Blood Orange premiere 'You're Not Good Enough' video – watch

June 9, 2014 17:01

The track features on Dev Hynes' 2013 album 'Cupid Deluxe'

Blood Orange have premiered the video for 'You're Not Good Enough', from the 2013 album 'Cupid Deluxe'.

The dance-based video, which you can watch above, was directed by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola. Dev Hynes of Blood Orange recently soundtracked 30 minutes of her new film Palo Alto, starring James Franco and based on a collection of the actor's own short stories. The film features the track 'April's Bathroom Bummer', which you can listen to below.

Speaking about the video for 'You're Not Good Enough', Coppola commented: "I was very excited by the prospect of getting to do a music video for Dev. I'm obviously a huge fan of his, and we've been talking about trying to make a video together for a while now. Dev has great taste. I love discussing what interests us and bringing our ideas together. I've always been fascinated with choreography and live television, both of which felt perfect for 'You're Not Good Enough'."

Meanwhile, Hynes has said that he was a victim of racial profiling at Berlin airport, after he was held up by officers last month. The musician and producer tweeted that officers went through his electronic equipment asking for receipts of items he had purchased some time previously, and that his experience was "nothing new".

"Was just held in Berlin Airport even though I'm a valid EU citizen with a US visa," he wrote. "Everywhere I've ever been I am reminded that there are people out there holding a prejudice because of my skin colour, yes it was racial." He added: "They went through all of my electronics and wouldn't let me go because I didn't have receipts for things I bought a year ago."

Dev Hynes, formerly Lightspeed Champion, released 'Cupid Deluxe', his second album under the name Blood Orange, in November last year. The next single from the album, 'It Is What It Is', will be released on July 7.

Please login to add your comment.

View the original article here

Timely opera about student protest has US premiere (AP)

By MIKE SILVERMAN, For The Associated Press Mike Silverman, For The Associated Press – Thu Nov 17, 1:24 pm ET

NEW YORK – Just two nights after police broke up the Occupy Wall Street encampment in lower Manhattan, a new opera about student protest movements around the world had its U.S. premiere uptown at Lincoln Center.

And as if to underscore the connection, the performance at the Juilliard School on Wednesday drew a small group of demonstrators who stood behind police barricades holding signs and chanting "Off the stage, into the streets!"

The opera is "Kommilitonen!" with music by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies and libretto by David Pountney, who also directed. In a program note, Pountney said they took student activism as their subject because, when they set to work back in 2008, it seemed the phenomenon had vanished.

Well, the world has certainly changed — even since the opera was first performed last March by the Royal Academy of Music in London, which co-commissioned it.

Headlines aside, "Kommilitonen!" is an earnest and engaging creation, an agitprop pageant that proves surprisingly entertaining. Moreover, the Juilliard Opera singers and orchestra, led by conductor Anne Manson, performed it with an enthusiasm and polish that had the 77-year-old composer beaming when he came out for his curtain call.

Pountney has woven together three separate stories, beginning with the White Rose movement, in which a small group of German students risked their lives to distribute propaganda protesting Nazi atrocities. The opera's name comes from a term they used in their final leaflet (shortly before they were captured and guillotined), which roughly translates as "Fellow students!"

The second story tells of James Meredith's crusade to become the first black student to register at the University of Mississippi in 1962 — an individual act of courage that helped galvanize years of civil rights struggle.

The third story, a counterpoint to show the excesses of youthful zeal, is set during China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and depicts the children of a local official who denounce their parents as politically impure.

The narratives unfold in alternating fashion throughout the first act in brief, brisk scenes. The second half begins on a somber, philosophical note with a resulting drop in energy, until the stories merge and the whole ensemble joins in a stirring anthem to end on an optimistic note.

Davies' lifetime of experience writing large-scale compositions shows in his expert use of the orchestra. The rhythmically varied, basically tonal score is filled with snatches of melody that hint at Chinese marches, American spirituals and German lieder — tunes that often melt into one another. In a compelling moment during the interrogation of the Chinese parents, a relentlessly upbeat chorus for the Red Guard plays against a string lament for the hapless victims.

Among the standouts in the young cast, baritone Will Liverman showed terrific presence and a solid voice as James Meredith, the most fully developed character; soprano Deanna Breiwick sang sweetly as Sophie Scholl, leader of the White Rose; and mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta made the plight of the Chinese son painfully sympathetic.

There are two more performances this Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.

View the original article here