Just watched a film called Steamboy, it's the latest anime by Katsuhiro Ôtomo (better known for Akira). It's an enjoyable little adventure film about giant steam powered weapons kicking off during the Great Exhibition in Victorian Britain. The ending is far too long, but that seems to be a common problem with Japanese animation. I had to smile at the cheeky little nod to Coronation Street at the start - the first part of the story is set in Manchester - guess which pub is featured...

Finally it's Friday, this month has been far too long. Just the small matter of the working day to get through (I'm not counting the weekend as I normally don't register the passing of time at the weekend). To help out I've updated my CD collecting page, there are 4 highly illegal mp3 for you to listen to over here. Some rock, a bit of arabic dance music, and more from El Rezzo.

end of what seems like the longest month ever...

Part Chimp - I Am Come
Part Chimp are a band on Mogwai's record label Rock Action. Whereas Mogwai are famous for songs that can be both extremely quiet and extremely noisy, Part Chimp never seem to stray from the ear bleeding end of the audio spectrum. And for that they should be congratulated, there's something quite admirable about there unabashed pleasure in banging out a completely over the top noisy rock song. Have a listen to the tune, if you like it you'll like the whole album.

MP3: War Machine

Mutamassik - Masri Mokkassar - Definitive Works
I've been waiting for a Mutamassik album for ages after hearing her stuff on many a DJ /rupture mix. I believe she's of Egyptian origin, although I might be wrong there, but where ever she is from there is a heavy North African/Arabic sound to all her work, but mixed with some vicious hip-hop and hardstep beats. It's noisy, angry sounding music which I love. Unfortunatly I haven't been paying this album enough attention (mainly because of the next one), I'll have to do something about that.

MP3: Sa'aidi Hardcore

Autolux - Future Perfect
Oh this is good! Very very good! I've picked up on this band as they are one of Trent Reznor's favourites (and obviously as a mildly obsessive 'NINternaut' I must follow our glorious leader), so glad I did. They sound in places like Sonic Youth but without the pretensious bits, there's a song that could be descibed as psychedelic era Beatles and they have a singing drummer. I think there one of the best bands I've heard in ages, I hope someone else out there does too...

MP3: Here Comes Everybody

Nine Inch Nails - Only
Speaking of Nine Inch Nails, here's there new single. Hands up who has been listening to LCD Soundsystem - alot!

MP3: Only

Just watched the trailer to the Doom film. It is my highly considered opinion that this film will be 'fucking appalling', they can put that on the poster if they like.

Just finished reading Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince, yeah yeah I know. It's a kid book. So what? It's a fairly entertaining (however, I'm not sure if I liked the story as much this time) and reasonably well written kid's book that, if all goes well, will get plenty of the young whippersnappers into the Occult. This is inherently a good thing.

Although as far as kid's books go the His Dark Materials trilogy is better.

Anyway, back to the far more grown up comic books now...

In other news darthphil.com is now available in Japanese, for no better reasons than "because I can", "it look's cool" and "it's sort of a tribute to the spiritual home of half of the things keeping me occupied and off the streets".

Dear Internet,

Does anyone know where I can get hold of the new Kid 606 album and the new album by Dalek's DJ Still? All the big uk sites like play, amazon or tower records don't seem to think either CD exists.

It's beginning to bug me a bit...

Braved the exploding transport network and trigger happy police on Saturday to go to the Cricket in the Park organized by the English Cricket Board. Quite a good idea really, they set up a big screen to show the cricket, provided plenty of bars and gave away these groovy drinking glove thingies. As usual with these sort of sporting events it soon descended into some serious binge drinking, as evidenced by the gazebo stealing antics shown here, which me and John carried on with in Woking (my memory is a bit hazy about what happened here...). And I met an old friend who I haven't seen for far too long, which was nice and a bit random. Pretty good day really.

Today was spent trying to sober up whilst watching the new episode of Battlestar Galactica from one of those naughty torrent sites. I'm happy to report that the second series is just as fracking awesome as the first one.

Been to see War of the Worlds tonight, my one sentence description of it would be: Tom Cruise runs around shitting himself for two hours, and it has a bit of a crappy ending.

However thats a bit of a disservice to the film makers. The invasion is seen purely from the point of view of Cruise's family so there are no stereotypical scenes of Presidents leading jet fighter attacks, or Scientists toiling away in secret laboratories to find a last-ditch solution to the alien invasion - which I thought made for a very refreshing take on the story. The effects are very good conveying some memorable scenes of complete and utter destruction, one of those films that really needs to be seen at the cinema. And it's completely terrifying!

If there is a bad point it's with the ending. I know the story in the book ends without any sort of final confrontation, but I could have done without the schmaltzy family ending - especially since the previous couple of hours were pretty good...

As an ex-professional barman, and as a borderline alcoholic I think this could be one of the greatest inventions I have ever seen... TurboTap.

Bow down before the new God of War! Mwah Ha Ha!

*Ahem* Anyway, I've finished my latest Playstation 2 game, God of War. Now enjoying all the unlockable documentaries on the game disc; the deleted scenes is especially interesting being able to watch an early tech demo from 3 years ago really makes it clear how much work goes into modern videogames. Now I just have to beat God Mode, which looks like it could take some time as I've just had my ass handed to me on a plate by the first lot of bad guys.

Maybe that can wait until I've finished my next game Killer 7. Now this is a weird one, on a basic level it's third person action adventure with first person shooting elements - however from another point of view you could be dealing with an almost art-house videogame. For a start take a look at the graphics:

Just reeks of style doesn't it? Then there are the characters, the 'hero' is a wheelchair bound schizophrenic called Harman Smith - he has 7 alternate personalities which can take on a physical presence, you are given hints by this strange ghost gimp character who has a habit of going on about 'tight situations' a bit too much, you save the game through a nurse called Samantha (well, you can save if she feels like letting you) and the bad guys are essentially weird day-glow zombie suicide bombers called Heaven's Smiles.

I've only just completed the first level so I'm at a bit of a loss to explain what's really going on yet - The dialog is what can best be described as unhinged. From what I've read it gets quite political later on. Surprised it hasn't picked up too much controversy really, what with the whole disabled, mentally disturbed assassin hunting down suicide bombers theme going on...

Anyway, enough about videogames (I've realized the amount of time I spend going on about games on this website isn't really in proportion to the amount of time I spend playing them - in case you are wondering why they have been mentioned a bit more here recently). Here's some pictures from Friday night.

<fan sex="female" age="15" frameofmind="hysterical">OMG!! OMG!! I'VE TOUCHED TRENT REZNOR</fan>

Ahem, that's enough of that. An explanation I think - OK, tonight I've been to see Nine Inch Nails... Twice! So how did I do that? Well as a fully paid up member of the 'please Trent, let me be your bitch'-club aka The Spiral, I received an email asking me if I would like to go to a meet and greet before tonight's show.

Would I? Fuck Yes!

Anyway to cut a long and slightly tedious story short, myself and maybe about 30 other fans were herded into the venue via the stage door, before the venue opened, into a very much empty Brixton Academy. We got to watch the band sound check, which basically involved them running through about half a dozen songs, then after they finished we lined up at the front of the stage and got introduced to the band one by one... Think 'British Royal Family' but more Goth. I can't remember exactly what I said to everyone, something along the lines of "Oh Man! I'm so happy to meet you", and got my With Teeth CD signed *cough* *cough*

Although I can't remember exactly what was said, I was struck by the way that they are all ridiculously nice people, and if you were to take one rock band to meet your mum I'd recommend them hightly. Anyway, it was officially awesome! Although sadly we weren't allowed to take pictures during this.

This finished just after 6pm, which left me time to have a couple of pints before returning to the venue. The special treatment didn't end there, rather than joining the normal queue we got to enter via the stage door without having to queue at all - again, totally awesome (you'll have to excuse the overuse of the word 'awesome', I'm still in awe slightly)

Anyway, what about the show? Amazing! I spent the whole time having the time of my life in the mosh pit: every bone aches and I can tell already I will spend tomorrow in agony, at one point I lost a shoe only to have it returned 5 minutes later by some kind soul, and I did my good samaritan bit by launching a girl who wanted to crowd surf over the crowd. They played all the classics, not only getting heavy and emotional with the now famous-ish 'Hurt', but also the song that I swear I am subconsciously living my life by: 'Something I can never have'. Those were the only quiet bits really, the rest of it was wall to wall moshing, fucking great! I feel 15 years younger! Oh, and before the came on I swear they played a Great Annhilator era Swans track just before coming onto stage, which went down well with the more mature Goths in the audience - like yours truly.

Anyway, crap pictures are here, excuse the quality but as mentioned before I wasn't in the calmest place in the world at the time.

hip hop, basically...

RJD2 - In Rare Form
A collection of instrumentals from RJD2, not too bad, but I can't shake the feeling that this isn't a proper album and one or two of the tunes could do with some vocals. Anyway, if you are in the mood for some heavy funk or strangely some Vangelis this will do the job.

MP3: The Takeoff

Prefuse 73 - Prefuse 73 Reads The Books
Once again Prefuse 73 does his best work when being inspired by another group/artist. This EP is a collaboration with a band called The Books, I must confess to being ignorant of there work, but they seem to get lots of good reviews on Pitchfork. As far as I can work out they provide plenty of strange plucked guitar lead tunes, and Scott Heron aka Prefuse 73 rips them apart to produce an overall effect that could be described as 'glitch folk', if I was in the mood for labels. Nice EP overall.

MP3: Pagino Dos

As I was standing outside my flat not having a cigarette tonight it struck me that anyone passing by has been hearing some very disturbing noises coming from my open windows. Ghostly choirs and unearthly creatures screaming and gurgling as they are sent very firmly back to the depths of hell have been the soundtrack to the last few nights.

Basically I've been playing this God of War game pretty much all of my spare time and I just wanted to reiterate how superb it is. I think I did it a bit of an injustice in my last post by homing in on the fact that the female characters are somewhat underdressed. What I should have done is spent more time describing how satisfying the combat feels, every hack and slash feels bang on and it never gets boring with mini-set pieces such as mashing the circle button as your character rams his sword down a minotaurs throat to keep your interest from waning. And when you start feeling a bit worried by the fact that you're enjoying what is effectively an incredibly violent experience the game will throw a puzzle that actually manages to engage more than the usual fetch key from place A, open door at place B situation. I have a nasty feeling though that it will be ignored by the majority of the game playing public - shame.

Anyway, enough games - couple of new CDs. Kind of nice, you can read about them here and even listen to a couple of tunes. Oooh, aren't I generous?

Right, big day tomorrow - might actually have something worth posting...

Welcome to darthphil.com's weekly post. Tsk tsk, Getting a bit lazy Phil.

Anyway, not much to report, another one of those busy weeks at work that left no time for anything of interest or having something approaching a social life. Went out on the town for about the first time in three weeks on Friday night, paid for it with a nasty hangover for most of Saturday, and as today was hot and sunny I of course spent it inside with the curtains shut playing videogames like a good little gamer should.

Got this new game called God of War for my Playstation 2, it's excellent! Definitely a game for adults as it is incredibly violent, bloody, has a main character who could really only be described as a complete and utter bastard and... It has *gasp* naked women. It's based loosely on the myths of ancient Greece; it's full of angry medusae, cyclops and hydra to chop into small convenient pieces. I'm also impressed with the overall production values, it's one of those games that gets close to sometimes feeling like a film, they've even taken time to produce a making of documentary and adding deleted scenes just like you would fine on any DVD nowadays.

New CDs have been purchased this week, details on a couple of them can be found over here. I have a couple of others, but I have to dwell on them a bit longer before passing opinion.

Before finishing, some words on events in London last Thursday. What should have been a great day (annoying the French by winning the Olympics, maybe getting some world leaders to actually do something useful for a change) was royally fucked up by a bunch of... I think we'll have to invent a new swear word to describe them. Well, that's the initial reaction anyway, closely followed by the obvious sympathy for the victims and then a swell of national pride from the impression that we've reacted to the event with humour, defiance and a collective metaphorical flicking of the V-sign in the general direction of anyone who thinks London hasn't dealt with this sort of thing before. That's the impression I get from the internet anyway...

if I don't post about these I never will...

Fennesz Sakamoto - Sala Santa Cecilia
Two names that will be familiar to readers of The Wire: Christian Fennesz laptop guitarist extrordinaire and Ryuichi Sakamoto Japanese composer. This is a recording of a live 20 minute laptop mini-symphony that the two of them produced at an Italian music festival last year. It clicks, pops and crackles in a way that will cause a few furrowed brows to those of you not familiar with modern electronic composition, but give it chance and you'll be rewarded with a very intelligent, sometimes beautiful piece of music that is refreshingly different to 99% of the music you'll here. Since the whole CD is just one 20 minute track I thought it would be taking the piss to post the whole track, so here is an edited segment from towards the end for you to try out...

MP3: Sala Santa Cecilia (edit)

Microsolutions #1: Microsolutions for Megaproblems
Soul Jazz is a label whose main truck is in compilations of sometimes forgotten, but always of the highest quality music. This compilation is a little different in that it is of modern electronic artists. Kid 606 makes an appearence with a couple of laid back reggae tinged tunes, as for the other people I'm afraid I don't know much about them. What I do know is this compilation is a mighty fine summer CD: slow, laidback, just about right for hot summer evenings.

MP3: Sunday Kind of Love

Time for a post, apologies for the delay, as you may have figured out from my previous post I've been put off from going anywhere near a computer due to the joys of Sharepoint. That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Not much to say; been doing my good Samaritan turn this weekend by helping my Sister and her husband move house (I won't bore you with the details, moving boxes and cleaning skirting boards figured largely - rock and roll eh?). So no fun filled photos from my phone, unless you desperately want to see my Mum and her insane dog.

Got a couple of CDs for you to read about that were pretty good. Some other interesting CDs should arrive in the next week, some Egyptian dance music, some improvised guitar stuff and a concept album about the politics of food. Bet you can't wait!

Anything else? Well maybe I should offer my opinion on the whole Live 8 thing that happened this weekend. I'm trying so hard not to be cynical about it, but I'm really getting tired of b-list celebrities and indulgent rock stars appearing on television preaching about how we shouldn't be cynical about it. I'm finding it hard to suppress a general 'fuck you!' feeling about it. I watched the concert on and off, and heard time again that we should 'Make poverty history' but it just came off as a bit of an empty slogan after the hundredth time. I can't remember a single one of them telling us how they were going to go about doing this, maybe the rally in Edinburgh had more practical answers but I certainly didn't hear about them.

I was also left with the question why the sudden interest in Africa? Where were all these rock stars when the Iraq invasion went hideously wrong, why aren't they all protesting against the Catholic Church and there stance towards contraception (I'm pretty sure you could dramatically cut down on AIDS in Africa if a few more people felt it was morally fine to use condoms). How about a few celebrities endorsing Stem Cell therapy? That could in theory help produce a cure for cancer and spinal injuries, but I guess supporting a therapy that may involve experimenting with stem cells from human embryos isn't as media friendly as Africa. And why oh why isn't anyone launching a campaign to publicly sterilize the members of the Big Brother house so they can't spread there vile genes?! (Except for that new Irish girl as she has marvelous boobies)

I'm slipping into a cynical mood, I'll stop going on about the politics. But I'll just offer my opinions on the music... I think the word 'shit' springs to mind, although for some unfathomable reason I quite liked The Who - I think that was mainly due to the fact that Pete Townshend still plays the guitar in a way that brings to mind the word 'assault'. And I quite liked Pink Floyd even though I have bad memories of being forced to listen to The Wall at university. I must be getting old.

electronic music (best I can come up with)

Odd Nosdam - Burner
I can't decide whether this album is merely good, or an absolute classic - it's a very contrary album really. Odd Nosdam is, as those in the know will already realise, one third of cLOUDDEAD (or was one third, I'm not really sure if they split up or not). He was the non-vocal one out of that trio, concentrating on producing the majestic dreamy soundscapes that made the first cLOUDDEAD album so special. It shows on this solo album of his: it's full to the brim with lush slightly overdriven old synth sounds, long forgotten beats, and snippets of vocals that sound like someone has gone back in time to the 1950's solely to sample someone randomly flicking between TV shows. It has some moments of ambient genius, you can just lose yourself at times - I guess this is the reason I'm holding back a bit from calling it a classic, it has to be approached in one sitting to really appreciate it. However this is more a criticism of how I listen to albums nowadays, ie most of the time I'll listen to an album a few times, but then it will get lost in amongst the random play feature of my MP3 player. Shame really. Anyway, here's something for you to listen to from the album, it's got Mike Patton on vocals and it ends with this wonderfully melancholic sample of someone repeating how much they hate themselves. Yeah yeah I know, stop wallowing again Phil. pftt!

MP3: 11th Ave Freakout Pt 2

MDZ05
Drum & Bass isn't dead motherfuckers! It's just hiding. Right, here's a compilation from Goldie (so that's what he's been up to since retiring from C-List celebrity life) and his Metalheadz label. I've got a soft spot for this label, when I was at university I used to make a pilgrimage to Goldie's Club for several glorious Sundays to worship the bass lines and dance myself silly. Back when I was a young whipper-snapper that is, *sigh* I'm sooooo old! Anyway, just to let you know Drum & Bass is still going; hasn't changed much, still full of weird and wonderful sci-fi samples and bass lines you could drill through concrete with. Here's a track from Digital, about the only artist I remember from the old days.

MP3: Scam