Irish Examiner arts reviews

CD review: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Wig Out at Jagbags

Stephen Malkmus is one of that uniquely American breed of musicians who seem to crave credibility more than commercial success. His work ethic has seen him release 16 albums with various outfits over the past 20 years or so, but his slacker mentality has ensured he has never really been more than a cult figure, beloved of many but unlikely to trouble the pop charts.

Malkmus first found fame of sorts with Pavement, and later with Silver Jews. He also released one album, Marquee Mark, with the Crust Brothers, before embarking on the solo career that has seen him release six albums, backed by the Jicks.

Only someone determined to annoy his audience would think to call his band the Jicks (a ‘jick’ is urban slang for a ‘fool’). Still, it’s a reasonably honest ploy: no one could expect an outfit with such a handle to be anything other than indie in spirit. And so it is: Wig Out at Jagbags is a collection of mildly irritating rock tracks whose saving grace is the unpredictability of Malkmus’s lyrics. It takes a certain chutzpah to come up with a title as determinedly uncommercial as ‘Cinnamon and Lesbians’ or lyrics as willfully hipster as those on ‘Lariat’ — “we lived on Tennyson and venison and the Grateful Dead” — but Malkmus is certainly not lacking in attitude.

He is at his best when he rocks out, as on ‘Rumble at the Rainbow’ and ‘Scategories’, one of the few tracks on which the guitars really rise above the merely polite. Elsewhere, the arrangements are all too predictable, suggesting that Malkmus should maybe start seeking new collaborators.

“This one’s for you, grandad!” Malkmus shouts on the intro to ‘Chartjunk’, a track that ridicules contemporary punks, in thrall to long dead counter-culture icons like Johnny Thunders. “No one here’s changed,” Malkmus sneers, “and no one ever will.”

This might come across as smarter if Malkmus were not himself so stuck in a groove, unable or unwilling to make his music more daring or innovative.

Star Rating: 3/5

Art: Nova, CIT Wandesford Quay Gallery, Cork

Nova features new work by members of Cork Printmakers, whose workshop adjoins the gallery at Wandesford Quay. Each piece was hand printed specially for the exhibition, in a range of techniques that include etching, lithography and photo intaglio. The subject matter is more varied again, with different artists experimenting with landscape, figuration and abstraction.

There is a certain conservatism about the work, a reluctance to push the boundaries of the medium, but that aside, it’s an impressive review of activities.

The natural world looms large in much of the work. Jo Kelley’s is most topical. Her lithograph, Tropical Storm, has a terrified woman, dogs and a great black bird, all caught up in a gale of wind, such as we have known these past few weeks, distant and all as we are from the tropics.

Zoe D’Alton’s Harvest Moon is more sedate, an etching of round bales of hay in a field at night, while Nikki Tait’s woodcut, West Cork Estuary, has cormorants drying their wings on the rocks. Both belong firmly in the tradition of Irish landscape lyricism. Jessie Malone’s lino block Couldn’t Give A Hoot is more dramatic: a bloodthirsty-looking owl bursting into the viewer’s vision.

More of the works are playful. Sean Hanrahan’s Moth features the circular flag employed on British war planes, transposed to the outspread wings of its subject; Helen O’Keeffe’s Lollipop Trees — Forest is a gleefully garish work; while Gary Dempsey’s Untitled has a hairy big toe protruding on the bottom left of an otherwise abstract image.

There are just two works in the gallery vaults. Noelle Noonan’s Hideout is an archival pigment print of a wigwam with trees in the background, a mysterious image that suggests children’s games or the more adult activity of eluding the authorities.

Conall Cary’s Miles To Go Before I Sleep is more nihilistic, an image of a man falling backwards through space. It recalls Max Beckmann’s depiction of human helplessness and terror in his iconic painting, Falling Man.

* Nova runs until Jan 11.

Star Rating: 4/5