Hackney Diamonds (out 2day) !!!

I'm listening to Hackney Diamonds 'til morning and I think it's really great! Listening before to the 2 singles- to Angry to the point of overexposure, then liked the Lady Gaga/Stevie Wonder song. Sweet Sounds of Heaven. 

Ok, ten new songs were waiting. Special brut prosecco/spumante opened (Aragosta), and here we go (again-st;)

Who would ever believe The Stones would pull this out in 2023 ???

Now there's guest spots from old friends like Paul McCartney (Bite My Head off, on bass, for the 1st time on Stones record!) and Elton John (Live by the Sword and Get Close, Elton on piano). 

Whole Wide World is more a new wave-punk song, the most pop-ish here.

Driving Me Too Hard, another power riff.

Mess it Ups funky rthythm reminded me of Emotional Rescue and that period songs. 

Some cool country vibes on Dreamy Skies.

And the Keef special, Tell me Straight, another warm truth seeking statement. 

For the grand finale, The Rolling Stone Blues, a Muddy Waters song from 1950 and a worthy coda, true to both artists' legacy and legend.

Charlie Watts is still here, present on drums on Mess it Up and Live by the Sword, both recorded in 2019. Live by the Sword gets also Bill Wyman on bass. 

The rest is done with the Stones old cahoot Darryl Jones on and Steve Jordan on drums. The album is produced by Andrew Watt (ecclectic American producer known as Watt who for me is the guy behind Ozzy' Ordinary Man and Patient no. 9 and Iggy's latest, Every Loser), who contributed on three songs as a composer.

Critics have given Hackney Diamonds positive reviews and several have remarked that it is their strongest album in multiple decades. Long time til 2005 and better and stabler sound and songwriting.

 

The album's name is London slang for the shattered glass left behind after burglars have smashed a window to break in, Hackney being an inner-city area of London associated with a high crime rate.

I totally agree, it's much much better than A Bigger Bang and Bridges to Babylon, i have a softer spot for Voodoo Lounge though. 

"Happy"?, would ask Keef. Yes, sireee ;)

Worth another special bubbly ;) Noroc !!!

Guess I gotta see ya guys again next year!!! Who would've believe it though? 

Saw X (2023)

Tobin Bell is for the 1st time the lead in SAW X, the tenth film of the infamous porn torture gimmick McGyver franchise started in 2004 by Aussies ex-pats James Wan and Leigh Whannell. This is a smart sequel, set after Saw and before some events from that film and before Saw 2, and considered to be the best of all in the series, except the original, cos' yep, that was the 1st.

Bell is John Kramer, better known as Jigsaw. Now in Mexico in the seek for a cure for his brain cancer.

Bell is a great veteran character actor who's career has been turned up to cult status and stardom with the Jigsaw character. He is 81 now, and also a very good balladeer. See here. He looks fragile now and somehow reminds me of Clint Eastwood. He's also the reason I went to see this film, with great precaution, being ready to leave the theater if i get too bored or offended. But the screening was like a heavy metal concert of sorts. Dumb but loud, and sometimes fun. 

A strong asset of this Xth entry is blonde Norwegian actress Synnøve Macody Lund, as Cecilia Pederson, a worthy adversary for John.

 Pulsating score again by Charlie Clouser (ex Nine Inch Nails), the creator of the film signature theme, that brought a lot of thrill and production value to a very B first film. Also Shawnee Smith returns as Amanda, and another surprise cameo which I won't spoil here will turn up on the mid end credits. 

Directed by the editor of the series, Kevin Greutert, who is also the editor here. He directed also Saw VI and Saw 3D in the franchise.

Here's a history of the Saw franchise. 

or video- the films 1 to 9 explained on youtube here.

and the ratings of imdb for each film.

*

Never thought I will see another Saw film in a theater, I guess I saw only the first Saw in the cinema, and then also another title from the franchise, can't remember which one, probably no. 2 or 3, and saw Jigsaw and Spiral (#8 & 9) at home but wasn't impressed. Skipped at least half of the films. Now, as far as I can guess, the Saw franchise and spin-offs are far to be done and will come back with more bloody gimmicks and R rated traps. 

3 out of 5. 6 out of 10. 

Peter Gabriel's i/o cover photo

This is the cover image of the new PETER GABRIEL album "i/o".  Photo by Nadav Kander.

PETER GABRIEL's "i/o" is an album that took more than 20 years to become reality.

The album is out on December, after the last full moon of this year. 

Peter's been releasing a new song every full moon of 2023, a masterstroke of promotion & marketing which was never performed before. As for the cover, it's a work of art and it follows the thematic cover art of PG, one of the best and most consistent artworks of a modern artist who happens to work in the musical field. 

A collection of PG's album covers artworks here.

The Making of "i/o": https://bit.ly/3Mgjo8C or here

Libertate / Freedom (2023)

 cronica in românește aici

And now, in ingles...

Libertate/Freedom -a necessary film

The fifth cinema feature by Tudor Giurgiu (Despre oameni și melci/About people and Snails, Why Me?), has a strong theme that hurt us (and still hurts). The Sibiu events of December 1989 were not told until now on film.

2 million bullets were shot (!!!) , 99 people died and 272 were wounded, 522 persons suspected as terrorists were illegally detained in a swimming pool of the Sibiu Military Unit 01512, last of them freed only on February 1^st 1990. It was complete chaos & hellfire and there were the most casualties in the country, after the ones in Bucharest.

A very tough and a very necessary film. 

In 33 years after the ”Point Zero” there was only one important film about the ”Revolution”, Hîrtia va fi albastră/The paper will be Blue, by Radu Muntean (2006), and in the same year a satirical view of it-A fost sau nu afost/12:08 East of Bucharest, by Corneliu Porumboiu. Together with a documentary (a bit abstract and experimental) Videograme dintr-o revoluție/Videograms of a Revolution, by Andrei Ujică and Harun Farocki in 1992 (you can see it on youtube and it's even more relevant today!). 

A prestigious ensemble cast, a whole generation of actors (I won't name names out of respect for all of them-I counted 27 parts of equal importance) a detailed research that took 4 years and a half (script written by Giurgiu with Cecilia Ștefănescu based on an idea by Nap Toader), set design (Vali Ighiceanu), costumes (Viorica Petrovici-update: Libertate just won the Award for best costumes and sets at the Waterloo Historical Film Festival, bravo!), and high production values, dynamic, violent hand-held photography by Alex Sterian, alert editing (Reka Lemhenyi), a prophetic and ironic title in the same time, not necessarily in the search for a Cathartic Truth, but a naturalist remake with the feeling and shape of a documentary. No one is condemned, there is no personal judgement, just what is puzzling all of us and is found in the films subtext -why did this happen and mostly, can it happen again?

To be seen -definitely in cinemas (October 6^th in theaters across the country).

Alin Ludu Dumbravă -Culturama nr. 3, octombrie 2023