Artist: Childish Gambino

Album: Culdesac

Label: Self-produced

Rating: 4

Culdesac is the third album self-produced by Childish Gambino, the moniker used by Donald Glover who plays the role of ditzy community college student Troy Barnes on the popular comedy, “Community.” This 15 track-album was entirely self-produced by Gambino and is available for free download on his website.

Gambino’s style of rapping is very unique in that some aspects of his acting personality shine through the tracks. He raps like he is delivering one, very long, rambling monologue that occasionally fluctuates to the beats of the song. Yet, his lyrics are poetic in the style of Kanye West with a bit less of prideful flaunting that flavors West’s own tracks.

Gambino proves himself to be a versatile performer through the 15 tracks because not only does he rap, he also occasionally sings. His tracks and beats are absolutely amazing, especially considering the fact that he worked on every single track by himself. Listeners can really hear Gambino’s endless creativity throughout the entire album.

A great standout track is “Do Ya Like,” which incorporates a sample of Adele’s “Melt My Heart to Stone.” It is one of the best rap tracks that uses Adele sampling so well, and it fits with Gambino’s rap flawlessly.

There’s no reason not to download Culdesac. Besides being an amazing indie-rap album, it’s absolutely legal to download.

Give these tracks a listen: “Do Ya Like,” “Grind,” “Glory” and “I’m Alright”

For fans of: Kanye West, Santigold, and Tupac

– Michelle Ruan

Artist: Lady Gaga

Album: Born This Way

Label: Interscope Records

Rating: 4

Ever since Lady Gaga boldly tweeted months ago that her upcoming record was going to be “the album of the decade,” her “little monsters” have been hotly anticipating its release, while some critics have been hoping they can tear it, and Gaga, apart.

There’s a lot to love on Born This Way, and they’re the moments in which Gaga truly taps into the creativity that has made her an international sensation since she released the relatively tame “Just Dance” back in 2008. The hauntingly-slow dance track “Bloody Mary” doesn’t sound like anything Gaga, or anyone recently, has released, and the country-sounding “You and I” is an awesome power ballad that differs from every beat-induced song on the album.

It’s when Gaga tries to throwback to 80’s power pop that her album feels weak. Songs like “Hair” and “Born This Way” sound more like rejects from an old Madonna album than true Gaga originals. Of course they’re still fun dance tracks, and “Bad Kids” is exceptionally fun, but it’s a testament to Gaga’s talent that we expect more from her than just a song we can dance to. Her strength has always been combining new beats with subtle social commentary or emotional and intelligent lyrics. Born This Way is definitely a lot of fun, and both the standout tracks and the forgettable cheesy ones are sure to make you “put your paws up” and dance.

Give these tracks a listen: “Marry the Night,” “Bloody Mary,” “You and I”

For Fans of: Madonna, Britney Spears and Robyn

– Anneta Konstantinides

Artist: Flogging Molly

Album: Speed of Darkness

Label: Borstal Beat

Rating: 3

The formula for Speed of Darkness is a simple one: Celtic folk + punk rock = Flogging Molly. If you already knew this equation, you pretty much understand the experience of listening to the Los Angeles-based Irish rock band’s latest album.

It’s not that the songs aren’t catchy. The title track gets the album off to a brisk start, and “Saints & Sinners” and “Revolution” are exuberant enough to get you up and dancing (or at least jumping up and down, which sometimes feels more appropriate). The band’s expert use of fiddle, accordion and mandolin give the otherwise-unremarkable punk vibe an extra something special and some of the slower-tempo tracks are downright soulful. It’s truly traditional Celtic folk music reinterpreted for the head-banging 21st-century set.

There’s nothing new here, though. Most of the up-tempo tracks have the same driving beat and aggressive vocals. With the exception of a few more relaxed and slower songs, Speed of Darkness continues to rely on Flogging Molly’s unique folk and punk musicality to provide its “so what?” factor. Except now, listeners may really begin wondering if they even have an answer.

Give these tracks a listen: “Saints & Sinners,” “The Cradle of Humankind,” and “A Prayer for Me in Silence”

For fans of: Dropkick Murphys, Social Distortion and The Eagles

– Robin Migdol

Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites affect our everyday lives, such as tracking our every wall post to a friend, flirty chat with a new fling or picture from last weekend’s party. But can such a technological medium influence art?

Friday, seven graduating Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidates will be displaying their thesis projects, offering a multitude of responses to the general question: How are young artists responding to the changing environment for art in the technological age of social media?

The exhibit features a wide range of artistic mediums, including three painters Mathew Zefeldt, Matthew Taylor and Manuel Fernando Rios; two elaborate video and media art projects Jen Cohen and Benjamin Rosenthal; and two sculpturers Lisa Rybovich Crallé and Paul Taylor.

The exhibit is being called “The House of Others” – a title which Renny Pritikin, director of the Nelson Gallery and curator of the exhibit, believes reflects the feeling of his young students as they transition to the real world.

“The title is meant to intrigue people and encourage them to check it out,” Pritikin said. “I think sometimes all students feel like they’re living in someone else’s reality – whether their parents’ reality or their teachers’ – and during the course of school they have to learn to move out of their inherited world and build a new house to live in for themselves, that they make themselves.

Certain artists, including sculptor Cralle, crafted their work specifically around the issue of technology in a contemporary society – the effects of which her sculptures are meant to represent.

“The sculptures in this environment function like props on a stage that the viewer is expected to enter,” Cralle said. “Most of the sculptures reference the body or costume as a surrogate for the body in a blatantly theatrical way with oversized cartoon-ish simplifications and exaggerated forms. These theatrical references to the body are a means to address the day-to-day staging and costuming that we partake in on social networking sites.”

Cralle especially applies this idea of staging to how we function and display ourselves on Facebook.

“I am interested in the natural construction of persona that we partake in daily,” Cralle said. “For instance, how we stage our Facebook identities to portray us as well-read, clever, good-looking – someone who goes to interesting events, etc.  The photographs we choose to display of ourselves online also give an impression of our often-idealized life and lifestyle.  Increasingly, we use the language of advertising, product-placement in particular, as a means to present ourselves to the world.”?

Despite the amount of technological influence that went into the thought-process of her work, Cralle said the effects are so subtle that most viewers won’t even know her work is about internet at all.

Much of this subtlety can be found in the exhibit. For instance, painter Zefeldt claims that, although his work is not directly about social media, it is surely influenced by it.

“Painting is a very old medium, you have to contend with a whole lot besides today’s technological advances, but at the same time you are aware of things that are shaping the world today. I feel like I have to balance the two, something very old and something very new,” he said.

Zefeldt also feels that the technological world has made painting an even more obscure medium for people, a fact that excites him.

“Painting is like sculpture, it’s a physical object that a person walks up to and has a relationship to,” Zefeldt said. “The more time people spend in front of monitors, the more weird the painting and the physicality of it”.

Viewers of the gallery can exhibit bright acrylic paintings from Zefeldt, who also utilized hard edge odd-perspectives.

Pritikin believes that the exhibit could be a fantastic educational experience for students who often have their noses in their books.

“Most students have a natural tendency to focus in on their studies,” Pritikin said. “This is admirable, of course, but it also runs counter to the intentions of a liberal arts education, which is meant to broaden one’s awareness of the world. Seeing the work of these talented seven grad students is guaranteed to open one’s eyes to how the arts is responding to today’s world.”

“The House of Others” exhibit opens on Friday with a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and will continue to run through June 24.

ANNETA KONSTANTINIDES can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Imagine if the iconic scene of Jack and Rose standing at the tip of the Titanic never happened. One of the most romantic scenes in movie history, re-created throughout the years in numerous parodies and romantic endeavors by love-struck couples. The scene would’ve never happened if the set designers of Titanic hadn’t flexed their creative fingers and made a seemingly impossible deed possible – that is, to recreate the Titanic in its entire splendor when it left on its doomed maiden journey.

Wednesday, eight MFA candidates and several undergraduate students hosted a showcase of work that they’ve been creating throughout the year. The showcase took place at the UC Davis Wright Hall Main Stage.

John Iacovelli, faculty advisor, discussed the different types of work that was showcased in the student exhibit.

“There are some videos of shows produced at UC Davis. Puppets from our puppet class to sketches, scale models and renderings,” he said.

Rose Anne Raphael, an MFA candidate in the two-year MFA program in scenic design, is one of the participants who will be presenting her work to the public.

“I’m showing models I created for three plays: A Streetcar Named Desire, Servant of Two Masters and Lysistrata. Also, I’m showing photographs of Come Hell and High Water, a show produced during Winter quarter on our Main Stage theater, for which I was the scenic designer,” Raphael said.

The idea for the showcase was inspired by California Institute of Arts and New York University’s similar exhibitions, where selected graduate and undergraduate students show their work to the public and get feedback for their projects.

According to Iacovelli, the showcase took nearly a year to plan with the help of three faculty advisors and seven to nine graduate students.

The theater design program at UC Davis covers design for many different types of performing platforms, such as dance and opera. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the program, graduates of the MFA program are very versatile designers who can adapt to any situation.

Iacovelli described UC Davis’ program as all encompassing.

“It is an interdisciplinary program where we train young professional designers in the areas of scenery costume and lighting design for theatre, film, dance and opera,” Iacovelli said.

Raphael agrees with Iacovelli’s sentiments.

“It’s an intensive program that addresses all of the main skills needed to be a professional scenic designer,” Raphael said. “The showcase includes some of the models, sketches, plans and other tools that our designers use to present ideas to directors and developing ideas. The theater design program at UCD is an exciting place to be. It is always very busy and full of people who care deeply about theater and related arts.”

And the showcase at Wright Hall isn’t the only place where UC Davis Theatre Design MFA students will be showing their work. On Saturday, Kara Branch and Gian Scarabino will be taking part in the The Design Showcase West, a national portfolio show hosted at UC Los Angeles.

“Our students will be alongside students from NYU, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and 50 other students from other top design programs,” Iacovelli said. “We have a 100% placement rate for our graduates and they work in many fields from ballet to such TV shows [like] “Modern Family” and “Hell’s Kitchen.”

Yet, the life of a MFA student at UC Davis’s theatre design department isn’t all glamour. Glenn Fox, one of the graduate students who presented his work on Wednesday, sums it up best.

“We are all insanely busy,” Fox said. “Busy designing beautiful sceneries, that is.”

MICHELLE RUAN can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

With the huge popularity of Hollywood films and the major blockbuster culture, it’s often easy to overlook the value of smaller budget films and productions. And in the case of the UC Davis Film Festival, student participants found the beauty of art in the simplicity and manipulation of video, editing, photography and cinematography on little or no budget at all.

For the first time since the film festival began in 1990, the screening of short films was divided into two nights, May 25 and 26, at the Varsity Theatre. The charming and authentic feel of the Varsity Theatre was the perfect setting for the originality of each short film. The faces each night were as consistent as the line accumulating from within the foyer to outside of the venue.

Kicking off the festival was the familiar “Empire State of Mind” music video parody, “Davis State of Mind.” It didn’t hurt the recent UCD Law graduates Alex Pacheco and Daniel Watts to see their viral video featured on the big screen one more time. Another short worth mention is Wake Up and Row, which played the music of Sigur Rós to naturalistic wide shots and dynamic angles of the athletes. Although the video felt overdrawn at some points, it was definitely a beautiful and well-made piece overall.

Perhaps the most engaging short film of the night was the piece entitled Library. The short received awards for best directing by Kyle Dickerson and original score by Kevin MacLeod. The piece featured a phantom-haunted protagonist in Shields Library. The clever shots of dark alleys and abandoned bookshelves portrayed the library as an overwhelmingly creepy place (which some students can relate to). The manipulation of color and black-and-white shots were also effective in creating a disturbing sense of space.

There is little doubt that the best submissions were saved for the second night of the festival. Whether comedy, documentary or animation, each category was carefully thought-out and produced.

La Vida Colegio by Mathew Pye was a comedic piece that captured the life of a UCD student through the style of a Latino soap opera. The dialogue is hilarious as it is apparent that the participants do not speak great Spanish. Even better, the quality of footage itself is saturated and glowing to capture the dreamy feel and melodrama of a traditional soap opera.

Documentary was a popular category in this year’s film festival. However, one in the category really stood out: Standing Compassion by Anna Hossnieh and Evan Davis.

Standing Compassion achieves what a good documentary does: it takes a story and digs deeper to find a hidden truth. In this case, the story is the familiar face on Third and C Street, David Breaux. What makes Standing Compassion especially valuable is that it serves the Davis community in understanding Breaux’s story. Davis and Hossnieh capture Breaux’s passion and gentle nature through great storytelling. The film won Best Documentary.

Finally, the biggest winner of this year’s festival was Jason Ronzani for The Trophy Collector. The short animation won Best Sound, Best Animation and Best in Show on both nights. Ronzani’s two animations, Wormiver’s Travels and The Trophy Collector, utilize stop motion cinematography to capture movement. Wormiver’s Travel features a worm which moves from grains of sand to chalk on a chalkboard to a piece of molded clay. The movement of each frame is well thought-out. Yet, there is a simplicity that Ronzani holds on to that is endearing and captivating.

The Trophy Collector, however, is nowhere near simple. The short animation reveals the complexities of achieving movement from inanimate objects. From what is assumed to be a miniature model, Ronzani moves the objects frame-by-frame to make the characters move. Everything down to the bedding fabric, the lighting, shadows, sound and chisel marks are revealed in the up-close shots, making the audience sit in awe. The amount of work and attention to detail Ronzani put in The Trophy Collector is unbelievable. The film was definitely a showstopper.

The festival received over 50 submissions this year. The Department of Theater and Dance produced the festival in association with UC Davis Technocultural Studies, co-sponsored by Film Studies and Art Studio. For more information regarding the UC Davis film festival, visit: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu.

UYEN CAO can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Described as an “intimate outdoor space that is a departure from your normal bar room stage” Sophia’s Thai Kitchen hosts a variety of live events throughout the year. Sophia’s provide independent musicians and bands for the Davis community to absorb.

Sophia’s Thai Kitchen spring and summer live music seasons continue into June, with groups ranging from solo artists to larger groups. Each group brings something different to the music scene and Sophia’s has filled up their calendar with emerging and established entertainers.

Although the artists aren’t on the Top 40 of iTunes or even played consistently on the radio, these groups speak their own voices to those open to the indie music experience.

This weekend Sea Of Bees, Breathe Owl Breathe, David Williams, Calling Morocco, The Brothers Young and Hurtbird are all a part of the lineup. These performers originate from places like Salt Lake City, Michigan, Sacramento, Portland and even Davis.

One group from East Jordan, Mich., Breathe Owl Breathe, brings sounds from simpler times. This group got its start not too long ago.

“About 5 years ago, I was in art school and Trevor was visiting a friend. We had a video camera and made a bunch of videos for fun,” said guitarist and singer Micah Middaugh of Breathe Owl Breathe. “Andrea was exploring in the summer time and we ended up making some cassette tapes together.”

Going with the flow and letting life take them wherever is something of meaning, according to Middaugh.

“The best thing about performing is not realizing how things are going to turn out,” Middaugh said. “We’re never really in control but we’ll get inspired by everything leading up to the show and the randomness of the night.”

Although they are laidback with their approach to their music and performances, Breathe Owl Breathe knows what they want their music to sound like. They perform this Friday at 10 p.m.

“It’s like when you’re on a picnic and you don’t want seagulls to take your chips but at the same time you want them to so you can hear the noises,” said Middaugh. “[Listening to our music] is like being in flight. Like you’re inside of a seagull’s beak moving from one picnic to the next.”

David Williams, another indie-folk performer from Salt Lake City, brings a solo experience to Sophia’s Thai Kitchen lineup. In 2009, Slowtrain, a music label and record store based out of Salt Lake City, named David Williams as a top artist. David Williams takes the stage at 9:30 p.m. this Friday.

“Williams writes beautifully understated folk with soul to burn,” said Jaime Gadette, a writer for City Weekly, located in Salt Lake City.

Davis based and an all-male group, Calling Morocco performs this Saturday at 11 p.m.

“We’re a little bit of everything,” said guitarist and vocalist Kyle Olson. “We’re influenced by country, punk rock and some rock and roll.”

Slightly new to the music world, this group gets its name not from a personal experience or a childhood memory.

“A year ago we started getting stuff together for this group,” Olson said. “Our name comes from a documentary called American Movie.”

Unlike some other indie groups performing at Sophia’s this month, Calling Morocco’s music and lyrics are inspired by personal experiences, relationships and memories the group has had together.

“I hope that everyone in the audience has a good time,” Olson said. “Our music is upbeat and I hope people sit down and relate to the music.”

Lastly, Sea of Bees, an indie-folk band from Sacramento will also be performing this weekend. Sea of Bees is centered around Julie Ann Bee, or Jules as many call her. Jules plays many musical instruments, as well as sings and writes the music.

Sea of Bees has set up a couple of trips to New York and London this summer and is performing at 10 p.m. this Friday at Sophia’s.

Also on Saturday at 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. are two groups that originate from Portland, Oregon. Hurtbird performs first, with The Brothers Young performing after.

Don’t miss out on this unique and indie music scene this month at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, located at 129 E Street, Suite E. To learn more about each band and the rest of the performers, check out the lineup and calendar at sophiasthakitchen.com/live_events.

ELIZABETH ORPINA can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Transracial adoption has become a widely contested and debated subject. Everyone from politicians, to professors, to ordinary people have started to take interest in it. At UC Davis, English professor Mark Jerng, has written a book on the subject. He presented his book, Claiming Others, at the Bookstore Lounge in the Memorial Union last Wednesday.

The event was very low-key and involved Jerng talking about his book and his reasons for writing it. This was followed by a question and answer session. In his book, Jerng traces the practice of adoption from the early 19th century and reveals its importance to American thought, literature and law.

Jerng has been a part of the UC Davis faculty since 2006 and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. The subjects he focuses on are Asian diasporic literature, U.S. ethnic literatures, critical race studies, 19th and 20th century American literature, science fiction and human rights.

Claiming Others is Jerng’s first book. His inspiration from the book came from an unusual source. He first started thinking about the topic of transracial adoption when reading William Faulkner’s works, not from media coverage of celebrities such as Angelina Jolie or Madonna adopting children from foreign countries.

“There is obviously a lot of media coverage and a lot of heated debates on this topic,” Jerng said. “What really started me off was looking at the literature, and not just the early literature, but the memoirs that were being written by transracial and transnational adoptees. Their writing is really quite interesting-complicating a lot of these issues and wanting to get a full picture of how this idea of transracial adoption came about. It inspired me to write it and carry it through.”

In the book, Jerng’s purpose is to make the reader rethink the parent-child bond and to view it as central to issues about race and nationality. One of his goals is to mess with the usual timelines of transracial and transnational adoption and connect it with an emerging notion of American identity. The history of adoption has connections to the evolving concepts of national and racial identity. This was a challenge in writing the book.

“The challenge of this project was, to some extent, to organize this literary and cultural representations since they both did and also did not map onto the basic legal history of adoption in the United States,” he said.

He analyzed adoption through a wide array of texts including the 1851 Massachusetts statute and early adoption manuals and works of authors such as John Tanner, Faulkner, Charles Chesnutt, Chang-rae Lee and David Henry Hwang.

The social and imaginative practices of transracial adoption have helped shape major controversies throughout history. As Jerng emphasizes in his book, understanding adoption and all its implications is important to understanding the history of race relations in the United States and the meaning of emancipation and the role of family in nationhood.

When researching, Jerng stated that he enjoyed learning to think about transracial adoption in different ways. The issues and debates surrounding adoption apply to major current events and politics. This was one of the most interesting parts of the project for Jerng.

“As I was finishing the book I became involved with a lot more adoption organizations [that] are politically active and culturally active, and learning more about some of the policy debates from that perspective was really interesting,” Jerng said.

The preview Jerng gave in the bookstore last week was informative and gave insight into the background of the book. It is recommended for anyone who has an interest in transracial adoption and the many political, social and legal issues that come with it.

PAAYAL ZAVERI can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Screenwriters have perfected the art of the great ending over the last 100 years or so. I’ve always been a proponent of learning by imitation, so I think I’ll steal a page from their proverbial book today as I try (probably in vain) to neatly wrap up my career as an Aggie columnist.

I could pull a “Seinfeld” and bring back all the memorable characters from the past year in a shamelessly contrived yet celebratory retrospective. Who didn’t love seeing Jackie Chiles, Babu Bhatt and the marble rye bread lady one last time, testifying in court against our four self-centered misanthropes?

But that wouldn’t be quite right, not for this column anyway. I interviewed a few lucky individuals for one column or another, but for the most part it’s been a forum for, well, myself. I’ve prattled on about my own thoughts on the arts, pop culture, Hollywood and UC Davis, giddy at the prospect of sharing the fruits of my endless Entertainment Weekly browsing sessions with a devoted public. I hoped for readers, of course, but not contributors.

Okay, so “Seinfeld” is out, but what about the ending that redefined all thriller movie endings that came after it – The Sixth Sense? Finding out Bruce Willis was dead the whole time in the last 10 minutes of the movie was more exciting than the entire film leading up to it. Plus, it forced even the most passive moviegoer to use those brain cells and actually put some thought into what they’d just seen.

Kudos to M. Night Shyamalan for proving that audiences will rise to the level of intelligence set forth by the filmmaker, but, on second thought, it still doesn’t help me. What am I supposed to do, reveal that I’ve been writing this column from beyond the grave? I can assure you I’ve most certainly been alive as I’ve spent hours pondering over topic ideas and writing when I could have been watching clips of Johnny Depp movies on YouTube (which is what my heaven would include, by the way).

I’m running out of space here, so let’s move quickly through some other options. Has this column been a figment of your subconscious, Inception-style? “Lost” is one of my all-time favorite shows-maybe I ought to sort-of explain the mysteries of the universe and then disappear into a beam of bright light (ouch- sorry, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, I loved the ending, I promise!). Or maybe I should just say “screw it” and cut off mid-sentence, a lá “The Sopranos.”

The truth is, I’ve never been big on goodbyes, so maybe something short and sweet would be best. To everyone who’s read this column over the past year, thank you. Because of you, I’m convinced that this is not my last column, but the first.

Can’t stand the thought of not reading ROBIN MIGDOL’S column every Thursday next year? Go to robinmigdol.blogspot.com for more ramblings about musicals, HBO, “30 Rock” and everything in between. And give a warm welcome your next intrepid arts editor Uyen Cao at arts@theaggie.org.