MELITTA BAUMEISTER

The ‘French touch,’ a phrase now with diffused meaning, was once reserved for a pioneering form of dance music largely developed, and certainly popularized, by producers in France. The torch was lit by Daft Punk, handed to Justice, and held aloft by so many other imitators. And then came Yelle. Making their début in 2005, the Gallic trio immediately found comfort in kick-and-snare–heavy drums, phasers, and deliciously gritty bass-lines. Both lighthearted and serious-minded, Yelle’s music is expertly crafted, bubbly, and just as easy to imbibe. Unlike so many other bands, however, Yelle does something with their influences.

When Ben Lerner produced his first novel Leaving the Atocha Station in 2011, he was already an acclaimed poet with three highly regarded collections of poetry to his name. He published his début, which centered on a young American poet on a fellowship in Madrid, with Coffee House Press and “didn’t think anyone would read it,” he says. Leaving the Atocha Station went on to become one of the most talked-about novels of the year, appearing on several best-books lists. Now Lerner is back with a new novel, 10:04, which again focuses on an American writer trying to finish a creative work. This time, the narrator is a poet who, having earned critical accolades with his first novel from a small press, receives a six-figure advance from a major New York publishing house to write a new one.

You know the review. It was published in ’79 and dubbed one of Lester Bangs’ best: ardent, unfeigned, and self-confessional, a messy, lyrical, truly revelational review of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. Bangs, sweaty and substance-addicted (and in spite of it, completely brilliant) walked his readers through an extended period of loneliness and despair. He then introduced them to Astral Weeks, as though it were some sort of holy statue, an auditory altarpiece through which secrets of hurt and longing and the disintegration of relationships could be illuminated.

“Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he’s waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along.”

Cut to LP1, the much-hyped, virgin album from Tahliah Barnett (alias FKA Twigs) and you’ll glimpse something of the nascent intensity, the eternal, broken truths, that Bangs once found in Morrison’s record. Signed to UK label Young Turks—home to Jamie xx, Sampha, and SBTRKT—FKA Twigs makes music that’s called a lot of things, mainly trip hop and PBR&B. It’s unsurprising to read the musician referring to herself as a loner in interviews. From the outset, LP1 is toxic, guarded, paranoid. At times it feels like treading water, and at other points as though someone has pushed you under, forcing you to swallow salt, cutting off all air.

The location of Jean-Marc Houmard’s latest property—the heart of colonial Granada, Nicaragua, one of the oldest cities in South America—may surprise those who are familiar with its owner from his urbane New York City eateries, Indochine and Acme, but Tribal Hotel remains true to his taste. Whereas Houmard’s restaurants offer a tropical feel in a city environment, Tribal Hotel brings a curated beauty to a quiet place. Designed in the Mid-century Modern ӕsthetic with rural whims, Tribal has an unassuming façade, but is warm, and boasts simple elegance within. Truly a boutique hotel, Tribal offers five suites, each with a terrace and each different from the next, but all hand-designed in a signature style and replete with one-of-a-kind, Nicaraguan artisanal pieces.

Looking out over the mysterious, sculptural cliffs of RiME’s digital coast, one is caught by the beauty and wild imagination allowed to independent video game developers. “Joaquín Sorolla and the light of the Mediterranean were our main inspirations when creating RiME,” says Raúl Rubio Munárriz, creative director of Tequila Works, the company behind RiME. “Salvador Dalí’s negative space and Giorgio de Chirico’s Surrealist architecture contributed to create an eerie yet believable world.”

In other, less prodigious hands, it could easily come across as a tired assignment from Creative Writing 101: Write a short story inspired by an iconic short story of your choice. But thanks to Rivka Galchen’s bracing originality and powerfully unique voice, the ten luminous stories in her new collection American Innovations are anything but junior varsity.

It’s hard to ignore Wild Beasts, but it may be even harder to pin them down.