Culture round up: A thrilling Japanese crime drama, a cult Norwegian novel and a New York exhibition
Music
Girl
Coco & Clair Clair
After their successful 2022 album, Sexy, Atlanta duo Coco & Clair Clair are back with another playful mix of hip-hop and electronica. The new record takes inspiration from UK groups such as Saint Etienne and Everything but the Girl. Highlights include the incessant electro undercurrent of “My Girl” and lead single “Aggy”, a breathy, synthy track that will do wonders on the dance floor.
‘Girl’ is released on 30 August
Milton + Esperanza
Milton Nascimento and Esperanza Spalding
Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento and American vocalist and bassist Esperanza Spalding – friends for 15 years – celebrate their rapport by reworking some of Nascimento’s classic songs, including “Outubro” and “Cais”, with Spalding’s glorious vocals. There are plenty of original tracks too, such as the joyful “Wings for the Thought Bird”. An inspired meeting of musical minds.
‘Milton + Esperanza’ is out now
In Waves
Jamie xx
The long-awaited second solo album by English musician Jamie xx does not disappoint with its line-up of club-ready delights. In Waves is a beautiful mix of 1990s house and sunny optimism. The song “Life” went down a treat at this year’s Glastonbury Festival when performed live with its featured guest, Swedish singer Robyn. “Treat Each Other Right” is a more nostalgic highlight.
‘In Waves’ is released on 20 September
TV
Tokyo Swindlers
Netflix
On paper, a crime drama about an elaborate property scam might not sound the most engrossing but the stakes involved here (¥10bn; €59.8m) create a high-octane drama full of suspense, explosions, intrigue and murder. This seven-part Japanese series is an adaptation of the acclaimed book by Ko Shinjo and stars award-winning actors Etsushi Toyokawa (Love Letter) and Go Ayano (Gatchaman).
Pachinko (season two)
Apple TV+
For the many fans of Pachinko, it has been a long two-year wait for the epic family saga to return to screens. Based on the best-selling 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko follows a Korean immigrant family over 70 years told, in the series, through two parallel storylines. Look forward to bold plots, excellent cinematography and exceptional attention to detail.
La Maison
Apple TV+
Streaming series that examine the world of high fashion are all the rage. This fictional French show takes us behind the scenes of a fashion house and explores what happens when creative ambition collides with family politics. Expect a deep dive into French couture, with sage reflections on reinvention and creativity.
Film
Kneecap
Rich Peppiatt
Real-life Irish hip-hop band Kneecap play themselves in this madcap coming-of-age comedy about their (largely fictionalised) origin story. There’s street fighting, romance, robbery, interrogations and a lot of swearing. Spice World for rap fans.
‘Kneecap’ is released on 23 August
Sing Sing
Greg Kwedar
Oscar nominee Colman Domingo leads this drama about a group of inmates at infamous maximum-security prison Sing Sing, as they stage their own theatre production. Through the foibles of theatre-making, they find a humanity that seemed lost to them in the harsh conditions of their everyday lives. The cast of professional actors and former inmates imbues this drama with palpable emotion.
‘Sing Sing’ is released on 30 August
In Camera
Naqqash Khalid
Filmmaker Naqqash Khalid’s fierce debut is about an actor, played by Nabhaan Rizwan, striving to create a new role for himself while fed up with endless rejections and the reductive roles that he is asked to audition for. In Camera dissects who’s doing the looking and who’s being looked at, both in fiction and real life.
‘In Camera’ is released on 13 September
Art
Chiharu Shiota: I to Eye
Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
The Nakanoshima Museum of Art’s six-metre-high ceilings will be put to good use in Chiharu Shiota’s first major exhibition in her hometown for 16 years. Now based in Berlin, the Japanese artist creates immersive installations where the scale is matched by the conceptual ambition, as bright blood-red yarns evoke thoughts of life and death. Paintings, drawings and video work will add further context to this welcome mid-career survey.
‘Chiharu Shiota: I to Eye’ runs from 14 September to 1 December
Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
The National Gallery, London
From spiralling starry nights to idealised asylum gardens, Vincent van Gogh had many unlikely visions during the final two years of his life. This landmark exhibition, which is part of The National Gallery’s 200th-anniversary celebrations, focuses on the Dutch artist’s period in Provence and makes good on one of those unrealised visions – a triptych comprised of a portrait flanked by two of his “Sunflowers”. A curatorial coup, the show reaffirms that the creator of some of the world’s most enduring single paintings also had one eye on the bigger picture.
‘Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers’ runs from 14 September to 19 January 2025
Books
Planes Flying Over a Monster: Essays
Daniel Saldaña París, translated by Christina MacSweeney & Philip K Zimmerman
In this beautifully translated collection, Daniel Saldaña París – the novelist whom American author Ottessa Moshfegh called “the Mexican Philip Roth” – considers the cities that formed him. From trying to be a writer in Mexico City to attending NA meetings in Montréal, Saldaña París draws in the reader as “a witness capable of compassion and laughter”.
‘Planes Flying Over a Monster’ is out now
If Only
Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund
First published in Norway in 2001, this diary of a passionate but ultimately destructive love affair is considered cult author Vigdis Hjorth’s most important novel. Now out in English for the first time, If Only exposes the tragedy of both longing for and attaining one’s love object – it’s A Sport and a Pastime meets Anna Karenina.
‘If Only’ is released on 3 September
A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnès Varda
Carrie Rickey
A female filmmaker in the boys’ club of French New Wave, Agnès Varda (1928-2019) was underappreciated for most of her life. In this definitive biography, the first in English, film critic and historian Carrie Rickey traces Varda’s trajectory, which included genre-defying films such as Cléo from Five to Seven (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017).
‘A Complicated Passion’ is released on 27 September
Photography
We Are Here: Scenes from the Streets
International Center of Photography, New York
Street photography came of age in a less self-aware era, prior to the ubiquity of smartphones. The 30 contemporary practitioners who are featured here, including Iran’s Farnaz Damnabi and Cairo-based Randa Shaath, must work harder to capture authentic moments that stand out from the crowd. It will be interesting to see how curator Isolde Brielmaier incorporates fashion-focused portraits and documentary shots from global protests into this expanded definition of street photography.
‘We Are Here: Scenes from the Streets’ runs from 26 September to 6 January 2025
