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Inspector McNulty Is Back...
Unfortunatly it's a risible case this time.
15th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Newsic Videos
The Partizan website has become a good place to check out music videos, and is much-improved since my last fly-by. As well as Michel Gondry and Gondry Jnr., they have Saam from Fear of Music (check out his Viral Insanity clip if you haven't seen it) and Ollie Evans clip for ex-Herbert singer Shingi's new band - The Noisettes.
Ramones wannabes The Horrors are shooting a new video with Partizan next week:
The Horrors are looking for fans to appear in the forthcoming music video for 'Gloves'.
The band are being filmed this Wednesday 17th January at a location in London SE2, and require an energetic and enthusiastic audience to perform to.
Please send your name, age, and contact mobile number, along with a recent photograph (and a note from your mum) to the following address: thehorrors@partizan.com
15th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
V2 gives the V sign
The eagerly awaited total collapse of the record industry may have begun, with Judgement Day coming in the form of V2's US arm firing all their staff and 'releasing' all their artists (including The White Stripes, Moby, Grandaddy) from their contracts.
Plus, Koopa did make it into the Top 40, debuting at number 31.
15th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
The Proposition
(dir. John Hillcoat)
19th century lawman Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) captures Charlie (Guy Pearce) and Mikey Burns. In order to save Mikey from hanging, Charlie is released and given nine days to find and kill their older brother Arthur Burns (Danny Huston), a grusume criminal.
This brutal narrative, penned by Nick Cave, gives a vivid impression of an early, lawless Australia. The oppresive heat, vast landscapes and ruthless characters add to the sense of drama here. The early signs of destruction of the Aboriginal peoples are here. Some have been tempted into the world of the settlers and others fighting to proetect their community and native culture.
Whilst all these components set the film up nicely the action doesn't quite live up to the potential. Certain relationships such as Winstone's with his wife (Emily Watson), and why he suffers from chronic head pain are only alluded to. Likewise, the dynamic between the outlaw brothers is never really uncovered. At only 1 hour 40 there was some room to expand on these themes further, but still an enjoyable and interesting experience.
15th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 3 star reviewsHerbert Shells
stash of mortar shells to be sampled on the next herbert project. you really can get anything on ebay
14th Jan 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
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Han Solo Spin Off
Several sites are reporting on The Daily Star's 'scoop' that Harrison Ford turned down a reputed $20 miilion paycheck to reprise the Han Solo role for a spin-off movie. Now that's certainly one thing that could have averted the prequel disaster that occured instead.
"George wanted Harrison to play Indy but cleverly sounded him out about playing Hans Solo instead. Harrison was horrified. After that he was delighted to be playing Indy again. He told George he just couldn't face being stuck in a spaceship with Chewbacca again."
- We could pay you two million now, plus eighteen when we reach Alderaan.
- $20 million, huh?
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12th Jan 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Song Of The Day: Volume IV
thought i'd kick off Vol IV with Only Waiting from the forthcoming debut from The Aliens? yes, their name's a bit like something you'd come up w in 5th form, but i quite like that
11th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
'Best' Selling Tracks
While the recent re-shuffle of the UK music charts system hasn't led to a repeat of The Beatles Top-5 sweep that it could have (arguably because the Fab Four are still not online), it has led to an unsigned band looking poised to enter the Top 40.
11th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
R2DVD2
ah just what we need, an R2 unit that's also a DVD projector
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11th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Rubix Cubed
I'm not quite sure if any of this is clever or not...
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10th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
One Laptop To Rule Them All
The One Laptop Per Child initiative are going to make their $100 laptop available for the public to buy ....on the condition that they buy two.
10th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Air
Pocket Symphony
Astralwerks
New Air, following their template of breathy vocals singing things like "the angels cry to see your photograph" over dirt-free production from Nigel Godrich.
Another one of those albums that's ok, but nowhere near as good as Moon Safari - it's like they could really do w having someone take away all the studio toys and make them put it back together in a bedroom or something - the ambient slickness veers far too closely to dinner party muzak than the elegant pop they first gave us. They've lost the freshness that made tracks like All I Need (and the even better Super Discount remix Soldissimo) so great.
Jarvis Cocker's on One Hell Of A Party (he lives in Paris now, they must have bumped into him at the local boulangerie), and just to really bring the whole thing down a few stars, the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon shows up as well.
All a bit Jean Michel J'air, really.
9th Jan 2007 - 5 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 2 star reviewsThe Aliens
Astronomy For Dogs
Decent debut from this new outfit teaming w ex-Beta Bandistas John Maclean and Robin Jones with BB founding member, and later Lone Pigeon, Gordon Anderson.
Locates most of the space rock/bit of bleepy beats/sampledelica zones you'd expect, with the BB two tightening up LP's lo-fi tendencies to make the whole thing a lot more poppy and concise than his solo meanderings; always filed him under "enjoyable/could do w some quality control" really.
Opener Setting Sun is a much more straight-out rocker than the prospect of these guys getting together would suggest; Robot Man enters more of the expected terrain; I Am The Unknown is where they hit their stride.
Feels more like a continuation of the Beta sound than King Biscuit Time's more hip hop-styled work; in a similar way, it's good to hear a guitar band who realise it's fun to use samplers in 2007. And anyone inspired by "Sergio Leone and Serge Gainsbourg, Brian Eno and Brian Wilson, Larry David and Ol' Dirty Bastard" is all right by us.
9th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 3.5 star reviewsGruff Rhys
Candylion
Surprisingly warm and coherent second solo outing from SFA's front man Gruff Rhys.
Something to chase away those January Blues.
9th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 4 star reviewsiPhone?
is this what it's going to look like? probably not
UPDATE: Actual pic on right.
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9th Jan 2007 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Breeding
2007 is already looking like a good year. Wilco are nearly done with their new album, Clap Your Hands 2 is out in a couple of weeks, Arcade Fire 2 is nearly finished, The National should have a new album in May, Radiohead will surely deliver a new album, M. Ward has a new EP out soon (with Jim James guesting) ...and 4AD inform us that The Breeders have been recording new material. Not to mention some new bands.
9th Jan 2007 - 4 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
shanteru pings year of the boar
ping's getting ready for the year of the boar with some shantell martin doodles. nice and tidy indeed
9th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Two New Videos
Two new music videos for your enjoyment:
The Blood Brothers: Set Fire To The Face On Fire (Windows Media) ...is like a low-budget version of Gondry's Steriogram video.
Fionn Regan: Be Good Or Be Gone (Quicktime) ...a simple idea, done well by Si and Ad from Academy films.
Make that three:
Clinic: If I Could Read Your Mind (Quicktime).
8th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
MP Free-for-all
Things are hotting up in the world of online music distribution. There's plenty of talk of MP3 re-emerging as the format of choice, with DRM systems being dropped - and the possibilty of watermarked MP3's, which could be tracked to provide accounting figures and royalty payments for artists.
It may seem crazy, but with the success of eMusic (currently second biggest online seller, even though no major labels are onboard) the model seems to work. The industry is seemingly unhappy about iTunes' dominance - and this could just crack it, making downloaded files playable on all varieties of player, bringing costs down and profits up due to boosts in sales...
As a side-note, Rope a Dope records are going 100% digital, much like Rykodisc going 100% CD in the olden days.
We now make money on every single project from record one. We don't have to deal with returns and reserves, we can sign and release a new band in a matter of weeks.
8th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Beeches on the DC
One of Chimpovich's Beeches tracks has been picked up for the DC Baby Records compilation "Baby I'm Yours". Buy and listen below.
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8th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Devil and Daniel Johnston
Chimpovich's top tip from 2006, The Devil and Daniel Johnston is on More 4 this Wednesday... don't miss it.
8th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
the microsoft car
have to say, all this "microsoft in-car computer" story makes me think is: will the AA come out when it crashes?
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8th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
new Wilco
new wilco album on the way, jim o'rourke manning the desk again. full details in comments
7th Jan 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
No Noodles
Momofuku Ando, the Godfather of instant ramen has died, aged 96.
7th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
BoobTube
Following their failure to comply with a Brazilian court order and remove steamy videos of Ronaldo's ex-wife from their site, YouTube has been shut down in Brazil at a national level...
I'm not quite sure whose rights are being protected here, but it sounds serious.
7th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Cornelius Sensuous
looks like there's a new album from Japanese chimp supreme, Cornelius, on the way. track listing and clips up on his site?
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4th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
The nOC
first they kill Marissa, now they cancel the whole show???!! what's wrong with the world? the last ep of The OC will air feb22 in the US...
4th Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Blue Origin
Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos has been putting his money where his mouth is and flexing some philanthropic muscle with his space tourism project Blue Origin.
The retro looking sub-orbital spaceship had a successful test flight in November, lifing vertically to 285ft, before gracefully coming back down for a smooth landing. Check out their website for some impressive videos.
4th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
the madness of british rail
rail fare insanity round-up - public transport in the UK is crazy, and this doesn't even get onto the onboard microwave burger scandal
4th Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Snow Business
After a slow start the snow is starting to fall (heavliy) in Canada... and (thankfully) in Europe, which was looking like a black-ice hell. I've got ants in my pants to hit the slopes soon.
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3rd Jan 2007 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Goo-Goo No 2
if Iris by the Goo-Goo Dolls is number 2 in the virgin radio top 500 songs of all time, what can number 1 be?
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3rd Jan 2007 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet
Primeval
trailer for itv's attempt to get a doctor who-sized saturday night hit Primeval. another one of those pesky rips in the fabric of space and time means lots of CGI dinosaurs are running around
3rd Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
Dinashoe Jr.
Now even J Mascis is having his shoes made by innocent Vietnamese slave-children.
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3rd Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
sky+ vod
sky+ is catching up w homechoice later this year, adding a "selection of the week's best programmes on-demand... making use of additional recording capacity on the hard drive of more recent boxes."they're also adding a feature that'll let you set recordings online. which is nice
2nd Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
RJD2
Following the demise of DJ Shadow, it sounds like the space might now be filled by RJD2. Moving away from the more electronic sounds of his previous albums, for this new one 'he plays all the instruments himself on an album that takes in blue-eyed soul, folk and pop'. He's also moved away from his previous label (Def Jux) and jumped ship to XL.
There's a new mp3 available on the Stereogum site, and you can hear more of the new stuff on his myspace.
2nd Jan 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet
et justice pour tous
what a coincidence they manage to find a hole in the executioner's schedule to off saddam in time for the end of the year. anyhow, looks like there will be some justice in 2007?
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30th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
Lick It Be
popular music combo The Beatles are showing up on some stamps in January
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29th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
Smokin' Aces
(dir. Joe Carnahan)
Big cast for this trashy mob hit throwaway thriller that manages to take that ultraviolent guns, girls and gangs Tarantino mould and have fun with it, rather than boring you with another pointless beer-ad rip-off: Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Jason Bateman, Common, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Berg.
It's a simple Game Of Death style plot: flashy Vegas magician Buddy "Aces" Israel (the awesome Jeremy "Ari from Entourage" Piven) has got mixed up with the mob, and is holed up in a Reno hotel penthouse after he's decided to turn state's evidence. The mob put out a contract on him, and the film's basically a race between various teams of assassins, some bondsmen and the Feds to get to him first.
Piven's on fire here (sometimes literally) - a paranoid coked-out sleazeball manically shuffling cards in his dressing gown, trying to hold it together long enough for FBI men Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds to take him into custody. Alicia Keys and Common have both been to that school of totally convincing hip hop actors. Jason Bateman's shady lawyer is a great cameo. Even Baffleck is decent - there's hope for his post Bennifer career yet.
It veers in tone at times (which kind of works), and there's a flaw in the ending which lets it down a bit, but overall Joe "Narc" Carnahan delivers one of those pumped-up live action cartoons that remembers how to have fun with the blow-the-fuck-out-of-everything genre. Also, it's only a touch over 100 minutes, which feels pretty compact these days.
29th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 3.5 star reviews
Babel
(dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
Another heavy-hitting multi-stranded drama from Inarritu, very much in the style of Amores Perros and 21 Grams.
Here we've got several stories dotted around the globe to tie up:
*Two young Moroccan brothers involved in an accidental shooting
*Tourists Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Morocco (ok, you can see where those first two might join up)
*Mexican nanny Adriana Barraza taking care of the Pitt/Blanchett brood while they're on holiday, and getting a lift with her nephew Gael Garcia Bernal across the Mexican border to her son's wedding
*Deaf teen Rinko Kikuchi looking for trouble in Tokyo and her father Koji Yakusho (Memoirs of a Geisha) trying to communicate with her
All the stories are beautifully shot, with a consistent level of intense performances all round, but it's hard to escape the feeling that this is a film so caught up by the weight of its message (if only we could all just… talk… to… each other) that it somehow falls short of the greatness of AP and 21G. Would these stories have any less impact if they were told in chronological order?
Started to remind me a little of Wim Wenders' underrated Until The End Of The World, zipping around the globe, building up a sense of the world being connected, from a Tokyo disco to a Mexican wedding. For a while this is all powerful enough to pull you through (Kikuchi's a stand-out performance) - but somewhere it seems to lose focus, and the reliance on what really boil down to some fairly shallow (if undeniably well acted) stereotypes (kooky Japanese teen, volatile hard-drinking Mexicans, rude American tourists etc) makes it a somewhat shallower experience than it seems to *cough OSCAR* think it's delivering.
29th Dec 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet
Read more 3 star reviews