Well that's Christmas done, the stash currently contains a new coffee machine with lots of bells and whistles, the Minipops book, Spiderman 2 DVD (not sure why I don't already own that one) and various other bits and bobs generally to make me smell nicer.



I've actually been back since Tuesday night but have been sidetracked by Paper Mario on my Gamecube (fantastic game which has great fun messing with traditional RPG conventions, almost done it I think), and buying even more CDs. Anyway I've now updated the site, there are some pictures of Cats and stuff to look at here, and some really crappy reviews of CDs to read here, and I've dumped the bookmarks section for a del.icio.us link.

pre-christmas CDs



Jesu - Jesu

I've been waiting for this CD for quite some time, over three years to be more precise, that being the time since Justin Broadrick's previous band, Godflesh, last release. I have to hold my hands up here and declare myself a completely obsessive Godflesh fan, so this is going to be a very biased opinion. Jesu is a very ambitious project; layers of guitars, keyboards and vocals are mixed together to produce something almost religious in nature. This point is hammered home with titles such as Your Path to Divinity, Walk on Water and Guardian Angel. Not to say the lyrical theme is all religious, from the lyrics I can make out and the way they are delivered it's more spiritual in nature, in fact I've read one review describing it as a 'Spiritual Awakening'. As over the top as that sounds, it's pretty near the mark to me...



Subtle - Earthsick

A collection of Subtle's earlier 'season' EPs. Good stuff like the other Subtle album I bought this year, it's basically a more organic instrument driven version of the sort of things cLOUDDEAD do (not suprising as they share common members of Dose One and Jel). It tails off a bit to the end though with instrumental improvised sounding tracks which frankly are a little dull, but if you ignore these it's a good album.

161 CDs in case anyone is counting, new ones from Jesu and Subtle have turned up, but I haven't got time to tell you about them now, I'm off to colder climates (well, Nuneaton and Leeds) for Christmas...

RIP Suprnova...

No pictures this weekend I'm afraid, too busy christmas shopping it seems...



Anyway, it's getting near to the end of the year so I'm almost ready to make my list of top ten CDs of the year. Almost, but not quite as I still have one in the post which I'm pretty sure could get into the top ten. In the mean time here is a scary list of CDs which I've bought this year, no wonder my credit card bill never goes down:



!!! - Louden Up Now

!!!/Out Hud - "Lab Remix Series Vol. 2" Split EP

2XH vs HHR: Where is my robotic boot?

Alias - Eyes Closed EP

Alias - Muted

Amen - California's Bleeding

Amon Tobin - Solid Steel

Andrew Broder - Modern Hits EP

Andrew Broder - More Modern Hits

Anticon Label Sampler: 1999-2004

Arthur Russell - Calling out of Context

Arthur Russell - The World of Arthur Russell

Auf der Maur - Auf der Maur

Autechre & The Hafler Trio - ae3o&h3ae

Basement Jaxx - Kish Kash

Black Dice - Miles of Smiles

Black Eyes - Cough

Blink 182 - I Miss You

Blockhead - Music By Cavelight

Boom Bip & Dose One - Circle

Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun

Broken Social Scene - Beehives

cLOUDDEAD - Dead Dogs Two

cLOUDDEAD - Ten

Converge - You Fail Me

Craig Armstrong - Piano Works

Curve - The Way of Curve

Definitive Jux Presents III

Devendra Banhart - Nino Rojo

Devendra Banhart - Rejoicing in the Hands

DJ /rupture - 58.46 Radio Mix

DJ /rupture - Special Gunpowder

DJ Signify - Sleep No More

DJ Spooky - rhythm Science

Domino 04

Donkey Konga Soundtrack

Donna Summer - This Needs to Be Your Style

Donna Summer vs Ove Naxx

Einsturzende Neubauten - Perpetuum Mobile

El-P - Collecting the Kid

El-P - High Water

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Exploratory Music From Portugal 04

Faust vs Dalek - Derbe Respect

Fennesz - Live in Japan

Fennesz - Venice

Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back And Forth

Fugazi - Repeater + 3 Songs

Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Good Night Music To Sleep By

Gravenhurst - Flashlight Sessions

Grime

Hope of the States - The Lost Riots

Infinite Livez - Bush Meat

Isis - 09.23.03

Isis - Mosquito Control EP

Isis - Oceanic Remixes/Reinterpretations

Isis - SGNL>05

Jackie O MotherFucker - Wow / The Magick Fire Music

Jah Wobble - I Could Have Been A Contender

Jesu - Heartache

Jimmy Eat World

Jimmy Eat World - Futures

Kevin Drumm - Sheer Hellish Miasma

Kid606 - Who Still Kill Sound?

Kid606/Cex - Oh so now you fuckers wanna dance!

King Geedorah - Take Me To Your Leader

Knifehandchop - How I Left You

Lolita Storm - Studio 666 Smack Addict Commandos / I Am Your Enemy

Lost Prophets - Start Something

Madvillain - Madvillainy

Manhunt Remixes

Mansun - Attack of the Grey Lantern

Mark Lanegan Band - Bubblegum

Massive Attack - Danny the Dog

Matmos - Rat Relocation Program

MDZ04

Michael Gira - I am singing to you from my room

Mike Ladd - Nostalgialator

Miss Kittin - I Com

Mr Scruff - Keep It Solid Steel

Murcof - Utopia

Murs - 3:16 The 9th Edition

New Japan Philharmonic - Smashing... live!

Odd Nosdam - No More Wig For Ohio

Old Man Gloom - Christmas

Out Hud - S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.

OVe-NaXx - Bullets From Habikino City HxCx

Pale Horse - Gee That Ain't Swell

Pan Sonic - Kesto (234.48:4)

Part Chimp - Bring Back The Sound

Part Chimp - Chart Pimp

Passage - The Forcefield Kids

Paws Across The World 2003

Philip Jeck - 7

Philip Jeck - Surf

Probot

Rammellzee - Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee

Rhythm & Sound with The Artists

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine - Tuxicity

Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol.1

RJD2 - Constant Elevation: The 'Say Word' Mix

RJD2 - Since We Last Spoke

Rock Action Presents Vol.1

Rough Trade Shops - Counter Culture 2003

Ry Cooder & Manuel Galban - Mambo Sinuendo

Seeing the Unseen D.O.R. Almanac 2004

Shaun of the Dead

Shockout Volume 1

Shotgun Wedding Vol.1 - DJ /Rupture vs Mutamassik - The Bidoun Sessions

Slam - Year Zero

Slipknot - Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse

Sophia - All My Love

Sophia - Collections:One

Sophia - People Are Like Seasons

Spring Heel Jack - Sweetness of The Water

Squarepusher - Square Window (3" Promo CD)

Squarepusher - Ultravisitor

Stone Sour - Stone Sour

Subtle - A New Shade of White

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Rare Wood

Sunn 0))) - White1

Swans - Children of God / World of Skin

Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind

Teledubgnosis - Magnetic Learning Center

The Angels of Light - How I Loved You

The Angels of Light - New Mother

The Bad Plus - Give

The Bad Plus - These are the Vistas

The Beatles - The White Album

The Bug featuring Warrior Queen - Aktion Pak

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine Sampler

The Rapture - Echoes

The Soft Pink Truth - Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Soft Pink Truth?

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free

The Twilight Singers - She Loves You

Themselves - Them

Throbbing Gristle - Mutant TG

Throbbing Gristle - The Taste of TG (A Beginner's Guide To The Music Of Throbbing Gristle)

TV on the Radio - Desperate Youths

TV on The Radio - Staring At The Sun EP

TV on the Radio - Young Liars EP

Two Cultures Clash

Two Lone Swordsmen - From The Double Gone Chapel

UNKLE - WWIII: UNKLE vs UNKLE

Urban Renewal Program Supplement 1.5

Vast Aire - Look Mom... No Hands

Wanna Buy A Craprak?

Ward 21 - U Know How We Roll

Watch and Repeat Play

Why?/Odd Nosdam - The Split EP

Wiley - Treddin' on Thin Ice

William Parker Violin Trio - Scrapbook

Wire Tapper 11

Wire Tapper 12

Zentertainment 2004



159 CDs by my reckoning... yikes!

Some website changes:



For some reason I've decided that one domain name isn't enough, so you can now access the site through darthphil.org and soon through darthphil.net (as soon as the DNS pixies sort the t'internet out anyway). They both use crappy banner ads unfortunatly, I may do something interesting with them at some point but I wouldn't put money on that happening soon...



I've also been playing around with del.icio.us which describes itself as a social bookmark manager. It's pretty good, with a link on your toolbar you can add a bookmark to your list, as well as a description and keywords. Bookmarks are public so when you add one you can see how many other people have added the link you've added, and if you like you can have a prod around in there lists for interesting links - and it will generate a handy RSS feed of your links. Anyway, my list can be found at http://del.icio.us/darthphil. I haven't put much in it at the moment, just a few web comic links, when I get chance I'll be going through all my IE bookmarks and using the del.icio.us to replace the portable bookmarks section.

My brick has turned up...



First impressions of my new iRiver jukebox, well so far are good: sound quality wise it's fantastic. I've compared it to the same songs playing through my laptop's output and everything seems to have be much clearer and the bass really knocks your head off without muddying things up, probably due to all the fancy SRS tricks up it's sleeve. I look forward to my impending struggle with tinitus.



The user interface shines on the colour screen although it can be a bit confusing at the moment, it doesn't help that it seems to have two menu buttons and I keep hitting the wrong one. Whilst I'm on bad points, I'm damned if I can get media player to recognise it (even though Microsoft's website has it as a supported product), not too much of a pain as it acts as a hard disk when plugged in, but I'd like to use Media Player's synch facility - Oh well, early days and all that, I'm sure I'll figure it out.



The really cool thing though is that it can play videos, it takes a bit of work as you have to make sure the video is the right size and it's using Xvid encoding, but it's still a damn cool trick.

I'm feeling unusually festive (having an 8ft inflatable christmas tree behind you will do that to you), so here's some christmas music for you:



Wesley Willis - Merry Christmas



Wesley Willis was a schizophrenic cult musician from Chicago who seems to have been adopted by Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label at some point. It's a very cheesy song, but you can't help but admire the man's enthusiastic delivery...

I seem to be slightly addicted to a new TV series being shown in America called Desperate Housewives. I think I can just about justify liking this apparent Sex in the City clone as it seems to have a bit of a dark twist to it (like alot of American TV at the moment, Dead Like Me is another good example). It doesn't shy away from themes of murder, suicide and drug-abuse - plus Teri Hatcher still has a certain je ne sais quoi about her...

Not having an mp3 player is going to drive me up the wall, so I've already ordered a new one. Unlike the rest of the world I haven't gone for an iPod (you're all sheep!), I've gone for an iRiver H320: colour screen, 20GB disk, top-notch audio quality, can even play videos if you tweak it a bit. Sweet.

It was our work's christmas outing last night, went to one of these big corporate party affairs. Naturally I got horribly drunk, but I can at least remember most of the night - overall impression was that it was great fun. However the karma seems to have decided to even things out and I've managed to lose a bow tie, a cuff link and more distressingly my mp3 player... Arse!

Christmas has hit our office in a big way...

OK, earlier I was talking about very obscure, over emotional, pseudo heavy metal. Now I'm going to switch to happy, chirpy dance music.



I went to see Groove Armada tonight...



They're OK I guess, many of there songs have that comforting quality in that you will recognise the songs, but the whole performance was just a bit...well, meh. They don't have a decent focal point in terms of a charismatic front person, they played eveything by numbers, and there were too many slow points in the set. Plus, playing a song as an encore which you've already played before in the set really takes away from it's initial impact.



I'm making a promise to myself that the next gig I go to will involve something a bit more challenging...

Public Service Announcement

OK, I know I get the odd Isis fan passing through, so there is the possibility that the odd Jesu fan (or should I say potential Jesu fan as they've only released 2 songs officially so far) may pass by, you may be interested in this info, everyone else can look away now.



It looks like today was the Japanese release date for Jesu's debut album, details about it can be found in this message board posting. I've gone for cdjapan again, as they seem pretty reliable, and I'm crossing my fingers about it being a two disk edition...

Not much to report from last night, other than a ninja attack...

OK I've found some new music myself: M.I.A. I've just finished listening to a mix she's done with Diplo, and I'm currently listening to a few tunes on here website. Absolutely marvellous stuff: if you need a frame of reference imagine Dizzee Rascal's first album, make it a bit more fun, and add a female MC and you'll be close.

I'm fed up with work and I need some new music to listen to so that I can temporarily escape this boring, dull, and annoyingly stressful job of mine. Any Suggestions?



I've also added a 'next blog' button to the menu, it's mean't to send you to another 'blog' where you will be entertained by far better writing than on this site. That is the theory anyway...

I've finally updated my CD collection section, it's getting near to the end of the year and since I'm expecting the usual draught of good CDs before the end of the year whilst all the record shops are packed to the rafters with crappy cash in compilations I can't see myself buying anymore this year. So I'm going to have to think of my top ten CDs of the year soon, and maybe compile a scary list of CDs to show why my credit card bill is so big.



In other news I went to see The Incredibles tonight. It's got to be one of my favourite films of the year, I was expecting a reasonably amusing super hero piss-take, but was pleasantly surprised to watch something a lot more grown-up. Sure, the superhero jokes are still there, but so is some fantatsic artwork and design, especially in some of the early scenes with Mr Incedible at his day time job. It's a film that does flashy effects only when it needs to, and it doesn't skip on great characterisation and an equally strong storyline, unlike certain other CGI films I could mention *cough* Shark Tale *cough*.

So, what have I been up to this weekend? Well: plenty of drinking, watched the Aussies beat us twice (meh...), and I finally got round to completing Halo 2. Fantastic game, but with a really bad ending - well, when I say bad ending what I really mean is it just doesn't really have one. Still at least I should now have time to go back to the vast amount of games I've been neglecting (Paper Mario, San Andreas and Fable spring to mind), that is until my Nintendo DS turns up. It should be here in the next couple of weeks, quite looking forward to getting my grubby mitts on it.

Here's something a little bit more cultured than the usual videos that no doubt clog up your inbox, a short, slightly subversive, film using an Amon Tobin song as a soundtrack. I think it's great; it's just the right length to satisfy my increasingly short attention span, shows impecable taste in music, and contains some interestingly creepy imagery. The most impressive thing is that it's apparently a student project and not just some design agency letting off a bit of steam...

I feel the need to apologise for my behaviour last night...

I must be getting old - not only am I sober on a Friday night, but at the cinema I got all grumpy and told a young whipper-snapper to 'Shut the fuck up' as he was making too much noise.



Anyway I went to see the new version of The Grudge tonight, I'd describe it as spooky rather than scary. Not too bad though...

Some Music:



A new Jesu song, Tired of Me, has turned up online. It features some of the slowest drumming you'll ever hear, 4 maybe even 5 bpm I reckon, it's also one of the most gorgeous songs I've heard this year, just oozing depth both emotionally and sonically speaking - I desperately need the album.



gabba / POD seems to have got back to providing downloads with some style, they have posted a remix by some chap called Superpitcher which needs to be described as excellent. If you like Slam you'll like this, just noticed his album got 8.5 on Pitchfork, must - investigate - further.



Finally a couple of new M83 tracks have turned up here, the track called 'A Guitar and a Heart' is worth spending some serious quality time with.

I've had a couple of emails from people recently who have stumbled on my site due to my fairly broad taste in music, and who have complimented me on my selection of CDs...



I'd feel the need to apologise to those people, I'm sorry - I went to see Keane tonight.



I could get all vicious and go on about how I find them a horrible band, who pretty much just have one tune and a singer who kept doing that 'look at me I'm Jesus' pose, but frankly I had fun. Since they are a band without too many ideas its easy to make up your own lyrics to most of there songs. Also there name does lead to the crowd shouting "Keano! Keano!" occasionally, to which I couldn't resist adding the odd shout of "Yid Army!".

Ol' Dirty Bastard is dead? Shit... Actually I'm amazed he lasted as long as he did when you consider his *ahem* colourful lifestyle.



Ended up going out last night even though I wasn't planning to, it was mainly because I didn't want to spend the whole evening listening to a certain Yiddos' whining. Hitting town after 9 did demand some serious speed drinking but I think I managed it though as I've got no idea how I got home. Some pictures of the evening survived over here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: The McHottie!

Phil, it's your liver again. Remember last week when I asked you to calm down on the boozing front? Well I don't think that spending half the evening at a Beer Festival and the rest of the night downing vodkas was a particularly good start was it?

Well the lights are down low, the wine is open it must be that special time of year - yep, Halo 2 is out. Oh my, it's good, I've been playing it pretty much full stop for about 4 hours and the only reason I've been having breaks is due to a severe case of videogame thumb. I'm dying to blab on about it but I'm going to be good and keep my gob shut so I don't spoil it for anyone. Still I will say there is one bit in the game where you get this strangely intruiging cut scene, which then oh my god it's carrying on, and I'm playing it... and! and!



OK, enough about Halo. I've been quiet this week due to work sucking ass hard! Having to deal with four different people from one client hassling me constantly is getting on my nerves, shut up people!



Evenings have been taken up with the new Grand Theft Auto game, I'm coming to the slightly controversial decision that I don't like it as much as Vice City. OK technically it's much better, but it's just missing something - I can't quite put my finger on it; maybe I'm missing the 80's nostalgia, maybe it's the fact that the language is just a little too cliched, or maybe it's just not as funny as the last one. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy it, just that I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.



Anyway, I'll try to post a bit more often in the next few days. I've got a bunch of very interesting CDs to tell you about soon, and it is the legendary Woking Beer Festival tomorrow which should produce a few interesting pictures...

getting near to the end of the year...



The Soft Pink Truth - Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Soft Pink Truth?

The Soft Pink Truth is actually half of Matmos, the band who tend to be remembered for sampling plastic surgery operations and for being Bjork's backing band, Matmos can at times be very conceptual whereas The Soft Pink Truth are slightly more interested in booty shaking it would seem. Not that there isn't a concept that binds this album together, there is - basically it's an album of cover versions of old punk/hardcore tracks done in a funky disco-esque way. I have to admit to not being very familiar with most of the songs here, but the cheesy garage version of Minor Threat's Out of Step made me grin. This is a fun album, sort of a submersive getting ready to go out clubbing with a bunch of girls in glittery make up kind of way.



Shockout Volume 1

This is from Tigerbeat6's ragga/dancehalll off shoot hence is full of all the usual subjects such as The Bug, DJ /rupture, Kid606. In some ways it's similar to the Two Cultures Clash I got a while a go in that it's mainly Western producers working with 'proper' dancehall MCs. However this time it works much better since the gloves seem to be off on this CD, the producers pussy foot around instead laying down some rough dirty beats, and the MCs aren't exactly holding back either. It's not all violence though, the compilation is bookended by a couple of sweet Dub numbers.



Converge - You Fail Me

This got a good write up on Brainwashed.com, and they have connections with Old Man Gloom and Isis so I thought I'd give them a go. The CD starts off innocently enough with a fairly standard quiet intro before heading off into Dischord-esque hardcore. It's not long though before things start getting a lot more angry, verging into grindcore territory at times. Couple of interesting songs in the middle of the CD, the title track contains some of the most intense uses of an electric guitar you'll hear this year. The next song does a good job too by providing a calmer gentler counterpoint to the previous songs fury. A loud noisy CD, not recommended for anyone who relishes too many quiet moments.



Kid606/Cex - Oh so now you fuckers wanna dance!

You have to love that title! OK, so the Shockout CD was underground producers doing dancehall, this one is a couple of underground producers getting down and dirty for some booty shaking mixes. Suprisingly the Kid produces the most straightforward mix; Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z rub shoulders with Autechre and Kid606's own beats. It's great fun, just stupid dance music to shake your ass to, and at a pleasantly non-manic pace. Cex get's a bit more technical, more chopping up of beats and processed vocals still good fun though. Highly recommended for the gym...



Sophia - Collections:One

A collection of odds and sods from the criminally over-looked career of Sophia, to pay for there string quartet to go on tour with the rest of the band. I've mentioned this band before so I won't go into there history, suffice to say that this is an essential purchase to any fans of the band. It mixes older material with newer stuff that was deemed a bit too experimental for People are like Seasons (or which may have been recorded afterwards). A couple of the tunes are bit iffy, the cover of You Only Tell You Love When Your Drunk doesn't really work for me ,even though the sentiment does - and If You Want A Home just doesn't seem finished to me. However, besides those two blips the rest of the album is excellent and gives me hope that the next Sophia album could be a bit special. I've been listening to the song Easy (If you want me) pretty much constantly since I've got it, and the next song is absolutely classic Sophia which reminds me why I love this band so much. Anyway, this one may or may not get a proper release, in the mean time you can order it here.



The Wire Tapper 12

More pretensious nonsense from The Wire ;-). In all seriousness I haven't really listened to this enough to form an opinion, but if I don't write something here this post will never get published!

Hey Phil! This is your liver speaking, can you do me a favour and calm down on the drinking please! And I think your lungs would like a word with you at some point about the whole smoking situation...

Listen to this tune by The Swans. It's miserable, I'm miserable (because of work fact fans), and I intend to bring you all down with me!

So I finally sat down and watched Casshern tonight. Hmmm, what to say? Well: it's overblown, confusing, it's far too long and it has strange dialogue, but it looks amazing - one of the nicest looking films you will ever see. It is basically a Final Fantasy game in cinematic form, the trouble is with the Final Fantasy games there is the whole 'game' bit between the cinematic moments to keep you interested, something sorely lacking from this film. Hey Ho, you live and learn...



In other cinematic news, if you have been anywhere near a Starwars.com account you may be aware of a certain trailer for a certain new Star Wars film. Darth Phil thoroughly approves of the bit with Darth Sidious going all medieval on someone's ass.



Good to see the more mature Dark Lord of the Sith being shown some respect.

I've just got back from seeing the Scissor Sisters who I have to say are an excellent live band (crap pictures of them live are here), not normally the thing I go to see but I'm glad I decided to go along. Much dancing was done, which is always a good thing, and I think I fell for Ana Matronic a bit she's a woman after my own heart, ie very filthy and knows how to flounce around with a feather boa properly...

There is a big election today, I could be all dismissive and say I don't care about it as it's not my Country whose having the election, but I do. I don't want that psychotic, war-mongering, religious nut-job George Bush in charge of what is probably the world's largest supply of weaponary for another four years. Who knows when he'll get bored with the Middle East and go for Europe?



Yeah yeah I hear you cry, stop over-reacting Phil... Seriously though, he is clearly insane, the way he laughs in some of his speeches, and that whole if you're not with us you're against us speech was just plain wrong. So, if any American folks wander in here today (unlikely I know, but I'm sure my log files show some Colonials have visited at some point) do the decent thing and vote him out.

Hello my name is Phil, and I am an alcoholic. Although I think that's quite clear from the pictures I post on this site. What's more worrying to me is the way I'm slowly turning into a Spurs fan - for a day out it's difficult to beat getting royally slaughtered in the opposition fans pub and having a bit of a sing along after watching the team you are meant to be supporting lose. I'm going to have to be careful about this sort of behaviour...

2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes



The grin on the face of the kid being 'The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib' made me smile...

I have a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sitting on my desk at work, teasing me like the brazen hussy it is! Today is going to be a very long day...



Went to a smooth jazz night yesterday; they had a duo playing very laid back Burt Bacharach tinged jazz on the sax, guitar and salt shaker thingy. Quite nice music really, unfortunatly there weren't many people there, probably a bit too sophisticated for Woking's tastes, and the bar wasn't exactly easy to find. It was a non-smoking venue so I had to keep popping out for a ciggy, at the end of the night I found myself outside chatting to the guitarist - turns out he was into some of the improvistational shite I'm into, quite cool being able to talk about Matthew Shipp, Spring Heel Jack and using a gas mask as a musical instrument with a proper jazz fiend.

Todays new CD comes from Japan! It is credited to The Boredoms, but they may be called The V?redoms, anyway here are my thoughts.

v?redoms maybe...



Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun

This may or may not be a new Boredoms album as the general concensus amongst fans is they are now called the v?redoms. Anyway, whatever they may be called, it's the first release since there psychedelic 'Vision, Creation, New Sun' CD. The CD contains 2 tracks both over the 20 minute mark, the first track is amazing. It starts off with fairly abstract female vocals, almost like someone absent mindly singing to them selves, then there is the wave of drums which just seems to explode. The rest of the track is pretty much based around the drums, lots and lots of drums; the female vocalist remains and is accompanied by some pretty frenzied not quite classical, not quite jazz piano, but mainly it's all about the drums. Think about trying to get 3 or 4 live drummers to beat out a slightly different rhythmn at the same time and you'll be close, it does slow down a bit in the middle but not for long. Fantastic stuff... it's a pity that the other track is so fucking dull.

Todays new CD comes from a rather roundabout route. I first heard about it on the Definitive Jux site at the start of the year where it was described as a European import, could I find it? Could I bollocks! They've now started selling it in America, so basically I've got a new CD that came from Europe via America. Makes no sense to me. Anyway, may I present the new El-P album Collecting the Kid.



In other news the exercise score is: Phil 6 - Exercise 0

Having said that, today hurt! And I still haven't played with the weight machine thingies...



And in other news apparently there is a scene in the new Star Wars film where Yoda farts... It's sad, but I'm so not suprised that the bearded one is determined to fuck this film up too. *sigh*

def jukie head honcho...



El-P - Collecting the Kid

This is a collection of rare tracks and instrumentals from Definitive Jux's "executive producer" (well that's what he calls himself on pretty much every Def Jux release) El-P. It contains instrumental tracks he produced for Murs, Mr Lif and Camutao along with contributions from his jazz album 'High Water (Mark)' and from his score for a film called 'Bomb the System'. There is also a remix of a track he did with someone called Stephanie Vezina which I think is brilliant. It's all very El-P: lot's of scattershot drum programming, big distorted organs and sci-fi synths, but I'm a fan of that sort of stuff so I like it. For a collection of knock-offs it also holds together suprisingly well, but I would like to see a proper El-P album, on this one his vocals are missed. Recommended if you can find it!

John Peel died today.



I am genuinely upset by that news; the man was responsible for a fair proportion of my CD collection and I've always admired and tried to follow his open minded attitude to music. A sad day for all music fans really...



*edit*



There seems to be many tributes popping up over the internet, I think this site is pretty good, plus there is a link to Teenage Kicks on it. I strongly advise you follow the instructions regarding listening to it as loud as you can as a fitting tribute.

Silly Idea #147 (part of an ongoing series)



How about this for my next car? I'm thinking of getting one in black and having a big eagle painted on the front, maybe one sitting on a skull... with snakes coming out of the skulls eyes - that would be so metal! I got the idea from an article in the Times this weekend, with current exchange rates the low end model is just over £10,000. OK so there would be VAT and import problems to deal with, but it would still work out pretty cheap compared to buying a new European car.



Of course there may be some tiny little teething problems such as horrible insurance quotes and just by looking at the damn thing would make it use petrol. But how cool would it be to say you owned a Mustang?

OK, I'm slightly less confused now - these camera phones can be very handy when your memory needs a bit of extra help.



So, Friday was fairly traditional in that there was plenty of good old fashioned binge drinking. It also marked the return of Wetherspoons as a venue, which is still as horrible as ever. Saturday was spent doing even more heroic drinking, this time in Tottenham and various random parts of London. I'd convinced myself that I knew where this really cool Polish bar was, unfortunatly I was wrong and a fair amount of the evening was spent wandering round parts of London that were unnervingly quiet for a Saturday night. It was a bit like those first scenes in 28 days later, if a zombie had jumped out I wouldn't have been in the least bit suprised.



As you can imagine today has been spent trying to convince my body to work properly, it's been a bit of a lost cause really...

What happened to the last 36 hours? I'm confused...

The first expensive package from japan has arrived - this is the Isis remix album, the Fennesz remix is particularly good.

my first japanese import...



Isis - Oceanic Remixes/Reinterpretations

Well, I've bought Japanese CDs before, but this is the first one I've bought direct from Japan. This double CD does pretty much what it says on the packet, ie it contains remixes and reinterpretations of songs from Isis's Oceanic album. It's being released here as a series of limited edition vinyl singles, which is annoying since I don't have a record player hence the importing nonsense. OK, first track is from genius that is Fennesz, with little more than a bit of processed guitar and a few glitches he can create some of the most epic and emotional sounding music you've ever heard. The Ayal Noar remix is very good, although I think he's worked with Isis before so has an advantage, the Thomas Koner one is suitably creepy. In fact the only track thats a bit iffy on the first CD is the one from Teledubgnosis which is a biut long - although the Mike Patton track is just bizarre. The Second CD has plenty of weird stuff on it, the problem is there is also a JK Broadrick remix at the end so I've found myself wishing the others would hurry up so I could get to the main event so to speak, it's exactly what I thought it would sound like - ie like the new Jesu stuff. Anyway, if you like Isis and the more experimental side of the music spectrum I'd recommend this CD.

I swear that the website cdjapan is going to financially ruin me. I've ordered a copy of the Isis remix album from them which contains all four volumes of the limited 12" series in one handy double CD package, and since that seems to be on the way to England I've gone and ordered the new Boredoms album.I've also discovered they are about to release Casshern on DVD, this film looks amazing: giant robots, epic cinematography, basically it looks like a Final Fantasy game brought to the cinema screen (or in the case of the DVD - my TV screen) properly - can't wait to watch it.



The trouble is all this importing of exotic CDs and DVDs is bloody expensive, I've always thought that those £30 japanese import albums you see in decent record shops were a bit of a rip off - turns out they aren't, as importing them yourself costs just as much. I'm going to have to be good and steer clear of the site for a while or I'm going to end up having a very sheepish conversation with my bank manager...

Went to see Shark Tale tonight, let's get this out of the way first. It's nowhere near as good as Finding Nemo.



It has it's moments - mainly with the shark voiced by Jack Black - but there were a few too many touchy feely parts, and I don't know if it was just me but the film did seem to be trying a little too hard to be a bit urban. The Missy Elliot and Christina Agregulia song at the end was particularly forced. But maybe I'm just getting old and can't relate to youth culture anymore...



In other news I've survived my first trip to the gym, so the score now stands at:



Phil 1 - Exercise 0



Wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, however having said that I'll probably wake up tomorrow screaming in agony and unable to get out bed, I'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Some links from my RSS reader...



This is just lovely, I recommend it if your in the mood to listen to something gentle.



Just found out about a Love and Rockets collection which I need! I remember reading a few of these books when I was at college, possibly the best punk rock lesbian love stories you'll read, but I drifted off into more super hero type books. I'm looking forward to this turning up.



And apparently a game called Half Life 2 has gone gold. It'll probably be shit...

A bunch of new CDs

initial thoughts on a bunch of new Cds



Donkey Konga Soundtrack

Absolutely fucking appalling even if it is a free CD. This CD comes with the latest official Nintendo magazine and showcases tunes from Nintendo's latest rythmn action game Donkey Konga. The music is horrible and has but me right off the game.



Subtle - A New Shade of White

How do I describe this? Easy, it's cLOUDDEAD doing rock music. How can I say that? Well, Subtle have 2 out of the 3 members of cLOUDDEAD in there ranks, and although they have a similar dream like quality they seem to use more live instruments which include *gasp* guitars and drums... hence the lazy cLOUDDEAD doing rock music tag from yours truly. It's damn good stuff though, it's on Warp's hip-hop off shoot Lex Records who get a thumbs up from me for releasing yet another excellent CD. Bad points? Well, I imagine that Dose One (the vocalist/MC) could get on people's nerves, he has a pretty much unique approach to vocals (ie fast, high pitched, surreal and drenched in effects) and the fact that in the line up he is credited as supplying words,throat,synth and art makes him sound like a pretentious wanker - I'll let it pass though, as the music is bang on.



Jimmy Eat World

I think this there self titled release, I could be wrong though Media Player seems to be determined to call it Bleed America, and a few people on Amazon refer to it by the same title, basically it's the one with all the sports trophies on the front cover. Anyway, after listening to the new album I thought it was time to go and hit there back catalogue. This one has got Sweetness and Salt Sweat Sugar, which if you've ever been in O'neils in Woking you will recognise. The rest of the CD seems to be much more gentle than these two songs, maybe a bit too gentle really. My top tip would be to download the two decent songs and buy the new album.



Mansun - Attack of the Grey Lantern

One of those albums that I kick myself for not buying in the first place. This was Mansun's debut album; it's an ambitious one, full of some seriously overblown production but at the same time some amzing songs. Highlights include Taxloss mainly for the way it somehow morphs into disco, and Wide Open Space which is worth the asking price alone.



MDZ04

I get very nostalgic about Metalheadz, I used to frequent Goldies Sunday night metalheadz club when I was at University, which considering involved over a 200 mile round trip was quite a feat. At the time the music they played seemed very futuristic, nowadays I use the word nostalgic when describing it, is that irony? I guess it could be. Anyway, back to this compilation: it does exactly what you would hope it would: it's fast, viscious and has a nasty metallic pointy bits that could easily take your eye out - and it's nice to see Photek getting back to some good old fashioned drum'n'bass.

This weekend has mainly been spent watching Hellraiser and Spongebob Squarepants DVDs (a combination which should cause some sort of mental damage), playing old school computer games to the extent that I managed to break a controller, listening to track 10 off the new Jimmy Eat World album pretty much constantly and generally avoiding any sort of physical contact or communication with real human beings...

Went to a comedy club called the Banana Cabaret last night, it was as you can imagine fun and made a nice change from drinking in Woking. All the comedians were jolly good, and there was chance for a bit of a boogie afterwards, and as I was being a relatively sensible person for a change I can actually remember it this time.

Oh no, what have I done?

I'm thinking of having a Stella free weekend this weekend (note: not an alcohol free one, that would be silly!). I've noticed that whilst out on the sauce recently I've either had these weird little lost moments where rather than collapsing unconcious like any decent self respecting drunk I get more lively and do stuff that I'm damned if I can ever remember. Or I get horribly depressed, and what do you do when horribly depressed? Why, listen to Emo my friends! Lots and lots of Emo...



The fags are also going to have to go too, I seem to be very close to joining a gym and I get the impression that they may be somewhat incompatible with fitness.

emo...



Jimmy Eat World - Futures

Absolutely marvellous album, unashamably emo this is the sound of four men rocking like bastards whilst pouring there hearts out. OK, its more straight forward to what I often listen to ie there are tunes here, but at the moment its just what I need.

Trying to give up smoking when there was beer and an England match involved was never going to work was it?

Well the weather sucks, work sucks and the new Massive Attack album is disappointingly dreary. I need something to cheer me up damn it! If any generous rich people are reading this, how about spreading a bit of cheeriness and chucking me a few quid so I can bugger off round the world for a few months or something?



In other news I've acquired a copy of Innocence, the sequel to Ghost in the Shell. Visually it is truly extraordinary, you could pick pretty much any single frame from the film and want to hang it on your wall; but boy is it confusing. The main characters are constantly quoting famous thinkers like Confusious, Plato, Descartes and Buddha in between there own philosophical musings. This makes for a very confusing film at times but it's nice not to watch a film with a bit of intelligence for a change, even if much of it is way beyond me...

woof woof...



Massive Attack - Danny the Dog

This is the soundtrack album to a new film starring Jet Li, Bob Hoskins and Morgan Freeman, it's an interesting film which seems to be half kung fu revenge film and half erm, well, a European art house film about pianos. Massive Attack, or whats left of Massive Attack as I think 2 of the 3 main producers have left, have produced the score the whole film. This CD has it's moment's, there is a hint of the old massive attack here and there - beats and strings - but it's an album of mainly incidental music, and without the visual element it's a bit dull to be honest.

Ta Da! I'm back from Manchester and my first proper England match, I saw the under 21s play years ago, but I don't think that counts. I'm sure you are aware of how the match went so I won't go into it here. As for events surrounding the match, well it was fun, bit odd going into the stadium sober due the difficulty in getting any alcohol in Manchester before the game but it didn't really deter from proceedings. We went out on the town afterwards, after a few false starts due to not being allowed into a couple of bars due to lack of shoes or not being couples (which was a new one on me) we settled down to some serious drinking. All jolly good fun, some of which is recorded here.

This picture has appeared on a fairly respectable website that is one of my daily/hourly visits (the mighty boingboing.net) so I can offload the slightly unnerving feeling that I'm looking at japanese schoolgirl porn on to them. Could it be the coolest class photo of all time?

Went to see Layercake last night, it's your typical British gangster film like Lock Stock, you know: swearing, sharp suits, liberal use of drugs and violence, absolutely zero meaningful female characters. But it has it's moments, some good one liners and a particularly fine use of the phrase "Well fuck off then", there are worse ways to spend a Thursday evening.



In other news I have a copnfession: I really like the new Gwen Stefani tune, OK it's essentially europop - but it's europop with balls!

OK, about time for a proper post rather than the one sentence posts which seem to have formed the last few posts. The trouble is I haven't got a huge amount to say; I could give you a guide to some interesting DVD releases, wax lyrical about the joy that is Burnout 3 on the Xbox (it's just soooooo fast, it's more like a drug than a game), or maybe get a bit topical and go on about current events in the world - but I think I'll leave those ideas for another time...



Instead I think I'll point you in the direction of this nice new PC wallpaper from a chap called Martyn Norman who has won some sort of Ninjatune competition. I've had the worlds most depressing wallpaper, which I pinched from this site, on my desktop at work - I thought it was about time for a change.



Oh, and go out and buy the new dj /rupture CD, it is brilliant - why? Because I say so!

not a mix CD...



DJ /rupture - Special Gunpowder

I've got quite a few DJ /rupture mixes, but after a blinding start in the CD mix world with Gold Teeth Suite I've found some of his recent ones a bit 'samey' so I was a bit anxious about this first 'proper' album. I needn't have worried though, this is brilliant, there is a perfect mix between soft soulful tunes which would not be out of place on one of Massive Attack's earlier albums and some full on scary as shit noise assualts - all held together with ragga beats and arabic-esque riddims... and a bit of hip hop. The guest vocalists are really good, the ragga MCs being my favourite but he's also used poets, MCs and singers - something for everyone really. If I had to compare this CD to anyone the first one that pops into my head is The Bug's 'Pressure', but as good as his album was I think this one by DJ /rupture is better. Definitely one to own.

I'm getting old, I'm struggling to cope with going out two nights out in a row. Pictures are a bit crap I'm afraid...

We had a company meeting last night, I'm still suffering...

Some new CDs...

Electronic music and folk music...



Watch and Repeat Play

This is a mix CD by someone called Buddy Peace and ZILLA that comes with the new Warp records DVD. It's one of those incredibly complex mix CDs that often seems to involve about half a dozen songs being played at the same time, each being chopped up beyond recognition. As an overview of Warp records catalogue it's as good as you'll get, mainly taking in there pure electronic artists with a sprinkling of some of there more eccentric performers such as Beans and Gravenhurst... A jolly good CD, and the DVD it comes with is just as good.



Gravenhurst - Flashlight Sessions

I have no idea what this is doing on Warp, it's folk music! Most of the songs just involve an acoustic guitar, melancholic vocals which if anything remind me of Simon & Garfunkel and maybe a smattering of subtle instrumentalisation - theres even a harmonica involved. Its really beautiful stuff, one for the conisseurs of sad songs.



Knifehandchop - How I Left You

Apparently this was written after a particularly bad break up. And what's the best music for expressing the emotional pain of the one you love walking away from you. Well, apparently it's old school rave. Hmm, not sure about that - but it's still a pretty good CD, it makes me almost nostalgic for the rave days.



Devendra Banhart - Nino Rojo

I should hate this bloke: he perfoms on stage whilst sitting cross legged on a cushion and while he wears a poncho, he warbles whilst he sings, and he writes silly little childlike folk songs with titles like 'Wake Up Little Spider'. He's a proper, full on hippy! But damn it he's good, his guitar playing verges on amazing at times and his songs have a a refreshingly non-cynical feel to them which I can't help but admire.

I'm beginning to wish I hadn't drunk so much yesterday...

Funny old weekend so far, there has been no social drinking - I feel a bit weird...



Anyway, I went to see the new Tom Cruise film Collateral yesterday, it's OK. Basically it tells the story of a taxi driver as he is forced to ferry a hitman around his rounds, most of it is pretty good. Lot's of lingering shots of LA freeways, Tom Cruise doing a very good bad guy type character, and some Jazzzzz. The only complaints I have are the ending (ie the last 'hit') was a bit contrived, and the character of the taxi driver was slightly overshadowed by Mr Cruise.



Today I bought the new PC game Sims 2 - the way it imitates life has already started to scare me. For example I created a rough digital Phil and plonked him into his own house, he only seems to be interested in playing games and has already been rejected by the cute red headed Sim who moved into the neighbourhood... :-S

Rammstein - Amerika - Heavy metal song/video of the year?

I'm back from Malia, and the post holiday blues are settling in nicely thank you very much.



Lots of pictures to laugh at, I'm too tired for a full report but briefly the holiday involved: a suprisingly good apartment complex considering the price, lots of alcohol, good food, lots of sun worshipping (which was a new experiance for me), a few football matches, and bugger all site seeing.



A couple of CDs turned up whilst I was away, details are here. They are not desperately interesting I'm afraid.

smooth...



Mr Scruff - Keep It Solid Steel

Typically solid mix from Mr Scruff, starts with a bit of reggae before settling down into a bad ass hip hop funk groove. From what I understand this will be the first of several mixes from the Scruff-meister in this series.



Exploratory Music From Portugal 04

Free CD from The Wire, bit wasted on me I'm afraid.

Darth Phil is off on a summer holiday, no more work for a week or... well, a week. Updates will be few and far between until next Wednesday, but I'm sure you'll manage.

hmm...



Isis - 09.23.03

This is a live recording from the Isis as they were promoting there excellent Oceanic CD. This show was recorded when they were supporting Mogwai (now there's a line up I'd pay good money for), the quality is unfortunatly not very good - pretty basic bootleg standard really - but you do get a good impression of there live presence. One for the fans.



The Twilight Singers - She Loves You

Not sure about this one, Greg Dulli doing a whole album of cover versions. The album cover is very promising - basically a crotch shot, but it has a definite Afghan Whigs feel to it, but I'm not sure about the choice of covers. John Coltrane is a difficult one for a rock group to pull off, and most of the others I'm unfamiliar with so its difficult for me to appreciate the interpretations on offer. Having said that the version of Bjork's Hyperballard is brilliant - but I do have a definte soft spot for that song.

Today was the Staines Boat Club Pubs and Clubs Regatta, there were two boats representing SFW - the company who pay my wages.



The lads crew (named 'Stroke My Cox' - snigger) did there best and managed not to sink, but the ladys (aka 'The Adams Family' - much more sensible name) did us proud and came back with some silverware. If you have a video player on your PC that can handle 3gp files (quicktime and real player seem to handle them) you can watch a video of The Adams Family cruising to victory in there final over here.



I have some pictures from my phone over here, but the people at the Staines Boat Club are obviously far more organsied and have a bunch of proper photos which you can find here.

Britney's Latest Ironic Tee: "MILF In Training"



Not sure if you've been following Britney's fall (well, more like a trip) from grace, but I really don't know what to say about this - it's got to be porn next, hasn't it?

drunken post time - please excuse the spelling and lack of grammar...



OK, pictures... not my fault! So I can point you towards them without the usual voyeuristic guilt trip.



Just finished watching the mercury music prize awards on BBC2, my god it was dull - and frankly depressing. Is Franz - look at our shiny suits - Ferdinand the best this country can come up with? Bollocks! We can do better than that. Just flicking through my CD collection this year I can come up with at least two bands that are better than Franz Fucking-dull-boring-safe-Ferdin-we-desperately-want-to-be-Interpol-and.



First stop: Spring Heel Jack, ok they may use some foreign musicians, and occasionally get a bit up there own arses, but damn it they seem to have generally made an attempt at breaking conventions whilst still being able to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.



Second choice: Philip Jeck - I'm sorry but the man can create some of the most beautiful, emotional music using a couple of antique record players, some forgotten vinyl and a handful of dust, it deserves some recognition. (Please!) Go and listen to the first track on his album 7 if you don't believe me...

I've been to see The Chronicles of Riddick tonight. I think I like it, it's a strange sequel though going from a fairly low key film like Pitch Black to a full on SciFi epic. Everything is turned up to 11, which does lead to some confusing moments, especially during the fight sequences. I'm at somewhat of an advantage of having completed the excellent XBox prequel, which sets the tone for the prison sequence nicely. Interesting film, not as bad as some people say, could do with a sequel though as the ending isn't as tidy as it could have been.

Various sections have been updated.



Went to Game Stars Live yesterday. Not a bad day out, got to play a few new games: Donkey Konga being the maddest (it has a bongo drum controller), Outrun 2 being the most enjoyable - although I think that's because of its arcade origins it's pretty much designed for short sharp bursts of play. Didn't bother queing up for Halo 2 due to the 2 hour wait, its not like I'm not going to buy the game anyway...

One of these CDs is completely necessary...



Jesu - Heartache

Two tracks each around the 20 minute mark in length of what is best described as crushingly beautiful music. The old Godflesh fan's will lap it up, the basic elements are still there (rumbling bass, the relentless drum programming, and the familiar tones of Mr Broadricks guitar), but there's something else - a certain melancholy and sadness. Miserable fuckers like me will love it.



2XH vs HHR: Where is my robotic boot?

First things first, don't order this from play.com - they've been fucking me around for well over a month with this. Anyway this compilation has one disc of intelligent metal label hydrahead records artists, and one disc from there more experimental ambient noise sister lable 2XH. The Hydrahead disc is really like too much hard work, the disc seems to be mainly filled with almost jazz like noodling done with death metal-esque guitars, kind of gives me a headache . The 2XH disc is much better, couple of more leftfield Kid606 songs, some serious drone work from Final, and my first introduction to Japanese noise artist Merzbow (he's always in The Wire) who kind of has tunes if you listen hard enough. Anyway, not a bad compilation if you ignore disc 2.



Slam - Year Zero

Yep you're right Walshie, this is very good. Very old school too, lots of analogue instruments and tracks that remind me equally of Afrika Bamabaataa, Soft Cell and (mainly because I've listened to them a fair amount recently) Throbbing Gristle - when they weren't being noisy.

This post is mainly aimed at annoying Walshie...



I've been to see Sonic Youth tonight, fuck me they were good. They started off with my favourite tune from the new album Sonic Nurse, I love you Golden Blue each Sonic taking there time to come on one by one finishing with Kim Gordon (the sexiest women to ever hold a bass guitar - fact!) sweeping on in a pair of golden high heels. The third song they played was the full version of The Diamond Sea (all 20 minutes of it!), which halfway through had Thurston Moore climbing on top of a PA stack and swinging his guitar by its lead in front of it - the spirit of punk rock is alive and well!



Adding Jim O'Rourke to there ranks is a stroke of genius, he can pull off some full on 'Jack Black in School of Rock'-esque poses and he occasionally takes over on bass duty to allow Kim Gordon to strut her stuff properly. There was some great banter going on between Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, they dedicated the last song to Jordon (??!), and yes, they did play Teenage Riot!



Marvellous evening, some crap blurry pictures of it can be found here...

TOKYO DAMAGE REPORT: japan, punk, hentai, engrish, goth, robot, kogal, otaku, shibuya, harajuku, schultz, fetchi, etc. - some good stuff here.

Google keep giving me gmail accounts to give away and it's going to get to the point where I have more gmail accounts to give away than people I know - which is slightly embarassing...



So if anyone wants one let me know your email address and I will see what I can do. In case you are unaware gmail is Google's new internet email service. The big advantage is the massive 1GB of space to play with, but you also get a nice clean interface and it has the clever idea to group responses to emails into what they call converstations instead of having masses of emails titled 'RE: re: re: something or other'.



The downside? Well privacy advocates get all wound up about Google putting adverts into emails based on there subject - but they've been doing that for ages based on searches with Google and has it bothered anyone? Plus it's a machine doing it, and it's far less annoying than how Hotmail or Yahoo plaster banner adverts everywhere. And when they do eventually take over the world I'm sure you will be in there good books if you have a gmail account!

Some more random purchases...



Two Cultures Clash

The idea behind this collection is to get a bunch of 'Western' electronic musicians and introduce them to some Jamaican vocalists. Personally I don't think it works too well, there doesn't seem to be enough risks, and maybe I've been listening to The Bug's take on ragga too much but this CD just sounds too safe. Even Kid606 who does a track with Ward 21 seems a bit too tame.



The Bug featuring Warrior Queen - Aktion Pak

Now this is more like it! Ruff as fuck, with the mother of all basslines on the title track. The mighty Warrior Queen takes on the vocal duties for two tracks, and the slightly mischieviously looking Ras B gets his own tracks at the end. The four remaining tracks are Dub Versions (ie instrumentals) of tracks from The Bugs last album. Definitely worth picking up.



Jah Wobble - I Could Have Been A Contender

Continuing the reggae theme this is a three CD anthology from Jah Wobble who over his long career has pretty much nailed the dub reggae bassline. He started off in the post Sex Pistol's band Public Image Limited, the two PIL tracks here still sound completely relevant and fresh - one of them sounds like it may even have been ripped off by Fugazi, but I can't believe they would do such a thing - would they? The 3 CDs on offer here also cover his commercial hits (Becoming More Like God? Visions of You? You would recognise them if you heard them), his excursions into World Music and his more experimental tracks. Its good stuff, if I have one problem with the collection it's pretty heavy going - three CDs packed to the edges with music. Still you can't fault the value there... and his liner notes are very funny.



Old Man Gloom - Christmas

Bit off track this one, we're into Doom Metal territory here. There's an Isis involvement here, so anyone familiar with that band will be right at home here. Intelligent heavy metal, full of atmosphere. The last track (Christmas Eve parts I, II, and III - alt version) is amazing, slow as fuck with a slight hint of the Swans. Again, a recommended purchase if only for the last track.

I'm getting lazy on the posting front aren't I?



OK, time to correct that. First things first a rant I think, Woking is getting really shit. Once again a perfectly enjoyable night out has been marred by violence, my usual peace loving left wing views on how to deal with modern society are being questioned, and I'm now of the opinion that there is a whole demographic that I would quite happily see being rounded up, sterilised so they can't breed and shipped away to some deserted island in the middle of nowhere.



This is all from an incident that happened last night - basically I spent most of the evening with Johnboy propping up the bar at the Station pub in Woking. We were both drinking vodka and red bulls, the vodka was to get me drunk and the redbull to keep John awake. Anyway we had great fun, met lots of weird characters (who mainly seemed to be Spurs fans), and developed a special bond with the bar staff. Afterwards we staggered back to my place, but just as we were outside my flat some twat decides to smack John in the face. No explanation, no warning, just a smack in the face. Fair play on John, he didn't move an inch, but unfortunatly his teeth were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and his lip pretty much exploded from being cut by them - there's quite a spectacular blood stain on the path outside my place now. We tried to clean his mouth up, but it was clear that it needed proper medical attention - anyway long story short, we eventually sobered up enough to realise that a trip to Guildford Accident and Emergency was required. They were pretty good about it, but it was bad enough for the doctor on duty to need to call a special facial surgeon to sort it out - you can see the result of her handiwork in these pictures.



So, a perfectly decent night fucked up, I'm really beginning to hate Woking...



Anyway enough of that, onto other items. Naturally I've been buying more CDs, you can read about them here, there's some good CDs coming out soon: I'm really looking forward to the new Jesu CD and there is a Twilight Singers covers album coming out soon, which with Greg Dulli's track record on doing cracking cover versions should be really good. I've decided to give the Bjork CD a miss, I've had a quick listen to it and I just find it a bit gimmicky.



Anything else? Well, I'm off on holiday to Crete in a couple of weeks - should be fun, I'm really looking forward to a proper break. I've got my Eyetoy working as a webcam thanks to this page, this may lead to a new feature on the website soon - you have been warned. My laptop is now fully Service Packed up, no problems yet I'm happy to report. Oh and I went to see The Village a couple of days ago - saw the twist coming a mile away, I wouldn't bother with it really, but I've never been a fan of M. Night Shyamalan...

It has been a while since I inflicted my music tastes on anyone, so here goes: 4 new CDs for you to read about.

random purchases...



Black Dice - Miles of Smiles

For some reason I had the impression Black Dice were an indie band because they seemed to get mentioned on Pitchfork alot - I'm here today to admit that I was very very wrong. We're into some seriously abstract pretty much avant-garde territory here folks! This EP comprises of two tracks, the first one miles of smiles could almost be described as a field recording, it starts off with insect noises which eventually changes to become the sound of a marching band, and what sounds like someone tearing paper. There's some sort of processing done to the sounds which gives them a slightly out of place feel, it's a fascinating piece and keeps me enthralled for its duration. The second track on this EP is slightly more traditional, starting off with a simple organ line and layered vocals - then someone appears to land a jumbo jet in the studio. I think I really like this EP, it's not going to be easy to listen to if your a fan of tunes, but for anyone with any appreciation of sound in general I'd recommend it.



Craig Armstrong - Piano Works

I think this is Craig Armstrong's third solo album, he's also done a few film soundtracks (notably Romeo & Juliet), and worked with Massive Attack (which is how I started listening to him). This album has a conceptual twist in that all the sound sources are from the Piano - although not in any sort of "Aphex Twin-esque making snare drum samples from a piano note", it's basically just several solo piano pieces treated with a bit of reverb. I'm torn between finding it boring or quite dull - I think it says alot that my favourite tune on the CD is 33 seconds long.



Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I like this film alot, it's quirkiness has a certain charm which seemed to be refelected in the soundtrack when watching the film. When listened to in isolation it's OK, but not anything outstanding. There are a couple of gems on the soundtrack though: Wada Na Tod by Lata Mangeshkar is a fantastic spagetti western tinged bollywood tune, and Beck does a really good version of Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes. You may want to hit your favourite file sharing tools to get hold of those.



Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

I'm never quite sure where the explanation mark goes in there name, but Media Player tells me it should go after the word emporer for this double CD. Anyway, another one of those albums I should have bought ages ago - bit like Mogwai, but more epic. I can see why pitchfork gave this a 9.0.

I'm pretty sure that the following two objects would make me a better person:



First up, the Archos GMini 400. I'm leaning towards getting a hard disk based mp3 player, so far I've stuck with flash based ones as they are small and cheap, but I'm thinking that I need something a bit bigger. This one also has the advantages that its not an iPod (so none of that being tied to iTunes rubbish), however it is about the same size of an iPod, so could reasonably fit in a pocket. And it can play videos, which gives it a certain geek charm - think I need to see some reviews of it first before making the plunge.



Second, the pirate kit on this page. OK it's basically a t-shirt, but it's a t-shirt that comes in a crate with an eyepatch and a feather - which is of course a good thing.

A quick weekend post-analysis post I think, before the full force of Monday hits me.



The Jerry Springer Opera on Friday was very good, it can be enjoyed on many levels: a social commentary on the modern worlds increasingly voyeuristic viewing habits, a clever satire on religion (as it does end up with our hero Jerry in hell), or you can just enjoy the fact that professional singers having to sing swear words and lines such as 'chick with a dick' is very funny. And it ends with a tap dance number, which can't be a bad thing.



On Saturday I went to see Woking play, the football was typical lower league affair - ie a bit rubbish - but it got me out of the house. The rest of the day/evening was spent in the pub where I got to meet a friend of a friend that I have absolutely no problem in calling a total wanker, he didn't appear to have one single redeeming feature - maybe except for the bit where he did shut the fuck up and stopped talking/shouting to everyone.



Anyway, that was my weekend, some pictures of it can be found over here. I'm off to enjoy my new cold now...

Tonight I shall mainly be watching this opera.

To celebrate my new phone, my old one has been diagnosed as having *cough* water damage (not beer damage, no sirree), I'd like to present to fellow sharp gx-30 owners this highly annoying ringtone.



I've been to the cinema tonight to see I Robot, wasn't as bad as I expected it to be (this whole going to the cinema with really low expectations seems to be doing the trick). Will Smith does his stuff with a slightly meaner edge than usual, it has plenty of cool robots which handily glow red when they go a bit evil, and the blatant product placement from Audi didn't annoy me as much as I thought it would. Worth watching really...



Unlike another couple of films which I've watched recently, but which I've not had to pay £6.50 for (thank you internet!). Garfield was the first one: it just felt like a film that everyone, with the exception of the CGI department who did a reasonable job with the big fat cat, did on auto pilot - there seemed to be pretty much no effort, from anyone involved, to make it anything other than a below average family film.



And then there is The Punisher, it had all the right characters from the recent Garth Ennis comic books: Joan the mouse, Spacker Dave, Bumpo were in it - they even had The Russian (although he was in his pre-transsexual cyborg incarnation, which was a shame). But what was the point in doing a two hour film on the Punisher where he only does some proper 'punishing' in the last twenty minutes? And he kept letting bad guys off! Not violent enough basically...

Got my sister down the aisle OK, and managed to get through a speech without embarrassing myself too much - far too busy to take any pictures though, so all I seem to have on my phone is a picture of my Mum's new and completely insane dog, and my ellusive brother. At some point, I'll have to get hold of some proper pictures...

I appear to be very bored.

As much as I hate stating the obvious, I have to say: Damn! It's been hot this weekend!



It's also been fairly eventful, met someone who's actually heard of The God Machine, got into a bit of a fight over the my slightly old fashioned view that members of the opposite sex should be treated with a bit of respect (I know, crazy idea isn't it?), saw Spurs lose (again!), and had a chinese meal which I almost managed to get through using chop sticks whilst also being a little drunk.



Some photos can be found here, I'm temporarily using my old phone as my Sharp GX30 is at the phone doctor being fixed, so the quality isn't quite up to standard.



Next weekend should be interesting as I'm giving my sister away at her wedding: Eek! Responsibility.

I bought a disco CD a couple of days ago, sort of.



And here's a link to an mp3 blog which may be of interest as it's to someone you may have heard of: namely, Bjork. It's a fascinating sample her new album Medulla, which could be her oddest album yet as the whole thing has been produced using only human voices. She's got beatbox contributions from Rahzel, I think Mike Patton may be involved, probably a couple of choirs - definitely sounds very very interesting...

cock-rock disco...



Donna Summer - This Needs to Be Your Style

You've got to admire someone who has such a liberal approach to sampling that it spills over into stealing someone elses name. In case you were wondering this CD is not from the disco diva, but a laptop bootleg mashup of - well pretty much every style of music ever - from some chap called Jason Forrest. It's kind of fun to listen to, there is sort of disco feel all be it mixed up with plenty of gabba and prog rock(?!), but I think it would be better experiance in some sort of club environment with some quality drugs so you could keep up with the slightly silly rhythms.

So, what have I done tonight? Well I went to see a band called Jesu - I've gone on about them before, but in case you weren't concentrating they are the new band from Justin Broadrick, aka JK Flesh, who has been responsible for some of my favourite music of all time.



Nearly didn't make it thanks to Southwest trains deciding to reroute my train through Staines, making a 25 minute journey last a fun filled hour and a half. If a guard had asked for my ticket I'm pretty sure I would have ripped the fucker's heart out ala that mad priest bloke in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - as you may guess, I was a little bit concerned at arriving late, especially as Jesu were on first.



Luckily I arrived to find the band still setting up so I won't be starting any sort of terrorist operation against any train companies - yet! Anyway I got myself a pint and settled down at my now traditional vantage at the back of the venue (far too old for mosh pit action!).



Quite suprised to find the place packed, especially since the only evidence of any Jesu material that I know of consists of 2 low bitrate real audio files on there website. Obviously other people were looking forward to hearing there music as much as me, kind of wish I could meet someone around here who was so open minded, but hey ho...



The setup consisted of a table with a laptop and a few other electronic bits and pieces, Mr Broadrick on guitar and vocals and another chap who I believe was the bass player of Cable Regime (*sigh* never mind...) on bass. They started with some low bass rumbling and chanting before the guitar started to kick in; took me a while to realise as they play very very sloooooow but the first song was a Godflesh (again: *sigh* nevermind...) cover! Specifically a version of a pretty rare song called Messiah (mine came on a recordable CD, but I believe it got re-released properly at some point). At this point the proverbial shit eating smile spread across my face! Unfortunatly things started going a bit wrong towards the end of this song when an effects unit was pulled off the table by some over enthusiastic guitar playing. This lead to a few technical problems which lead to the second song being aborted, clearly some nerves were beginning to creep in.



They managed a couple of other tunes before calling it a day, it may not sound much but it was enough to get an idea of how they sound. Basically: mournfully slow riffs using fantastically heavy layered guitars and electronics are the order of the day, what lyrics I did catch were suitably self deprecating - all in all enough to get me excited about the forthcoming Heart Ache EP (as a connoisseur of sad songs I've got to love that name!).



Pictures of Jesu doing there thing are over here.

I've updated the CD bit, and added an AudioScrobbler RSS feed, this is another online tool to make sure I continue buying too many CDs. It may be of interest to someone.

Quick First Impressions...



Mike Ladd - Nostalgialator

Mike Ladd, hip-hop's most intelligent MC/producer (he was an English Professor at some New York university) finally gets round to a solo follow up to his blinding Welcome to the Afterfuture album. I'm not sure if it's as good, but it's still welcome in my collection - alternating between punk, funk and ambient influenced styles it kind of reminds me of Outkast.



The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine

Blimey! This is a bit FUCKING INTENSE! At there very core they are a heavy metal band I guess, but so much more complicated than anything I've heard. Occasionally they sound like the Aphex Twin, sometimes they are just a normal metal band, very occasionally there is a bit of jazz, and sometimes a hint of NIN. And they don't seem to be fans of verses or choruses. If an evil computer took over the world I'm pretty sure it would listen to this whilst enslaving us.



Mark Lanegan Band - Bubblegum

By band, what they really mean is half of Queens of the Stone Age and Polly Harvey. Knowing this you should know exactly what sort of music to expect. Good old fashioned rock music with a hint of the blues and a sprinking of punk. And his voice is something else, makes me want to get drunk and smoke lots for some reason...

I'd like my crayons back, please

What to write? Erm, hot isn't it? That's about all I can say about the weekend at the moment, no pictures I'm afraid - normal service will be resumed shortly.



So, once again - what to write? How about some high brow DVD recommendations to try to pretend I'm more intelligent than I really am? OK, here goes:



Zatoichi

Latest film from my favourite Japanese director 'Beat' Takeshi, this is a bit different to his usual films. Normally he makes very stylised yakuza films, this time he has a go at a Samurai film. He play's a blind masseur, who also happens to be a master swordsman using a concealed blade in his cane to dispatch anyone dumb enough to mess with him. Like all his other films its beautifully shot, full of sly dark humour, but unlike his other films it ends with a tap dance routine... Which is just bizarre.



Naked Lunch

David Cronenberg's take on William Burroughs unfilmable book The Naked Lunch. He takes the wise approach to not make a literal translation of the book, instead taking elements from the book and Burrough's life. I imagine it won't make a blind bit of sense to anyone unfamiliar with the writer's life or the book itself, and the insect typewriters with talking arseholes and sligtly disturbing metaphoric sex creatures may be a bit much for some people, but like Cronenberg's other films I quite like it.



The Kingdom

There's a series being shown on BBC2 at the moment called Kingdom Hospital which is based on this Danish mini-series. It's part horror story, part soap opera set in a hospital full of ghosts and generally screwed up characters. It's all shot in this grainy, sepia hued way which will be familiar to anyone who has played the Silent Hill games. Good stuff, although it does end in a fairly abrupt way which leaves the story line incomplete - which is a bit annoying.

This is exactly the sort of mood I'm in...

gimme...

Taken from a messenger conversation earlier tonight:



that film could have been made for me, tons of monsters with tentacles and a big old soppy demon who smokes all the time and says 'oh crap' alot



In case you are unfamiliar with the above image, or your not sure what 'big old soppy demon' I'm talking about I've been watching the new region 1 Hellboy DVD.



It's fantastic, right up there with X-men and Spiderman in the comic book adaption stakes. For the uninitiated Hellboy tells the story of a demon inadvertently summoned to our world through a Nazi ritual at the end of World War II, the ritual is disrupted by American troops who find Hellboy and raise him to be part of a shadowy government agency called the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence. Sort of like the x-files but with a big red demon instead of Mulder, whose best friend is a fish... oh, and he has a thing for a pyrokinetic girl... and there is a clockwork Nazi... and Rasputin is in there too.



It's really difficult to describe to someone who hasn't read the books, without sounding like I'm making it up! Still, I loved it, the main characters are spot on, all the monsters are straight out of the big bumper book of H P Lovecraft nightmares, and Ron Perlman does a brilliant job in the Hellboy makeup managing to actually be quite touching in places.



For the life of me I can't understand why it's taking so long to be shown in the cinemas over here.

If this post had a soundtrack then I think the first song would be Dismantle Me by The Distillers as frankly my body seems to have given up with me. It clearly needs to be taken apart and given a good service by a team of qualified mechanics before being put back together.



Anyway, getting ahead of myself again. Went to the Staines Regatta yesterday, which I have to say was a very pleasant way to spend a Saturday Afternoon, helped some what by the weather being really good. I did start getting 'beer envy' halfway through the afternoon (as yours truly was driving), but soon made up for that when we got back to Woking - hence my current physical state.



I managed a few pictures by the river, but no pictures whilst in Woking - far too busy catching up it would seem.

Couple of gigs I'm going to which may be of interest:



Sonic Youth, 2nd September at the Brixton Academy. Tickets are available here.



!!!, 13th October at the Astoria. Tickets for that one are here.

Mid-afternoon film review time, as staring at database tables is driving me fiucking insane...



Spiderman 2

Obviously brilliant: a bit darker than the original film as Peter Parker starts to question whether he can handle the responsibility of being Spiderman and hence let's things around him slide a bit. Dr Ock was an awesome villain even if he did go a bit wet at the end. Best bit's: anything involving a fight between Spidey and Dr Ock, and any scene with Jonah Jameson (Peter Parker's editor). Worst bit's: not much really: the web-swinging CGI Spidey still looks a bit fake to me, and maybe he spent a little too much time with his mask off.



Around the world in 80 days

Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, they've basically turned it into a fairly jolly Jackie Chan action film, so there are plenty of stunts to enjoy if you get bored of the fairly lightweight story.



Walking Tall

Story is as follows: The Rock comes back to his hometown to find it full of drugs and questionable characters, The Rock gets his ass kicked in a casino, The Rock kicks ass back, the film ends. Slightly more entertaining than watching the Sunday afternoon Eastender's omnbus.

If you have been near a PC recently and have a healthy interest in computer games you may have heard of a fairly obscure little game called Doom 3 ;-)



Well, the official requirements have been released, what you'll need is:



1.5Ghz P4 chip or AMD Athlon 1500

384Mb of RAM

2Gb of hard drive space.

An nVidia GeForce 3 or ATI 8500 graphics card



Which basically means my un-upgradable laptop can (allegedly) run it - although having said that I don't think that the PC needed to run it with all the graphical goodies turned on has been built yet...



Still, nice to know that I now have the option of buying the PC version.