Entertainment and Culture 1

(Nonesuch)Imaginative interpretations of Funkadelic and Frank Ocean sit alongside starry collaborations and gorgeous instrumentals on the bassist’s brassy side projectWhile some rock musicians fill the boredom of long tours with nefarious activities, bassist Flea spent Red Hot Chili Peppers’ global jaunt of 2022-24 practising the trumpet, an instrument he first played as a child before funky rock pulled him away. Now, the 63-year-old’s daily routine and open spirit has produced his own deeply meditative and groovy jazz odyssey.Named after a family member, Honora brings together a star-studded cast of peers and LA jazz and experimental luminaries for 10 tracks spanning Flea-penned instrumentals, chanted mantras and imaginative reinterpretations. The bassist doubles as narrator for spirited track A Plea, a yelled call for sanity (“Live for peace! Live for love!”) amid global madness and takes his trumpet to Eddie Hazel’s famous guitar solo on a beautifully plaintive remodel of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. Continue reading…

Gewandhaus Orchestra/Nelsons/Schuen/Zeppenfeld(Deutsche Grammophon)The Latvian conductor finds dynamic light and shade in seven discs’ worth of special performances with an orchestra once led by the composer himselfAndris Nelsons’ tenure may have been prematurely terminated in Boston, but this handsome box set with his other ensemble, the venerable Gewandhaus Orchestra, is proof positive of the Latvian conductor’s prodigious talent. Of course, Mendelssohn is in the orchestra’s DNA – after all, the composer held the reins in Leipzig from 1835 until his death in 1847 – but these performances, especially of the five symphonies, are pretty special.Recorded live between 2021 and 2024, tempi are brisk, though never rushed. It’s the phrasing, elastic and full of dynamic light and shade, that brings these accounts to life. Listen to the ultra-lithe opening movement of the Italian Symphony, or the filigree woodwind in the Scottish Symphony’s scherzo. In Nelsons’ hands, the First Symphony – often the Cinderella of the set – takes its place alongside its more colourful cousins. Continue reading…

Rena Effendi’s film Searching for Satyrus began with a quest for the endangered insect that bears her family name. Before long, she was reckoning with secrets, lies and the mysterious life of her wayward dadHigh in the Caucasus mountains, the photojournalist Rena Effendi is searching for the butterfly that bears the name of the father she hardly knew. It is rocky, bleak, beautiful – and impossible. The grass is fried yellow by the increasingly fierce summer sun, the butterfly’s food has been grazed by sheep and, if it exists at all, Satyrus effendi usually flies only as a single insect across a square kilometre of rock, scree and slope.A butterfly hunt makes an unlikely subject for a prize-winning documentary, but Searching for Satyrus is a gripping quest that reveals a remarkable part of the world little known to western audiences while examining issues from war and nationalism to global heating and extinction. Ultimately, however, Effendi’s search for her father’s butterfly becomes a moving reckoning with the secrets and lies in her family and the life of her wayward father. Continue reading…

Piece by late South African artist Dumile Feni is part of new series History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Does Rhyme On the second floor of the Reina Sofía, in the very spot where Picasso’s Guernica was first exhibited when it arrived in the Madrid museum 34 years ago, there now hangs a smaller, near-namesake of the Spanish artist’s most famous work.While African Guernica, which was drawn by the late South African artist Dumile Feni in 1967, may lack the scale of Picasso’s masterpiece, its depth, anger and unnerving juxtaposition of man and beast, light and dark, and innocence and cruelty, are every bit as disturbing. Continue reading…

Jon Hamm is back as the charismatic banker-cum-cat burglar, plus an irresistibly strange show about the TV host accused of being a mafiosoNo one does problematic but sneakily likable middle-aged man like Jon Hamm and his charisma carries this black comedy about financier-turned-burglar Andrew “Coop” Cooper. Despite being offered his old job back, Coop has decided to continue with his riskily enjoyable crisis. While he emerged from season one’s explosive climax smelling of roses, he’s soon on a collision course with his squeeze/nemesis Samantha Levitt. And worryingly, age is catching up with Coop as a back spasm curtails his latest robbing spree. Every now and then, the show edges towards a satire on jaded suburban overconsumption. But it is slightly too keen to have its aspirational cake and eat it, so remains a flimsy (albeit fun) romp. Apple TV, from Friday 3 April Continue reading…