★★★★★
Five Stars

Kanye wants us to worship him. The primal snarls of “God… God… God…” at the end of New Slaves are a manifesto for Yeezus — the collision of superlative narcissism and industrial dissonance here is echoed throughout the album.  If we are going to get Biblical, though, then this is an album produced not by hip-hop’s saviour but by its Nebuchadnezzar, a mad king creating an exaggerated and hyperbolic image of himself for his devoted followers to venerate.

‘I Am A God’ goes a step further along the path to chaos, breaking down beyond individual words into yelps and gasping breaths as synths stab through a seething murk of bass-heavy production. Chi-town influences run through the album like seams of coal amongst diamond. Acid house, techno, and drill all lurk constantly in the background, even below the decayed auto-tune of ‘Hold My Liquor’. The atmosphere created is tense and schizophrenic, and the influence of Rick Rubin on the uncluttered production is clear. Where My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was a maximalist effort, Yeezus is full of space, allowing us to experience the full weirdness of his primitive vocalisations, the full force of each unsettling sample and the full absurdity of his braggadocio.

Is Kanye subverting the Judaeo-Christian binary of god and man? Not really. He is just an arrogant, talented and immensely rich young man. To posture as a deity whilst demanding “hurry up with my damn croissants!” requires immense hubris but hardly points to a considered deconstruction. The true dichotomy which is collapsed here is not between god and man but between “broke nigga racism” and “rich nigga racism”, as Yeezy raps on ‘New Slaves’.

Where the black man was once constrained by his poverty, he is now constrained by the excesses he is supposed to aspire to (“What you want? Bentley? A fur coat? A diamond chain? / All you blacks want the same things”). In deifying himself, Kanye is doing nothing that societal expectations do not do to thousands of other role models for young, poor men.

This paradox is embedded in the production, in the evident tension between the industrial soundscapes and melodic samples of Yeezus. This is seen most obviously in the juke-like synths which tear through the plaintive ‘Strange Fruit‘ sample on ‘Blood on the Leaves’. The qualities of excess and hedonism black people are now told they should venerate make a mockery of the struggle for emancipation which the sampled track describes. The bitter crop today’s black youth gathers is bound up in the cult of the individual Kanye embodies, the constant reminder they are defined only by their failure to achieve riches and fame. 

Of course, the rapper himself is entirely complicit in this process. No-one is forcing him to accept corporate sponsorship, or to rap about his wealth and talent. In doing so, though, he is only taking on the mantle thrust upon him by society, by the music industry and by the limited expectations of what a black man can achieve. Nebuchadnezzar only turned himself into a god when advised to do so by his insidious counsellors, and likewise then the very arrogance inherent in Kanye’s acknowledgement of his abundant fame and talent is calculated to sell millions. Just as murkily abrasive basslines skulk behind his manic vocals, so behind his boasts prowl the hulking shadows of the record-label executives, sponsors and millions of fans who have created the crown he here assumes.

Track to download: ‘Blood on the Leaves’

As modernised adaptations of Shakespeare go, Joss Whedon’s spirited stab at updating Much Ado About Nothing is decent. The play is brought to life in the secluded excesses of a Santa Monica villa (shot in Whedon’s own house), and fans will spot many of his regulars peppered amongst the cast, though no overly famous faces.

Leonato’s (Clark Gregg) residence swells with manufactured romance and more sinister deception as his daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese) falls in love with Claudio (Fran Kranz), only to be manipulated into mistrust by the scheming Don John (Sean Maher). Meanwhile, Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Amy Acker) verbally spars with Benedick (played with aplomb by Alexis Denisof), protesting indifference to each other and vitriol to love in all its forms. Typically, they convince no-one.

Much Ado’s famous “skirmishes of wit” are delivered unevenly, unmistakably informed by SNL-style repartee. In particular, Amy Acker’s performance as Beatrice owes a lot to Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids, though sadly never reaches such comic heights. Whedon’s message is clear – Shakespeare isn’t any different from modern rom-coms, guys! It’s an important point but I can’t help but feel Whedon has made it at the expense of some of the play’s charm – he forgets that much standard rom-com fare these days is pretty diabolical by all standards, neither romantic nor funny. At times, setting the action so conspicuously in this vein seems reductive: so determined is Whedon to cast the play as the forefather of modern romantic comedy, he is insensitive to the genre’s traps, occasionally descending into insipid fluff.

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Moreover, the film’s slick visuals – all crafty angles and well-lit interiors, shot in elegant monochrome – are about its only claim to anything remotely ‘cinematic’. Otherwise, the adaptation still keeps the feel of a theatrical production, insular and self-contained, its world shrunk to the boundaries of the scenic villa. At times, you wonder if anything new is actually achieved by filming this.

That said, the dialogue flickers with verve, even if it’s not totally sustained, and there are genuinely hilarious moments, especially when the soaring wit is bathetically paired with a good dose of slapstick. Benedick in particular is physically transformed by love, his smooth advocacy of bachelorhood undermined by an improbable series of lunges, somersaults and cross-country bounding that would make Cary Grant cringe, and the rest of us erupt with laughter. 

This is an enjoyable offering, at times tender and funny. Yet it is not without dull stretches where wit is smothered in Californian glamour, and lines delivered like a series of wrong notes. 

★★★★☆
Four Stars

In 2004, Robert Macfarlane travelled to the Chideock Valley in South Dorset with Roger Deakin, a fellow writer and mentor, to find a “holloway” as described in Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male. A holloway is a deep, sunken track, lined with trees, dug into the ground by the monotonous continuity of human passage, now generally overgrown and forgotten. But centuries ago, these paths were crucial to communication and transport, and formed the very backbone of our national network of roads.  

Robert Macfarlane is the torch bearer of a new generation of nature writers who are rediscovering, and indeed retreating into our countryside. His elegant prose and his deep insight, touching on the importance of time, place and personality, and in particular musing on the philosophical nuances of paths, is a breath of fresh air, and perhaps even hope.

There is something a little sinister about this latest book by Macfarlane, in which the author’s relationship with Roger Deakin, author of Waterlog, features prominently. Much in the same way as in his previous works – most notably The Wild Places, where an entire chapter is also dedicated to their travels along Holloways, Roger Deakin appears as a wise, experienced traveler offering both insight and support. One gets the feeling that Macfarlane has not yet got over Deakin’s untimely death in 2006, and in a sense this book is both a heart wrenching reminder of his absence, as well as a eulogy to his life.

However, Holloway also shows Macfarlane at his most poetic, and indeed philosophical. His writing still encompasses the best of history, geography and deep philosophical insight. Perhaps a highlight is his realisation that, after feeling Roger’s presence when he walks along the same path in 2011 with fellow writer  Dan Richards and artist Stanley Donwood: 

“I now understand it certainly to be the case, although I have long imagined it to be true, that stretches of a path might carry memories of a person just as a person might of a path”

It is comments like these, charged with meaning, yet also in many ways haunting, which capture the general tone of the book; Macfarlane manages to capture both the sinister and the beautiful in a unique synthesis of both elements. This is reflected by Stanley Donwood’s sketches, which are such an integral part to the book, perfectly illustrating the sinuous whirlpool of tress and bark of the holloway. They are cold, dark and black, whilst also having an air of warmth and comfort. Perhaps that is the point of nature itself, both inviting yet at the same time harsh. 

The book also features new poems by Dan Richards, which, synthesised with Macfarlane’s almost poetic prose, gives the book an extra dynamism, a third person’s perspective which creates an interesting balance. Both authors have very different styles, and yet also seem to coincide on a number of aspects, most notably the mist through which they ride as they follow the holloway, hiding them from each other yet eventually leading them to a point of convergence. 

Holloway is a pleasant half-hour read which comes across as something of an experiment; whilst the combination of art, poetry and prose is an interesting concept, there seems to be little new on offer, except perhaps evidence of Macfarlane’s philosophical maturity. Hopefully his next book, on the underworld of sewers and pipes in urban landscapes, will employ a similar style from an entirely different, and indeed refreshening perspective. 

Holloway is published by Faber and Faber, and is available for £12.99 on their website

Also listen to James Bulley’s ‘Holloway Soundscape’: