Contents
Whether beats or concrete deserts: these cultural recommendations from our editorial team offer an alternative driveway program.
Album tip
Legend:
A force of sound and colors: When Eno Williams steps on stage, there’s a bang.
Getty Images / Roberto Finizio
Very danceable. Eno Williams, front woman of the seven-piece sound powerhouse Ibibio Sound Machine, spent most of her childhood in the Ibibio region of Nigeria. At the age of 21, she returned to her native London and soon became part of the group that would soon become Ibibio Sound Machine. Ten years later: The fifth album by the Afropop machine “Pull the Rope” was released on Friday. Ibibio Sound Machine once again call for global cohesion, hope and love and remain danceable as usual: West African funk and disco meet British electro beats. (Lea Inderbitzin)
Literature tip
Pretty sober. Explorations in the middle of nowhere: The multi-award-winning German author and translator Anne Weber has lived in Paris for four decades. For the most part, however, she never set foot in the banlieues – those suburbs that are notorious for their architectural desolation, for the regular street riots, for crime and drugs. It was only at the invitation of a friend from the banlieues that Anne Weber finally undertook extensive forays through parts of the city that were unknown to her. This resulted in the current book “Bannmeilen”. In it, the author reports with a sober, journalistic eye about concrete deserts, about people without professional prospects, about young drug gangs. The forays into the unknown neighborhood opened Anne Weber’s eyes to a marginalized yet powerful part of society. Your “ban miles” do this for us readers. (Felix Münger)
Film tip
Très melancholic. A successful French film actor hides in a Brittany thalasso hotel because of stage panic. Selfies with the masseuse, fear of failure in the mud bath, rain outside the large panoramic windows: it’s mid-season, dreary, lonely, mid-life crisis. Until the woman he was with 15 years ago, before his career took off, comes forward. The familiarity is immediately there again. But also the injuries. What would have been if…? Mathieu and Alice answer the question. Playful, serious, more mature within days, disconnected from their actual lives. Stéphane Brizé’s romantic-melancholic film “Hors saison” takes away the irrevocability of life. (Michael Sennhauser)
Concert tip
Legend:
This quartet doesn’t look old at all: David Harrington, John Sherba, Hank Dutt, Paul Wiancko performing in the Czech Republic in 2023.
IMAGO / CTK Photo
Totally open. The “Kronos Quartet” is an American string ensemble that has been playing together on stage for 50 years – but will soon be retiring. The special thing about this formation is its stylistic openness. Not only classical works are part of the repertoire, but the four long-standing colleagues also feel at home in jazz, global music and pop/rock. On May 17th, the “Kronos Quartet” will play their only and last Swiss concert with the original line-up at the Volkshaus Zurich – don’t miss it! (Roman Hošek)