Brilliant music, books, art and TV to have on your radar in May
This month’s most exciting cultural happenings include a Beninese musician’s pop-star-packed album, an exhibition examining the work of Icelandic star Björk and a film told from the perspective of a plucky hen.
Music
‘Hope!!’
Angélique Kidjo
From its opening track, “Bando” (featuring Pharrell Williams and Quavo), Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo’s new album is full of bright, catchy songs. Other highlights starring top-tier collaborators include “Joy” with Davido and “Oyaya” with Nile Rodgers and Iza. An uplifting record to play all summer long, Hope!! is well deserving of its double exclamation marks.
‘Hope!!’ is released on 24 April
‘Train on the Island’
Aldous Harding
Kiwi singer Harding’s fifth album is full of her trademark ponderous pacing, soothing voice and acerbic lyrics. The playful and witty “I Ate the Most” and the memorable “San Francisco” are highlights. Catch Harding on tour to experience this performer’s idiosyncrasies in their full glory.
‘Train on the Island’ is released on 8 May
‘Let X=X’
Laurie Anderson with Sexmob
“Good evening, this is your captain,” begins Laurie Anderson’s new live album. Recorded on tour in 2023 with jazz band Sexmob, the 23 tracks include some of her best songs, interspersed with charming chatter. It is a record to lock into to feel its full power. Pick up a physical copy to enjoy Anderson’s own paintings as the packaging art.
‘Let X=X’ is released on 8 May
Books
‘Ambivalence’
Brian Dillon
Irish writer Brian Dillon’s new book recounts his early adulthood in Dublin in the 1980s and 1990s. Ambivalence is most interesting when describing his first encounters with the works of writers such as Virginia Woolf. It’s a study of how we build our tastes, an exploration of education and a celebration of lifelong learning.
‘Ambivalence’ is published on 9 May
‘Night Train’
Xu Zechen, translated by Jeremy Tiang
When Chen Munian’s father refuses to lend him the money for a trip, the young man makes up a story that he has murdered someone and needs the funds to flee. While the lie gets Munian what he wants, it takes on a life of its own. Xu Zechen’s vivid novel explores how we shape our futures and what it means to live a contented life.
‘Night Train’ is published on 12 May
‘The Good Eye’
Jess Gibson
The short stories that make up Jess Gibson’s debut are variously set at a drunken dinner party, a cruise gone wrong and a hunting weekend. What unites the 12 tales is their amorphous undercurrent of disquiet. Tightly and mischievously told, they reveal Gibson as a master of capturing relationships as they begin to fray.
‘The Good Eye’ is published on 14 May
Film
‘Mother Mary’
David Lowery
Best known for the yearning, lyrical poetry of A Ghost Story and The Green Knight, David Lowery brings the same elegance of purpose to this film about pop stardom. Here, a reclusive singer (Anne Hathaway) begins to lose any stable sense of self. Rather than treating fame as spectacle, the film sees it as a system of ritual and control, where perfectionism mutates into a cruel form of devotion.
‘Mother Mary’ is released on 24 April
‘Orphan’
László Nemes
In this film set after the Hungarian uprising of 1956, Nemes strips away melodrama in favour of something more exacting. A young boy (Bojtorján Barábas), raised by his mother on stories of a heroic missing father, must reckon with a coarse stranger claiming to be the real man. The result is a family drama shaped by politics, class and memory, with identity shown as a fragile story that people tell to survive.
‘Orphan’ is released on 15 May
‘Hen’
György Pálfi
Returning with a characteristically idiosyncratic premise, György Pálfi uses the story of a lone woman (Maria Diakopanayotou), a truly enchanting hen and a crumbling seaside restaurant business to explore routine, isolation and quiet forms of dependency. Eschewing sentimentality, Hen observes behaviour with clinical patience, finding small shifts in tone and gesture. Pálfi balances surrealism with mundanity, allowing meaning to emerge gradually rather than thrusting it upon us.
‘Hen’ is released on 22 May
TV
‘The House of Spirits’
Prime Video
A behemoth of the Latin American literary canon, with more than 70 million copies sold, Isabel Allende’s generational saga offers a heady mix of death, love, spiritualism and Chilean political history. The novel’s sense of feminine resilience has lost none of its vibrancy in the four decades since its publication and Prime Video’s Spanish-language adaptation should capture a new generation of fans.
‘The House of Spirits’ is released on 29 April
‘Money Heist: Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine’
Netflix
Spanish franchise Money Heist has become an unstoppable juggernaut. A follow-up to 2023 prequel Berlin, this latest outing features the elite criminals travelling to Seville for “the biggest heist in history”. They have their eyes on Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, though the real prize is the scheming Duke of Málaga and his wife.
‘Money Heist: Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine’ is released on 15 May
‘Star City’
Apple TV
For All Mankind, the fifth season of which was recently released on Apple TV, offers a fascinating alternativehistory view of the space race, in which the Soviet Union was the first to put a man on the Moon. New spin off Star City hops across the Iron Curtain, recounting the same story not from the US perspective but that of their Soviet rivals.
‘Star City’ is released on 29 May
Art
‘Hilma af Klint’
Grand Palais, Paris
In late 19th-century art circles, women weren’t meant to experiment. Figurative painter Hilma af Klint hid her peerless abstract work, even stipulating in her will that it wouldn’t be exhibited until two decades after her death in 1944. The world is finally catching up. Her Paintings for the Temple cycle will be a highlight of this major retrospective in France.
‘Hilma af Klint’ runs from 6 May to 30 August
‘After the Monsoon: Art & War in Southeast Asia’
National Gallery Singapore
Posthumously named the Philippines’ first national artist, Fernando Amorsolo depicted the Japanese occupation during the Second World War in vivid oil paintings – and traumatic detail. Here, his paintings will sit alongside contemporary responses to conflict that, together, underline how art can shape our collective memory and ethical standpoint.
‘After the Monsoon’ runs from 22 May to 18 October
Björk: ‘Echolalia’
National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavík
Icelandic singer Björk’s albums have become increasingly high concept as she retreats from her 1990s commercial peak. This hometown show is a good entry point. Immersive installations include a multimedia presentation of her next album, plus two more that add context to 2022’s fungi-inspired LP Fossora. Opening concurrently, Metamorphlings spotlights the artistry of Björk collaborator James Merry.
‘Echolalia’ runs from 31 May to 20 September
