“we are him”

15 second review

the new Angels Of Light album – meaty, at times playful, it has ‘bounce’.

this is Gira’s best work in a long time. while nothing will top my abiding all time appreciation of the “How I Loved You”album this is easily and clearly my second favourite Angels Of Light record.

a great listen!!

is this thing on?

yeah i’m still here, just haven’t felt much like writing anything here for a bit. so time for a status update:

the bump is getting bigger by the day – not long now and i won’t be the smelliest, noisiest, least mature member of the household

and i think i am having sympathetic pregnancy issues – or it could be all the junk food and complete lack of exercise. not looking forward to my diabetes/cholesterol check next week…

on the uni front last semester i got a way better mark than i expected/deserve for one of my subjects which is a good thing cos it would have been really embarrassing to have a fail on my transcript for a subject called “How Should I Live” (it was a philosophy subject about ethical theories – why they couldn’t just call it Ethical Theory i don’t know). still waiting for the results on my other subject for last semester which haven’t been posted as yet – that’s what happens when the guy running the subject is a scatterbrained academic – makes for amusing lectures but is hopeless when it comes to paperwork. next semester i am taking a break to spend sleepless nights with the new arrival rather than last minute essay writing.

no i haven’t quit my job. yes i still work with incompetents and idiots.

and in the ‘jumping on the bandwagon after it has stalled and run into a ditch’ front i have discovered the sound editing software on my PC and have been making mash-up / noise CDRs. quality is variable but at least some have turned out kind of interesting – 15 to date.

also have started on my first collaboration effort with the venerable Shit Magnet – we have managed to complete two tracks so far and who knows we may even get around to finishing a whole CD at some point.

watch this space.

John Zorn Painkiller

i just got me a ticket for tomorrow night’s Painkiller gig here at the old fire-station in Mannheim, colour me excited!!

for some background info - text below from House of World Cultures

John Zorn, the enfant terrible of New Music and Jazz, Bill Laswell, Jazz musician and producer have joined forces with a drummer from the hardest Japanese Noise-Rock school. “The most annoying free-jazz heavy metal you can imagine.“ (www.omnology.com)

Their music is controversial, refuses all attempts to pin it down, and explodes the framework of the genre: John Zorn, Painkiller’s leader, is one of the most important composers and musicians on the New York scene. His work ranges from cover versions of Ennio Morricone’s records to “game pieces” – improvisations based on a cleverly devised system of rules – and from the radical renewal of Jewish music to noise. With Painkiller, John Zorn has moved further away than ever before from traditional hearing habits: wild sound textures, bizarre rhythms, a saxophone that alternates between screaming solos and subtle nuances. The bass is played by legendary Jazz producer Bill Laswell, who has worked with William Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brian Eno and Carlos Santana. And with Yoshida Tatsuya on the drums, they have one of the most innovative drummer-composers on the Japanese avant-garde scene. Saxophone: John Zorn Bass: Bill Laswell Drums: Yoshida Tatsuya

as an aside Zorn means anger or rage in German…

CD Review: Rodrigo y Gabriela

i suspect i may be climbing on a bandwagon here but being a bit out of touch with these things of late maybe these guys aren’t as popular as i think they could be…expect to hear this in a slightly groovy cafe near you soon

Rodrigo y Gabriela are a couple of Mexican ex-metalheads who play fast, clear, acoustic guitar instrumentals (including percussion played on the same guitars) which sounds really quite good.

i don’t know if it’s just the power of sub-conscious suggestion and half baked cliche driven by the knowledge that these guys are Mexican but it seems to me like it would be an ideal soundtrack for drinking beer on a hot summer’s saturday afternoon

if only they had resisted the urge to include a cover of stairway to heaven…

Porgy & Bess – not the normal music review (for this blog)

M and I went to see Porgy and Bess at the Festival theatre. Really good productionalthough I must say that the lead singers were sounding a wee bit tired. and the guy who played Sportin’ Life had the odd tuning issue – but that also sounded like a result of too many times the same thing. Porgy was excellent – African american bass that sounded like caramel. Stunning. I liked the slight jazz to the opera and the bleak macabre nature of the story. The only serious criticism i have doesn’t relate to the music –  is that the surtitles were totally out of sync and often incorrectly translated. On some occassions they were ahead of themselves and so ruined the effect of the next line (really frustrating). But good that we saw it. M even liked it (there you’re secret is out!!). It was surprising to hear so many songs that we knew without ever associating them with the musical – Summertime, I got plenty of Nothing etc.

why i’m cooler than you

'cos i got me #73 of this ltd edition in the post the other day 

http://www.sirrichardbishop.net/

*NB: ok, so maybe it doesn't really make me cooler than you but is still excellent

music from the void

ok, so i stole this idea from Dan Tobin at Surgical Strikes

he said “So to give a more honest portrayal of what I actually listen to, here are the songs played most on my iTunes. It’s far from scientific, it only goes back to Aug. 24, 2004, it only considers a song “played” if you get all the way to the end, and it ignores iPod listens. But it’s another window into taste, and in some ways a more honest, accurate one.”

i got my ipod in october 2004 and as at today it has 3475 songs on it. for what it’s worth here are the top 20 most “played” (see Dan’s notation re the accuracy of this exercise) from my itunes… i hasten to add these are not necessarily my favourite songs

1. shellac – Copper
2. Cyndi Lauper – She Bop
3. shellac – Prayer To God
4. Herman Dune – The Static Comes From My Broken Heart
5. Amateur Transplants – London Underground
6. Antony & The Johnsons – Fistful Of Love
7. Popchor Berlin – Mongoloid
8. Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time
9. Mule – Piano
10. Pink Floyd – The Happiest Days Of Our Lives
11. PJ Harvey – The Dancer (acoustic)
12. The Yearlings – Trouble Some More
13. The Angels Of Light – Dawn
14. Bikini Kill – I Like Fucking
15. Gazoonga Attack – Down The Alibi
16. Herman Dune – I Want A Woman
17. Black Belt Jones – Missy
18. Black Sabbath – Paranoid
19. Dallas Crane – Sold Me
20. The Devastations – I’ve Walked This Road

secret shame

you know how there is always one record in your collection that you would be ashamed for anyone to know you own but you secretly treasure (if you’re a serious record collector you know what i mean). well for me that has always been Cyndi Lauper’s “She’s So Unusual”, i love that record, (i like listening to it when cooking – which only seems to make the whole thing more embarassing).

anyway today i got her new album “The Body Acoustic” where she essentially revisits some of her hits in new acoustic arrangements with a bunch of guest musicians along to lend a hand. and it is fucking great!! Cyndi’s voice has matured (also worth checking out is her previous album of reworked standards “At Last” which is also very good but does have a couple of moments that don’t quite work) and the arrangements are really nice. Plain and simple i really, really like this album.

hear that whooshing sound…? that’d be any last shred of serious alterna-music street cred i possibly had going down the toilet.

but fuck it i don’t care what anyone else thinks, this is a fine record (and for anyone who is interested it comes as a double sided disc with cd on one side and DVD on the other with videos and stuff).

weapon of choice

can’t sleep.

J is off in the desert and the bed is way too empty without her presence.

i want to play SWANS records at extreme volume.

“then we’ll know, then we’ll breathe”

jumping

i just got “I Don’t Wanna” by Henry Flynt & The Insurrections

 

which makes me cooler than you.

or just another sad elitist collector fanboy schmuck.
depending on which way you wanna look at it…