Catching Up With Mizmaar

interview: music mix

Kashan Admani, the group’s frontman, talks to Instep about his stint on Coke Studio 9 as a guitarist and collaborating with Shubha Mudgal

Philosophers probably didn’t have Mizmaar in mind when they talked about change being the only constant, but the idea sure seems to apply to the Karachi-based pop rock band’s line-up. Only months after making their comeback with a replacement vocalist, the band, once again, found themselves without a singer when newcomer Mashhad Sharyar relocated to the U.S. The group then declared their intention to operate as a “multi-singer venture”, but have now re-emerged with a new vocalist, Asad Rasheed. The new line-up of Mizmaar recently released a single, titled ‘Jogi’ that features Indian songstress Shubha Mudgal. In an interview with Instep, the group’s frontman Kashan Admani fills us in on all the recent developments regarding Mizmaar as well as his stint as a guitarist on the latest season of Coke Studio.

Instep: How did you get the chance to collaborate with Shubha Mudgal on your new song ‘Jogi’? How was the experience of working with her?
Kashan Admani: The collaboration was made possible through our friends and patrons Palash Sen and Alok Parande of Euphoria. The experience of working with her was phenomenal. We initially thought we would have to take her through the song stepwise and the recording process might take very long, but she blew us away by delivering the vocals in a matter of 25 minutes for the entire song. Every line she sang was so good that it made it very difficult for us to select the final parts. She is an incredible singer and an amazing person!

Instep: This is your second collaboration with an Indian artist, the previous being ‘Yeh Dil’ with Euphoria’s Palash Sen. What has inspired you to pursue these cross-border collaborations?
Kashan: These collaborations were actually a part of a music programme that I had developed in 2012 and recorded the pilot episode of. The show was plagiarized by a very well known platform and so we released them as our band’s collaborations.

Instep: Please tell us about ‘Jogi’ and the creative process behind the song. How was the track written and composed?
Kashan: ‘Jogi’ is a prayer to seek God and to inspire the thought that we ourselves are responsible for all the negativity around us.
The song was composed based on a guitar riff and a rough melody which got better as we jammed and then turned into a proper verse, pre-chorus, and chorus. I always have some kind of thought behind a melody, and as soon as the creative process started, I knew the lyrics had to be Sufi. We then got Khalish, a very talented new poet who has also done additional lines in ‘Afreen Afreen’ from Coke Studio season 9, to write the final words for the song based on our dummy words.

Instep: What can you tell us about the ‘Jogi’ music video?
Kashan: The music video part for Shubha Jee was shot on the same day and in the same recording studio where she did her vocals in Delhi while we shot the band’s performance parts in my studio. The post production was also done internally as we have a full fledged video department also.

Instep: You have a new vocalist, Asad Rasheed. How did you find and recruit him? Is there a particular reason he seemed like a good fit for the band? And is he now the new permanent vocalist of Mizmaar?
Kashan: Asad actually messaged [Mizmaar drummer] Alfred [D’mello] and told him that he liked the band and that he also sings. He sent a few voice demos to Alfred also and Alfred was impressed by his singing skills, so we invited him over to gauge his singing abilities and we felt that he has the ability to carry both eastern and western styles of singing which suits Mizmaar’s sound, so we offered him to work with us.

Instep: Why did vocalist Mashhad Sharyar not work out for the band? Is the album still going to feature the material you recorded with Mashhad on vocals?
Kashan: Mashhad moved to the U.S. permanently and did not intend to come back, so working as a band with him became impossible. No, the album will not feature songs released in his voice.

Instep: You also worked with vocalist Hamza Tanveer. Why didn’t he continue performing with or join the band?
Kashan: He was invited to perform with us for one concert as we had already committed to do the performance and Mashhad was unavailable. At that point we were not thinking of Hamza as a permanent replacement and we were exploring the possibility of working with multiple singers.

Instep: Do you still plan to continue being a “multi-singer venture” and feature a different singer on every single of the album?
Kashan: We will surely collaborate with multiple singers but will feature the permanent line-up of the band in each song.

Instep: You were planning to release your new album last year. Why the delay?
Kashan: We intended to release the album but then realized that it’s better to release the album as singles for now, as each single can then be marketed appropriately and given its due push. We do intend to release the album but will do it after we have released a few more singles.

Instep: Kashan, how did the chance to perform on Coke Studio come up? How was the experience of being a part of the show? Any highlights you’d like to share with us?
Kashan: Strings asked me if I’d be interested in doing Coke Studio as a guitar player to which I agreed considering that’s part of my skill set and it’d be fun to work with so many great musicians. I have worked with Strings in the past on various occasions and I have always enjoyed working with them. Coke Studio also turned out to be a great experience and I really enjoyed being a part of it. Strings are doing a superb job at producing the show.

Instep: How do you feel about the reception this season of Coke Studio has received?
Kashan: I feel that having multiple music directors was a great concept. Commercially the show is doing quite well which can be gauged from the views it has on YouTube. A few critics who don’t have any understanding of music and just form opinions based on things they hear from a bunch of so called musicians or producers doesn’t really matter. If tomorrow Coke Studio is gone, where will the Pakistani music industry stand? As it is, musicians are suffering because of the media playing only Bollywood content and little or no support for local independent musicians.

Instep: You launched The Spaark music school last year. How is that project going?
Kashan: The Spaark is doing really well and we have a big number of students of different ages learning various instruments at our facility. The registrations are increasing every day which is very encouraging.

Instep: What can we expect from Mizmaar in the coming months?
Kashan: We are working on a lot of new music and plan to release songs very frequently in the coming months.

- By Sameen Amer

Instep Today, The News - 12th September, 2016 *

Thing Explainer - as simple as possible

book review

Book: Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words

Author: Randall Munroe

A few years ago — in November 2012 to be precise — an instalment of the webcomic xkcd featured the Saturn V rocket, the vehicle that supported the Apollo programme for lunar exploration. In the elegant infographic titled ‘Up Goer Five’, cartoonist Randall Munroe detailed the workings of the “flying space car” that took people to the moon, explaining the rocket’s mechanism using only the thousand most common words in the English language. That conceit has now spawned the book Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, a simplified look at how things work.

The book features “annotated blueprints” that show the structure and function of a varied selection of devices and apparatus, mostly focusing on topics that fall in the categories of physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy.

Munroe looks at items that range from relatively simple (like pen and pencil, padlock, and a tree) to fairly complex (like a nuclear reactor, jet engine, helicopter, submarine, and many more), covering everything from the human body to Martian rovers and the periodic table in the process. The author doesn’t refer to most things by their actual names, instead creating descriptive titles for each object using his list of “ten hundred” simple words. The International Space Station, for instance, becomes a “shared space house”; the Large Hadron Collider turns into the “big tiny thing hitter”; a submarine is a “boat that goes under the sea”; while animal cells and the human torso are titled “tiny bags of water you’re made of” and “bags of stuff inside you” respectively.

Each object usually takes up one page of the book (although some are expanded to multiple pages); its workings are generally explained using a central diagram that illustrates its structure, with descriptions detailing the main parts or component of the item and what roles they play.

The result is an informative, and often amusing, look at many of the things we come across or hear about in our everyday lives but don’t necessarily know much about. Thing Explainer is chock-full of interesting trivia. This is a volume both children and adults can enjoy; it’s impossible not to learn something while reading it. The illustrations are absolutely terrific and are pretty much the heart of the book. Munroe’s (enviable!) intelligence and thorough grasp of his subjects is palpable on every page as he creatively communicates the ideas, putting things in a unique perspective and presenting topics in ways you might never have thought of before. Plus his humorous asides make sure you stay amused.

Trying to present complex theories in an accessible way without getting bogged down in technical jargon is a commendable idea, and Munroe deserves a pat for conceiving this project and trying to make scientific principles easier to grasp for the layperson. But it turns out that relying on the most frequently used words to explain things doesn’t necessarily make concepts less complicated. At times, the use of simple words just makes things even more confusing, as the explanations are too vague and imprecise to give readers a clear understanding of what is actually going on. The statements become more and more convoluted as Munroe substitutes simple words for terms that would have elucidated the procedure more concisely and elegantly. Sometimes the descriptions even start to feel like clues that don’t mean much if you don’t know the answer to the riddles that are embedded in the text.

The proper names of components have not been used in the book, which makes the learning process less effective. The weird, whimsical names that are used instead might be amusing but rarely serve any purpose. Mentioning the actual terms in a separate little box on each page or in an appendix at the end of the book would have been a useful addendum and made Thing Explainer both clearer and more educational.

Also, the items in the book aren’t sorted by categories or organised in any way, and the contents jump from topic to topic. Putting items that fall under the same subject together would have helped things complement each other and made the book feel more orderly.

Overall, it feels as if sticking to a contrived conceit took precedence over being as informative as possible. The 1,000 word limit is too restrictive, and that is primarily why Thing Explainer isn’t a very effective “thing explainer” on its own. The book requires either constant googling or prior knowledge of the subject matter — these simple explanations will make a lot more sense if you find the proper descriptions elsewhere, or are already familiar with the mechanics of what you are reading about.

Perhaps the reason why the book feels a tad disappointing is that the American author (who is a former NASA roboticist) has repeatedly set a high standard with his delightfully nerdy work, and the depth of Thing Explainer falls a little short in comparison to his previous endeavours. Munroe has already proven his ability to communicate interesting ideas in an offbeat, refreshing style over and again. His terrific comic xkcd — in which stick figures explore the world of “romance, sarcasm, math, and language” — merges science humour with observations on life, and has been amusing geeks since its inception in 2005. And his previous book What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions delved into the world of the impossible, unravelling absurd conundrums by applying scientific principles, and turning the ridiculousness into a learning opportunity, proving that you don’t need to be restricted to a certain set of words to discuss difficult concepts in a way that makes them easily comprehendible.

Still, it is obvious that the author clearly had fun putting this book together, and that a lot of work went into its pages. Randall Munroe’s illustrations are all very impressive and informative, and while Thing Explainer may not always be very clear and comprehensive on its own, the project is sure to add to your knowledge while rousing your curiosity and making you seek out more information about how things work.

- By Sameen Amer

Books & Authors, Dawn - 14th August, 2016 *

Suicide Squad - a confused mess

movie review

Suicide Squad

Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, and Cara Delevingne
Directed by: David Ayer
Tagline: Justice has a bad side.

A number of television dramas and films have proved, time and again, that antiheroes can make compelling protagonists. The shades of grey that colour these characters make them fascinating, while their stories offer a blend of touching, amusing and poignant adventures. Expect none of that, however, from Suicide Squad, DC Comics’ disappointing attempt at assembling a super villain ensemble who are assigned the task of saving the world in a film that degenerates into a confused mess.

After the events of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), intelligence officer Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) comes up with a contingency plan for protecting her country: assembling a team of incarcerated criminals and coercing them to carry out dangerous missions. Dubbed Taskforce X, the group – we’re told in a lengthy roll-call – includes hit-man Deadshot (Will Smith), the Joker’s (Jared Leto) deranged girlfriend Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), pyrokinetic gangster El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), thief Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), and disfigured crook Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). But a potential recruit, ancient sorceress Enchantress who takes over the body of an archaeologist (Cara Delevingne), turns into the story’s villain, summoning an army of monsters and threatening the world. It is up to the aforementioned group of assorted lunatics and convicts to stop her.

With a plot that seems like a jumble of incoherent twaddle, Suicide Squad marches into a marsh of dullness and sets camp there for its overlong, two hour running time. Overcrowded with more operatives than necessary, the film doesn’t bother to develop most of its characters into anything beyond one-dimensional stereotypes, and its collective of the “worst of the worst” neither seems particularly menacing, nor possesses enough depth to be intriguing. Its villain, in particular, is a complete embarrassment. Enchantress feels more like a Ghostbusters reject than a baddie who has any place is a superhero movie; the character is made all the worse by Cara Delevingne’s grating attempts at acting which predictably fall flat.

The movie’s biggest crime, though, is that it wastes opportunities and lets down characters that have the potential to be fascinating. The primary example is Harley Quinn – Margot Robbie nails the part and this zany psychiatrist-turned-psychopath deserves to be in a better movie. Will Smith also gives a competent performance as Deadshot, although his character doesn’t have anything particularly memorable to do here. Jared Leto’s Joker is weird in all the wrong ways and feels extraneous to the adventure. Most of the other characters fare worse though, as they are simply forgettable.

Not even marginally as funny or exciting as Marvel’s terrific misfit-ensemble outing Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), DC’s Suicide Squad is about as compelling as Fantastic Four (2015), only louder and with a better lead actor (Smith) and actress (Robbie). Director David Ayer has created a choppy, predictable movie with a distracting pop soundtrack, and has failed to instill it with the humour or suspense that would make it entertaining. Ultimately, what we’re left with is characters we don’t care about doing things that aren’t interesting in a world that isn’t convincing.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

- Sameen Amer

The Express Tribune - 13th August, 2016 *

The Shallows - shark attack!

movie review

The Shallows

Starring: Blake Lively
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Tagline: Not just another day at the beach.

Hollywood’s fondness for revisiting familiar territories once again takes us to shark-infested waters in The Shallows, a survival thriller that doesn’t bring anything new to the table but does offer some suspense once it finally gets going.

The protagonist is Nancy Adams (Blake Lively), a medical student who makes her way to the same secret, secluded beach in Mexico that her late mother once visited. The American meets a couple of locals, and after surfing for a while, notices a whale carcass floating near her. As she catches the next wave, a shark bumps into her surfboard, knocks her into the water, and bites her leg. Alone and injured, Nancy manages to make her way to a small rock and tries to MacGyver her way out of her predicament, but her great white nemesis refuses to leave and menacingly circles her tiny outpost. Nancy must figure out how to make the short but dangerous journey to the shore by somehow beating the predator, and then get to safety.

The movie’s primary concern isn’t realism; how things unfold, especially towards the end, isn’t entirely plausible, but director Jaume Collet-Serra does, more or less, succeed in his mission of creating a gripping (albeit uneven) thriller. The Shallows loses some of its intensity because of its slow pace, especially when it starts to feel like the writers are struggling in their attempts to turn this tale into a full length film and stretching the plot a bit too thin in the process. You have to first watch Nancy doling out her ham-fisted back-story, even though her character didn’t need the background baggage to be more compelling; the proceedings would have been more intense had they just relied on the primal horror of her situation. Then you have to see her wading and surfing, waiting for something interesting to actually happen. But once the immense (although seemingly a tad inconsistent in size) shark surfaces, the film-makers successfully build the tension and amp up the suspense.

Lively remains at the centre of the adventure and carries the entire film by delivering a commanding, athletic performance, as she surfs, swims, screams, and grimaces for much of the movie’s one-and-a-half hour running time. Her main (and very charming) co-star is Stephen Seagull, a wounded bird that lands on the reef beside her, becoming her version of Wilson the volleyball and quickly turning into the only truly memorable element of the project.

Ultimately, The Shallows doesn’t bring anything new to the survival thriller genre. Once it finally kicks into gear, the movie does take you on a gripping, engaging ride, although, as with most such films, your enjoyment of the proceedings requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. While the movie can’t quite sustain the tension during its entire length, The Shallows does benefit from competent direction, beautiful cinematography and a (surprisingly) strong performance by its lead actress.

Rating: 3 out of 5

- By Sameen Amer

The Express Tribune - 9th August, 2016 *

Star Trek Beyond - the franchise races on

movie review

Star Trek Beyond

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, and Idris Elba
Directed by: Justin Lin

The continuation of the voyages of the USS Enterprise, by way of a prequel reboot, has yielded an interesting new arc in the science fiction franchise that Gene Roddenberry created in the 1960s. With J. J. Abrams at the helm, the revival has impressively bridged the gap between the old and the new, with the first film – 2009’s Star Trek – in particular doing a terrific job in re-establishing the beloved franchise. For the third chapter in the reboot series, Abrams has vacated the director’s chair and passed the baton to Justin Lin. The result is Star Trek Beyond, an instalment that boldly goes where Star Trek has gone before but still manages to be quite entertaining.

Led by Captain James Kirk (Chris Pine), the crew of the Enterprise are three years into their five-year exploratory mission when they are assigned the task of rescuing a ship stranded on a planet in uncharted space. But the rescue turns into an ambush as the Enterprise comes under attack by the evil Krall (Idris Elba) and his forces, which are after an ominous alien artefact. With no option but to abandon their ship, the crew finds themselves separated and stranded on the foreign planet. They must then regroup, figure out how to defeat Krall, and find a way to get off the planet.

There is a certain degree of predictability that is inescapable in franchises such as Star Trek, so the viewer is never in any doubt about which side will eventually emerge victorious. But the action-packed execution of the film still makes the journey exciting. The movie’s minutiae may not stand up to scrutiny, but the special effects, as always, are impressive, and there are action sequences (some of which evoke Lin’s Fast & Furious style) that are interestingly conceived and well shot.

The film does, however, seem more reliant on action than character development. Krall, for instance, doesn’t exactly make the most fascinating or menacing villain; the writers don’t do a very convincing job with his back-story and don’t convey his motivations with the necessary believability and impact. The supporting characters, on the other hand, just run around frantically while exchanging witty banter. The movie does spend some time helping us connect with its leads though. The struggle Kirk feels in finding continued meaning in the mission brings depth to his character. But ultimately, it’s Spock (Zachary Quinto) who gets the most poignant storyline, with a touching farewell to the late Leonard Nimoy weaved into the tale.

The movie’s style harks back to the old Star Trek television series as it pays homage to its origins. While the basic plotline feels familiar and the script isn’t as sharp as one would have hoped, there is enough wit and thrill to make Star Trek Beyond an entertaining ride. Yes, it doesn’t quite match the inventiveness and exuberance of the 2009 film that started the revival, but if you’ve enjoyed the reboot series so far, then you are very likely to enjoy this one too.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

- By Sameen Amer

The Express Tribune - 1st August, 2016 *

Ghostbusters - an exercise in mediocrity

movie review

Ghostbusters

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Charles Dance, Michael Kenneth Williams, and Chris Hemsworth
Directed by: Paul Feig
Tagline: Answer the call.

The all-female reboot of the supernatural comedy franchise Ghostbusters has been generating controversy ever since the project was announced. But after being the centre of so much criticism and debate, it just feels downright disappointing that the movie is neither a masterpiece nor a train wreck and instead just settles for being emphatically mediocre.

Directed by Paul Feig, the new film revives the ’80s series, basically following a similar template as the original flick while assembling a new team of paranormal investigators who are itching to catch some ghosts.

As proceedings commence, ex-besties Erin (Kristen Wiig) and Abby (Melissa McCarthy) have gone their separate ways since co-authoring a book about paranormal phenomenon, with the former distancing herself from her past work that delved into the existence of ghosts and the latter embracing it with gusto. But a series of events brings the two back together when Erin reluctantly agrees to assist Abby and her eccentric colleague Jillian (Kate McKinnon) in a supernatural investigation. Meanwhile, after witnessing an apparition in the subway tunnel, transport worker Patty (Leslie Jones) finds her way to the ghostbusting group, rounding up the crew.

As ghost sightings increase in the area, the ladies discover that an occultist (Neil Casey) is attempting to unleash an army of the undead who are set to inflict unspeakable pain and torment on the living. Even though they are being denounced as frauds, it is still up to the Ghostbusters to stop the apocalypse and save the world.

The film makes several nods to the classic that spawned it, bringing back the famous Ghostbusters logo and Ray Parker Jr’s unforgettable theme song as well as many familiar faces, with original cast members making cameo appearances intermittently throughout the film. But just as it pays homage to the 1984 hit, the project keeps reminding viewers that it simply lacks the breezy fun of the original, and feels unimaginative and forced in comparison.

The humour is a bit bland and at times just doesn’t hit the mark because of a weak script. The gender switch – which also applies to the good looking but dumb secretary, played here entertainingly by Chris Hemsworth – allows the film-makers to assemble a cast of talented comedic actresses (most of whom have Saturday Night Live ties). Wiig and McCarthy (who is more restrained here than usual) seem natural and at ease in their roles. McKinnon’s maniacal mad scientist is amusing at first but quickly becomes borderline irritating. And the decision to make Jones’ character the only non-scientist of the group, as many have noted, really does feel retrograde.

Not as smart, funny or spooky as one would have hoped, 2016’s Ghostbusters ultimately just comes off as an average but unnecessary reboot. Feig’s uneven movie is a silly, affable adventure that lacks the originality, wit and fun that made the Ivan Reitman film such a memorable, enduring classic. There is nothing particularly special about the project, and ultimately it is neither abhorrent enough to justify the vitriolic response of its detractors, nor interesting enough to validate its existence.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

- By Sameen Amer

The Express Tribune - 26th July, 2016 *

The world of Night Vale - from audio to print

book review

Book: Welcome to Night Vale

Author: Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

The strange town of Night Vale has captivated listeners since 2012 when Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor first brought this fascinating fictional world to life in their terrific podcast, Welcome to Night Vale. The mysterious goings-on in this intriguingly peculiar setting have since been delivered to us regularly in bimonthly, half-hour installments. With each episode, we tune in to host Cecil Palmer’s (voiced by actor Cecil Baldwin) community radio show in which he relays the news and announcements from the desert town where “the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep”. A delicious blend of surrealism and comedy has made the project one of the most successful podcasts online, and has spawned a companion piece, a novel titled Welcome to Night Vale.

The book takes us on an adventure in the bizarre land where time doesn’t work, people don’t believe in mountains, and it is illegal to consider the existence of angels (who obviously don’t exist, even the ones who live with Old Woman Josie out by the car lot). The story revolves around the lives of two women: Jackie Fierro and Diane Crayton.

Jackie is a teenager who runs the only pawnshop in Night Vale. She has been “recently 19 for as long as she could remember” because she does not age and has no recollection of her past. All she can recall are endless days at the pawnshop where she has been working for decades. But her life and all its routines are disrupted one day when a man in a tan jacket holding a deerskin suitcase stops by her shop. He pawns a slip of paper with the words “King City” written on it in dull, smeared pencil before running out to the desert. Jackie soon discovers that she can’t let go of the piece of paper; no matter what she does to it, it reappears in her hand. This, she quickly realises, is a bit of a problem.

Diane, a single mother, is raising her teenage son Josh who, unlike most boys his age, changes his physical form constantly.But, like most boys his age, Josh “thinks he is several things at once, many of them contradictory”. Diane works at an office in the marketing department and has become aware of the fact that her co-worker, Evan, has disappeared and been forgotten by everyone but her. Also, her ex, Troy, who she hadn’t seen in 15 years, is back in town. He hasn’t tried to contact the family yet, but Diane is starting to see him everywhere she goes. Josh is interested in meeting the father he last saw when he was a baby. This, she thinks, might not be the best idea.

In a quest to regain normalcy — or what passes for normalcy in Night Vale — both women set out to out resolve their predicaments. They are ultimately brought together, their desperation leading them to locations as harrowing and dreaded as the public library in a quest to understanding what is actually going on.

With a style that feels like an amalgam of Douglas Adams and H.P. Lovecraft by way of The Mighty Boosh, Welcome to Night Vale is a wonderfully crafted, charmingly bizarre concoction of silliness and eeriness with an offbeat look at life and existence. “What are people but deaths that haven’t happened yet?” a character asks at one point, summing up the book’s tone and its dark philosophies.

Night Vale’s reality may not align with the reality of the rest of the world, but its peculiarity often finds basis in real issues. Teenage struggle with identity manifests into literal shape shifting, as parents are confronted with a “faint, distorted echo” of their children. The inability to break a routine morphs into the course of a life getting frozen and looped. There are also satirical jabs at topics like newspapers and print media, government and governance, surveillance, and a host of other issues, delivered with deadpan wit (along with the requisite weirdness).

The writers expand on the eerie setting of the podcast as they take Night Vale and its quaintness from audio to print. Cecil’s radio show remains a continued presence in the novel; transcripts from the programme are interspersed with the story. Familiar characters — Old Woman Josie, the Angels named Erika, Carlos, John Peters, and the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your house — also make an appearance, as do familiar locations, like The Moonlite All-Nite diner and Big Rico’s Pizza.

The book stumbles a little, however, because of its pace. The non sequitur-ladenprose makes the progress slow. This is the same brand of quirky, random weirdness that has powered the podcast for the last four years. But it turns out that this quirky, random weirdness is a lot more entertaining when it is delivered in half hour doses through Cecil Baldwin’s soothing voice than in the form of a 400-page book. Things do pick up in the second half after Jackie and Diane join forces, and the authors’ descriptive style lets them create some interesting, tense scenes along the way, but the novel often loses momentum as it gets lost in its own whimsy, forgetting to move the story along. Also, while the lead characters are amiable, they aren’t very interesting. After years of listening to his community updates, we’d probably have been more invested in the story if Cecil was a more integral part of it.

On the whole, Welcome to Night Vale is an amusing, creative romp in the “town full of hidden evils and the secretly malevolent”. Its surreal premise, black humour, and deadpan style make the novel an enjoyable read, even though its slow pace makes the progress slightly labourious at times. This isn’t a fast-paced thriller, although that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who is familiar with the style of the podcast. If you haven’t experienced the crazy world of Night Vale yet, then you might want to download a few episodes to get a taste of the project. You are likely to enjoy the book if you like the podcast and don’t mind a novel that marinates at length in the weirdness of its setting and doesn’t hurry through its curious tale.

- Sameen Amer 

Books & Authors, Dawn - 24th July, 2016 *