Monthly Archives: February 2022

Giant has completed its rapid overhaul of the Trance line-up with the new Trance 29. Offered in Giants ALUXX-SL aluminium, the new Trance 29 inherits most of the features of its carbon sibling, including updated and adjustable geometry and increased rear-wheel travel to 120mm from 115mm, paired with a 130mm fork.

The Taiwanese brand overhauled its flagship Advanced Pro carbon frame last December. This was in addition to carbon and aluminium offerings of its rowdier relative, the Trance X, earlier in the autumn. The news also follows the update to Giants sister brand Livs Embolden.

While the term downcountry might spring to mind when looking at the bikes suspension travel, Giant asserts that the Trance 29 is a trail bike made for tackling technical terrain, only faster.

The flip chips can be found on the inside of the upper rock link arm/seatstay junction. Giant Bicycles

The Trance 29s geometry is updated from its predecessor, and is almost identical to its carbon sibling.

Like its carbon sibling, the Trance 29 features adjustable geometry via a set of flip chips on the rocker arm/seatstay junction.

There are High and Low settings to choose from. These will alter the head tube and seat tube angles by 0.7 degrees, the bottom bracket drop by a significant 10mm and the reach by 8mm.

In its high setting on a size large, the Trance 29 sports a 66.2-degree head tube angle, with a bottom bracket drop of 35mm, coupled with a steep seat tube angle of 77 degrees and a reach of 480mm.

In the low setting, the head tube angle is reduced to 65.5 degrees and the bottom bracket drop increases to 45mm, so its lower to the ground and has less clearance. The seat tube angle slackens to 76.3 degrees and the reach reduces to 472mm.

The only difference in geometry between this alloy offering and its carbon sibling is a slightly increased standover height (by 3 or 4mm, depending on which flip chip setting you are using).

The brand says that the updated geometry should translate to a ride that rolls over rough terrain with balance and stability, combined with momentum for climbing performance.

The Giant Trance 29s Maestro suspension platform. Giant Bicycles

The updated Trance 29 utilises Giants long-standing Maestro suspension system, a twin-link design, where the rear triangle is connected to the front by a pair of links. It features an upper carbon rocker link, which Giant dubs Advanced Forge Composite to deliver its 120mm of rear travel. The brand says the Fox Float DPS Performance rear shock has been custom-tuned for the frame.

The frame features a mounting point on the underside of the top tube for tool caddies, and there is space for up to a 650ml bottle on the single down-tube bottle cage.

The Trance 29 also utilises the newer design of cable guides its carbon sibling uses, which have a neater appearance and should run quieter.

Giant includes two areas of rubber frame protection, one on the underside of the down tube and bottom bracket area to guard the frame against rock strikes and another ribbed protector on the driveside chainstay.

There is an ISCG-05 interface should you wish to install a chain guide or bash guard. Tyre clearance is rated up to 292.5in.

The Trance 29 builds feature Shimano 112 drivetrains.

Giant is offering two models of the Trance 29 for 2022.

Both feature predominantly Shimano 112 groupsets and Shimano hydraulic disc brakes with 180mm rotors front and rear.

Giant supplies its own finishing kit, as well as its Contact Switch dropper seatpost on both builds (S: 125mm drop, M: 150mm, L and XL: 170mm).

Maxxis Minion DHF tyres are fitted up-front, with their 3C MaxxTerra compound and EXO casing. An Aggressor is on duty at the back, also in EXO casing, and both are in the frames maximum 292.5in width.

Additionally, both tyres come tubeless-ready and already seated and set up out of the box.

Giants Trance 29 2 comes in Metallic Black. Giant Bicycles

The more expensive Giant Trance 29 1 in Phantom Green. Giant Bicycles

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New Giant Trance 29 increases rear wheel travel to 120mm... but don't call it downcountry - BikeRadar

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't, so goes the proverb. But when it comes to our heroes, how well do Astrid (Jana Morrison) and Lilly (Samantha Aucoin) know the details of their own memories?

That's the question posed by this week's monster, who is quite possibly the most creative villain to have come through the portal thus far in Astrid & Lilly Save the World. By exploiting the past traumas of its victims, it raises all kinds of points about memory and illusion, fact and fiction, and overcoming what holds us back.

That said, it also does want to kill people, so we shouldn't praise it too loudly.

So strap in, folks: We're about to get intensely introspective.

**SPOILER WARNING! Spoilers ahead for Astrid & Lilly Save the World Season 1, Episode 5, "A-Borg."**

When Astrid and Lilly show up for school, they each find little jacks-in-the-box in their lockers. Astrid thinks Sparrow left it for her as a cute joke, and Lilly thinks it was Brutus (Olivier Renaud). Valerie (Christina Orjalo) gets one too, as does Tate (Kolton Stewart), and the urge to crank those cranks is simply irresistible.

In reality, however, these jacks-in-the-box are the farthest thing from harmless pranks, and in fact are actually more like landmines that blow up in their recipients'... memories. When the toys explode, they temporarily transport the cranker into their minds, to relieve their worst memory. It's pretty sadistic.

For instance, Valerie is forced to relieve a time she was performing and farted live on stage; and Tate is trapped in a memory of being publicly scolded as a child by his father for slacking at soccer.

But why?

Cue Brutus with the DL. The knick knacks are the work of the latest interportal interloper, the Memoragotu, whose gambit is to trap its victims in a loop of their worst memory, feeding off their trauma until they waste away. The only way to vanquish the Memoragotu is to do it twice: the first time in the memory world, and second in the real one.

So everyone's got their work cut out for them.

After Tate forgoes a date with Candace (Julia Doyle) in favor of soccer practice, the spurned lover asks Lilly if she'd like to run lines for Romeo & Juliet with her. Lilly is honored, and invites Candace over to her house after school, incurring Astrid's jealousy.

But a few lines into the Bard's masterpiece, Lilly goes off-script, and goes into a trance, prey to her worst memory one that just so happens to involve Candace. Lilly was just a toddler when her mothers took her to Candace's for the little diva's birthday, and she was disinvited right there at the threshold of the door. When Candace remembers Brutus's counsel, she storms through the door in her memory to confront Candace and her homophobic mother Christine (Geri Hall). This has a liberating effect on Lilly, who frees herself from the Memoragotu's grasp, as well as her own trauma.

But by this time, Astrid, Tate, Valerie, and even Brutus have beckoned the call of the Memoragotu, and in a trance wandered into town to a makeshift carnival where the monster plans to do something nasty to them.

Lilly, having risen above her memory, helps the others to do the same. Astrid is reliving the memory of when her father left home to pick something up for her and died in an accident on the way back. Astrid still feels guilty that she caused her father's death, and that her mother never forgave her. But as she digs deeper into the memory she realizes this is not true: Her father was heading to the office anyway on that fateful night, and her mother didn't think twice about forgiving her.

When Astrid sees the error of her thinking, she is able to overcome the Memoragotu in her mind and snap out of the trance. The same happens for Tate, who also realizes that sometimes memory is not his best friend, and when he comes to he helps Astrid and Lilly defeat the monster by impaling her through the head on a loose nail (always some of those around at a carnival).

Our heroes collect the Memoragotu's eyeball for the vessel, lift the spell on their classmates and Brutus, and make on their way, seemingly with a bit lighter step as they are freed of the shackle of false memory.

Excerpt from:

'Astrid & Lilly Save the World' Recap: Traumas return to haunt our heroes and all of Pine Academy in Ep. 5 - Syfy

There's nothing I love more than an underlying current of melancholy floating beneath a film, giving the piece a tone and a texture unlike anything else. As great as a romance or a horror movie can be, if there's a film that finds that balance of emotional realism and a sadness based in the everyday mundanities of existence, it will stick to your bones in a way that no specific genre can reach. Most don't have sharp enough edges to dredge quite that deeply.

Writer/director Jessica Beshir's existential masterpiece, "Faya Dayi" not only finds that depth, but revels in the hallucinatory spaces between waking and dreaming, between breath and scream and between the heat of the sun and the icy grasp of patient death. The melancholy is tempered by deferred hope and euphoric longing for a life just out of reach, but the documentary/fiction hybrid doesn't succumb to the sadness; instead, Beshir keeps reigniting the spark of life by illuminating the beauty of shadows.

"Faya Dayi" loosely translated means "giving birth to health." The title drips with the counter-intuitiveness of sincere irony because "healthiness" is not necessarily a word that comes to mind while watching the film. Shot in the rural city of Harar, Ethiopia, "Faya Dayi" spends most of its luxurious 120 minutes focused on the native plant khat, a dichotomous leaf that is simultaneously one of Ethiopia's largest cash crops and also an important stimulant for Sufi Muslim meditation rituals. The people of Harar use the drug recreationally while also using it for religious purposes, meaning that while so much of the city is reeling from the euphoria of chewing khat, many of them are using it for completely different reasons.

The film's dialogue is deeply poetic, with every sentence trying to convey a dozen meanings, much the same way Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life" achieved. What's astounding about that achievement is that there are several different languages spoken in Ethiopia. Beshir speaks Amharic while most of the citizens of Harar speak Afaan Oromoo, so she was unaware of what was actually being said during the filming of the documentary and didn't have any context for the words until she could get the sound bites translated; then she translated the subtitles herself.

Not knowing the context of the images she was capturing, Beshir has made a film mostly reliant on some of the most stunning black-and-white imagery ever caught on film. It's an amazing call and response as an audience member: the visuals take your breath away and the haunting words give it back, over and over again until the viewer becomes caught in some form of somnambulistic trance and the same meditative state the documentary's subjects are hoping to achieve.

The fact that "Faya Dayi" wasn't nominated for Best International Feature and Best Documentary is shocking. The importance of the Academy Awards has lessened for me knowing that something that actually transcends the form of a motion picture isn't flashy enough to be recognized. Beshir should be given a blank check for her next project and will have a career of legend, Oscar nod or not.

There's no hyperbole here when I say that "Faya Dayi" is a transformative experience that will burn images and themes into your eyes and heart forever. I've watched it three times and there are just so many things to unpack in each frame, with some shot compositions among the most beautiful ever captured. The black-and-white photography makes the subtext live on the screen by carefully chronicling the smoky battle between light and shadow.

This film doesn't just expand the medium of movies, instead, Beshir reframes the importance of them by laying bare the soul of a culture and then asking the viewer to commit to empathy without judgement, to understanding without allowing us to enter the narrative. No white knights or saviors allowed; instead "Faya Dayi" just wants us to remember that once in the very beginning we all had the same pulse and maybe, if we're lucky, we can all find our way back again.

Faya Dayi

Dir. Jessica Beshir

Grade: A+

Now Playing at Tin Pan Theater

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Leaf of Life - The Source Weekly

Sometimes its hard to feel what you know a choreographer wants you to feel.

In the case of Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart, there is a lot of purposely awkward positioning of taffy-supple bodies: arched backs, far-flung arms, wide and ever-deepening plis. This evening-length work, performed by the company L-E-V, dances and winds its way around themes related to the anguish that love brings. There is pleasure in the pain.

It helps to know that L-E-V means heart in Hebrew. In this final section of a trilogy exploring aspects of love by the companys artistic directors and founders, Sharon Eyal formerly a star of Batsheva Dance Company and, for a time, its house choreographer and Gai Behar, the heart is both muscular and tender. Once the chest is fully released with arms trailing behind the back, the body is a showcase of vulnerability.

But this Brutal Journey, making its American premiere at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday, is a meandering trek as six dancers display their sensuality with such forcefulness that it slips into parody. Is it trippy? Not really. The choreography aligns itself unabashedly with Gaga, the movement language developed by Batshevas longtime artistic director Ohad Naharin; it can be hypnotic, but here it is static.

Brutal Journey, which unfolds over an hour to a dreamy soundscape laced with percussion by Ori Lichtik, feels like many knockoffs of Gaga, of a dance party in a Gaspar No film, of a fashion show. The costumes are by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the creative director of Christian Dior Couture, who outfits the dancers in tattooed unitards, each with a red heart on the left side of the chest. Its a bit much.

The program notes include a selection of words by Eyal, including Silence. Dryness. Emptiness. There is also a quote from Hanya Yanagiharas overwrought, at times brutal novel A Little Life, which reads, things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.

Its true that the dancers give off a broken quality in their bodies. The piece, which shifts in intensity along with Alon Cohens dusty lighting, tries to create a sense of seamlessness, yet as one part bleeds into the next, the pacing stutters. The curtain opens on a single dancer balancing on demi-pointe with one hand protectively pinned to her chest and the other to her abdomen.

Shifting her hips, she teeters and twists on the tips of her toes, until two others enter from the wings swiping at their throats like feral animals. Eventually more dancers join in; as they take small, mincing steps in unison spreading out and converging back together a lyric pokes through the melody: You are one of those creatures.

While there is something trance-like about Brutal Journey, it never lands in a strange-enough place. The monotony of the movement especially those arms that twist like weathered branches on a tree and the repetitive way in which the dance is structured, lends an airless and aimless quality to the performers quest for love or, perhaps, attempts to move beyond it.

The contrast of quick feet with slow-motion posturing soon becomes contrived; at one point, with the dancers forming a tableaux, two bend their arms around a third dancer in the center as if tracing a heart around her. Voguing, or something loosely like it, enters the choreographic picture, but what is it building toward? Just as the dancers ferocity seems forced, this Brutal Journey feels archaic, a relic of the prepandemic world where performance could more easily exist in a place of commercial flash. (Its premiere took place in September 2019.)

These dancers, wallowing in the pain of love and longing, never break your heart. Theyre caught up in sensation, yet no matter how deeply they feel, it doesnt penetrate past the stage. As the curtain slowly falls, they keep moving as if lost in a reverie of love.

L-E-V

Through Feb. 27 at the Joyce Theater, Manhattan; joyce.org.

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Review: Exposing the Heart in a Brutal Dance of Love - The New York Times

Planning a vacation is a little tedious, but planning a vacation with friends is a nightmare. Where you could easily choose a hotel you would like, now you must consider three or four other opinions and suddenly making decisions becomes impossible. Will everyone like the windows in this place? Will so-and-so complain about the noise from the street? Will whats-her-face be able to lug her 70 pounds of luggage up the three flights of stairs to this adorable apartment with a clawfoot tub?

This weeks episode begins with four friends planning a vacation and ends with five friends all mad at each other. A tale as old as time. It also asks an extremely important question: Are exotic lamps a great idea, or a menace to society at large?

Joining me this week are Emma Gray and Claire Fallon! Emma and Claire are the hosts of The Bachelor podcast Love To See It. They also host a culture podcast and write a newsletter called Rich Text.

We started off this week talking about how gossip functions as a part of the Bachelor universe (both on and off the show), how both Emma and Claire receive gossip, and the trials of calling yourself a gossip. Then we dove right into a wild and raucous tale of five friends desperate to have a good time on vacation in southeast Asia, whose personalities grate on each other until it all explodes in a single night of drama, terror, and trance music.

This weeks episode is our season finale. We will be taking a little break so that no one burns out before we begin recording new episodes for the very shiny, very exciting season two. In the meantime, though, please send in your FAMILY GOSSIP for a very special bonus episode to tide you over between seasons!

Our bonus episode will feature all of your lovely voices, and you can decide if you want to leave your name or remain anonymous. You can help us out by calling in that delicious gossip over voicemail to 2-6-7-9-GOSSIP or send us a voice memo to normalgossip@defector.com.

You can subscribe toNormal GossiponApple Podcasts,Spotify, orwherever elseyou listen! You canfollowNormal GossiponInstagram here.

(The transcript for this weeks episode can be found here)

Continued here:

Let's Play 'Spot The Scammer' - Defector

For the first time in years, Joe Mount is a very busy man again. After dialling his number, were met with a customary beep! Hi! This is Joe. Leave a message and I may or may not get back to you. Its the day after Metronomy have dropped their seventh studio album Small World, and hes in the thick of celebrations, loading into a venue in his hometown of Totnes for a release show.

When Mount does get back to NME, hes crackling with a warm, excitable energy: Were playing at The Civic Hall in the centre of town. Its quite charming; it must have been built in the 60s or something. We were at Rough Trade [in east London] yesterday and then we slept on the bus for the first time in two years and then woke up on an industrial estate back home. A lovely start!

Its a routine hes simply getting reacquainted with. Metronomy have always proved an unwavering live force as a fixture on British festival bills, pulling their brilliant and offbeat electronica forward with each album, never losing sight of their sense of youthfulness and invention. Is it strange being back given the pandemic held them away for a while? Its not weird being back in venues, the frontman replies. The odd thing is that its been such a long time. Its noticing that you feel a bit older, I guess. Its really fun. I think Im pleasantly surprised by how excited I am.

I think Im always just relieved that people are still interested [in our band]. It feels like the longer you do it, the more impressive it is that people are willing to humour me.

He neednt have been worried. Small World is an album brimming with the confidence and spritely energy weve come to love the five-piece for over the years, but its not exactly the Devonshire band as we know them. This time, Mounts songwriting thrives as intimate acoustic pop dealing with matters of love, life and the passing of time, without their glossy-floor filling beats.

He says Small World is something of an antidote to their adventurous and epic predecessor 2019s Metronomy Forever: I thought it would be nice to make something much more concise and focused. I think for me there was something slightly fun about trying to make a Nashville Metronomy record, a grown-up record, so I thought that would be quite eclectic to be, like, were taking ourselves seriously all of a sudden.

Its a testament to the bands sense of youthfulness that theyve finally penned their growing up album approaching 20 years into their career. He says that sense of adventure has been central to their longevity: Its entertainment and you can have fun with it. At this point in our career, you dont have to stay in your lane, you can enjoy the freedom that youve got. I realised I could make a record like this and then the next one could be psy-trance.

The change in gear didnt come out of the blue, though. Mount relocated to the countryside with his wife and two kids a few years before the pandemic struck, and this offered space to enjoy lifes simple pleasures away from touring schedules. Its a factor that flows wholly through the record notably on the radiant good to be back, when the glitchy bop opens up and Mount accepts: Yeah, I see the world / But sometimes not whats right in front of me.

Today he explains: I already wanted to write more about myself what I feel and then the pandemic happened and it clicked with what I was already thinking and feeling. He pauses, before pondering on the sacrifices of being a musician: You end up for long periods of time away from your family so when youre suddenly presented with two years of time at home its really unusual, which is quite sad. I remember saying to my fianc: We have to enjoy this, because it will never happen again. So from the word go it was not lost on me that it was a really unusual situation.

One of the records many highlights in the form of the dizzying and romantic Hold Me Tonight, a duet with Porridge Radios Dana Morgalin, who offers grungy and heartfelt vocals that summon all the passion and uncertainty of an early romance: And I dont know who Ill talk to / I dont know who Ill cry to / And I dont know what Ill do / Instead of loving you.

Mount says that collaboration is vital in keeping their flame alive: When youre lucky enough to have been doing it for this amount of time, you dont want to forget that early excitement. Every time I work with a newer act you can feel that and feed off it like a vampire. He chuckles before acknowledging the age gap between himself in his late 30s and bands nearly half his age: That distance creeps up on you and you realise that theres quite a big gap.

Does it bring about nostalgia of when he was a fresh faced artist starting out? Absolutely, he says. Its like when you watch interviews with old bands and they say, Oh, I remember when we were driving around in that little van. Its because you never forget and I think the people the reason always go on about it is because its the most exciting time in your career. Its great to work with someone who is so open-minded about everything; its refreshing and inspiring.

metronomy have done a fair share of looking back on their own breakthrough days in recent times, with their classic albums Nights Out and The English Riviera receiving 10-year anniversary treatments. Mount says its good to take stock of the journey so far: Every time I put out a record I go down a bit of a rabbit hole. Sometimes Ill try to find an ancient interview, watch it and see what I said and whether Ive done what I said I would.

Well, has he? I do feel very proud and happy, he admits. We were a young band 10 years ago and you realise there was this potential to develop into what we are now. Its like, What kind of musician will I be for the next 10 years? Its rewarding to stop and reflect. Its quite a nice position to be in because there are people who are still interested to find out what comes next. Having a 10-year anniversary of a record kind of just reminds everyone that theyre 10 years older, as far as Im concerned. Its not just me; its the people that listen to it as well.

At this point in our career, we dont have to stay in our lane. The next record could be psy-trance

Joe Mount every right to be proud: few buzzy bands who emerged in the late 00s have seen it out and continue to make some of their best work. Hes proud of that in itself: There are obviously a lot of bands that come and go but that is a part of the deal as well. Some bands are only meant to exist for maybe one youthful, exciting record theres room for everything, I guess. I think what I will always enjoy is that we were never at the beginning heralded as the ones that would get that far; I like the idea that we stealthily did it in our own way.

So whats next for the band? Theyve headlined Glastonburys John Peel Stage and have a show packed summer on the horizon, including a slot headline at Green Man in the Brecon Beacons. Im not sure whats left to tick off, Mount reflects. Most of us are going to be in our 40s soon, so its like, Oh, what landmarks are on the horizon?

Metronomy. Credit: Alex Lambert

NME suggests theres always time for a slot on the Pyramid Stage. Mount laughs: I will give you a million pounds if we do the Pyramid, and actually I cant give you that amount of money Ill give you a hundred.

Well take our chances on that bet. Metronomy have climbed the hill in their own weird and wonderful way. If they continue to do so, nothing is out of the question.

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Indie survivors Metronomy: "I like the idea that we stealthily succeeded in our own way - NME.com