Entertainment

By Dan Gleabals Cut and Paste VJ renegade Eclectic Method has put together this mental mash-up he calls Meta Hip Hop - and it's going viral - have a watch and let us know how many Hip Hop classics you spot! There's over a hundred clips painstakingly put together. We lost count a long way before 100 though! Eclectic Method (aka Jonny Wilson) started off as a digital outlaw splicing together music, TV and film, influenced by Brian Eno, Underworld, cut...

For those looking for a taste of outsider art the unthemed festival VAULT is a standout in the London musical calendar. From January 28th to March 8th expect everything from subversive stand-up comedy, leftfield musical acts from around the world and, in one case a roadkill taxidermy cabaret show. It is here we find Scottish duo Pumajaw preparing to unveil their song-cycle, the deliciously dark Song Noir, to a London audience for the first time. This collection of Noir classics,...

By Daniel Mackenzie (@EkcaLiena) Cafe Oto, 23/01/15 Walking through the early Friday night mess-about-to-happen of Dalston, I'm listening to a French black metal (ish) band so at odds with Room40's curatorial style it's almost amusing. This band deal in truly hellish atmospheres that sit awkwardly above brutal drum and guitar noise attacks. They really aren't so different. If you swap out hell for heaven and pull the aggression out so that it jettisons transients, things seem to overlap. It may...

By Helen Duff An instinct we’ve all felt at some time, whether tripping over the flat-as-a-pancake pavement – “must be something wrong with my shoes. No, seriously, these shoes have been playing me up for ages. It’s got nothing to do with the way I walk; I walk well, better than most, in fact. These shoes are just clinically defective” – to revealing something far too personal to the family dentist – I’ll let you fill that gap in for...

We all know that the One Direction fan base can be an intense lot, but who knew they could be so generous? On the eve of the British Asian Trust’s Annual Dinner, taking place on February 3rd at the  Banqueting  House, Whitehall, London, One Direction fans have raised over $10,000 for the British Asian Trust in honour of its ambassador Zayn Malik's 22nd birthday. Hitan Mehta, Executive Director of the British Asian Trust, said: "We thank One Direction fans for their generous contributions. We are honoured...

Jack Peat reviews Truth, Lies, Diana at Charing Cross Theatre. On the night princess Diana died I was driving home from a family holiday in France. Most people know where they were when the tragic news started filtering through the media, the memory fixed in our minds in the same way people recall their whereabouts when JF Kennedy was assassinated. And like the gunshot on the grassy knoll that has implicated 82 assassins and 214 people in conspiracy theories, the...

By Grant Bailey (@GrantDBailey) As I'm sure any successful band will tell you, standing out in your music scene is tough. But with the discerning crowds of instrumental prog fans on the hunt for the latest band to blow their minds it can be even more challenging. Alright The Captain have had no such trouble, hitting their stride with 2011's debut release SNIB and causing a major stir among technical rock fans. Ahead of the release of their highly anticipated second album 'Contact...

By Emma Silverthorn @HouseOf_Gazelle The cast and crew of Unbroken couldn’t be much more stellar; with Angela Jolie directing, the Coen brothers adapting Lauren Hilldenbrand’s memoir of Louis Zamperini’s life into the screenplay, and the exceptional Jack O’Connell in lead. O’Connell lives up to the hype that’s been surrounding him of late, and though he’s received some critical acknowledgement since 2007’s Skins, this is surely his breakthrough role. The film doesn’t disappoint in terms of delivering a gripping, emotive and...

By Will Bateman, Music Reporter After releasing 2001’s genre defining Is This It? with The Strokes Julian Casablancas has struggled to match its impact, and more importantly appeared to struggle with his own artistic satisfaction with their output. His first solo outing, the synth-pop heavy Phrazes for The Young seemed to be a move in the direction of creative freedom, but even then struggled with the powers that be. Expressing in hindsight a lack of gratification stating he’d wanted to...