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Earth In Motion

If you thought yesterday's time lapse movies were good, then don't miss Wired's article featuring NASA sattelite time-lapse movies, that have taken literally years to shoot. Urbanisation of Dubai above, Amazon deforestation below.

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12th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Bike Club

The current craze for pimped-out, fixed gear bicycles seems to have re-invented cycling - and art students on bikes make a good combination. Check out these clips from LA's Taco Tuesday club and the Midnight Ridazz. And head on over to Rapha's Vimeo page for a ton of great stuff. Although they are using more gears.

Those dayglo wheels are all a bit Ocean Pacific if you ask me.

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12th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Psychedelic Horseshit, man

The Washington Post has an interesting, expletive-filled interview with Matt Whitehurst of Psychedelic Horseshit - a hit at this year's SXSW Festival. He has a list of interesting thoughts on the raft of lo-fi/deliberately badly produced releases we've heard recently - and forms an opinion similar to loyal writers Harris Pilton and NM.

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12th Jun 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Foreign Born

Person To Person

Secretly Canadian

Los Angeles based ‘Foreign Born’ release their new album, ‘Person to Person’- and it’s worth getting to know. This band’s sound is weighty and complex, with each song opening up like a landscape; building and growing, widening out into anthemic musical plains of guitar and synth.

'In the summer we survive the heat', drawls Matt Popieluch in the first track, ‘Blood Oranges’ - all tumbling riffs and a pulsing percussion heart. And that’s how it continues for the next nine tracks; guitar driven melodies and overlaid orchestration of strings and brass that invariably lend the songs real sonic depth.

There’s U2 in the mix, more than a hint of Modest Mouse and traces of the ubiquitous Arcade Fire. This music feels determinately optimistic - the cheerful guitars on ‘Early Warnings’ come out of the blue like a sudden interruption from some gig in downtown Lagos and bring a smile to your face. However across the album Foreign Born’s mood oscillates between hazy, summer warmth and the kind of melodramatic grandeur that comes with watching approaching storm clouds.

There are no rainbows without showers and the latter half of ‘Person to Person’ brings with it a soft melancholy in the more reflective songs: ‘It Grew On You’ and ‘See Us Home’. But even here, each track’s increasing momentum is driven along by Garrett Ray’s drums and the band’s enthusiasm that keeps insisting on something golden over the horizon.

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12th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Star Gazing

Some beautiful timelapse to pass the afternoon.

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11th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Wot no hover-cars?

At the 1964 World's Fair in New York, a model city titled Futurama promised jet-packs, paperless offices and traffic-free highways. 40 years later and we're still waiting.

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11th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Double Twist

I've been trying out Double Twist this week - the new project from notorious former hacker DVD Jon.

The program has a simple premise: bring management of all your phones/devices, photos and music into one place. You can plug in your smartphone, sync up photos, upload them to Facebook and Flickr, share files with friends - and also decode your protected purchases from the iTunes store.

It's a great concept and for certain phone users in particular (Blackberry/Windows Mobile) it'll solve a lot of problems. As a dedicated iPhone user however, it doesn't offer much that isn't already covered elsewhere.

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11th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Trailer Park: Shutter Island

Trailer up for Scorcese's latest picture - Shutter Island, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as usual, plus the excellent Mark Ruffalo. Based on the book by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone.

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11th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Google Chrome

With Google Chrome now available as a beta for the Mac, I'm already on the fence about jumping ship from the previously trusty Safari.

Safari is getting more and more features - especially with the upcoming 4.0 - but it's also getting more and more bloated. Chrome on the other hand keeps things incredibly simple and is lightning fast to load sites and the program itself it up and running in the blink of an eye. That might change as I bog it down with the extensive bookmarks collection, but for now - it's the speed king.

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11th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Search

The Plan Comes Together - Again

Looks like John Singleton and Bruce Willis are out, but Joe Carnahan and Liam Neeson may be in - for the ever cast/director rotating A-Team movie, which supposedly shoots in August for a 2010 release.

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10th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Somerset House Summer Screen

Somerset House have put up this year's "hope it doesn't rain" selection:

UK Premiere of Pedro Almódovar's Broken Embraces Thu 30 July

Alien / Poltergeist - Fri 31 July
West Side Story - Sat 1 Aug
Slumdog Millionaire - Sun 2 Aug
The Shawshank Redemption - Mon 3 Aug
Wings of Desire - Tue 4 Aug
Don't Look Now - Wed 5 Aug
Strangers on a Train - Thu 6 Aug
Cool Hand Luke / Road House - Fri 7 Aug
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Sat 8 July

 

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10th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Video Game Classics

Following on from the I Can Read Movies set, here's some video games rendered as classic novels

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10th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Party Like It's 1996

Sub Pop have a new sampler up for free download, but rather than link directly to it, I insist you visit the page - which is decked out like a 1996 web disaster.

Tracklist:

Vetiver – Strictly Rule
Handsome Furs – I’m Confused
Mark Sultan – Hold On
Red Red Meat – Gauze
Obits – Pine On
The Vaselines – Son of a Gun
Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
Iron and Wine – Belated Promise Ring
Tiny Vipers - Dreamer
Zak Sally – Why We Hide
Fruit Bats – My Unusual Friend
Pissed Jeans – False Jesii Part 2
Grand Archives – Silver Among the Gold
Flight of the Conchords – Hurt Feelings

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10th Jun 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Psychoville

(creator: Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton)

BBC Two

New darkcom from two of the writers from The League Of Gentlemen, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. Where LOG was essentially a collection of oddballs sketches framed around the loose idea of a locals-only village, Psychoville is aiming to be a more coherent story. The frame is a blackmail plot, with a mysterious stranger sending the characters the same note: "I know what you did". Last summer? The summer before last? 

There's a similar love of the grotesque here: characters range from a mother and son who share a trainspotting love of serial killers to Mr Jelly ("Keeps Kids Quiet") - a clown who can barely contain his rage; a midwife with an unhealthy attachment to a demonstration baby (played by Dawn French); a blind collector who's hunting toys on eBay; a psychic dwarf and a mean panto Snow White.

It's a bit like being trapped in an English seaside town with all the shops shut, where people are tweaking out from behind their curtains: you know something interesting and possibly disturbing is going on, but you mind not want to hang out with them while you find out what it is. Some of the serial killer stuff's a bit on the gleeful side, like schoolboys sniggering at how much they can get away with, and the mum and son Sowerbutts team are pretty gross, while other bits like Siamese twins the Crabtree hovering over eBay sisters tap into a pretty unique take on modern life, and the sight of Mr Jelly punching out Mr Punch is very funny. 

If you're a League fan, you'll enjoy visiting Psychoville; if it left you a little mystified then no doubt you'll be in the same zone here. Fans will enjoy the added online element, which allows you to access bonus stuff every week on the Psychoville site if you pay attention to all the clues littered throughout each episode. It's this attention to detail and love of the genre that makes it a success, and it's encouraging to see a show that doesn't feel like it's come through the focus-grouped world of sitcom development. The mystery element should keep you coming back too, no matter how daft the set up feels at first.

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10th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Sonic Youth

The Eternal

Matador

As a teenager, once I got over the total, utter, complete sell-out of Sonic Youth moving from legendary indie labels like Homestead and SST to undeniably major label Geffen in 1990, it was obvious pretty quickly that nothing had changed for the band. While my interest seemingly waned after Experimental Jetset, a quick scan through the back-catalogue reveals that I have inadvertently absorbed every major release - and none could be described as disappointing or flat. After releasing 9 albums with the label, Sonic Youth left Geffen in 2007, before pulling the typically left-field move of releasing a greatest hits exclusively through Starbucks, then self-re-released Master Dik and finally settling with Matador for the release of The Eternal.

While The Eternal is being promoted as something of a new chapter for the band, there's no need to reset your expectations - and you're certainly in no danger of being disappointed. Early single Sacred Trickster kicks things off, before the abrasive pummel of Anti-orgasm lets you know the band have lost none of their power - or their ability to craft a catchy tune. The sing-a-long style of Leaky Lifeboat (For Gregory Corso) sits comfortably alongside the screeching rock of Calming The Snake, making for a strangely cohesive record.

Jim O'Rourke may have departed in 2005, but the open slot in the line-up made room for former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold and his contribution is note worthy here, providing a focused spine through many of the songs that the guitars swirl closely around. The best songs on the album follow the same pattern that my Sonic favourites always did: a simmering, bubbling pot of sound that harnesses the power of a storm and takes its shape as a subtly catchy leviathan. Antenna, What We Know, Malibu Gas Station - there's more than a handful of excellent tracks on here that will disappoint no one.

While 2006's Rather Ripped and Thurston Moore's own solo album have arguably moved the band into a more conventionally structured sequence of songs, it's easy to forget how much the musical landscape has shifted since the band's early, pioneering albums of the 80s. The feedback drenched sounds of Sister or Daydream Nation are now considered essential listening - due to the popularity of the 90s alternative explosion that Sonic Youth helped enable. As a result, it's easy not to appreciate how radical a custom-tuned 9.43 minute closing track like Massage The History may have once seemed.

While the girls may be commenting how good Kim Gordon's legs are for a 56 year old, I'm just happy that the band have kept their ambition and refusal to conform. It may not be so much of a new chapter, but at least The Eternal is the continuing story of an old favourite.

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9th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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D.U.D. (Dumb Up Dudes!) presents: Is Gordon Brown Still Prime Minister?

Are you finding it hard to keep up with all the recent political developments? One minute they're putting through moats and duck islands on expenses, the next they're trying to explain how fascists have been let into Europe. Here's a handy guide to finding out if Gordon Brown is still PM 

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9th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Skate or die: This Is My Element

Monday 8th of June sees the release of veteran Anticon producer Odd Nosdam's new record T.I.M.E Soundtrack. T.I.M.E stands for This Is My Element - the title of the new Element Skateboards film - and Odd Nosdam composed each song to fit the skater it accompanies.

It's a rare thing indeed to have a whole skate film composed by one artist and Nosdam does a fine job. Featuring some heavyweights like Mike Vallely and Bam Margera, This Is My Element is beautifully shot and the soundtrack really raises some of the scenes to epic status. These two clips are from the young Nyjah Huston (above) and the legendary Chad Muska (below).

Chimpomatic review of T.I.M.E Soundtrack online here.

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8th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Tintin And The Release Date

Pastemagazine have got Tintin coming Nov 2011, plenty of time to get excited and over it all before it's out

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8th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

WWDC: iPhone 3 and more

Apple's big World Wide Developer's Conference kicks off today in San Francisco, and while big boss Steve Jobs is still benched with illness, sidekick Phil Schiller is expected to make some big announcements.

A new iPhone seems almost certain, with improvements likely to be made to the camera, a possible magnetometer to add digital compass capabilities. The biggest changes will likely be coming through the new 3.0 software - which should also be available to existing handset owners.

Changes to the way apps can work on the phone should lead to some good developments - so there's bound to be some additional announcements from third-party manufacturers. Personally, I'm hoping for an iPhone version of Spotify - to match the recently announced Android version. A rumoured Apple netbook seems a little less likely for tomorrow, but they'd better get a move on with that as again, Google's already on the case - expanding their Android platform into Acer's new line.

There will also likely be a demo and possible release date for latest edition of OSX, 10.6 'Snow Leopard'. Grr.

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8th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Cover Mashups: LittlePixel

love these cover art mashups from LittlePixel

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8th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Odd Nosdam

T.I.M.E Soundtrack

Anticon

The veteran Anticon producer follows up 2007's Full length Level Live Wires with a collection of hip hop pieces soundtracking the Element Skateboards' film This Is My Element. Each song is tailored to fit the Element skater it accompanies and so is a slightly fractured piece of work but one that sees this beatsmith on strangely upbeat territory crafting some of the dopest beats we've every seen from him.

Famous for his work on cLOUDDEAD, Odd Nosdam is known for his droney-wash soundscapes that fit better into a sound-art category rather than hip hop. Level Live Wires did much to alter this image of him and with this as its followup we see an already awe inspiring producer evolving into something quite special.

The trademark touches are firmly in place here. His work with cLOUDDEAD was meticulously crafted and every sound was enshrouded in fuzz, haze and feedback. this is an altogether cleaner affair but the beats, whether crunching and ominous like on T.I.M.E In or delicate and floating as in Ethereal Slap, rarely travel alone and are muffled and textured with such care and attention that makes them endlessly listenable. Whereas the emphasis in the past has been on oppressive textures songs like We Bad Apples with its guitar-driven melody and the booming Trunk Bomb transform this record into an absolute stomper.

Not surprisingly these songs work best when experienced in the context in which they were created. Seeing the pop/grind/land sequence in Nyjah Huston's opening section of the Elements film happen to the deep beats of the blissful Top Rank is endlessly satisfying and when Jeremy Wray lands a ginormous ollie over some stairs right on the beak of We Bad Apples it is truly awesome. This hazy hip hop obviously doesn't suit Bam Margera's style of anarchy so an appropriately brutal piece of punk has to be drafted in for his section. Elements boast a pretty hefty line up and with people like Mike Vallely and Chad Muska in this film it can't really fail but I've never seen a skate film's soundtrack entirely composed by one producer and it really unites the film into a concise whole rather than the sum of its parts. T.I.M.E is an impressive work both on film and on record and marks the point where this producer turns a corner.

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8th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Blank Dogs

Under And Under

In The Red

Blank Dogs is certainly something of an enigma. The Banksy of the noise-pop scene, he remains pretty much anonymous, choosing to hide his face under bed sheets or bandages for press photos. But the solidity of his work suggests that instead of being merely a cheap gimmick to attain notoriety this mystery serves to let the music do all the talking, and judging by the endless string of limited edition releases that have emerged over the last few years and now this, his latest full length, they argue a pretty good case. The one thing we do know about Blank Dogs is that it's singular but for this album he enlists the help of label mates Crystal Stilts and Vivian Girls. The results are impressive.

There seems to be a constant and for the most part welcome stream of fuzzed out noise punk assaulting my ears at the moment but what makes this sound stand apart from all the rest is that its emphasis isn't on 60's rock inspired, redlined garage guitar but opts for programmed beats, synthesizers and a heavy dose of 80's post-punk, goth and new wave. Much like On Two Sides, Blank Dogs' previous album, Under And Under rolls with a deep bass structure, effect laden guitar and a voice so submerged it could be from a different universe altogether. The title of this new release suggests the direction by which it parts company with its predecessor. The booming muffle of these songs impressively drags all that we learnt from On Two Sides way down to almost indecipherable darkness.

The genius of this record is the way he manages to elaborately construct his songs around distant Cure basslines while layering his monotone Joy Division vocals without ever sounding like a rip off. Setting Fire To Your House has a core that is straight out of The Cure's A Forest but it's a sheer delight. It seems to borrow all of the sounds that defined my early musical appreciation and drag them all under water to their deaths. Things are slowed down to a relentless mid-tempo and with all the effects that swirl around the feeling is like watching flash-backs of your life disappear under murky slush. Cutting through all this slush is the screech of distorted guitar that rudely imposes itself on standout songs like No Compass and Around The Room. With scant regard for anything this guitar carves out some of the most surprisingly satisfying melodies ever seen in this genre.

Unlike the recent Crocodiles record that at times seemed to find it hard to let loose the weight of its influences, Blank Dogs serves up a masterclass of how to honor those influences but treat them as starting blocks from which this guy springs forth very successfully. The last bedroom genius of this genre I got excited about was Wavves and as we've just witnessed his very public fall from grace lets hope this hooded enigma has more to offer.

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5th Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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No one is ever going to believe you

Been spotting this great Bill Murray anecdote in a few places recently: 

There’s an urban legend that’s gone around until no one is sure who it happened to, or if it happened at all. It was late one night, a few years ago, when a young man was walking through Union Square Park. He suddenly felt someone behind him, their hands over his eyes. When he turned in surprise, there was Bill Murray, his creased face leaning in close. Bill whispered, “No one is ever going to believe you,” and then just walked away.

Via: Reax Quotes

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4th Jun 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Subway Art: 25th Anniversary

can really remember the impact Subway Art made back in the day (as any ex-Shock City Rockers reading this will tell you...)

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4th Jun 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Mac Attack

Fleetwood Mac are hitting the UK with the Rumours line-up (minus Christine McVie who's had enough of touring apparently). TIckets on sale Thu 4 Jun, 9am

22/10/2009 SECC Glasgow
27/10/2009 M.E.N. Arena Manchester
30/10/2009 Wembley Arena London
02/11/2009 Sheffield Arena Sheffield
03/11/2009 NIA Birmingham

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3rd Jun 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Where The Blog Things Are

nice work-in-progress site for Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are

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3rd Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Moon

(dir. Duncan Jones)

Great debut from Duncan Jones. Sam Rockwell is coming to the end of a three year solo ops mission on the moon, looking after a Helium-3 mining operation that's supplying the earth with a safe and efficient fuel source. He's kept company by Gertey, a happy-faced robot voiced by Kevin Spacey (apt name for this role), and regular video messages from his family. Of course, there wouldn't be much of a film if we just watched him going about his daily routine for too long without something going wrong up there...

Feels like it's been a while since we had a decent indie sci-fi to enjoy and it's not hard to see why: thanks to juggernaut franchises like The Matrix, Star Wars and Terminator, the genre as a whole has become the preserve of multi-million $$$ operations, relying on huge FX budgets and ear-crushing Dolby to make you believe we're in the future or in a galaxy far, far away from the one that gave us films like Dark Star or Silent Running. Even the original Terminator was a relatively low-budget affair when you look back from the perspective of Terminator: Salvation.

From the start you can tell that Jones hasn't forgotten that sci-fi didn't always equal huge budgets. That's not to suggest that Moon is held together with bits of string. Far from it. Instead, this is a film that's used its bucks wisely - reviving the use of models and carefully constructed sets to create a satisfying, lived-in feel to the lunar base. They've used CGI where needed as well, and the combo is great. From the fonts they've used for Lunar Industries, the corporate space mining operation, to the ceiling tracks that Gertey runs around, you can tell that Jones has distilled a lifetime of space-love into the look and feel here - without forgetting to write an interesting - and relevant story.

This is a film about corporate greed and industrial cynicism as much as it is about personal revelation, loneliness and freaky space oddities - exactly the sort of depth and reach that's been missing from sci-fi for a long time. If you've seen the trailer ("The last place you'd expect to find yourself...") you'll have some idea of the arena its heading into - if you haven't, this would be an ideal film to watch cold; we won't go into the mechanics of the plot here other than to say that the ping-pong scene is a treat, and that Sam Rockwell does a really impressive job as the lunar lander here. Perfectly pitched trippy soundtrack too from Clint Mansell, ex-Pop Will Eat Itself singer. 

A highly enjoyable indie sci-fi that's more than the sum of its references - well worth a trip.

 

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3rd Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Pearl Jam: Backspacer

Things are revving up for Pearl Jam's new record, apparently titled Backspacer and due for release later this year. The band performed new music on the newly organised Tonight Show last night (now with added Conan O'Brien).

In a strange twist, the anti-corporate rockers are distributing the album through Target Supermarkets in the US, and have even filmed a TV spot with Cameron Crowe directing - although that is also rumoured to be part of a long-form documentary that Crowe is directing for the bands 20th anniversary next year.

Bonus: Jeff Ament interview over at Two Feet Thick.

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2nd Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Salinger Catches Catcher Sequel

JD's not too happy about an upcoming Catcher In The Rye sequel

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2nd Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Thee Oh Sees

Help

In The Red

With John Dwyer's last offering still welcomely ringing in my ears the San Francisco band drop its followup, a worthy partner and one that accurately identifies its predecessors strengths and wisely chooses to focus on these. In all its many incarnations Dwyer's latest band has itself taken all sorts of twists and turns musically. Thee Oh Sees originally started out as an expression of Dwyer's softer side, emerging out of the raucous noise of his previous bands Pink And Brown and Coachwhips he delivered a lo fi folk sound that was somber but beautiful. Last years The Masters Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In changed all that with Dwyer expanding his formation into a wild concoction of psychedelia and gritting rockabilly garage noise. Help is nowhere near such a dramatic turn as His Masters Bedroom was and continues this sound but hacks off the fat leaving twelve solid songs and very little fillers.

Help draws straight, dark lines to both the British psychedelic rock bands like The Creation and the caveman thud of The Troggs. Dwyer's howl is very much at the forefront of this sound albeit buried by the mounting rock scuzz muscle that surrounds it. It's hard to pick standout moments on an album of this consistency but Go Meet The Seed covers this bands strengths perfectly. The chugging guitar that forms the hefty structure all the way through it is stark and basic but pounds relentlessly. The vocals are given space which is something that rarely happened in the last album but really pays off. Brigid Dawson's harmonies still shadow Dwyer's every move to great effect and juxtapose the grit of the music. This song really illustrates the growth that has occurred since the last record, it leans back and allows each element of this sound to flex. Thankfully the ragged ferocity still remains and I Can't Get No sees this expressed in all its straight up glory. It's a fraction of the length of Go Meet The Seed but crams all the elements into a short stab of simple-as-hell rockabilly joy.

Having ditched the momentary noise freakouts that occasionally rendered the last record fragmented but keeping the Cramps influence, Dwyer has created a record that seems to be a culmination of all of his previous projects and one that showcases his talents as a songwriter perfectly. His work often challenges but never takes itself too seriously, it seems to emerge with great ease and listening to it is definitely getting more pleasurable by every release. He's more prolific than most but the quality seems to rising at the same rate as the quantity.

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2nd Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Jason Lytle

Islington Academy, London

May 28th, 2009

The last time I saw Jason Lytle was at Brixton Academy in 2003 on the biggest ever Grandaddy tour. Behind his defunct keyboard equipment shone a huge screen that dazzlingly projected films to accompany every song. Snow Patrol were the little known support act. How times have changed. Snow Patrol are huge for some strange reason and Grandaddy are no more. But as I watched this reluctant indie hero shuffle on to the stage in the far more intimate surroundings of the Islington Academy it was clear that this change of circumstances were fine by him.

He doesn't take center stage anymore staying off to the right behind his intricately wired equipment. Cleanly shaven (and unnervingly resembling Keifer Sutherland) he emerged after a curiously dramatic operatic recorded intro in which a female voice asks "who's playing tonight, Oh he's the guy from that band Grandaddy," and he found himself in the presence of his religiously adoring fans who have waited a long time for this. As soon as his first breathy word was uttered it was like seeing an old fiend for the first time in ages. With a new band behind him he treated us to multiple picks from his new solo record and some choice Grandaddy cuts, although none from the last record.

For any long term fan of his former band it was a joyous thing indeed to hear the opening bars to Chartsengrafs as the first song rang out. A magnificently extended rendition of Jed's Other Poem awaited us a few songs later but the real treat was two of my favorite songs from this impeccable back catalogue, Levitz and the Crystal Lake B side Our Dying Brains, which always sounds better live than in original form. Obviously he played the new material with evident pride and glancing round the crowd during songs like Yours Truly and Brand New Sun it was clear how well received these new songs are as everybody mouthed the words as if singing along to the classics. Whether fronting Grandaddy or standing alone on the stage Jason Lytle is consistently a class live act. He has an uncanny power to render you gooey eyed with dreamy nostalgia and no matter what torrent of noise he raises up around his vocals his words are always crystal clear, shining out with dazzling clarity through perfect sound production.

With a curiously short rendition of the second half of He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot as the encore the band left the stage all too early. I suppose they had to go sometime and we could all have stayed there until dawn broke but this exit seemed unplanned and sudden. Whatever the reason it sure was good to have the boy back in our town. As he paused halfway through the all time crowd favorite A.M.180 and stated, "here I am back in London playing this annoying melody," the London crowd rapturously thanked their hero for the memories.

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1st Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Michael Mann's New Deal

Interesting article up over at Creative Review about the type used in Michael Mann's upcoming Dillinger flick Public Enemies (trailer here).

The designers focussed on the depression-era styling of FDR's Works Progress Administration and came up with a whole new font, title 'New Deal'.

"The interesting thing is that the posters were not always completed by professional designers, so occasionally the typefaces and typography are quite crude and unrefined."

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29th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Wavves

Wavvves

Bella Union

Wavves is the solo project of San Diego's Nathan Daniel WIlliams and that's the simple part. This is his second full length release, the first came out earlier this year and was self titled and featured the song Wavves, which was one of the best songs on the album. Both records have as their cover image, a faded photograph of a kid on a skateboard in his backyard and both will fix your head in a homemade vice but you'll love every minute of it.

Much like its front cover which features a kid attempting a drop-in off a wheelbarrow in the 70's, the debut record was pumped full of hazy nostalgia, disaffected youth rebellion, boyish reverie and was all churned out with the same DIY scuzz that you'd expect from a wheelbarrow drop-in. This follow-up features a more zoomed in shot of the same kid but this time he's found an actual ramp and it's possible to see a link between these two visual differences. They both thrash uncontrollably between slacker-punk and twisted surf-rock, they're both shrouded in red-line production and they're both pretty damn gnarly but this followup is more focused, more fluid and much like the difference between a wheelbarrow and a ramp when it comes to skateboarding this one is way more fun.

He's got himself a drummer on this new record and it makes a big difference. Together they scoop up the sticky floor-muck that is left behind after your average punk gig and recycle it back into music. Incorporating elements of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, the Beach Boys and contemporaries like No Age and Sic Alps, Williams masterfully evokes every musical and social teenage experience I can remember and filters it all through claustrophobic production. The two most obvious central anthems are So Bored and No Hope Kids. Both illustrate Williams' knack for crafting perfect pop hooks and melodies and then burying it all under a ton of feedback and general punk noise. They clatter around as if directionless but even in their most abrasive spells the pop element is always adhered to. I use that word 'Pop' with some pretty heavy inverted commas around it, but in this context it represents direction, be that melody or rhythm. Everything possible is done to submerge this element but it ends up carrying most of these songs to their successful conclusion.

To sum up, may I use the Paris Hilton vernacular and call Wavves my NFB (New Favorite Band) This title has been awarded for some pretty base level reasons. Williams makes proper punk rock that while doused in the contemporary trend of red-line production hollers with teenage nostalgic abandon and instantly takes me back to sunny days spent hating the world and dropping-in off wheelbarrows. Good times.

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29th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Trailer Park: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Werner Herzog + Nic Cage + Abel Ferrara - Harvey Keitel = Crazy bones.

Trailer up for Werner's re-imagining/sequel - Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

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28th May 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Crocodiles

Summer Of Hate

Fat Possum

The days of getting into new bands by the thank you's in the liner notes of a record are sadly long gone, as bittorrent downloads don't come with such added details, but the ever increasing ripples of excitement that are emanating from this band have largely originated from the fact that No Age included their self released 7" Neon Jesus in their Top Ten Songs of 2008.

The fact that No Age mentioned them in the first place is in itself quite misleading. Crocodiles are pretty scuzzy with ample feedback and effects permeating through each note but their adherence to pop sensibilities remove them quite considerably from the brand of noise punk that No Age craft. Long time friends Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez hail from sunny San Diego and I guess Summer Of Hate emerges from an alternative and less glamorous Californian life that is filtered over to us here, a life of hum drum days and bored teenagers. So as a result you get an album drenched in hazy sunshine but dripping with grime. I say 'dripping with grime' but this may be a slight exaggeration. One scratch at this greasy surface and a gleaming pop structure reveals itself below. In fact, without even scratching another structure reveals itself, that of The Jesus And Mary Chain. I Wanna Kill, an extremely catchy piece of scuzz pop, is built almost entirely on the frame work of Head On, the same drum beats and a hook that follows the 80's hit to the letter. But instead of holding this against them, the song and the rest of the record is so satisfying that I find myself carrying on regardless. Soft Skull (In My Room) is a damn near perfect blend of dub rock and art-punk madness.

The record can be divided quite equally into two types of approach, that of the afore mentioned spiky pounders and the tripped out atmospherics of songs like Here Comes The Sky and the title track which swirls around like a modern day Velvets submerging the distant vocals in layer upon layer of effect laden melodies. There's enough of a blend of 80's synth beats and very contemporary punk rock grit to make this much more than a cheap rehash. It has a refreshingly different agenda than a lot of the noise pop acts around at the moment. It isn't very noisy and it doesn't aim to pummel you but rather seethes with tension and anxiety. Though Crocodiles at times seem to be hovering tentatively on the fringes of the noise punk sound as if not quite confident enough to dive headlong in their decision to keep an eye on melody make this a familiar yet rewarding listen.

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28th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Ohbijou

Beacons

Bella Union

‘Ohbijou’ (literally ‘Oh, jewel!) is a sparkling confection crafted by Canadian singer Casey Mecija and her 6-strong ensemble. 'This is what an album would sound like if it were made by your girlfriend...' was my friend’s response to a selection of songs from ‘Beacons’. Further interrogation elicited this description of his generic, ‘Girlfriend’; a sort of anti-‘Weird-Science’ concoction whose DNA profile reads ‘Highly-strung victim of Romance Trauma’. I guess he might have been picking up on the weary sighs and wistful instrumentation which give the music of ‘Ohbijou’ a low-fi, mournful sincerity.

I’m more of the opinion that this is what an album would sound like if your girlfriend were an elf. An elf, in fact, with a penchant for the songs of Feist and Kate Bush. Casey Mecija deploys a gnomic voice whose unusual timbre and fragility ultimately charmed me. Top tracks ‘Cliff Jumps’ and ‘Cannon March’ work a nice exchange between synth and strings; cellos, mandolins and keyboard. You are never quite sure what Casey is singing about but apparently she ‘pens songs wrought with the Romantic afflictions of big city life’. What I heard were alternately cheerful melodies, with bounce and verve, fine instrumentation and a gentle sparkle.

Less successful when emulating the building, orchestral crescendos of Arcade Fire, ‘Beacons’ is, for the most part, delicately spun and moving. I suspect Casey’s boyfriend isn’t worried.

 

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27th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Newspaper 2.0

Interesting article and video up over at Nieman Lab, discussing future developments at the New York Times - as newspapers scramble to get on board with the kind of technology that sci-fi has been waffling on about for ages.

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26th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee

The Beastie Boys were on the Jimmy Fallon show this weekend, discussing their recently completed album Hot Sauce Committee. That title comes direct from their mailing list, but I'd keep that as unconfimed for now, knowing these jokers.

Live clip of So Watcha Want below.

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26th May 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Cryptacize

Mythomania

Asthmatic Kitty

'Mythomania' is the follow up to Cryptacize’s 2008 debut, ‘Dig That Treasure’. Nope, I don’t know what they’re on about either, however subterfuge and mysteriousness seem to be part of the ‘Cryptacize’ brief . Their sound slips between definitions; part Calexico’s brooding folk and part Nico’s vulnerable female vocals. Throw in the use of an ‘autoharp’ and there’s even a curious dash of John Barry’s ‘Ipcress File’ soundtrack to much of the album.

The songs lurch along erratically, off-beat and off the beat; you’re never quite sure where you’re being led. It starts on a high; ‘Tail & Main’ manages to be cheerful and bittersweet . ‘If I could find my way back to you’ sings Nedelle Torrisi, repeating her plaintive call over a bouncy ensemble of guitar, drums and the manic reverberations of that autoharp.
It’s an enchanting start - shame that the lyric ends up as a bit of a premonition. It’s not until late tracks ‘I’ll Take The Long Way’ and ‘New Spell’, that Cryptacize really hit the same heights. In between, the songs are varyingly successful. They stick to the same direct sound throughout; simple, naïve almost - electric guitars and echoing vocals, all bound together by Michael Carreira’s distinctive syncopation on the drums.

Mythomania is a refreshing sonic mystery, worth the time spent unravelling.

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26th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Titus Andronicus

100 Club, London

May 20th 2009

This must be the first time I've gone to a gig purely for the support act - and though San Diego hot-tip The Soft Pack were entertaining enough, it was Titus Andronicus that was the main event for me last night. With wall-to-wall framed pictures of past legends looking on expectantly the 5 young punks form New Jersey had a lot to live up to, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Instead they kicked the shit out of that place like it had just been built.

With just one LP under their belt they played like legends themselves carrying a self confidence born purely on the knowledge that any one of the songs off The Airing Of Grievances would tear this place down. The wall of sound that holds up the LP was erected in monolithic form on stage with awesome drumming standing shoulder to shoulder with the muscular 4 pronged guitar attack. Front man Patrick Stickles led this crew looking like a 70's era Scorsese - he throttled the mic and shrieked venomously and it seemed more genuine than any performance I've seen in a long time. It's easy to look longingly at the pictures that adorn the walls of this infamous venue and feel that whatever existed then can never repeat itself, then take a look at the stage and a rare feeling tells you that this is the real deal.

They've made an unexpected album of the year, and while their influences are abundantly clear they are mere jumping off points for a truly unique style of punk. They play songs that should really last for less than a minute but are morphed into epic monsters - and they play out these monsters with the tightness of a longtime ensemble. I've enjoyed the album so much this year (it was slim pickings until they came along) but I was so pleased not to see a bunch of skinny jeaned kids rehashing other peoples performances. Instead I bore witness to a fucking hard punk gig, but one played out with intelligence and bucket loads of passion.

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22nd May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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