24 ARTS
Review of reviews: Art & Music
AP“Depending on your perspective,”
said Todd Martens in the Los
Angeles Times, “Meow Wolf’s
Omega Mart is an art gallery,
an indoor theme park, a place
to take lots of Instagram photos,
or the sort of indoor space that
should be avoided at all costs
during a pandemic.” The new
Las Vegas attraction, created by
the art collective Meow Wolf,
opened its doors two weeks ago
to begin what might be a new
era for themed entertainment and
experiential art. Omega Mart appears at
first glance to be a typical supermarket.
But look closer at those product labels.
Over here: “Emergency Clams” and “Who
Told You This Was Butter?” Over there:
“Plausible Deniability Laundry Detergent.”
Open a refrigerator door and you may find
yourself stepping into a towering rock can-
yon or any of dozens of other mind-altering
environments. Omega Mart is “meant to
welcome us, and then unravel until we no
longer have a clear sense of place.”
“It’s impossible to take it all in during
one, two, or a dozen trips,” said the
Visitors at the new Omega Mart: Irony alert on Aisle 3Exhibit of the week
Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart
Las Vegas
Santa Fe New Mexican in an editorial.
Trust us, because that’s been true of the
original Meow Wolf location: a former
bowling alley in Santa Fe that was con-
verted into a one-of-a-kind fun house by a
group of scrappy artists who raised most
of the funding by requesting a donation
from Game of Thrones author George R.R.
Martin. Crowds lined up from the start,
said Teya Vitu, also in the New Mexican,
and “the five years since have seen the com-
pany jump onto a superhighway of growth
almost as surreal as its artistic creations.”
After a corporate reorganization, more
than $150 million was raised to export thefranchise to several other cities,
and though the pandemic forced
Meow Wolf to delay plans and
nearly halve its peak workforce of
500, two spin-offs are scheduled
for 2021 openings, starting with
the Vegas site, which is 2.5 times
bigger than Santa Fe’s.“In keeping with its origins,” said
Geoff Carter in Las Vegas Weekly,
Meow Wolf involved Las Vegas
artists “at the ground level,” pay-
ing more than 300 to contribute
to the Omega Mart experience.
There’s a story element to the
project—a mystery for visitors to
unravel as they wander through
portals in the market into a factory space or
the darkly futuristic headquarters of the fic-
tional conglomerate that runs Omega Mart.
Still, you’ll make return visits “just for the
art,” including Claudia Bueno’s Pulse, made
from sheets of etched glass, and co-founder
Corvas Brinkerhoff’s Vibration Elevator,
“a truly odd hybrid of discotheque, photo
booth, and X-ray machine.” The Meow
Wolf team “has a unique talent for solicit-
ing works of maximalist art, collecting them
in warehouse-size spaces, and tying all those
artworks together through mystery-box
narrative. Simply put, they build wonder-
fully weird movies you can walk through.”Julien Baker’s new
album may be her most
“soul-ravaging yet,”
said Bobby Olivier in
Spin.com. A “wildly
talented” 25-year-
old who plays with
Phoebe Bridgers and
Lucy Dacus in the supergroup Boygenius,
Baker has been putting out “delicately
devastating” solo material since 2015,
much of it grappling with addiction, her
tattered Christian faith, and her crumbling
mental health. But Little Oblivions cranks
up the volume on Baker’s confessional
songwriting, offering “an unflinching gaze
into the mirror,” a reckoning with the idea
“that there exists a self, within many of us,
whose sole aim is to destroy us.” Sonically,
“Baker is aiming for the rafters,” said Steven
Edelstone in PasteMagazine.com. The
“booming guitars” and pounding drums on
several tracks are “goosebump- inducing,”
but “in a wildly different way” than the
music on her quiet first two albums.
Somehow Little Oblivions “feels just as
intimate.” Quiet or loud, “she’s becoming
not only the most relatable artist of her gen-
eration, but also arguably its best.”
Cassandra Jenkins’
second album runs for
only 32 minutes, but
“it features one perfect
song and five excel-
lent ones,” said Sam
Sodomsky in Pitchfork
.com. The 36-year-
old Brooklyn-based musician and singer
recorded most of it in a single week, and
though she was grieving a recent loss, her
writing here “summons a graceful, almost
aspirational quality of lightness.” You can
hear her emerging from a fog by staying
alert to the city and people around her,
and with saxophone, fretless bass, and
drum loops for backing, “the whole thing
flows like an emotional breakthrough.”
Up through the gorgeous ambient closing
track, these tunes “have a funny way of
ending somewhere quite different than they
began,” said Ryan Leas in Stereogum.com.
The centerpiece, “Hard Drive,” is one of the
best songs of the year so far, “a masterful
piece” in which sax and “gently propulsive
guitar chimes” build momentum as if pro-
pelling Jenkins closer to wisdom. “There
aren’t a lot of songs on An Overview, but
Jenkins packs a whole lot into them.”Think of David
Bowden’s first full-
length album as “a
journey through torch-
song R&B’s past,” said
Alex McLevy in AVClub
.com. The Philadelphia
native began releas-
ing music as Pink Sweat$ just three years
ago, but this album proves “as immersive
and fully realized as anything a veteran
could assemble.” The 29-year-old singer-
songwriter has an “unerring knack for
silken soul earworms,” and though his
“buttery smooth” voice is a common
denominator, various passages on this
18-track record bring to mind the Isley
Brothers, En Vogue, or Marvin Gaye. “Hell,
there’s even some James Taylor in there.”
Bowden’s early hit, “Honesty,” is included,
too, but most of the tracks are more fully
orchestrated than that minimalist ballad,
said Salem Collo-Julin in ChicagoReader
.com. “Not Alright” and “Give It to Me,”
which run back to back, “sound like songs
that the Weeknd should’ve played at the
Super Bowl.” One track later, Bowden’s
gentle side returns with “At My Worst,” a
duet with Kehlani that “feels like a lullaby.”Julien Baker
Little Oblivions
++++
Cassandra Jenkins
An Overview of Phenomenal Nature
++++Pink Sweat$
Pink Planet
++++