5 cultural gems you may have missed lately

There has never been a better time to be a culture vulture, but the sheer volume of stuff out there makes it all too easy for some gems to slip through the cracks.

Perhaps you've simply been meaning to tackle that series, or listen to that album, or move that book at the top of your 'to-read’ pile; maybe you’re just in the market for some solid cultural recommendations.

Here are five stellar TV shows, films, books and albums that you may have missed recently...

Apartment 7A (Various streaming platforms)

Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby is, without doubt, one of the best horror films ever made (meanwhile, the problematic ‘separate the art from the artist’ debate rages on.) In Polanski’s 1968 film, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her suave husband Guy have a young neighbour called Terry, who (spoiler alert!) tragically takes her own life. In Apartment 7A, we learn more about Terry - a promising young Broadway dancer whose ankle injury has jeopardised her career. She crosses paths with The Castevets, the nefarious older couple who are not the harmless retirees they present themselves as. When the elderly couple take Terry under their wing and offer her their spare apartment free of charge, you can probably guess that they don’t exactly have her dancing career in mind. Making a prequel to one of the most renowned horror films of all time is certainly a bold move, and I must admit to feeling a little sceptical about this before watching it. However, if you leave your lofty expectations at the door, there is a lot to like about Natalie Erika James’s story. Julia Garner (whom Ozark fans will recognise) is great as Terry, Dianne Wiest is especially brilliant as Minnie, and James strikes just the right balance between tense drama, horror and the occult. As for the ending? It sets things up very nicely for an immediate viewing of Rosemary’s Baby straight afterwards.

Slow Horses - Season 4 (Apple TV+)

It’s true that Slow Horses has become one of the biggest TV shows in recent years, but by the time you get to the fourth season of any series, the fanfare is a little less boisterous. Personally, I felt that after a superb first season, my attention began to wane a little and I found Season 3 a little looser and less gripping. Thankfully, Season 4 of the wry spy drama is a return to form from the very first episode, which sees our hero River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) in a perilous stand-off with his grandfather (Jonathan Pryce)... or is it? With the addition of some new characters including our own Ruth Bradley as the brilliant Emma Flyte and Hugo Weaving as a mysterious cult leader, it ramps up to a brilliant armchair-gripping, action-packed finale.

Ciaran Prior - Traces of Truth (Gill Books)

Staying on the theme of police investigations, this recent book by a former Irish Crime Scene Investigator is well worth a read. Ciaran Prior worked first as a Garda and then as a CSI for 15 years, encountering death and tragedy on an almost daily basis; it’s both harrowing and chilling to get a rarely-seen Irish perspective on a career that is often glamorised thanks to TV and film.

This is not just your average police procedural, though. Prior weaves his own personal story into the narrative, including an eerie set of coincidences involving the murder of his Garda colleague Colm Horkan, and how encountering death with such regularity eventually impacted his own health. It makes for a fascinating, multi-layered read that’s laden with compassion and eye-opening insights into both life and death.

Hayden Thorpe - Ness (Domino)

An album based on a poem about a decommissioned nuclear testing site? It sounds like a fairly po-faced proposition, but hear me out. Hayden Thorpe has always been a seriously intriguing musician, and as frontman of the superb (and much-missed) Wild Beasts, he revelled in thinking outside of the box. His solo material has been equally difficult to define but his third album is a beautiful affair. Ness draws its lyrics from the epic prose poem of the same name by nature writer Robert Macfarlane, which was published in 2019 and strikingly illustrated by Stanley Donwood, the artist best known for his work with Radiohead. It’s written about Orford Ness - that aforementioned weapons-testing site in Suffolk used by the UK’s Ministry of Defence for most of the 20th century - which has since been rewilded and is now a protected coastal nature reserve. This is sensual pop music with elements of classical (thanks to members of the Propeller Ensemble, Jack MacNeill and Kerry Andrews) and the sounds of Orford Ness woven through its songs. It’s one of the most unusual but compelling records we’ve heard this year - and Thorpe has just announced a live date at Dublin’s Grand Social for next May. See you there.

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Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - Woodland (Acony Record)

I’ve been a fan of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings for a long time; they are one of only a handful of artists who have never, ever failed to blow me away live. Rawlings is one of the most impressive guitarists I’ve ever seen in my life, and Welch’s voice has an otherworldly purity to it. The duo’s recorded output has been equally consistent ever since 1996’s Revival - heck, even if you don’t consider yourself a ‘country music’ fan, you’ll find something to love in this music. Similarly, their output both doffs its cap to the finest Americana tradition while offering something new and progressive. In short, they’re bloody brilliant at what they do. Woodland, their first album of original material in 14 years (they released a Grammy-winning covers album in 2020), was named for their studio Woodland Sound in Nashville, which was pretty much destroyed by a tornado the same year. Having saved the historic building from demolition in 2001, abandoning it and starting afresh elsewhere was never an option: they rebuilt most of it and this sumptuous, sublime collection was recorded there. From the plaintive yearning of Empty Trainload of Sky to the chiming Bells and the Birds and the string-drenched Hashtag, it’s a treat. It’s the voices, it’s the guitars, it’s one of the albums of the year, for sure.

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