First Reviews

NEW YORK (Billboard) –
An actress of startling range, Juliette Lewis has released an EP and two albums since 2003 with her band the Licks.

Citing a desire to strike out in new directions, Lewis disbanded the group in 2009, forming the New Romantiques soon after. The resulting album, "Terra Incognita," produced by The Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, is exhilarating and exhausting -- spacey, Latin-tinged, tribal, grungy, droney, occasionally bluesy and even, just for a second, a little country. The sonic variance, though, is anchored by Lewis' gravelly, brazen yowl, which sounds like Patti Smith one minute and Kim Deal the next. Billboard caught up with Lewis by phone when she was in central Italy in the middle of a European tour.

Billboard: Where are you right now?

Juliette Lewis: Napoli. I've never been here. It's a time-table Rubik's Cube lining up press, but touring's great ... It's an endurance test on the senses. Yesterday was a 12-hour airport extravaganza. It was like serving prison time, but my band and I are so goofy, and we joke around and it's fine. We did it all on four hours' sleep -- but it's so great: You get onstage, you push yourself to the limit.

Billboard: The first noticeable thing about "Terra Incognita" is that it covers an incredible amount of sonic ground.

Lewis: It's a smorgasbord. It's filled with sonic contrast, and the sonic contrast represents human and my contradictions. I always call myself an emotionalist. I feel. When I wrote this album I felt disillusioned and optimistic. I felt innocent and vulnerable as much as I felt cynical and strong.

That's my emotional context, so the sonic contrast of (the record) fit. The heavy bottom -- the drum sounds are so f---ing meaty -- anchors it, and the guitar textures accentuate the story. Omar was the perfect producer for that.

Billboard: Rodriguez-Lopez has said he's meticulous and hard to work with. What was your experience like?

Lewis: He's not that way with me. With his own stuff he cracks the whip in a very particular way. He's a conductor, he's a mad conductor. He literally conducts with his hands and his mouth -- he beatboxes it. But in this case I was the artist, so I was hard to deal with. Not really!

Our union, though, was a match made in heaven. He's much more versed in music and he's a bit of a genius, but we speak similarly because he hears riffs and to him it's connected to everything else -- to the stars and people and cinema.

Billboard: So how did the recording process work then?

Lewis: I would talk my wacky language to him and he'd interpret it to the drummer. I'd say, "I want it to sound like Zeus woke up from a nap and he's pissed and there's an opening in the clouds and he starts handing out lightning bolts," which is crazy, but that's how I hear the rhythm. And Omar, he whispers some things to the drummer, and that's exactly what it sounds like. It really encouraged the songwriter within me.

Billboard: Do your acting and songwriting come from the same place?

Lewis: They're interrelated. It's like a painter who's painting with oil, then you decide, "I'm only going to make junk art." You're still an artist, your medium is different. Now I work with sounds but I still connect with that center. It's all a sense of surrender and an attempt to connect.

Acting is me, but music is even more me. It's everything. It's the bitch's brew. It's my past self, present and future, and then my imagination. Being an actor is like being a bass player, one of the component parts to the collective hole.

Billboard: And so fronting the New Romantiques is like being the writer-director?

Lewis: Yeah, it's the writer-director and ... (laughs) I don't know if the metaphor fully translates, but yeah, the writer and director -- and the emotionalist.

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)

(please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

LONDON – Queen Elizabeth II has switched bearskin hats for turbans outside Buckingham Palace, where Sikh soldiers have begun guarding the monarch and her treasures, Britain's defense ministry said Friday.
Signaler Simranjit Singh and Lance Cpl. Sarvjit Singh are the first Sikhs to take part in patrols outside the queen's residence and to stand watch over the Crown jewels at the Tower of London across town.
Guard duties are usually carried out by the Guards of Household Division, famed for their bearskin hats and crimson coats that attract picture-taking tourists in their thousands. The ministry said the Sikh soldiers instead wore turbans and blue uniforms.
Other army regiments often help carry out guard duties at Britain's Buckingham Palace when the Household Division is on operations. The ministry said the two soldiers are the first of the 90 Sikhs in Britain's army to be handed the task.
"It's purely a coincidence that this has happened now," said a defense ministry spokeswoman, on condition of anonymity in line with policy. "Regiments take it in turn to stand in for the Household Division and it just happens that two of the soldiers this time round are Sikh."
Sarvjit Singh, who was born in India and is a member of 3 Regiment Army Air Corps, said he was thrilled to have had the opportunity to guard the queen.
"My experience being a Sikh on the queen's guard is beyond words," said the 28-year-old. "It is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I feel privileged to have this honor."
"Being in London and parading in front of hundreds of people has been brilliant. Being Sikh hasn't made any difference," said Simranjit Singh, 26, from Coventry in central England, who is attached to the 21 Signal Regiment (Air Support).
"It's been hard work, but definitely worth it," he said.
He said the toughest part of the role is keeping perfectly still when on sentry duty outside the queen's home.
Sikhs routinely guarded Queen Victoria — a colonial ruler of India. At the time of World War I, Sikhs formed about 20 percent of the British army, but numbers dwindled following India's independence.

NEW YORK (Reuters) –
The World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies acquired Cy Young winning pitcher Cliff Lee in a trade with the Cleveland Indians Wednesday.

The Phillies, who lead the National League East by seven games over Florida, sent four prospects to Cleveland for left-hander Lee, who is 7-9 with a 3.14 ERA this season after claiming Cy Young honors with a 22-3 mark in 2008.

The deal is pending medical reviews, Major League Baseball website mlb.com reported.

(Reporting by Larry Fine, Editing by Justin Palmer)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The pace of the recession has slowed or stabilized in most areas of the United States, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in a report that pointed to protracted weakness even as the economy transitions to recovery.

Labor markets across the country were "extremely soft," with little upward pressure on wages, the Fed said in its Beige Book survey of economic conditions through July 20.

Wages and compensation were steady or falling in most areas, said the Fed -- the U.S. central bank. Employers reported different methods of cutting pay in addition to, or instead of, freezing or lowering wages, it added.

The Fed has slashed benchmark interest rates to near zero and pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy to counter the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Fed officials say they expect growth to return in the second half of the year, but warn they expect the recovery will be sluggish and high unemployment will persist for a while.

The Fed has promised to keep benchmark rates exceptionally low for an extended period and to keep its supportive policies in place to support the fragile turnaround.

Factory activity was depressed in many areas although the Fed said some districts saw signs of modest improvement.

Residential real estate markets were weak in most districts although many reported evidence things were getting better. The outlook for commercial real estate was mixed, with some Fed contacts forecasting further deterioration into late 2010.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Andrea Ricci and James Dalgleish)