those haunting moments just before sunrise. (Listen on YouTube)12. “Nowhere Is My Home (Alternate Version)”This recording of the fan-favorite rarity provides a clear example of how the raw, atmospheric sound Chilton captured in his sessions differed from the tinnier and echoing feel of the finished album. (Listen on YouTube)13. “Can’t Hardly Wait (Electric Demo)”Destined to become one of the band’s best-known songs when a more polished arrangement with string and horn parts appeared on the 1987 album “Pleased to Meet Me,” Westerberg was actually tweaking “Can’t Hardly Wait” during the “Tim” era. I prefer these early versions to the finished track, which allow us to imagine what would have happened if yet another one of the Replacements’ greatest songs had appeared on “Tim.” (Listen on YouTube)Take it it’s yours take it it’s yours take it it’s yours,Lindsay* Who is the mysterious Tim? Just a name embroidered on a thrift-store jacket that Bob liked to wear. As his brother and the band’s bassist, Tommy, put it in the new edition’s liner notes, with classic Replacements logic, “Like most of the titles of the records, it started off as an inside joke. Calling a record ‘Tim’ — after a bunch of drinks it was funny. The next day it wasn’t so funny. But if you had more drinks, it became funny again.”The Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Chaos and Clarity of the Replacements’ ‘Tim’” track listTrack 1: “Hold My Life (Ed Stasium Mix)”Track 2: “I’ll Buy (Ed Stasium Mix)”Track 3: “Kiss Me on the Bus (2023 Remaster)”Track 4: “Dose of Thunder (Ed Stasium Mix)”Track 5: “Waitress in the Sky (Alternate Version)”Track 6: “Swingin Party (Ed Stasium Mix)”Track 7: “Bastards of Young (2023 Remaster)”Track 8: “Lay It Down Clown (Ed Stasium Mix)”Track 9: “Left of the Dial (Alternate Version)”Track 10: “Little Mascara (Ed Stasium Mix)”Track 11: “Here Comes a Regular (2023 Remaster)”Track 12: “Nowhere Is My Home (Alternate Version)”Track 13: “Can’t Hardly Wait (Electric Demo)”Bonus TracksI highly recommend seeking out that fabled “Saturday Night Live” performance of “Bastards of Young.” Lorne Michaels was irked that Westerberg muttered a barely audible f-bomb, sure, but the performance is infinitely cooler and livelier than most of the overly rehearsed fare that gets played on that stage.Also, from a 1986 live concert featured on the new edition of “Tim”: A delightfully chaotic cover of the Beatles’ “Nowhere Man.”And, finally, if you’re looking for some music released more recently than the mid-1980s, might I recommend our weekly Playlist? This week, we’ve got fresh tracks from Zach Bryan and Bon Iver, Laurel Halo and Shakira. More

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    Zach Bryan’s Melancholy Bon Iver Duet, and 9 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Holly Humberstone, Byron Messia, Laurel Halo and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at [email protected] and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Zach Bryan featuring Bon Iver, ‘Boys of Faith’The memorably wistful title track from the new Zach Bryan EP — which arrives just a few weeks after his most recent album — is a collaboration with Bon Iver, which means a couple of very pointed things. First, Bryan is making kin with fellow roots-adjacent cult heroes. Though he has become wildly successful improbably quickly, Bryan still fancies himself outside of the mainstream, stubbornly stomping to his own drum. That parallels the story of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who likely could fill arenas if he was interested. Both singers are vividly emotional, too, building whole houses upon sadness. Where the two acts diverge is in tone — Bryan sings with raspy jabs, and Vernon buries himself behind echo and fog. Bryan is such a force, though, that he pulls Vernon in his direction on this song; when the two sing in harmony, Vernon sounds as if he’s chasing after Bryan ever so slightly, following his bark with moon-aimed howls. A lament followed by a hug. JON CARAMANICAHolly Humberstone, ‘Into Your Room’On her latest single, the warm, synth-pop tune “Into Your Room,” the English singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone oscillates between sincere yearning and wry, self-deprecating humor: “You’re the center of this universe, my sorry ass revolves around you,” she sings, begging forgiveness from someone she’s mistreated. There’s a casually tossed-off, conversational appeal to her lyrics and delivery, but when the chorus surges, she’s suddenly leading with her heart. LINDSAY ZOLADZTroye Sivan, ‘Get Me Started’Following the lusty thrill of his summertime single “Rush,” Troye Sivan starts catching feelings on “Get Me Started,” the second song released from his forthcoming album “Something to Give Each Other.” “He’s got the personality, not even gravity could ever hold him down,” Sivan sings atop an insistent, club-ready beat, aglow with the agony and ecstasy of a new crush. ZOLADZLandon Barker, ‘Friends With Your Ex’A disarmingly refined pop-punk debut single from Landon Barker — the son of Travis Barker, who plays drums here, and whose label is putting out the song. That teen-angst pop-punk became the de facto sonic landing place for the first wave of TikTok superstar pretty boys was about finding the safest available package of rebellion (and one that largely skirted issues of race). Barker is perhaps that movement’s third wave, following early adopters like Jaden Hossler and Chase Hudson, and then the mainstream carpetbagging of Machine Gun Kelly. Which is to say there is a lot to emulate — the blueprint is loud and easy to follow. It hardly almost matters who’s coloring in between the lines. CARAMANICAShakira and Fuerza Regida, ‘El Jefe’“Stick it to the man,” Shakira advises, in English, at the beginning of “El Jefe” (“The Man” or “The Boss”), a brisk polka-ska hybrid that teams Shakira — the paragon of Pan-American crossover — with Fuerza Regida, a regional Mexican band from California. Backed by crisply syncopated guitars and horns, the song is a worker’s gripe, in Spanish, about a grueling, underpaid, dead-end job with a lousy boss; “I arrive on foot, him in a Mercedes,” growls Fuerza Regida’s lead singer, Jesús Ortiz Paz. It’s peppy class warfare. JON PARELESByron Messia, ‘Mad Dawgs’Byron Messia’s breakout single, “Talibans,” is one of the year’s defining reggae songs, so saccharine you might miss its tough talk. Messia has a sweet voice that gets feistier the more clipped his singing becomes, and on his boastful new single “Mad Dawgs,” he comes almost all the way around to blustery, trading in much of his considered honeyed singing for a choppier rhythm more in key with the chest-puffing lyrics. CARAMANICAChelsea Wolfe, ‘Dusk’The goth crooner Chelsea Wolfe conjures a thick atmosphere on “Dusk,” her first new solo track since composing the score for Ti West’s 2022 slasher flick “X.” Produced by David Andrew Sitek of TV on the Radio, “Dusk” is centered around a slow, methodical beat, murky guitar chords and Wolfe’s breathy, eerie voice. “I will go through fire to get to you,” she sings with a haunting determination. ZOLADZLaurel Halo, ‘Sick Eros’Laurel Halo has a gift for the hallucinatory. “Atlas,” her first new album in five years, is a submersion into abstract imagination, resembling a head-spinning dream that shifts between epochs, story lines and locations. The Los Angeles-based conceptualist has explored Detroit techno, musique concrète and even left-field pop in the past, and was recently appointed to the faculty of Composition and Experimental Sound Practices at CalArts. But “Atlas” traces a new path, slithering between the textures of jazz, ambient and classical. On the highlight “Sick Eros,” a bass trembles and creaks, beats shiver and gurgle, synths groan and swell. There’s a Hitchcockian foreboding — a sense that someone is about to open a shadowy door and never return, or trip over an edge that will lead to oblivion. Discordant strings ache and decay, stretching over waves of vibration. By the song’s end, you can almost picture yourself at the Dead Marshes in the “Lord of the Rings,” gazing upon the corpses floating in the swamp, their spirits emerging from the water with a ghoulish menace. ISABELIA HERRERAColleen, ‘Be Without Being Seen — Movement I’A sense of peace is immanent to the music of Colleen, but especially the work she’s been making since putting aside her viola da gamba in 2017 and adopting an all-electronics approach, centered on modular synthesizers. Her new double LP, “Le Jour et la Nuit du Réel,” is a time-flattening work of minimalism, created with just a monophonic synth (that is, playing one note at a time) and two delay units. Toward the center of the album, the first of three short movements in “Be Without Being Seen” introduces a quizzical pattern of arpeggiated chords, and simply lets it hang in the air. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMicah Thomas, ‘Eros’Listeners to Immanuel Wilkins will recognize Micah Thomas’s piano playing almost immediately: the elastic-band rhythmic tension and snap, the gloriously spilled-out harmonic delivery, his imaginatively redistributed roles for the left and right hands. Thomas is both the binding agent and the stirrer of chaos in Wilkins’s quartet, which for the past few years has been the most praised young band in jazz. On “Eros,” from Thomas’s new trio album, “Reveal,” the bassist Dean Torrey and the drummer Kayvon Gordon cooperate at cross-purposes, a six-beat flow emerging beneath a web of syncopation. Let the drums guide the rhythm of your body; then see how it changes when you let the bass. Then find Thomas within that combination, absorbing it all. RUSSONELLO More

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    ‘Dead Man Walking’ Makes Its Way to the Met Opera

    When the composer Jake Heggie wrote his first opera, “Dead Man Walking,” in the late 1990s, he never thought it would appear onstage at the Metropolitan Opera.“The Met was not doing new opera, particularly; it was not featuring or focusing them,” he said. “It just seemed a distant dream.”But next week, 23 years after its premiere at San Francisco Opera, “Dead Man Walking,” with a score by Heggie and a libretto by Terrence McNally, will finally come to the Met — opening a season in which contemporary works are front and center as the company tries to attract new audiences.Ryan McKinny, center, as Joseph De Rocher.Lila Barth for The New York TimesThe Met, which is grappling with weak ticket revenues and other financial problems, is placing a big bet on modern opera: Works by living composers, which recently have outsold the classics, make up about a third of the coming season. And although it’s still early, ticket sales for the first three weeks of the season are so far about 12 percent higher compared with the same period last year, the company said.DiDonato, center, will be singing the role of Sister Helen Prejean for the fourth time.Lila Barth for The New York TimesPeter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said he was drawn to “Dead Man Walking,” one of the few contemporary operas to have found a place in the repertory worldwide, in part because of its record of success.“Bringing it to the Met was overdue,” Gelb said. “It symbolizes the efforts that we’re making to really transform the art form and to appeal to a much broader audience base that we have to appeal to for opera to succeed and ultimately survive.”The opera — based on the 1993 memoir by Sister Helen Prejean, which was also adapted into the 1995 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn — portrays Sister Helen’s struggle to save the soul of a convicted murderer.Van Hove, second from right, rehearsing his production, which features a spare set by Jan Versweyveld.Lila Barth for The New York TimesIvo van Hove’s austere staging for the Met opens with a short film depicting the attack by Joseph De Rocher and his brother on a teenage boy and girl in Louisiana. The focus shifts to Sister Helen, who has been corresponding with De Rocher, now a death-row inmate, and sets out to meet him at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.The Met has assembled a starry cast, including the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who is singing the role of Sister Helen for the fourth time, and the bass-baritone Ryan McKinny, who performed the role of De Rocher at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2019. The mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who originated the role of Sister Helen in the premiere, makes a cameo as De Rocher’s mother, and the soprano Latonia Moore plays Sister Rose, while the Met’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conducts.Van Hove’s production includes live video projected on a large screen above the stage.Lila Barth for The New York TimesDiDonato said that the opera resonated not because of its discussion of the death penalty but because it was a “love story.”“It’s an opera about looking at the dark side of who we are, or who others are, and asking, ‘And now how do we relate?’” she said. “Now how do we connect with each other? Do I dismiss you outright because of who you are or what you did or what you stand for? Or is there a way I can still open my heart and connect to you?”“It becomes,” she added, “a question of ultimately who is worthy of love and redemption.”McKinny, right, described the production as “a more emotional and psychological space” than previous ones he has performed in.Lila Barth for The New York TimesVan Hove, who made his Met debut last season with Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” said he was drawn to direct “Dead Man Walking” because it was a “very American story,” combining individual struggles with broader societal questions. In preparation for the opera, which was originally scheduled for the 2020-21 season but was delayed by the pandemic, he said he had read Sister Helen’s book but did not watch the movie.He stripped “Dead Man Walking” of many of its traditional elements, including partitions, steel bars and shackles. In his production, Sister Helen and De Rocher sometimes roam freely around the set, designed by Jan Versweyveld, with no barriers between them. Live video, a van Hove hallmark, is widely used, with onstage cameramen following around singers, whose faces are projected onto a large screen.That approach, van Hove said, is meant to highlight the story’s emotion. “A lot of the opera is situated in the minds of the people,” he added. “This mental space became, for us, like a prison.”Some of the singers initially struggled with the minimalist style, including McKinny, who had been accustomed to wearing shackles throughout the opera.“In the beginning it was like, wow, it’s hard for me to understand the isolation of death row if we don’t have death-row elements,” he said. “But actually, this stage is so open and so nothing, that it feels isolating on its own, in a more emotional and psychological space.”DiDonato said that this opera is “about looking at the dark side of who we are, or who others are, and asking, ‘And now how do we relate?’”Lila Barth for The New York TimesVan Hove has reworked other elements of the opera, including a scene in which fighting erupts as Sister Helen enters the prison. That moment is typically portrayed as a scuffle, but in this production, it unfolds as part of a basketball game, with cameramen moving among the inmates.On a recent morning, male members of the Met chorus took their places onstage and prepared to rehearse at half-speed — stretching, doing squats and jumping up and down. In performance, the scene lasts only 50 seconds but is pivotal, van Hove said.“For Helen, when she enters that prison, she enters hell,” he said. “We feel in the audience the visceral aggressiveness and the visceral violence that is in the prison there all the time.”Graham, who plays De Rocher’s mother, singing an emotional plea before the pardon board, said that the opera “really got into my DNA” after she sang the role of Sister Helen in 2000. She avoided the work in the years that followed because she found it too painful; her father died during the original run. But more recently, she has taken up the role of the mother, seeing it is a way for her to reconnect with the piece.“Dead Man Walking” is among the contemporary works that make up about a third of the Met’s season.Lila Barth for The New York Times“Getting into it from this role is almost like the other side of the coin,” she said. “Sister Helen has to keep it together and be strong for everybody. But Mama gets to wail and cry and holler. She gets to let it all hang out. In that way, it’s very cathartic.”Even though the opera, with more than 75 productions, has been performed in many of the world’s leading opera houses, Heggie said he still got emotional going to the Met for rehearsals.“I couldn’t have imagined when we wrote the piece that it would have this kind of life or power,” he said. “And so to be in the room with these literally genius creators was a real jolt. I just felt electricity in the room. I felt nervousness. I felt great power and I felt a lot of ideas vibrating.” More

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    ‘The Origin of Evil’ Review: Daddy Issues

    “Succession” meets Brian De Palma in this delicious family-fortune thriller from France, directed by Sébastien Marnier.Think “Clue” by the French seaside, add a splash of sleaze, crank up the queerness, and you get “The Origin of Evil,” a catty family-fortune thriller by the writer and director Sébastien Marnier.When her landlady gives her the boot, Stéphane (Laure Calamy), a worker at a sardine-tinning factory, contacts her estranged father, Serge (Jacques Weber), an extravagantly wealthy restaurateur in the vein of Logan Roy from “Succession.” Like Logan, Serge is fed up with his parasitic kin, and behind his ailing, burly grandpa look, there’s old-fashioned alpha-dog savagery.Serge’s relatives, however, are nothing like the inept Roy offspring: There’s his ice-queen daughter George (Doria Tillier), who manages his businesses; his wife, Louise (Dominique Blanc), an impeccably coiffured, Gloria Swanson-type; and the stony maid, Agnès (Véronique Ruggia Saura).These ladies aren’t fooled when mousy Stéphane arrives at the family’s island mansion claiming to want nothing but bonding time with dad. Stéphane may be angling for a cut of Serge’s fortune, but so is everyone else. Marnier captures these power plays by framing the characters in playful split-screens à la Brian De Palma.On the mainland, Stéphane pays routine visits to her incarcerated girlfriend, whom she keeps spellbound with sexual favors. Her loyalty, touching at first, grows increasingly questionable.Marnier shakes up the balance of sympathy as Serge’s misogynistic mean streak becomes apparent. Foul as they are, Stéphane’s evil stepmother and sister may be worth rooting for. A tremendous Calamy (of “Full Time” and the TV series “Call My Agent!”) is central to the film’s gripping uncertainty.Abounding with nasty women, “The Origin of Evil” could have easily been flattened by the weight of a feminist objective. Untethered from such neat messaging, this decadent murder-movie takes the online credo, “be gay, do crimes,” and runs with it — to delicious results.The Origin of EvilNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Expend4bles’ Review: Band of Meatheads

    Sylvester Stallone leads an all-star mercenary squadron composed of ’80s-to-aughts brutes in the fourth installment of this franchise.The tone of “Expend4bles” can be summarized in a single close-up: a corpse’s severed hand flipping the bird. To its director, Scott Waugh, and all those responsible for resurrecting this dormant action franchise, the middle finger gestures toward this fourth installment’s intended style: macho, smirky and defiant. At its best, the film is all three. This all-star mercenary squadron composed of ’80s-to-aughts brutes is the cinematic equivalent to Slash’s Snakepit, a supergroup throwback to an era when men were meatheads and we in the audience merrily cheered them on.I’ll admit I still did, at least for some of this swaggering inanity. Why resist the impossible physics of Curtis Jackson (better known as 50 Cent) body-slamming a baddie back and forth like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum with his dolly? Or Dolph Lundgren lampooning his aging vision by screwing a prescription lens onto his sniper rifle? Or Sylvester Stallone grumbling about a thumb-wrestling injury that he’s chosen to nurse with a tiny custom leather sling? Or Jason Statham, the comically gifted bruiser now promoted to the series’ lead, doing, well, pretty much anything?In an even earlier era, Statham’s nimble skills would have awarded him a career like Jimmy Cagney’s. But he’s stuck working in ours, with a script that offers a few enjoyable quips — he calls an enemy “a sneaky little sausage” — but mostly lets him down. The screenwriters Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams seem to share a mutual disinterest in the plot, intoning the words “detonator” and “World War 3” until the threats become background static.These high jinks would be more fun if the actors didn’t look so unflappable. Nothing breaks their composure. Not explosions or blood spatters, not beheadings or nuclear bombs, not even the sight of a warship careening in the Sea of Japan. (Perhaps because all of the above have been cheaply rendered in post.) Even a back-flipping, insult-slinging seduction scene between Statham and a new teammate, played by Megan Fox, climaxes without a lip-gloss smudge. It’s just one more artificial palpitation.The energy sputters along on throwaway gags, like when Jacob Scipio, as a motor-mouthed young Expendable, sips a cocktail with a pink umbrella at a wake. There’s an absurdly enjoyable detour with a lecherous internet influencer (Samuel Black) and a shootout interrupted by a stereo blasting 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.,” which is just plain absurd. Is Jackson the rapper in the same universe as Jackson the assassin? Does he moonlight in carnage?Andy Garcia, Randy Couture, Levy Tran and the great martial artist Tony Jaa round out our cast of protagonists while Iko Uwais heads up a generic goon squad, giving all the intensity he can to a villain written with no identifiable traits other than a scar. When things get dull, there’s always Lundgren in the background, playing up his character’s nearsightedness with the daffy charm of Marilyn Monroe. But the film’s last reel is so awful — so sneeringly contemptuous of our good-faith efforts to play along with these shenanigans — that we leave the theater still thinking of that middle finger. It sure seemed pointed at us.Expend4blesRated R for curses and extravagantly digitalized carnage. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Designer Files New Lawsuit Against Lizzo and Her Wardrobe Manager

    The singer, who already faces one lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.A former wardrobe designer who worked briefly on Lizzo’s 2023 tour before being dismissed filed a lawsuit on Thursday alleging that the tour’s wardrobe manager had created a hostile work environment that tour management and Lizzo failed to address.In the complaint the plaintiff, Asha Daniels, who worked on the tour for less than a month, names Lizzo as a defendant, but does not accuse her directly of harassing behavior. In a news release accompanying the lawsuit, Ron Zambrano, her lawyer, said, “Lizzo is the boss so the buck stops with her.”The filing comes more than a month after three of Lizzo’s former dancers, who are also represented by Zambrano, sued the singer and her production company, accusing them of creating a hostile work environment. Lizzo has denied the allegations, and her lawyer has said she plans to countersue. On Thursday, a spokesman for Lizzo called the latest suit an “absurd publicity stunt” and noted that the singer had never met the plaintiff.In the court papers submitted on Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Daniels said she was asked to join the tour in early 2023 by the wardrobe manager, Amanda Nomura. The lawsuit alleges that throughout Daniels’s employment, Nomura had made “racist and fatphobic” comments and mocked both Lizzo and Lizzo’s background dancers “by doing an offensive stereotypical impression of a Black woman.”The lawsuit also alleged that a backstage manager on the tour sent a photo “graphically depicting male genitalia” to a group text message that included the plaintiff, tour management and other crew members; the lawsuit said the singer’s management failed to properly address the message, responding to it with humor in a way that encouraged an “unsafe, sexually charged workplace culture.”The plaintiff also said she was subjected to long hours and frequently denied breaks, alleging that Nomura required her to be on her feet all day despite an ankle injury.Attempts to reach Nomura on Thursday were not immediately successful.In response to the lawsuit, a spokesman for Lizzo, Stefan Friedman, said that Daniels never had any contact with the pop star during her time with the tour.“As Lizzo receives a humanitarian award tonight from the Black Music Action Coalition for the incredible charitable work she has done to lift up all people, an ambulance-chasing lawyer tries to sully this honor by recruiting someone to file a bogus, absurd publicity-stunt lawsuit,” Friedman said.He went on, “We will pay this as much attention as it deserves. None.” More

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    Remembering Jimmy Buffett, Beach Bum Bard

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicJimmy Buffett, who died this month at 76, was best known for one thing: making an island-friendly country-rock concoction that millions of listeners found to be a balm. He turned that balm into big business — “Margaritaville,” the song, was his lone Top 10 hit, and Margaritaville, the business he built atop it, became a licensing juggernaut and netted countless millions in revenue.But Buffett was other things as well — a clever, cheeky songwriter; a musician who fused styles from various regions; someone who held firm to his political values even if he only sometimes infused his songs with them.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Buffett’s unlikely rise to niche stardom; how he turned a way of life into a song, and that song back into a very profitable way of life; and the way in which his music sometimes extends beyond lifestyle soundtrack and into knottier emotional (and sometimes) political territory.Guest:Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More