Our Own Correspondent: Arts/Culture writer Ed Power's picks of the year
Wheel of Time, London Grammar, Dune.
Ed Julien Baker, livestream: Because of the pandemic I haven’t been inside a venue since March 2020 (and that was for Jamie Cullum). But with live music not an option. I enjoyed watching Julien Baker perform material from her 2021 album Little Oblivions via a livestream from the Hutton Hotel in Nashville last March. Obviously it’s not the same as being there. But it’s better than nothing.
Bat For Lashes, livestream: Natasha Khan seems to have worked out the secret of a good livestream – which is that it isn’t a replacement for live music but something else entirely. This was an intimate performance from her (very nicely-appointed) shed, where he delivered a set aimed at hardcore fans.
London Grammar, livestream: London Grammar’s third album, Californian Soil, was slightly forgotten in the end-of-year round-ups. But it was wonderfully poignant and the performance of the record from beginning to end, broadcast on YouTube from Alexandra Palace Theatre in London in April, was an event to savour.
Kelly Lee Owens, the Welsh producer and DJ, has been touring her magnificent and poignant 2020 album Inner Song. She played Dublin’s Button Factory on November 19. Sorry I missed it.
Lorde is one of my favourite artists so speaking with her over Zoom was a treat. And, having interviewed Billie Eilish before she became famous, it was enjoyable to catch up with her sibling and song-writing partner Finneas.
It was also a treat to be introduced to the songwriting of the Anchoress and to speak to For Those I Love’s David Balfe for a piece about music and bereavement.
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff was a fun if flawed riff on the Elric/Witcher school of albino anti-heroes battling eldritch horrors.
In non-fiction, former Cork City manager John Caulfield’s memoir, Rebel Heart, was worth reading, especially for his reminiscings about City’s early years (the club's recent downfall makes for more painful reading). It’s strange revisiting events you were at – the 1992 FAI Cup Final, City playing Galatasaray in swamp-like conditions in Bishopstown – and which are now presented as ancient history retrieved from the annals.
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune captured the strangeness of the Frank Herbert novel and was visually stunning too. As was the Green Knight, a film that evoked the hallucinatory weirdness of the Arthurian legend on which it was based.
Also, some of it was shot close to my house, which added an extra layer of the surreal. Godzilla v Kong meanwhile delivered the city-levelling smackdown the world needed.
Amazon Prime’s Wheel of Time hasn’t been perfect but it has captured the sweep and world-building of Robert Jordan’s novels – and it has done justice to Jordan’s characters (aside from turning gadabout bard Thom Merrilin into a grumpy singer-songwriter).
The Witcher season two was silly fun. And Arcane, a steam-punk Netflix series based on the video game League of Legends, came from nowhere to be the year’s best TV show.
As a table-top gamer, I’m always on the lookout for an engaging new dungeon crawler. Fantasy Flight Game’s latest Descent title, Descent: Legends of the Dark, has proved controversial with its incorporation of an app. But I loved the immersion and its imaginative world-building. Another hit was Sleeping Gods, which combined gripping story-telling with brisk game-play.
Marvel’s Disney + content started brightly with WandaVision. But The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was a huge step down and harked back to Agents of Shield and the worst of Netflix’s Marvel shows. Loki was a huge improvement on that. But, while it grew considerably more engaging when Florence Pugh showed up as Yelena, the ongoing Hawkeye has often foundered and you have to wonder if it was a mistake to build a series around the anti-charismatic Clint Barton.
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV series has the entire weight of Middle Earth on its shoulders and will be watched closely by the Great Unblinking Eye (of Jeff Bezos). And HBO’s Game of Thrones spin-off/prequel is an opportunity to atone for Thrones’ terrible final season.
