Almost forgot about this. I'm in there somewhere... hiding... and quite possibly plotting something...

I have a shiny new channel on my freeview box, I can now spend 90% of my time watching a group of vacuous, attention-hungry evolutionary throwbacks whore themselves out to the country. Yep, it's Big Brother time again. My incredibly insightful thoughts thus far:

• She's pretty.
• She has big tits.
• Can he be any more gay or cliched?
• Is there anyone on this thing under 25?
• I wonder if any bookies are taking bets on which girl will end up in a newspaper article involving a premiership footballer and the phrase 'dogging' first?
  
• If people like this didn't exist we'd be living on Mars by now, and eating meals in pill form whilst flying around in hover cars and jetpacks. FACT!
  

I've been trying to avoid watching it too much mainly by watching my new Batman The Animated Series DVD. So what if it's a cartoon show; it's got great story telling, some real thought has been put into it's design and the voice artists really do justice to the characters. Really enjoyed some of the episodes with the Joker's girlfriend, Harley Quinn, although not as much as some people by the look of it. (Phil starts getting some very wrong thoughts...)

Now if only someone would sort out a nice big Justice League Unlimited collection for me that would be marvelous.

OK, what else have I been doing? Well, getting drunk on Friday and Sunday and taking some really crap pictures with my equally crap phone (I have bad phone envy at the moment) whilst getting really pissed off with the clientale of RSVP's in Woking for no reason better than the number of poncy haircuts. I've also been listening to a band who have a song with a chorus that goes "Die, Die, I want to die", which you too can listen to over here - perfect way to usher in the working week IMHO.

more moody music...

Carissas Wierd - I Before E
I discovered this band whilst browsing this jolly good band photography type and got sucked in by the whole heavily tattooed cute indie chick look, however besides a few mp3s on the Sad Robot Records site I've always had problems getting hold of there CDs. However I've now managed to get this one: three left over songs that they recorded before splitting up and a live set. It's slightly unsatisfying, but still makes interesting listening for those who enjoy a bit of good old fashioned country tinged indie melancholy.

MP3: Die

Went to see Michael Gira's Angel's of Light last night.

First up was Akron/Family, they are a pretty psychaedelic four piece who veer between folky rock music, beach boys harmonies and ambient drones. I only caught half of there set, but what I did see was pretty impressive, they are a band who seem to be completely devoid of ego with each member taking on equal vocal and instrument duties - quite a bit louder and more energetic than there still rather jolly good debut album.

Next up was Akron\Family... again! But this time there role was backing band to Michael Gira who was performing songs from his Angels of Light project. Have to say he was on fine form, laughing and joking with the audience between songs - well, telling the odd heckler to go fuck themselves, but he did it in a very jovial way - and going completely mental during some songs. During my favourite Angels of Light song (New York Girls fact fans) he was having great fun shouting, screaming and spitting into the air and catching it in his face, at one point he got up from his seat and proceeded to stomp around grabbing his crotch in a way that would make Snoop Dogg blush. He pulled a bit of a suprise for the last song, the backing band all put there instruments down to leave Mr Gira to perform an old classic Swans song called Blind solo. It was quite something really, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife during that song even the drunken twats who insisted on talking between themselves for most of the show shut up for that one. Fantastic end to a great show.

My flat has returned to a more live-able state from yesterday's destruction, I now have a nice new beige carpet, although it looks more like 'flesh' coloured in a certain light. To celebrate my new living conditions here is some heavy metal for you to listen to.

More metal...

Earth - Legacy of Dissolution
My adventures in underground heavy metal continue... Earth is essentially a one man band comprised of Dylan Carlson who wrote and performed songs that could be defined as pure metal, he developed a style that took the concept of the riff to stretching point where quite often all that was left was an unholy, fearful drone. I haven't heard much of his original work, but it lives on with the 'Earth tribute band' Sunn0))) and this remix album, although maybe re-interpretation album is a better way of describing it as a couple of the 'remixers' pretty much leave the source material alone (apparently, as I say I haven't heard the original stuff). Mogwai kick things off with a frankly terrifying 12 minute long drone speckled with digital debris, Russell Haswell continues down the digital route putting the riff of Tibetan Quaaludes through some sort of digital torture machine. Things get a bit more pleasant after that, Jim O'Rourke produces a nice pleasant drone piece, Autechre do fuck all and Justin Broadrick produces a nice pleasant Jesu-esque remix. The disc finishes off with SunnO))) with some good old fashioned doooooooom! Which is nice, I'm posting the Autechre remix, even though they've done pretty much nothing, it's a s fine an example of sabbath-esque riffing as you'll hear this year.

MP3: Coda Maestoso in F(flat) Minor

I offically hate my land lord for a really crap reason. He's decided I need a new carpet which means muggins here has to move all his crap into my bathroom and kitchen. CDs, DVDs and comic books have been boxed up; just need to move all my furniture now - great.

Anyway, done fuck all this weekend (quelle surprise!), so no interesting pictures. Bought a couple of new comic books (Seaguy and The Authority: Kev for those keeping up - one of these days I'l write a big post about my comic book/graphic novel colection, it's getting to the point where there is the slim possibility that it may interest someone), and aquired a new CD but besides that nada, move along - nothing to see here!

Ride the punani...

The Wire Tapper 13
OK, confession time I haven't listened to this CD, nope I've just gone straight for track 8 which is a song from Kid606's new album 'Resilience'. From what I understand this album is going to be his mature album, full of proper songs's he's been gestating over the past few years, no more mad cut-ups apparently - the kid is growing up. Strangely he seems to be growing up into Sean Paul's next producer as I can't get the image of the video from Get busy out of my head when I listen to this song.

MP3: Phoenix Riddim

The morning after...

Well I managed to get through the new Star Wars film without getting too emotional, although it was a close call towards the end with the scenes that tied in with the original trilogy. I won't go on about it too much as I don't want to spoil the film for anyone, let's just say it's easily the best of the prequel films and I liked it.

Gentlemen, I salute you...

7 hours 24 minutes and 10 seconds to go to something or other.

I've just watched a program on ITV2 which had a Jumbo Jet pulling competition between an Elephant and a team of midgets. I think it says alot about our species - probably involving our impending doom.

Anyway, some commentary on the forthcoming next generation video game machines that have ben announced at this here E3 show in America.

The new XBox 360 seems very nice to me, it looks like its able to pump out suitably pretty pictures and they do know what they are doing with XBox Live even if this whole idea of micropayments for extra content in games is a bit worrying. The thing I really like about it is they've got Jeff Minter doing the visuals for the media player - which is bloody fantastic if you have any appreciation for psychedelic old school games written by llama obsessed hippies.

The PlayStation 3 gives me they fear, from what I can gather from all the technical jargon it basically shits on anything that currently has a microchip in it. Crying shame that the controller seems to be some sort of joke.

And the new Nintendo 'Revolution' is going to be backward compatible with pretty much every single Nintendo game ever (apparently) and plays DVDs... Hmm, so what happened to the revolution? This from a game company that has released a Bongo controller (which is great fun) for there current console. Mildy disappointed, looks quite nice though.

Darth Phil will of course be purchasing all of these consoles at some point. I can actually hear my credit card weeping as I type.

I think we can mark down John's birthday celebrations in Richmond on Saturday as a success. We had dancing Elvises, Postman Pat, a bit of indecent exposure and what was apparently the funniest answer phone message in the world thanks to some Rugby fans who helped out with backing vocals, plenty of dodgy camera phone pictures over here, and here is a video of a dancing Elvis. Only problem with the whole day is I think I've broken my Liver...

Right, back to my usual obsession: Music.

I have an EP by a band called Pelican which I'd recommend getting, you can read about it over here, and maybe even listen to a bit of it.

They have a link on there site to an interesting band called Chord, I guess you could call them a conceptual drone rock outfit - basically take several guitarists and make them play the same chord over and over and over again. Kind of works even if the idea does seem like a bit of a piss take.

Seabirds...

Pelican - March into the Sea
Pelican are another one of these chin-stroking, heavy as fuck metal bands like Isis, Jesu, Old Man Gloom that I can't get enough of at the moment. The title track of this EP is a massive 20 minute epic, it's not dull though - plenty of ideas on show and a slightly more lively tempo than I was expecting. The second track is a remix by Darth Phil fave Mr Justin Broadrick, it follows on from what he does with Jesu - layers and layers of guitars and synths - more depth than you can shake a stick at. Towards the end he adds some Electronic percussion to keep things fresh, a great remix thats well worth the asking price. I've included a trim down version for you to listen to here, posting half the EP seemed to be taking the piss somewhat and I do want to encourage people to buy it.

MP3: Angel Tears [JK Broadrick Remix](edit)

Company Meeting yesterday, I now have a hangover...

Cute Psycho Ladies - I feel a little bit wrong...

I went for option 2 in the end.

Back to more recent events. I've been spending this weekend vegetating mainly, I could claim that I've been all sophisticated by listening to jazz and reading classic novels (which is true to a certain extent) but it feels like a bit of a lie as I've spent more time playing videogames and half-heartedly watching television. I'm hoping that if I keep writing again about how I do fuck all at the weekend I'll actually start to do something about it out of some sort of misplaced guilt. I'm very good with guilt, very good indeed really...

Anyway, This is the book I've read this weekend:

I am Legend by Richard Matheson was written in the 50's, it gets described as a Sci-Fi vampire novel where the main protagonist is seemingly the only surviving member of the human race and everyone else has become 'Vampires'. I guess it gets described as a Sci-Fi story as it does approach the vampire myth with a very neat and scientific approach which is quite refreshing, feels more like a zombie story to me - which is never a bad idea. I enjoyed it alot, you can tell as I managed to polish it off in one afternoon.

Also picked up the latest book by William Gibson, if it's good enough for Neil Gaiman it's good enough for me.

Mixed & Remixed Jazz...

DJ Spooky - Celestial Mechanix: The Blue Series Mastermix
Considering I've got quite a few CDs from Thirsty Ear's Blue Series of modern Jazz CDs I'm suprised I hadn't heard of this. To celebrate the 30th release on this label DJ Spooky has been let loose on there archives and produced a pretty remarkable mix album. It contains two discs, on the first CD he produces remixes of tracks (which may or not originally be his, I'm not really sure) using source material from Blue Series. On the second CD he uses these tracks along with about 24 extra ones to produce one continous mix of music. It's an interesting idea, applying the freedom and ideals of jazz to the remix and the mix - It does however make it a very challenging CD to listen to, there's almost too much to listen to here! Anyway, have a listen - this track is sort of jazzy illbient g-funk, rather good I think.

MP3: CD: Dir>Gesture><N<B*la Theory [Remix]

To vote or not to vote, that is the question, and I have about two hours to decide. I reckon I have three choices:

1. Cave in and vote for our beloved leader El Blairo.
   
2. To stay at home and play videogames.
3. To go along and scribble comments along the lines of 'fuck you, you xenophobic nazi assholes' next to all the extreme political parties on the voting form, like the Tories.
   

We shall see...

Went to see the new HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy film tonight, I thought it was pretty good. H2G2 (as those in the know call it) has been through many incarnations: Radio Show, Books, TV programme, videogame and now the big screen - each time the story has changed slightly to fit each format. For the film there is now a love story tacked on, although it's not as horrifically sickening as it could have been; quite a few scenes from the book have been removed or significantly shortened; and some extra scenes added to make more use of the Vogons it would seem. Also it has an ending that does not necessarily mean a sequel has to be made... The thing is these will only matter if you are a diehard fan - which I'm not, I just thought it was a fun film with plenty of likeable characters. I especially liked how they portrayed Zaphod Beeblebrox, even if the actor playing him just had to smile and point most of the time, it was smiling and pointing with a certain amount of style.

Starting to feel the force a bit more as May 19th approaches. Downloaded a rather stunning fan film called Star Wars Revelations thats been getting quite a bit of attention amongst Star Wars fans. The effects are amazing considering the whole thing has been done as a labour of love and is being given away for free on the internet.

I've also been listening to the new Nine Inch Nails album... legally!

My uneducated ramblings on the subject are over here, I promise to stop going on about it for a bit at least.

If you are using RSSReader you may be interested in this file, it's all the feeds I have in my reader. I'm uploading it here so I can keep my feeds at work in line with my home PC... Good grief could that be the dullest reason for posting something on my site ever? Pft!

Bank Holiday Music

Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth
Well after six long years the new Nine Inch Nails album is finally here, not that Trent Reznor has been holed up in a bunker somewhere endlessly tweaking this CD to perfection. Nope, instead he's been developing and recovering from full blown alcoholism and being royally fucked over by his very much ex-manager - apparently.

Anyway, back to the album - it starts off with a dub bassline, which eventually morphs into a house music tune before going all Primal Scream - all in the space of the same song. Second song gets back to more comfortable Nine Inch Nails territory with Trent Reznor really letting rip with the lines like "Don't you fucking know who you are" whilst various guitars, samples and drums just tear the backing track to pieces.

I could go on in a similar vain about the rest of the songs on the album, but I don't want to bore anyone with my gushing, let's just say I like With Teeth... I like it alot.

Maybe a couple of marks of perfection - I can see how the lyrics could be interpretted as a bit basic, but then again I'm very fond of his honesty, why hide it with big flowery lines that require a degree to fully understand. And second, I'm a bit miffed that we're not getting the fancy pants dual disc version with the dolby 5.1 mix like the Yanks are getting.

Anyway, there you go - if someone I actually know could buy it that would be super cos I'm getting fed up of being the only one I know who like them. Go on! Embrace your inner teenage angst! Here's my favourite song on the album (at the moment anyway) to get you started:

MP3: Right Where It Belongs.mp3 - sorry boys and girls, this song is killing my bandwidth, if you want to listen to it you can stream it here (top-tip: skip forward to 51 minutes)

John Williams - Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Albums of film scores can be a bit dull, by there nature film scores are meant to add sonic texture to visual elements, they contain alot of repetition as typically characters are given a theme which you'll hear repeated over and over again through out the duration of the track. So, I'm going to largely ignore the CD bit.

The reason I got it was for the bonus DVD. Basically it contains 70 minutes of music from all six Star Wars films used as the backing track for various clips and concept art from said films. A top idea, makes the whole listening to film scores far more interesting.

Back the The Sith soundtrack, I'm posting this song as it's basically a lament and I'm a miserable sod who likes this sort of thing.

MP3: The Birth of the Twins and Padmes Destiny

Not being very sociable at the moment.

Besides Friday night I've only ventured out a couple of times before the urge to scurry back to my hole kicked in.

This has at least given me the opportunity to catch up on a few videogames; everything in Lego Star Wars has been completely unlocked including a fantastic bonus level where you get to play as Darth Vader in the first scene of Star Wars Epiode IV. And after 61 saves, 17 hours 39 minutes and 13 seconds I've finally finished Resident Evil 4, although I use the term finish lightly as I seem to have unlocked at least two bonus games.