Big news in the shoe-gazer rock world: My Bloody Valentine has announced a baby tour through the United States this summer. It will begin in Austin and stop in Dallas as well.
Led by reclusive front man Kevin Shields, MBV was already scheduled for an appearance at the FYF Fest in Los Angeles. Now, five other cities have been added.
The Austin show is August 16 at Austin Music Hall; the Dallas concert is the following night at Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie.
The band is touring in support of their first album in 21 years, the typographically-challenged m b v. The last time they toured the U.S. was 2009, a tour that included Austin Music Hall and the Palladium in Dallas. Attendees of that tour were stunned by the ear-rattling volume. Earplugs are a must!
This mini-leg is part of a bigger summer tour that's crossing Europe, where the band will hit a number of major festivals.
My Bloody Valentine 2013 tour dates in the U.S.:
08/16 – Austin, TX at Austin Music Hall
08/17 – Grand Prairie, TX at Verizon Theatre
08/19 – Denver, CO at Ogden Theatre
08/21 – Seattle, WA at WaMu Theater
08/23 – San Francisco, CA at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
08/25 – Los Angeles, CA at FYF Fest
Tickets for the Austin show go on sale June 14 at 10 am. Tickets for the Dallas show go on sale June 15 at 10 am.
While the horror genre is still capable of producing some innovative filmmaking, most of the output tends to fall back on jump scares and other tropes to deliver their terror. So when a film like the new Undertone tries something different, it should be applauded for the effort, even if it’s not as successful in its execution.
Evy (Nina Kiri) is a podcaster who co-hosts a show called Undertone, which focuses on paranormal videos and sounds they find on the internet. Her co-host, Justin (Adam DiMarco), lives in London, so - for kind of contrived reasons - in order to make the time difference between them work, Evy records at around 3 am her time. Evy - who lives at home with her bedridden, dying mother - is the skeptic of the two, consistently debunking clips that Justin presents to her.
Her doubts are tested when Justin brings in a series of 10 audio clips that purport to be about a boyfriend recording his girlfriend as she talks in her sleep. The audio begins in a lighthearted manner and quickly turns creepy and then sinister as unexplained things start happening. Evy senses that what she’s hearing is bleeding into her own world, especially when inexplicable actions take place in her mother’s bedroom.
Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Ian Tuason, the film is effective early on when it introduces the story concept. Making great use of sound design, Tuason essentially puts the audience inside Evy’s head, where every little sound is heightened. Setting the podcast sessions in the middle of the night ups the anxiety level for both her and the audience.
However, as the film goes along it gets a little tedious watching Evy listen to the audio, even as Tuason attempts to keep the film dynamic by moving the camera around her. The premise of the story - progressively going through 10 clips - and Tuason’s framing of shots that focus as much on the background as they do on Evy seem to promise more interesting results than actually transpire.
What ultimately holds the film down more than anything is its lack of different viewpoints. The only other person who’s actually seen is Evy’s mother, who is unable to speak. Evy speaks to Justin, another friend, and a doctor over the course of the story, and while each broadens our understanding of Evy somewhat, none of them make her a truly three-dimensional person. Getting a little more information about her history might have helped the story work better.
Kiri does her level best to vary her acting in the various podcast scenes, and even when they start to get repetitive, she remains compelling and watchable. It’s difficult to judge the other actors based on audio alone, but knowing that DiMarco also starred in season 2 of The White Lotus helps to visualize him and his acting style.
Undertone does well in creating a spine-chilling mood, but it needed something beyond that to become a truly great horror movie. Tuason shows some promise as a filmmaker, especially in the way he uses the camera to create tension, but a more complete story will serve him better the next time around.
