Zola.’ (AP) Song of the Summer
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ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2021 NEWS/FEATURES 13 People & Places Music Dacus sings young love Cat album falters at fi rst but ends strong By Mark Kennedy ot to be totally catty, but Doja Cat’s third album Nstarts poorly. The first four songs — “Woman,” “Naked,” “Payday” with Young Thug and “Get Into It (Yuh)” — are half-baked tunes mimicking beats and vocals from Nicki Minaj or Rihanna. None are note- worthy. It’s depressing. What happened to the artist behind 2019s “Hot Pink,” a sonic breath of fresh air? What happened to the Doja Cat whose electric performance of “Say So” at the Grammys was reminiscent of Missy Elliott’s futurism? Just wait. The fi fth song, “Need to Know,” is a superb, steamy sex tape of a song (with Dr. Luke co-writing and producing) and the sixth, “I Don’t Do Drugs” featuring Ariana Grande, is airy and confi dent with heav- enly harmonies. “Love to Dream” follows, a slice of dreamy pop, and then The Weeknd stops by on a terrifi c, slow-burning “You Right.” Cat The Cat is back. From then on, the 14-track “Planet Her” rights itself with whispery pop songs and the envelope-pushing “Options” with JID, climaxing with the awesome “Kiss Me More,” the previously released single with SZA that has a Gwen Stefani-ish refrain and must be considered a strong contender for This image released by A24 shows Riley Keough, (left), and Taylour Paige in a scene from ‘Zola.’ (AP) song of the summer. Despite the weak start, Doja Cat fulfi lls her promise on “Planet Her,” with an exciting, unpredictable style and a vocal ability that can switch from buttery sweet- Film ness to cutting raps. Just don’t start at the beginning. ❑ ❑ ❑ Lucy Dacus, “Home Video” (Matador) This is what the world of teenagers sounds like — Bravo’s cinema of ‘life at high volume’ intense, earnest, funny and sometimes beautiful. On “Home Video,” 26-year-old Lucy Dacus re- visits her adolescence, and in this case, intimate in- trospection makes for moving music. She shares rec- ollections in a casually conversational style, writing ‘Zola’ is a love letter to internet mostly in the second person with an appealing speci- fi city about young love and friendships. By Jake Coyle but raised in Panama before moving mannerisms and phrases. For Harris, “You told me to skip school to go with you to the to Brooklyn when she was 12. Her it’s a kind of blackface without the movies,” goes the opening couplet on “Brando.” “You t’s not easy to put a finger on Janicza parents were both tailors, a source of makeup; one scene he compares to knew you were uncool, but you thought you could IBravo’s cinema. In describing her Bravo’s stylishness. Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled.” We watch fool me.” Elsewhere Dacus sings about vacation Bible work, which now encompasses nine “The thing that I loved about that fi lm as Stefani drags Zola into a hellish school, murder fantasy and forbidden love. shorts and two feature films, including then and about all of her fi lms since is situation. Like the lyrics to “Brando,” Dacus’ arrangements the new film “Zola,” you want to use that she has this very sly, chaotic way of “Zola” turns the camera around on are cinematic, with a soft focus framing her honest words like surreal, disturbing, satirical, dealing with the darkest truths of Ameri- whiteness. It’s a theme found throughout alto. She goes for washes of synthesizers, strummed absurd, otherworldly. can history while making you laugh Bravo’s work, including her previous acoustic guitars and gauzy harmonies. The pretty “These are all very good, sexy throughout it,” Harris said while nursing feature “Lemon” (about an aggressively pleas on the breakup ballad “Please Stay” benefi t from words to me,” Bravo says, laughing. a hangover and picking up smoothies af- unappealing failed actor, made with ex- the vocal assistance of Dacus’ boygenius bandmates, “Zola,” which A24 will release in ter a celebratory “Zola” screening in Fort husband and frequent collaborator Brett Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker. Writer/director Janicza Bravo poses theaters Wednesday, is the most vivid Greene, Brooklyn. Gelman); and a series she’s currently Dacus smartly varies the dynamics, opting at times for a portrait to promote the film ‘Zola’ look yet at the 40-year-old Bravo as an during the Sundance Film Festival on Harris became friends with Bravo developing with Jake Gyllenhaal as Dan for big drums and bass, and even Slayer-style elec- emergent fi lmmaker. The fi lm, which about seven years ago. When the possi- Mallory, pen name A.J. Finn, the best- Jan 25, 2020, in Park City, Utah. (AP) fi rst debuted back at Sundance in Janu- tric guitar. Because every adolescence should include bility of making “Zola” came up, Bravo selling novelist who was found to have ary 2020, is one of the most anticipated some Slayer. asked him to write it with her. For Harris, fabricated a brain tumor and a tragic past ❑ ❑ ❑ of the summer. It’s very possibly the fi rst feature fi lm adapted from a Twit- “Zola” represents more than your aver- for himself. For Bravo, whiteness is of- Modest Mouse, “The Golden Casket” (Epic) ter thread — an infamous, mostly true age Hollywood breakthrough. ten treated as invisible and neutral. Her Uh-oh. It’s not a good sign when any band starts 148-tweet tale from 2015 in which “This is a moment of profound experience is the opposite. referencing death right from jump. Modest Mouse A’Ziah “Zola” King unloaded about catching up,” says Harris. “The work “I wanted to be in conversation with have placed an open coffi n on the cover of its latest a Florida road trip to a strip club that that she’s been doing has been so con- whiteness and I wanted to talk to that album and have called it “The Golden Casket.” goes harrowingly south. sist that I think people didn’t have a because I hadn’t really seen anyone Relax, fans. Inside the 12-track album is a band true In Bravo’s hands, the viral tweet Rosetta Stone for the language she was doing that, especially in comedy,” says to its quirky alt-rock soul and having kooky fun. It storm is a “Wizard of Oz”-like fairy speaking in. We’re not used to hearing Bravo. “Usually when things were may be commercial enough to attract new listeners tale that turns nightmare — a hallu- a Black woman speak in languages this about race, they were explicitly about and yet still embrace enough of the bizarre to satisfy cinogenic but clear-eyed adventure complex inside independent cinema.” race. And I am interested about folding race into my everyday circumstance. longtime admirers. If this is a eulogy, it’s a terrifi c one. through sex work, social media, race Reverence In fact, a resigned tranquility runs through the O’Reilly Fiallo and violence that’s both fantastical and That is how it for me. It’s my own band’s fi rst album since 2015. In the song “Wooden darkly real. Comedy and horror inter- “Zola” was originally set up with processing of feeling limited or feeling Soldiers,” frontman Isaac Brock sings “just being twine. So do movies and the internet. James Franco directing. That version less than and what it is to wear this skin here now is enough for me” and in “We’re Lucky,” “I think it very much still is a ride,” of the fi lm, the fi lmmakers say, was a and wear this body.” he’s happy to be between the stars and the seas: “It Variety says Bravo. “I just don’t know if it’s more carefree romp. Bravo and Har- But “Zola” — still a ride, remember takes a lifetime to ever fi gure out/That there ain’t no always a pleasant one.” ris approached King’s Twitter thread — cloaks its thoughtful mediations. lifetime that is ever fi gured out.” For even some of Bravo’s closest — a colorfully told, often funny tale Throughout the movie, whenever a bit MIAMI: Delia Fiallo, a native of Cuba that brought phrases like “vibing over of dialogue matches King’s tweets, a Modest Mouse wouldn’t be Modest Mouse without who was considered the mother of Latin collaborators, explaining the feel- some weirdness and there’s plenty of that. “Transmit- ing and style of Bravo’s disorienting, our hoeism” into the lexicon — with Twitter ding sounds like slot-machine America’s telenovelas and wrote dozens more reverence. To Bravo and Harris, chimes. It’s a touch King considers ting Receiving” is mostly a list of things — “mustard of the popular television soap operas, dreamlike movies can be tricky. Mid- seeds, turtles, weeds” — that goes into the trippy died Tuesday at her home in Coral way through making “Zola,” her pro- the thread was a modern-day Homeric “priceless.” space of The Flaming Lips. A cosmic understanding Gables, Florida, her caregiver said. She duction designer, Katie Byron, turned epic. They wanted to ground the fi lm “When I watch the fi lm, it’s kind also resides in the terrifi c, funky “We Are Between,” was 96. to her and asked if Bravo had done a in Zola’s perspective and capture the of a time-traveling moment. It’s like which positions mankind “somewhere between dust Fiallo, whose TV hits included “Cris- lot of ketamine. way Black women can be treated as I suddenly forget where I am and I’m and the stars.” tal,” “Kassandra” and “Leonela,” died “I’m unfortunately a little straight edge,” disposable, and the traumatic fallout of back in 2015.