Sinking Suns celebrate a new album, “Yojimbo” screens at UW Cinematheque, They Are Gutting A Body Of Water plays the Terrace, and more.
We’re partnering with the wonderful independent email newsletter Madison Minutes to bring you event recommendations every week. As of this June, we’re dipping our toe back in with a few actual write-ups, some of which will appear in Madison Minutes‘ weekly event email, and all of which will appear here.
A few notes: This events roundup is, as before, selective and not comprehensive. Each week, we’ll focus on a handful of things our editors and writers find compelling, and that’s it.. We’ll write up a few of them, and just list a few more. It’ll take us a while to get back to full strength with this part of our coverage, because we’ve had so many other exciting, demanding things to work on lately. Please reach out to us with suggestions—and info about your event, as long as you’re able to get it to us a few weeks in advance—at [email protected].
JULY 18
Point Break at Memorial Union Terrace. Screening after dusk at 9 p.m. Free.
An excerpt from Ian Adcock’s review: “Kinetic and visceral, Bigelow’s films immerse the viewer in the tense on-screen action using inventive camera methods. While most directors would have shot Point Break‘s iconic skydiving scene with greenscreens and wide shots of stunt doubles, Bigelow developed a special camera rig to allow the camera crew to jump alongside the actors. Filming Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze actually falling through the air gives the scene a palpable weight, as Johnny and Bodhi respectively take a break from being adversaries to enjoy the sublime thrill of freefall. Similarly, Bigelow modified a lightweight Steadicam for a sequence where Johnny chases Bodhi through narrow back alleys, yards, and houses, giving the viewer a riveting, maze-like viewpoint. The night surfing scenes are shot close up and slowed down to emphasize Johnny becoming admitted into the surfers’ world, while the robbery and chase scenes use fast-cut editing and constantly moving camerawork to disorient and build tension.”
JULY 19
DakhaBrakha at Garver Feed Mill. 7:30 p.m. Sold out.
JULY 21
Yojimbo at UW Cinematheque. Doors at 6:30 p.m., Screening at 7 p.m. Free.
Most know Akira Kurosawa as a master director of the jidaigeki, or Japanese period drama during the Edo period, but few of them in the canon are as purely entertaining as his Feudal fable, Yojimbo, from 1961. The improbably charismatic (and Kurosawa regular) Toshiro Mifune portrays Sanjuro, a wandering ronin who stumbles upon a village feuding over resources. As he takes up residence there, Sanjuro devises several schemes to pit gangs against each other. The villagers view these schemes as attempts to root out the town’s corruption, but in truth, Sanjuro is doing little more than feeding his own ego. If this all sounds a bit familiar, Sergio Leone essentially recreated the film in his Spaghetti Western A Fistful Of Dollars (1964), replacing Mifune with Clint Eastwood. —Grant Phipps
They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Marmalade, Prize Horse at Memorial Union Terrace. 7 p.m. Free.
Philadelphia band They Are Gutting A Body Of Water is among a new wave of shoegaze-inspired bands, but also pulls in slowcore tendencies and a dash of fever-dream glitch-pop. The band’s 2019 album, Destiny XL, is full of chugging guitars, fragmented notes that blip in and out of focus on songs like “Eightball,” while diving deep into electronic inspired soundscapes on “I Would Love You.” Minneapolis bands Prize Horse and Marmalade will open this Terrace show. Prize Horse is a new creation from the ashes of former shoegaze outfit Greynier. Its pummeling, moody EP Welder, released earlier this year, plays like a lovechild of early Hum and Slint, and is produced by Gleemer frontman Corey Coffman. Marmalade leans into more indie-pop, but still creates fuzzy choruses with blistering vocals and melodic blips shining through. —John McCracken
Mills Folly Microcinema: Project Projection (local work) at Arts + Literature Laboratory. 8 p.m. Free.
The experimental Mills Folly Microcinema series’ highlights locally made films in its Project Projection screenings, and the first of the year is thematically shaping up to be one about the study of human movement and dance choreography, with at least four shorts focused on the subject. The 70- to 75-minute program ranges from stop-motion animation (see: Paulina Eguino’s Happy Birthday) to the experimental (see: Elyza Therese Parker’s Selfie), and a pair conceived as part of Arts + Literature Laboratory’s Found Footage And Collage Cinema class this past spring. Full disclosure: one of those is my own, a work-in-progress titled A Floral Fire. The other is Meggen Heuss’ Surfacing: A Hedged Ephemera. —Grant Phipps
JULY 22
Poltergeist at UW Cinematheque. Doors at 6:30 p.m., screening at 7 p.m. Free.
JULY 23
Sinking Suns, Boybrain, Space Tugboat, Roboman at Mickey’s Tavern. 10 p.m. Free.
Madison trio Sinking Suns has spent the last 15 years or so crafting a burly, dread-swamped take on noise-rock. The elements are sparse but effective: the relentlessly driving bass and guttural howl of Dennis Ponozzo, the trebly slash of Scott Udee’s guitar, the grim swing of Gabe Johnson’s drums. The band plays here to celebrate the release of its third full-length album, Dark Days. Opening track “Cobwebs” begins with an almost uncharacteristically grand outburst of rumbling toms and ringing guitars, as if the band is limbering up before launching back into its baleful but determined trudge. Dark Days is up to the standard of Sinking Suns’ previous releases, and if anything cranks up the band’s embrace of creature-feature atmosphere, especially on “The Artificial Sun” and “Triangles.” —Scott Gordon
