Noughty [sic] albums

As we near the end of the "Noughties", you can't move for "Albums/Songs that define the decade" lists in the press. (Here are The Guardian's, The Telegraph's and the NME's choices for starters.) I find myself shrugging with indifference at most of the choices I have thus far seen, sometimes scratching my head in baffled incredulity and occasionally, though rarely, shrugging in half-hearted agreement.

But such things are entirely subjective and no list in the mainstream press is likely to earn my adamant and heartfelt agreement. I am nothing if not an awkward bastard.

So, in keeping with the spirit of the times, I shall present my own list. Before i do, I offer up this caveat: I am in no way suggesting that the following are "the best albums of the decade" or "albums you must hear before you die" or "albums that define a generation" or that "if you don't like this music then you are wrong and stupid and probably a kiddy-fiddler". This list is simply a bunch of albums that have fed my never-ending passion for music one way or another and happened to be released during the Noughties.

1. Supermodified (2000) by Amon Tobin - I could have just as easily chosen Out From Out Where (2002), Chaos Theory (Splinter Cell 3 Soundtrack) (2005), Foley Room (2007) or his 2009 collaboration with Joe "Doubleclick" Chapman, Two Fingers, but I choose Supermodified because it was album that got me utterly hooked on Amon Tobin. There is nothing finer than when you discover a musician whose work is exactly what you've been looking for. Tobin's work blends trip hop, drum 'n' bass, jazz, orchestral samples, real world sounds and thumping hard beats to create dark, atmospheric but playful music. His tunes are staggeringly layered and detailed and you can't help but wonder how the fuck he does it. His stuff makes me genuinely glad to be alive and that the human race can't be so bad if there are people capable of making such wondrous noises.


2. Rounds (2003) by Four Tet - Aka Kieran Hebden, guitarist (among other things), with the post-rock band Fridge, Four Tet's sound has been dubbed as "folktronica" by members of the press who simply must put a label on everything. This basically translates, in Four Tet's case, as electronic music incorporating laid back beats with mandolin samples and, um, squeaky rubber duck noises. Joking aside, Hebden makes wonderfully melodic and sometimes strange music with a hint of whimsy. Tracks like My Angel Rocks Back And Forth, Unspoken and Slow Jam are achingly beautiful and quite unlike anything else out there.


3. mclusky Do Dallas (2002) by mclusky - A sort of bastard offspring of the Pixies (they worked with Pixies producer Steve Albini), mclusky were a Welsh three piece noise-rock band who made one hell of a raw, no-nonsense racket. Amusing lyrics, too. Any band who come up with the lines, "All of your friends are cunts / your mother is a ball-point pen thief," have got to be worth a listen. Never saw 'em live though: that would have been mental... and possibly fatal.


4. The Ligeti Project (2008) by György Ligeti - All right, a bit of a cheat seeing as this contains compositions from between the 1950s to the Noughties but this is my list and I decide whether something qualifies or not. So there.
   
   Anyone who has seen Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey has heard Ligeti. His atonal chromatic compositions ain't exactly easy listening but don't dismiss his work as unlistenable avant-garde wank. Admittedly, I struggle with some of his more extreme sonic experiments (the bizarre choral barks and yelps of Aventures and Nouvelle Aventures, for example) but his slow-burning tone clusters create atmospheric textures of sound that are emotionally engaging (rather than scaring the bejesus out of you like Penderecki's early works). This 5-disc box set contains works for large chorus and orchestra and includes those compositions used in 2001 - Lontano, Atmosphères and Requiem - as well as other superb pieces like San Fransisco Polyphony and the awesome Clocks And Clouds. OK, Ligeti's an acquired taste and I don't expect to convert anyone to the cause.


5. Personal Journals (2002) by Sage Francis - Mention white rappers and most people think of Eminem. Fair enough, he has done some great stuff in his time, but for me, Sage Francis is the man. Not a man to shy away from big subjects, Sage's lyrics combines the universal with the domestic, fluctuating between raging at authority, globalisation and terrorism, and telling personal stories about family, relationships, growing up in urban America and doesn't shy away from examining his own shortcomings as a human being. But there is also plenty of humour and intelligent wordplay that messes around with metaphors, puns ("But extreme fluctuations and temperature changes / have been known to crack pipes... crack pipes...crack pipes...") and absurdism. He is essentially a storyteller spinning yarns from what he sees in the world at large and his own personal history. Musically, his stuff blends familiar hip hop breakbeats with elements of jazz, blues and country and western; it's what Tom Waits might sound like if he went hip hop... sort of.


6. Tromatic Reflexxions (2007) by Von Südenfed - What happens when you cross the experimental electro/techno sound of Mouse On Mars with the rambling post-punk musings of The Fall's Mark E. Smith? Von Südenfed, that's what. The legendary M.E.S. lends his Manchester drawl to an album of bleeps, squelches, dirty analogue bass sweeps and pounding electronic rhythms. And it is exactly as weird as it sounds... but brilliant too. Fledermaus Can't Get It, The Rhinohead and Flooded are particular highlights, the latter of which is based on a dream one of the Mice had where he turned up to DJ a club night only to find another DJ already there spinning the discs. Smith embellishes this tale by imagining the usurped DJ flooding the entire nightclub in revenge. It's that sort of album. Basically avoid this one if you hate Mouse On Mars or The Fall because you won't get it.


7. Angles (2008) by dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip - Like Sage Francis (who dan and Scroob cite as an influence), Pip's lyrics tackle, by turns, big themes and personal experiences, sometimes within the same song. He manages to combine humour and pathos seamlessly as in the track Tommy C where he contemplates of the true nature of beauty by conjuring the ghost of comedian and magician Tommy Cooper who collapsed from a heart attack mid-performance in 1984. What could be more beautiful, asks Pip, than dying whilst doing the thing you love that brought joy and laughter to millions? Another example is Letter From God To Man, a supposed letter of apology to mankind explaining His perpetual absence that opens with the line, "A Letter from God to man / long time, no see..." and concludes, "This apology is to Mother Nature / because I created you." Some tracks offer an altogether darker tone such as Magician's Assistant that tackles self-harm and Angles that deals with suicide, violence and revenge. What shines through Scroob's delivery is his compassion and hope that maybe we can all better ourselves if only we stop being distracted by mindless materialism and reality TV and learn a little self-awareness. You know, think for ourselves just a little bit.


8. Awfully Deep (2005) by Roots Manuva - Again, I could have chosen Run Come Save Me (2001) or Slime & Reason (2007) but Awfully Deep was my first foray into Roots Manuva and still my favourite of his albums. An English rapper who doesn't rap in a cod-American accent, thank fuck. Askewing the the usual hip hop tropes of guns, bitches and bling, Manuva's songs cast their eye over popular culture, the mundane reality of everyday life, family, dope and even religion with great wit, intelligence and sometimes melancholy. His sonic palette combines dirty glitchy beats, dubby bass lines and all manner of squelchy riffs and sweeping pads. Despite his humour and gift for a catchy hook, his music is a perhaps a little too dark and contemplative for the mainstream success he deserves but he is arguably the best exponent of British rap music.

Ah, that will do. There are probably other albums I could mention but I've prattled on about my wilfully eclectic tastes for long enough.

I have a blog?

Oh yeah, right, the blog...

S'pose I should write something here. It's been a while. When did I last post...? June.

Right, so, at the end of May I was told I was losing my job in two to four weeks. But then I didn't. The company kept me on for another week, then another, then another. It was the end of July before they finally let me go. And since then I've been sat at home looking for another job. In the middle of a recession. With unemployment figures at their highest level in fifteen years. Yeah, working as a temp for a bank during one of the biggest economical nosedives in history was never going to be the most secure of career paths.

You can appreciate, then, why I have been a little preoccupied and neglecting my blogging duties?

What else? Been on a couple of dates. Waste of time as usual. I have managed to cobble together something resembling a new tune in the days since I lost my job. It's kinda' gloomy and not finished yet. It is resting in that limbo state of almost-done-and-needs-a-little-something-else-but-I-don't-know-what. A rough version is up on SoundCloud which you can listen to by using this embedded player thingie:

Song For No One by Steve Kane

Blah blah, what else... I'm on Twitter. My pal Suw Charman persuaded me to sign up over a year ago before it became famous in the mainstream press when it was populated mainly by tech-heads and nu-media journos. It is now, of course, a handy way to stalk celebrities. I didn't know what use it would be to me for a long time but I am gradually using it more often. I'll put a feed up in the sidebar so you can revel in my 140-character pearls of wisdom.

I've more or less given up on writing fiction. I haven't written anything for three and a half years now, virtually nothing since I puked out that novel for NaNoWriMo in 2005. I dug that out a little while ago - I couldn't get past the first page for the awful, awful prose. I can no longer in all consciousness refer to myself as a "writer" anymore. The desire and the ideas have dried up, vanished. There was a time when I'd always be mulling over ideas, newspaper articles or snatches of overheard conversations at work or in the street would set me off on some bizarre train of thought. Not so now: I sometimes sit down with every intention of firing up my mental fiction engine and get back into it. I think and think and think and... nothing. No stories to tell.

I don't know why this is. Perhaps I am so out of the habit of writing fiction that my brain has forgotten how to do it - "use it or lose it". Maybe I see so much shite literature getting accepted for publication while good writers, innovative writers, writers pushing the boundaries and daring to be different, are routinely rejected and I think, "What's the point?" Who needs my words? What have I got to offer? Who gives a fuck what I have to say about anything?

All I know is that the need to write has gone. I even thought about deleting this blog, this entire website, even. The only reason I don't is because of some vague notion that I might one day feel the need to write again and that I might rekindle my ambition to get my stuff into print.

I am still interested in music, though, which is something. I was listening to all the stuff I produced for Mad Hatters' Review the other week and, damn, some of it is really fucking weird. I don't even remember writing some of it. It seems that my ability to experiemnt creatively hasn't completely abandoned me.

I also seem incapable of hitting the apostophe key when I type and always press the semi-colon button instead. Every time. I have no idea what this has to do with anything but I thought I would share.

I am going to try and blog more regularly from no on. Honest.

Uh

Two albums by The Fall I ordered arrived in the post today. The "bonus disc" on one of them didn't contain the bonus tracks at all but was a duplicate of the main album; the other one had a bloody great scratch on it.

The fried eggs I cooked for dinner didn't turn out very well either.

Bollocks.

One of them days, I guess.

Christ, what a crap blog this is.

34 years old. Me, that is, not the blog

Yes, this morning I am flopping about my apartment after an evening of theatre and booze to celebrate another birthday. The play, incidentally, was an amusing show called Edward Gant's Amazing Feats Of Lonliness...

In 1881, one of the Victorian theatres most enigmatic impresarios, Mr Edward Gant, presented his famed travelling show for the very last time. In 2009, Anthony Neilson and Headlong Theatre are proud to present a reconstruction of this historic and extraordinary evening of mystery and magic, spectacle and strangeness. Behold . . . The Amazing Feats Of Loneliness!

Anthony Neilson is one of Britain's most acclaimed playwrights, creating pioneering, taboo-breaking new work in a bold and compassionate way. Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness is a beautiful and very funny exploration of performance and performers, of sadness, mortality and wonder.

Contains strong language and scenes of a wonderfully freakish nature.

And jolly good fun it was too, a sort of mix of Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, The Mighty Boosh and The League Of Gentlemen. I mean, any play that contains the line, "A woman so ugly I would not have shat in her mouth if she were hungry," has got to be good for a giggle.

Tuesday night - St. Patrick's Day, as it happens - I went to see a band called Stinking Lizaveta. I was meant to meet some acquaintances at an Irish bar but, oddly enough, the place was rammed with St. Paddy revellers and I couldn't find my chums so I went to the gig instead.

Turned out to be a most curious night. The venue was a small bar called Bloc. It's a tiny place that has no stage area; the three bands performing that night were all crammed into a corner with barely any room to move.

I was sitting at the bar nursing a pint of Guinness (what else?) when a tall, skinny woman approached me and asked if I was there to see the band. I said yes. She then asked if I was on Last.fm and was I the guy who's been listening to Tom Waits this weeks. Mad, isn't it, how you can be recognised by your online social networking profiles? I can't decide if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand I got to meet and chat with a really cool girl at a gig who might have never spoken to me if she hadn't recognised me (although maybe she would have - she was happily going around chatting to anybody who happened to be in front of her. I wish I had that kind of confidence); on the other hand, it could end up like this...

(Before you ask, the tall, skinny, cool, pretty girl was quick to mention she had a partner so nothing like that was on the cards. No, I ended up leaving the gig with someone entirely different but... no... not going to tell you about that. It wasn't good.)

And work has been sucking the big one too. My "productivity" came under an unusual amount of scrutiny so basically I've been working my nuts off so as to ensure I don't get sacked. But fuck it, I won't bore you with that: it's my fault for working for an evil cunty bank. Suffice to say I've been putting in lots of overtime for some extra cash and going slightly crazy with stress over what's happening.

Interesting month. Been getting into lots of Tom Waits, something I've been meaning to do for years, and rediscovering Yello and Art Of Noise, the two bands who really got me into electronic music when I was a kid.

Let's finish on a song, shall we?

Stuff what has happened recently and shit

Went to see a band called Rampant Rabbit the other week who are a "doom-laden funkadelic" DIY noise rock band. Or, at least, they were a "doom-laden funkadelic" DIY noise rock band, for the band have now disbanded. Never mind. They were a three piece, two bassists and a drummer, who sounded like a cross between Melvins and Primus - noisy, shouty and fucking loud (the volume no doubt exacerbated by the confined space in which the gig took place). 'Twas an entertaining racket.

One of the other acts on the bill was a lanky, fop-haired, indie looking kid who thrashed out chords on his guitar to a backing tape of basic drum machine rhythms whilst screaming into a microphone. Ten out of ten for enthusiasm but he was little more than a mad busker. Hmm, "punk busking": an emerging genre, perhaps. Look out for it. Still, he was an amiable young lad.

What else, what else... oh yes, I went to see Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, his début as director as well as writer. Phillip Seymour-Hoffman plays a theatre director suffering ill-health and a failing marriage. When his wife eventually leaves him he decides to mount an ambitious theatre project: he builds a replica of the city in a massive warehouse and populates it with actors to play people from the real world and to semi-improvise the brutal truth of his painful life. Reality and fiction bleed into each other in a typically "meta" Kaufmanesque fashion.

It's all a bit of a mess albeit a humane and thought provoking mess. The film is not as tightly structured as Kaufman's collaborations with directors Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind). This is due in equal measure, I think, to the nature of the script and Kaufman's direction - it all feels a little unfocussed and flabby.

That's not to say it's a bad film, by any means. It is by turns intelligent, emotional, inventive and blackly funny with many strong performances. Having said that, I can't imagine that I will return to it as I have done to the aforementioned Kaufman penned films. I can't help but wonder if Charlie's scripts aren't better served by the fresh eyes of other directors. On the other hand, this is his first outing behind the lens and perhaps time and experience will see his directorial prowess grow.

Which is scarier: vampires or avant garde classical music?

I've indulged in a bit of hardcore culture this week. On Thursday evening I attended a performance of seven movements from Stockhausen's Aus den Sieben Tagen, a collection of fifteen "text pieces" written in 1968. Instead of a tradition score of musical notation the players are given a series of textual instructions. For example:

Think NOTHING
wait until it is absolutely still within you
when you have attained this
begin to play

as soon as you start to think, stop
and try to reattain the state of NON-THINKING
then continue playing

This sounds like an horribly pretentious idea that would result in a mess of unlistenable noise but it produced a fascinating, engaging and curiously humane piece of improvisational music. The percussionist was particularly fun to watch as he bowed a giant cymbal, rattled beads, beat out rhythms on an empty plastic water cooler bottle and scraped a whisk around a hub cap. It was impossible to know how much of the performance was rehearsed and how much the musicians improvised on the night but it was a truly enjoyable performance.

On Friday night I went to the GFT to see F.W. Murnau's 1921 film Nosferatu complete with musical accompaniment by Scottish guitarist David Allison who, through clever use of a delay pedal, built up a live layered score as the movie played.

I thought the film was wonderful - those iconic images of Max Schreck rising up out of his coffin and his talon-fingered shadow creeping up the stairs... brilliant. In a way, I wish I could have seen it in an empty screening room: it was a bit difficult to fully immerse yourself in the film when there are chuckles coming from the audience. This is understandable because aspects of a 90-odd year old film are inevitably going to appear silly and outdated to 21st Century cinema-goers. A couple of the friends I went with commented that, although they thought it was great, it wasn't scary. Well no, if you judge an old, old horror film by contemporary aesthetic standards you are unlikely to conclude that it is frightening. The trick is to imagine what 1920s audiences were used to; to them it would have been astonishing. You have to regress, rediscover a certain innocence, lose yourself to the grainy photography, the jerky motion, the theatricality of it. Besides, as with the best horror yarns, the fear is in the subtext. The homicidal yet erotic suggestiveness as the shadow of Schreck's extended fingers creep over Greta Schröder's sleeping body? C'mon, that's frickin' creepy by anyone's standards!

I stayed in on Valentine's Day, as usual, and watched Tod Browning's Freaks which I picked up for a couple of quid on DVD. I also got a classic 1960 French horror flick called Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without A Face) and Get Carter for a fiver each. That's the rest of my Sunday sorted.

Yeah, not really happening

OK, so "album in a month" may have to be re-designated to "EP in a month" or, more likely, "one frickin' song in a month".

Fourteen tracks ain't gonna' happen at my current work rate which stands at one four-bar riff in four days.

Therefore my revised objective for the month of February is to simply write a new track, maybe two if I get on a roll. All things considered, I want to produce some quality rather than quantity.

I suspect that all these produce-something-in-a-month challenges simply aren't the kind of motivation I need, and that successfully completing National Novel Writing Month in 2005 was a fluke. Any substantial piece of work produced in such a short space of time is not going to be of the best quality and I don't feel inclined in expending so much energy on something that will basically need to be completely redone from scratch in order to make it any good.

No, I want to concentrate on producing one or two good pieces of music this month rather than fourteen tracks of shite.

Stalled

Okay, February 1st! Let's go! Let's write an album! Let's do this thing!

Let's wonder why music software is running so slow! Let's frown at constant audio drop-out! Let's curse as sequencer crashes after opening just one plug-in!

Let's think what the frickin' problem is! Let's remember that hard drive is full of video files and it would be a rather good idea to dump them all to external drive! Let's also notice that hard drive is in desperate need of defragmenting! Let's do general computer maintenance gubbins that we probably should have done before attempting to run CPU hungry music-making applications!

Let's go make a stew while computer gets cleaned up, drink a beer and try again later!

Yeah, haven't exactly hit the ground running. Hey ho.

A foolhardy challenge

For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, I am going to try and write a fourteen track album in February.

February Album Writing Month

I have a load of sound recordings I made with my MP3 player that I haven't used yet, a few half-developed tunes knocking around my head just waiting to be written/born/farted out of my brain, and I'm going to an exhibition of Impressionist art tomorrow that will hopefully stimulate my creative muscle in a roundabout sort of way.

Fourteen tunes in twenty-eight days? Piece of piss.

Half-Arsed Review Of The Year 2008: Music

I'm probably the least qualified person to be summarising the year in music because, despite buying a van-load of CDs in 2008, my choices continue to regress to days of yore. What started last year as a determination to educate myself about classical music (conclusion: I like mostly late-romantic period and 20th Century composers) has broadened in scope to embrace other genres about which I knew pitifully little. Hence, I have been delving into old-school blues, jazz and a little soul, listening to artists like Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James; Fats Waller, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk; Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave.

I did manage to buy some records that were actually released during the auspicious year of 2008. Five to be precise. So this is not so much a review of the best releases of 2008 but rather a review of the handful I have actually got.

First up is Jamie Lidell's Jim, the white English soul record that Duffy can only dream of making. Jamie certainly has a fine pair of lungs on him and the fact that he isn't a massive twat like Jamiroquai's Jay Kay is much to his credit. Jamie made his name as a techno producer, to which his work as one half of Super Collider and his solo debut Muddlin' Gear attests. However, Jim is more of a straight soul album rather than the fusion of soul and electronica of his 2005 record Multiply. But what Jim may lack in experimentation it makes up for with charm, wit and good tunes, and Jamie still mucks about with a sampler and effects box when performing live, building loops on the fly of his backing band, beatbooxing and layering up vocal improvisations over the top. It's a bit of a shame there is not so much of this aural tomfoolery in evidence on the album but it is a still a damn fine collection of songs.

dan le sac Vs. Scroobius Pip proved that they were more than a one-trick commandment spouting pony with the album Angles. Dan's electro/hip-hop production may be a little musically pedestrian but it provides solid, simple and effective backing for the Scroob's rhymes. His words are by turns funny, ruminative, angry and tragic. Scroob is less a rapper than a performance poet who eschews the usual trappings of hip-hop lyrics. To quote the man himself, "Thou shalt always remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be." Darn tootin', Mr. Pip. le sac 'n' Pip put on a great live show, too, sharing an easy banter and sense of wry humour. May their collaboration be a long and fruitful one.

I was gutted when Red Snapper called it a day around 2001. I was chuffed as a doped up donkey when they reformed at the end of 2007. I positively shat myself when I was able to see them play live again. Oh, and they also released a new "mini album", which was jolly decent of them, and that album was A Pale Blue Dot. There is always a little trepidation when a favourite artist releases new material, especially after a prolonged hiatus, a slight fear that they may have lost it and the new stuff will be rubbish. Fortunately, though, the Snapper boys have delivered and A Pale Blue Dot is as good as anything in their esteemable back catalogue. It's back to basics, in a way, with the sound concentrating on the core elements of bass, guitar, drums and horns. There is a stronger rock feel mixed in with the familiar jazz, dub, funk and trip-hop ingredients of previous albums. It is raw and energetic, and a sense that the band are simply having great fun playing together again permeates the music. "Wanga Doll" kicks all kinds of arse all over the shop.

Slime & Reason by Roots Manuva is brilliant. If you think that Dizzie Rascal represents the apex of British hip-hop then put some Roots in your ears and reassess. Like Scroobius Pip, his rapping style is resolutely English. His lyrics are witty, intelligent, playful, gritty and melancholic. The music and production are an inventive blend of dub and grime, and yet there are plenty of catchy hooks in amongst the dirt. Superb stuff.

My final choice is a bit cheeky because, although the album was released in 2008, I only bought it last week. But this is my blog so I don't care.

David Holmes is a bit of a musical chameleon. After making a name for himself as a DJ, his first album, This Film's Crap, Let's Slash The Seats, was a collection of minimal and menacing techno. The follow up, Let's Get Killed, was full of funky, soulful, urban electronica inspired by an acid-fuelled lurch around New York. Bow Down To The Exit Sign added rock to the palette. There was a brief stint as band leader with the Free Association and then Holmes went off to Hollywood to score Steven Soderbergh movies like Out Of Sight and the Ocean's triptych. What was always evident in Holmes' work was a great love for all kinds of music. His music is effortlessly cool whilst remaining unpretentious. But while his previous albums have their fair share of haunting and moving tunes such as "Gone" and "Hey Lisa", you never felt that Holmes was revealing much about himself other than his love of music. That's not a bad thing by any means and that's not to say that his music was soulless; there was simply a distance. It's not about me, just listen to the music, man.

His latest album, therefore, is a revelation. The Holy Pictures is an astonishingly personal record, a piece of work that has been bubbling away inside Holmes since the death of his mother in 1996. It is a touching tribute to his late parents and a thanksgiving to love, family and friendship. Musically, it is a typically effective blend of styles from rock to electronica. Unlike the roll-call of zeitgeisty guest singers on Bow Down... Holmes assumes vocal duties, his hushed delivery permeating the music to haunting effect.

The result is a wonderful and genuinely affecting record. The instrumental "Theme / I.M.C." is one of the most gorgeous pieces of music I have heard for a long, long time; "I Heard Wonders" and "Love Reign Over Me" are brilliant atmospheric pop songs; "The Ballad Of Jack And Sarah" is achingly beautiful.

Oh, just go and buy the fucking thing.

To round things off, here is my Top 50 Most Played Artists of 2008 according to my Last.fm stats:

1. Otis Redding
2. Howlin' Wolf
3. Arnold Schoenberg
4. Karol Szymanowski
5. Ramones
6. Muddy Waters
7. Lightnin' Hopkins
8. Wilson Pickett
9. Elmore James
10. Charlie Parker
11. Sam & Dave
12. Roots Manuva
13. Krzysztof Penderecki
14. Fats Waller
15. Miles Davis
16. Fudge Tunnel
17. Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
18. Alban Berg
19. Igor Stravinsky
20. Béla Bartók
21. Faith No More
22. Jamie Lidell
23. Tommy McClennan
24. Crass
25. Claude Debussy
26. David Bowie
27. Red Snapper
28. Killing Joke
29. Amon Tobin
30. Nirvana
31. Sergei Prokofiev
32. Wire
33. Pixies
34. Orbital
35. Pavement
36. The Orb
37. Death in Vegas
38. Atomic Hooligan
39. The Fall
40. Primus
41. mclusky
42. Four Tet
43. Underworld
44. Living Colour
45. Robert Johnson
46. Prefuse 73
47. Aram Khachaturian
48. Luke Slater
49. Kettel
50. Alexanders Dark Band

Here's to all the amazing music I find in 2009. Cheers.

Whores!

Iggy Pop hawking insurance on TV? Iggy Pop, corporate shill? Iggy, dude, I thought you of all people would have more integrity than that. It just ain't right. Ron Asheton will be spinning in his grave just as soon as they bury him.

I haven't felt this disappointed in an artist since Ewan McGregor's horrifically pretentious journey-of-the-human-spirit perfume advert.

But what's the use of bemoaning celebrity endorsements? It has always been and ever shall be thus.

Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell

Ron Asheton
Guitarist & co-songwriter with The Stooges
1948—2009

Quote of the day

Filched from a friend's Facebook profile and so very, very true:

"Without music, life would be a mistake."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

New tune

I really should promote myself a bit more, especially here on my own damn website.

So, I have a new tune what I wrote available to listen on the jukebox thingie in the Noise section called You Have A Flavour. It's sort of deep south blues meets drum 'n' bass. Sort of. It's not bad. Could do with a bit more dirt and weight on the bass. But people seem to like it, so...

I'm a natural salesman, huh?

Russian winter

Thursday night I went to a rather wonderful concert featuring works of Rachmaninov and Stravinsky.

On the aural menu were Stravinsky's Jeu De Carte, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 4 and finally Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite Of Spring).

I'm not overly familiar with Rachmaninov so his Piano Concerto was a pleasing discovery.

The highlight for me, inevitably perhaps, was Le Sacre du Printemps. I've had it on CD for a while but it was only after hearing it performed live that I fully appreciate what a mad, radical piece of music it is. It's such a massive aural assault that it no longer seems a stretch of the imagination to think that it caused a riot at its 1913 world première in Paris. It's the classical equivalent of Never Mind The Bollocks: Stravinsky was a punk at heart.

Fortunately for you, the concert was recorded and filmed by the BBC. You can either listen to the concert by going here or you can watch the performances of Piano Concerto No. 4 and Le Sacre du Printemps by going here.

Be quick, though: both the audio and video are only available on the BBC website for one week.

Snap it up

Last weekend and another gig. This time it was Red Snapper, one of my favourite bands. I'd seen them live three or four times between 1995 and 2000 but they then broke up. And lo, for I was sad. But then they got back together at the end of 2007, started recording, produced a new album and are touring again. And there was much rejoicing.

A fusion of jazz, electronica, dub, funk, techno and trip-hop, the band consists of Ali Friend on double bass, Richard Thair on drums and David Ayres on guitar, and a succession of guest horn players, currently Tom Challenger. And, boy, can these guys play. Despite all the technical jiggery-pokery evident on their recordings, these guys are superb musicians who infuse real energy and humanity into their music.

I once saw them at an outdoor summer festival, V99 I think it was, and remember dragging my mates along. It was the middle of the afternoon and there were maybe forty or fifty people milling around by the stage. The band came on and started playing to this diminutive crowd, the guest vocalist looking a bit disgruntled at the lacklustre turnout. The band played on, great as ever, and everyone was enjoying themselves. About four or five songs in, I happened to turn around. The previously empty field behind us had filled out with people drawn by the wonderful noises of the Snapper lads. I might have felt just a little tug of smugness at that moment.

Likewise, the turnout at last weekend's gig was disappointing. The venue, an intimate place as it is, was barely half full. Red Snapper may not be a household name but I would have thought they'd have been able to draw more people than that. A bit disgruntled, I felt bad for the band. They deserve more attention.

It didn't matter in the end. The band launched into their set with customary gusto and the crowd, though small, was vocal in its appreciation, genuine fans who clearly knew and loved the band. There was a vague atmosphere of belonging to a select group privy to this brilliant band.

But still, more people should listen to Red Snapper. To this end, watch this:

And then go purchase their new "mini album", A Pale Blue Dot. And then go buy all their other records.

Hot gig action, yo

Yeah, I was going to tell you about that Killing Joke gig I went to, wasn't I.

Well, Killing Joke did a gig in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago. And I went. It was good.

Hmm, I s'pose I should expand on that a little otherwise this will be a real crappy excuse for a blog post.

OK, so, this is the first time that all four original members - Jaz Coleman, Geordie, Youth and Paul Ferguson - have toured together for 26 years. Jaz Coleman, the band's shy and retiring frontman, comes marching out on stage adorned in boiler suit, lank black hair, hastily-applied face paint and bulging crazy eyes. He looked, quite frankly, fucking nuts, as if he could leap into the audience at any moment and start killing people. This is, of course, exactly why we love him.

His murderous aspect is juxtaposed somewhat by his heartfelt but often cheeky anti-establishment comments between songs, and he is quite touching when paying tribute to his reunited band mates and also former bassist, Paul Raven, who died last year of heart failure.*

Highlights? Wardance, Money Is Not Our God, Whiteout, and the double-whammy of Love Like Blood (dedicated to Raven) and Eighties (Jaz: "This next one's called Push Push Struggle...") were fantastic. It was also great to hear some older tracks like Follow The Leader and Madness get a rare live outing. Overall, there was an excellent balance of early Joke and later material.

One of the most interesting aspects of the show, in fact, was the make-up of the crowd, an almost equal mix of older original fans and a younger post-Pandemonium crowd. Me? I guess I fall somewhere in between.

(Here's an easy way to distinguish an original Joker from a new fan: Ask them what their favourite track from Killing Joke's eponymously-titled album is. An old-school fan will assume you mean the Joke's 1977 debut whereas a young whipper-snapper fan will think you mean the band's 2003 album. The correct answer is, of course, "Which one?")

Here's a little taster of the Joke doin' it for real...

A week later, in stark contrast, I went to see Roots Manuva. Now, Roots Manuva is that rarest of beasts: a good British rapper. So many British hip hop artists adopt this faux-American style and get all bling an' gangsta' on our asses, yo. It's laughable, really.

Roots Manuva (a.k.a. Rodney Smith from Stockwell, London), on the other hand, suffers no such pretensions. His raps are unashamedly grounded in British culture, his lyrics intelligent, insightful, witty, self-deprecating, gritty and occasionally bleak. The production on his records is also quirky and inventive, no lazy beats and samples thrown together in five minutes. There are all manner of odd effects and vocal manipulations bouncing around the stereo spectrum.

I confess I don't listen to a great deal of rap but this man is a genius.

In person he is a warm and amusing presence engaging in random banter with his on-stage cohorts and the crowd. It's been a long time since I've seen a performer generate such goodwill and affection from their audience. And, aside from anything else, his music rocks and kicks and makes even a rhythmically challenged klutz like me shake his booty.

But, here, watch this and tell me it doesn't raise a smile even if you think you hate rap.

* Just noticed that tomorrow, 20th October, is the first anniversary of Paul's death. R.I.P. Raven, my man.

A little tenderness for Sunday morning

This is freakin' awesome...

This is madness*

Behold, for the tenth instalment of the consistently and defiantly left-of-centre Mad Hatters' Review is upon us. And lo, for it is good, especially the bits I contributed music to.

Follow these ever so handy links to find my noises:

Ahead / The Dog / She Was Taken Captive by Allan Kolski Horwitz
U: The Confession by Ted Pelton

Well, what are you waiting for? Off you go.

* A reference to Killing Joke whom I saw in concert last week, more about which later.

Tunesmithing

Finally got my finger out and plugged in all my music-making toys. I've been working overtime the last couple of Saturday mornings so this weekend I was determined to do something for me. I've basically spent the entire weekend working on a new track. The fridge has been restocked so I guess I must have popped out at some point but I don't really remember. Ah, the joy of losing yourself in creativity.

I find the tunesmithing process goes something like this:

Find some interesting ingredients - single noises or sequences of sounds recorded from the real world, short musical phrases from old blues record or operas, electronically synthesised sounds, dogs barking, and so on. You have no particular idea how you are going to put them together or mess them up but something in your head tells you that, yeah, you can use that.

Lay down some basic foundations, nothing fancy, nothing clever, just some stock building blocks to get things going.

Start playing, fiddling, tweaking, experimenting with your sound ingredients, with melodies, effects. Ideas occur to you as you go along. Some of them work, some of them don't, and then you stumble over some cool noise by pressing a wrong button and, woof, you're off in a completely different direction than you intended but, hell, it sounds great so you go with it.

You're flying now, you're not even thinking about what you are doing. It's as if the work is creating itself, tumbling out of your head, fitting itself together, directing you to make it right. Whoops, no buddy, that won't work. Sorry, back up, head off down a slightly different path. That's it.

And then you realise hours have gone by and you completely forgot to eat and, oh boy, you really need the toilet.

But the work is good. Yeah, that's fucking good and you're a genius. It's almost done but... hmm... it just needs a little... something... to finish it off... a little something extra. But you're tired and you've been working on this thing all day and your senses are dulled and need to rest. Yes, rest. Take a break. You need to step away, leave the work to marinate, come back to it tomorrow refreshed, alert, fresh and able to think more clearly about what that one last ingredient could be, that final pinch of seasoning.

It is good though, isn't it? Oh yes, it's good. You fucking genius, you.

You jump out of bed the next day, eager to get back to work, desperate, even. You listen to the work with not a little trepidation. What if it's not as good as I thought it was yesterday? What if it sounds shit? No, it's still good, it's almost there but, yes, it still needs that one last little something to make it complete.

But what? Don't know. You could try this... ugh, no. Try that... shit, that's even worse. Hmm... how about... no, no. Damn it. Fuck. Come on, think. Gah! No, that's not right... that's not right either... ah, for fuck's sake, what does it want? Fucking thing. Stupid bastard bloody piece of shit...

And you can't bear to listen to it anymore. In frustration and disgust you put it away, try to distract yourself with something else, a book, a film, anything to take your mind off that blasted tune. But you can't concentrate on anything else. The damn tune is stuck in your head demanding your attention and pushing all else out. It refuses to leave you alone, taunts you, goads you. C'mon, I'm incomplete. Finish me, damn you. You can't leave me like this. I won't leave you alone until you finish me off.

OK, you can do this. Just play around. Don't think too hard. Experiment. Play. Don't fret, just muck about until something slots into place. Maybe this. Or this. Or... ooh, hang on, what's that? Yes, that's interesting. That would... that might work if you... yes, yes, that's it. Oh yes, that is it. There it is. And then if you also... and then maybe... oh, fuck, yes! You beauty! That's what it needed. That. Is. Motherfucking. It.

You are happy. The work is happy. Your genius is affirmed.

It's done.

Finished.

Absolutely, positively finished.

Yup.

Although, you could maybe...

Wire

No, not The Wire, the celebrated TV show about... what is it about, anyway? Cop show, isn't it? I don't know, I don't watch TV anymore. It's supposed to be brilliant, by all accounts, so it can go on my "Essential TV DVD boxsets what I must buy before I die" list. Other shows on the list include Deadwood, Dexter and the last couple of seasons of The Sopranos. I'm sure there is other great stuff I should consider but I can't remember what they are.

No, the "Wire" to which I refer is this lot:

Yes, that Wire, the post-punk pioneers from them days. I was only two years old when their debut album Pink Flag came out. They have a new disc out called Object 47 and it ain't half bad, I tell thee. And this isn't some reunion tour cash-in that seems to be in vogue at the moment because, barring the occasional three to four year break, they never truly disbanded and continued to produce albums throughout the eighties, nineties and naughties after the magnificent triumvirate of Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 in the late seventies.

The question is do they still have it or are they a bunch of sad middle-aged geezers desperately trying to hold on to their youth? Answer: they still kick arse. They got up there and spent an hour and a half making the biggest, crunchiest ear-offending racket I have heard for quite some time and pissed all over today's so-called nu-post-punk wannabes from a very great height.

Having said that, I would have liked to have heard more of there downbeat experimental stuff such as Practice Makes Perfect or In A Heartbeat. Can't complain, though, with a gig that ended with a ludicrously fast and loud rendition of 12XU that makes Minor Threat's cover version sound like Celine Dion. (Hmm, Celine Dion performing Minor Threat classics - there's a thought.)

In summary, then: bloody great show! And it only took me half an hour to get home afterwards. Sweet.

Future gigs pencilled into the calender include Killing Joke, Roots Manuva and the Scottish national Orchestra performing Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring. Marvellous.

Wish you were here

Rick Wright
1943—2008

Soul man

Isaac Hayes
1942—2008

After school activities

Weird dream last night: I dreamt I was at school at about age fifteen - my friends and I were all in uniform - and we were heading to the main hall after the day's final lesson because The Orb were doing a gig. (Because, obviously, my old school's main hall is a prestigious venue that often attracts big name music groups.) The support acts were some industrial rock band - not Pop Will Eat Itself but someone like that - and, bizarrely, Ant & Dec.

My chums and I turned up to the hall entrance, bought our tickets (that looked like raffle tickets) from a dinnerlady and went in.

The hall was about half full of younger pupils all in uniform, sitting cross-legged and waiting patiently. A few teachers were milling around the edge of the room chatting in pairs while roadies were setting up equipment on stage. It had the pre-show atmosphere of a recital by the school orchestra or, worse, a morning assembly.

"God, I hope it won't be one of those gigs where everybody just sits there not moving," I whispered to my friends (for anything louder than a whisper would have probably resulted in my expulsion from the hall).

After a short wait the lights went down (or, more accurately, the hall curtains were closed) and the first support act, the band like Pop Will Itself but not, came on. I was relieved to see that many of the kids in the audience did stand up and started dancing, albeit in that endearingly uncoordinated way that toddlers do.

It was at this point that I realised that I was not wearing my blazer. I reasoned that I must have left it on the back of a chair in a classroom although I was sure I had it on as I made my way to the hall. Never mind, I could pick it up later.

The band were thrashing out some song or other and a bit of a moshpit was developing in front of the stage. All of a sudden the band stopped and the lead singer began to explain something about how the song they had been playing was structured. He turned on an overhead projector and displayed a series of transparent plastic sheets covered in crudely written notes to illustrate his points. The band would then strike up for a few bars and stop again to allow the singer to make another point. The audience would jump around for the few seconds the band played and then listen attentively while the frontman talked.

It was at about this point that I realised that I was not wearing a shirt and tie but just a t-shirt. I did not recall having changed out of my uniform but... oh well.

The performance continued with bursts of heavy rock music interspersed by discussions of music theory and the physics of audio. The prepubescent mosh pit persisted as best it could but my little gang were beginning to resent the constant interruptions in the music. How dare they try to teach us stuff while we were trying to have fun.

It was at about this point when I realised that I was topless and my t-shirt was being passed over the crowd. I forced my way through the my fellow pupils and retrieved it.

I then woke up feeling frustrated and unsatisfied.

That shave an' haircut beat no more

Bo Diddley
1928—2008

Could dance, won't dance

OK, I thought it was only Oxford crowds who don't dance at gigs but I am beginning to suspect that I am simply not abreast of current trends. As far as I can ascertain one no longer shows one's appreciation at a music concert by dancing but by standing still and taking pictures with your mobile phone. Clapping and cheering between songs appears to be acceptable behaviour but dancing is, like, so last century.

I came to this conclusion after witnessing an exuberant performance by Jamie Lidell at Koko London on Camden High Street last Tuesday night. Lidell is a singer whose music is an interesting fusion of soul and electronica; imagine Otis Redding mucking around with a sampler and a bunch of digital effects processors. Jamie's live performances are equally innovative: He starts the show singing to the accompaniment of a traditional backing band but then he will saunter over to a computer and rack of digital toys and starts to record himself humming, beat-boxing, singing a bass line, wailing, and building up layer upon layer of vocal improvisations while his band go off for a cup of tea. As he creates a new track made of vocal loops right there on stage, the band eventually drift back on stage and start to play along and somehow segue back into a familiar song. It is, quite frankly, fucking brilliant.

It is not a mere showcase of electronic trickery, though: Jamie and his gang play a damn fine set of good old fashioned-style soul music. Jamie is a performer of great energy and humour, his voice powerful, intense, tender and heartfelt. Even though he is obviously the focus of attention he is also generous to his players and gives them all their due credit. I can't remember the last time I saw a band having so much fun playing together on stage, their obvious enjoyment truly infectious.

Infectious, at least, for me and a few others.

Fair enough, the set consisted mainly of material from Jamie's new album Jim which was only released the day before. My copy turned up in the post on the morning of the gig so I was fortunate enough to give it three or four listens before heading out to the gig. That's not the point: I would have enjoyed the show regardless of whether I was at all familiar with the new songs or not. Throw some great music at me and if I engage with it then I will damn well enjoy myself. True, I dance like your dad but when I hear something I love I want to move about a bit.

My complaining about people not dancing at gigs is actually quite absurd. I'm horribly self-conscious on the dance floor and despite my eclectic tastes in music I am really fussy: if I don't like the choons then I ain't dancin'. I am also lacking the "cheese gene", the appreciation, genuine or ironic, of cheesy, juvenile pop music - you know, the standard wedding DJ repertoire. I have to hear something I really love before I can forget myself and strut my funky uncoordinated thang.

Am I a music snob? Maybe. Probably. On the other hand, I don't listen to anything because it is supposed to be cool, I listen to it because I like it - that's the bottom line: do I like it? I couldn't help but feel that many people were at that Jamie Lidell gig because he is très chaud right now - there were an awful lot of painfully trendy designer spectacles in the crowd - rather than people who simply dig his music and wanted to have a good time. Either that or they were there just to get some "cool" photos to upload to their fucking Flickr profiles.

Having said all that, I didn't dance at the concert I went to at the Barbican the following evening: Pierre Boulez conducting the London Symphony Orchestra performing works by Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Bartók. A wise decision on my part, I think. I somehow doubt the audience nor the performers would have appreciated my standing up and throwing shapes in the church of dance as they played Sonata For Two Pianos and Percussion.

Stuff and... things

Bloggity bloggity blog blog blog... come on Steve, gotta' blog about something. Haven't blogged anything for over ten days; surely you can't be suggesting that nothing has happened in that time? Well, admittedly, not much has happened what with your last temp job assignment finishing last Friday and taking a bit of time off to investigate the work/accommodation situation in Glasgow, but that's not especially interesting, is it? It's not as if you've spent the time partying and whoring your way around the seedy underbelly of Oxford. Does Oxford have a seedy underbelly? Must do - everywhere does. Maybe that could be a little project for you.

Still, doesn't help with the immediate problem of not having much to say. I suppose you could mention your ongoing obsession with your Last.fm stats, especially since you discovered that damned eclecticism test and have been trying to listen to as many different genres as possible to bump your score up. Come on, you know you have eclectic tastes, you don't need validation from a bunch of database statistics. Tragic, really, and not worth sharing with the world.

You could talk about why you failed to note the passing of Charlton Heston the other week given the fact you often post photo-memorials for cultural figures. He was, after all, a genuine old-school movie star. You could have commented upon your ambivalence towards his death given the fact that, for example, he was a vocal supporter of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in the 1960s but his latter day public advocation of gun ownership was deplorable; that and the fact that you never warmed to him as an actor despite his star status. True, he was in A Touch Of Evil, one of your favourite films of all time, but the reasons for it being one of your favourite films of all time have absolutely nothing to do with him. Anyway, it's old news now - no point in mentioning it.

Oh well, if you haven't got anything to blog about then you haven't got anything to blog about. Never mind, it's Sunday: why not make yourself a nice strong cup of coffee, curl up with Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and listen to some Otis Redding... or Alban Berg... or Muddy Waters... or Fudge Tunnel... or Sly & The Family Stone... or Ramones... or Luke Slater... or... oh, just go and check your Last.fm stats and then decide. Pathetic. It really is.

Thou shalt always dance

Another Monday night and another gig in Oxford, this time to see the performance poetry/electro/hip-hop stylings of Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip.

They filled the stage with antique furniture - a desk, drinks cabinet, a battered armchair, old lamps with faded, frilly shades. Mr. Pip and Mr. Le Sac proved to be most congenial hosts, engaging in funny banter and bemoaning the fact that they had been given a complimentary bottle of wine but no corkscrew. At various points in the show one would sit back in the armchair to sup a glass of wine (once a corkscrew had been blagged from the bar) to allow the other to fly solo for a while. And the tunes, of course, were great and I had a jolly old boogie.

I had hoped that the crowd would be a little more animate than they were at the Fall gig a few weeks ago... Oh well. I'll grant you that Le Sac 'n' Pip have yet to release an album ("Angles", due out in May) and many people are only familiar with their hit single from last year Thou Shalt Always Kill. I confess that I had only heard three of their tracks before I went to the gig but that didn't stop me getting into all the other cool stuff they played that I didn't know. The rest of the audience, though... well, some of them did a half-arsed movement of the shoulders but they only sprang into life when that song came on.

What's the point of that? What's the point of going to a gig to hear only one song and not show any interest in the rest of the act's material. To be fair, the crowd did cheer and applaud between tracks but, jeez, if a self-conscious uncoordinated numpty like me can jiggle his bits to unfamiliar tunes then anybody can.

Sorry, but Oxford gig crowds are rubbish.

Falling

On Monday night I ventured out to the Oxford Zodiac - sorry - the Carling Academy Oxford (gotta' love corporate chain-branding for that underground vibe) for some raucous post-punk noise with Mark E. Smith and The Fall.

Turning up far too early, I retired to a nearby pub which was full of St. Patrick's Day revellers and spent a couple of hours getting suitably leathered.

At around 9.45pm I stumbled into the venue just in time to catch some VJ doing an audio/visual scratch mix thing that went on far too long, although I thought the cries of "piss off!" and "get off the fucking stage, you wanker!" from the crowd were a little harsh.

Speaking of the crowd, I was curious to see what cross-section of the Oxford populace would be there. Oxford doesn't strike me as the kind of place that would embrace a mad, wasted Manc bloke mumbling and screeching scathing social commentary over abrasive punky guitar noise.

Turns out I was right. The band emerged on stage and started to thrash out an impressive racket for a minute or two before the man himself, the legend that is Mark E. Smith, took to the mic and I dutifully cheered and started jumping around with a gusto.

Sadly, though, there were only about ten of us down the front getting into the spirit of the thing. I kept looking around only to be greeted with the sight of a room full of people just standing there staring at the stage with their dead eyes, no joy, no enthusiasm.

Despite this apathetic response from the crowd, the band played tight and good and we dedicated few at the front did our utmost to show Mark & Co. that their efforts were not entirely in vain.

I left the gig exhausted, my ears ringing, and baring a big stupid grin. I had a fucking great time but I felt a little sorry for all those poor lifeless bastards in the crowd who didn't appear to have any idea of what was going on or why they were there. They probably should have stayed at home and listened to their Coldplay albums.

---

Anyways, I am now off to Devon for the Easter weekend to chill out and finally reading that damn Tristram Shandy novel.

Whatever your plans, enjoy yourself and don't eat too much chocolate.

One of life's little mysteries #1

How come I love Jamie Lidell...

... but could never stand Jamiroquai?

Curious.

An awesome racket

In order to further fulfil my resolution to take in more live music and to augment my recent efforts to better familiarise myself with classical music, I found myself at the Barbican Centre in Thursday evening - "found myself" in the sense that I bought a ticket weeks ago and very deliberately got on various modes of public transport to arrive there at the allotted time. "Pray, Sir, to what end?" you might ask; calm yourselves, for I shall divulge my reasons.

I happened to quite deliberately arrive at said time and place for the purpose of attending a concert given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra accompanied by the BBC Symphony choir. The programme for the evening included a rendition of Johannes Brahms' Fourth Symphony and, more significantly, the United Kingdom premiere performance of Krzyzstof Penderecki's Eighth Symphony (Songs Of Transience).

What can I say? (Apparently, judging by the last two paragraphs, an awful lot about not very much at all. Damn that Sterne fellow and his accursed Shandy novel.) 'Twas - excuse me - it was a wonderful concert. First of all was the Brahms, a composer with whom I am not yet acquainted but, after this recital, I am about to rectify that.

Following the interlude came the main event, Penderecki's Eighth. I've owned this on CD for a month or so but my humble speakers have not done it justice, not by a mile. To hear this symphony performed live with the full orchestra and choir was spine-tingling. The sound was simply huge, the players and the venue fully projecting the beauty, subtlety and sheer power of the music. In a word, awesome.

As a result of this experience I have decided that I must:

1. go to more classical music concerts and,
2. get a better home sound system.

On an unrelated musical issue, I have got into the habit of listening to David Bowie on Sunday mornings. I don't know why but Sunday morning is Bowie-time - it somehow feels right. Just one of those curious little rituals.

Mentally challenged headgear

Oh, I forgot to mention that the latest issue of Mad Hatter's Review is online. It's got some tunes in it. By me. Check the about page for direct links. Etcetera.

Job done.

---

I think I'll buy one of those little tabletop ironing boards. And an iron

As yet untitled blog post

I don't know where to begin so I will skip the beginning and begin in the middle.

---

Finally went to see a shrink - sorry - counsellor today and it turned out to not be as an horrific waste of time as I might have feared. She discerned very quickly that I am not interested in discovering why I am a miserable failure with no self-esteem but how I can stop being a miserable failure with no self-esteem. Yes yes yes, it's all because of my mother probably, great, but what do I do about it? I'm not interested in examining the past, I want to fix the now. She said the three magic words before I had a chance to bring them up: cognitive behavioural therapy. I decided I liked her very much at that point. "Oh thank fog* for that, she gets it." She is going to refer me to a CBT group which is nice. Unfortunately, the next round of classes doesn't begin until the beginning of April but, I don't know, having somebody who knows what they are talking about acknowledge that I have a real problem and could offer a practical way forward was comforting. April, though... bit of a long way off. I may buy myself a copy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies (seriously) to tide me over.

I feel oddly... validated

She was also quite attractive. She wore nice boots.

---

I am glad to hear that despite the death of Heath Ledger production of Terry Gilliam's new film The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus will continue.

When I first heard of Ledger's death I could not help but recall the collapse of Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and think, "Oh no, not again." I don't wish to sound as if my desire to see a cool movie overshadows the sad loss of such a young human being but I am glad the film can be completed. Dr. Parnassus (along with the upcoming Dark Knight) will give us a final glimpse of how this intriguing young actor might have developed, and what better tribute to an actor is there?

---

I am fucking loving Bartók at the moment

---

Don't know how to finish either so I will stop here at the end of the middle.

---

* As an ignostic, I am loath to use the phrase "oh my God." However, from a purely aesthetic point of view and in certain circumstances "oh my god" is exactly the right phrase to use. Therefore, in order to circumvent my distaste for the word "god" whilst not depriving myself of the satisfaction of using the phrase "oh my god" I am experimenting rhyming substitutes such as "dog", "fog", "bog". I must confess, though, that it just isn't the same**.

** However, I have found a most favourable substitute for the exclamation "for the love of god", namely, "oh for the love of fucksy". Go on, try it. The next time you feel the need to express your incredulity at the sheer stupidity of a person or persons in your immediate vicinity, try screaming from the very depths of your diaphragm, "Oh for the love of fucksy!" It really works.

In Review (finally): 2007

2007: The year I stood up in church during a friend's wedding ceremony and read out an extract from The Velveteen Rabbit - a moment I will always remember with great fondness.

2007: The year we lost Kurt Vonnegut. The discovery of his work in my late teens was pivotal in my development as a serious reader. Having gobbled up Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett I felt the desire to adventure deeper into the literary landscape. I was in the habit of picking books at random from shop shelves, reading the blurb, scanning a few pages, impulse buying. One book I found using this method was Jack Womack's Random Acts Of Senseless Violence, a disturbing and vivid vision of social breakdown. I enjoyed it immensely. One of the quotes of praise on the dust jacket likened Womack to some guy called Kurt Vonnegut so I went out and bought Slaughterhouse 5, the title of which sounded vaguely familiar.

The book was a revelation. Funny, serious, wise, angry and compassionate, a moving story of war and the bombing of Dresden that somehow involved time travel and extraterrestrial zoos. Reading this book I realised that serious fiction could be funny and stories didn't have to be told in chronological order. I was amazed how effortlessly Vonnegut took all these fragments, all these disparate threads, and somehow tied them all together on the final page. Most of all I was won over by Vonnegut's wry charm and humanity; reading him was like being taught life lessons by a favourite uncle. "Come here, son, I want to tell you a few things about the world."

Reading Vonnegut is liberating in that he shows you that you can do anything you damn well please in fiction - his books are like permission slips. I'm very sad he is gone but I'm happy that he was here at all and gave us so many wonderful words.

2007: the year I read Ulysses and I finally finished Boccaccio's Decameron. I experienced something of a reading renaissance in 2007: I always have a book on the go but for some reason my appetite became particularly voracious (which maybe explains my resolve to conquer James Joyce's colossal tome). I read a lot of excellent stuff including Pamuk's My Name Is Read, John Fowles' The Magus, Georges Perec's Life: A User's Manual, several Richard Brautigans (what a beautifully quirky turn of phrase that man had), The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, Slow Chocolate Autopsy by Iain Sinclair and José Saramago's Blindness, the last of which affected me the most with its harrowing vision of the ease with which "civilised" society could collapse.

If my appetite for reading increased in 2007 then my interest in film waned considerably. I know I've complained bitterly about Hollywood remaking every good Asian film barely five minutes after its released but it now it seems studios are cannibalising every nation's celluloid history including their own. We're going to get Paul W.S. Anderson's remake of The Long Good Friday pointlessly relocated to contemporary Miami, Ron Howard doing Michael Hanecke's Caché (Hidden), Michael Hanecke doing an American remake of his own Funny Games (why Michael, why?), The Taking Of Pelham 123 and Fritz Lang's Metropolis for fuck's sake. What happens when you've flogged a franchise to death with increasingly shite sequels? Why, you simply start again by remaking the original! Hello Halloween! And talking of John Carpenter, hello Assault On Precinct 13 remake! Hello Escape From New York remake! Apparently John Carpenter is happy to piss all over his own back catalogue of DIY cult classics by endorsing uninspired remakes.

The event that epitomised this trend for me is the fact that Martin Scorcese finally won his long-deserved Oscar for his laziest, most derivative film. Not only is The Departed inferior to its Hong Kong progenitor but it also feels like Scorcese simply imitating his own past glories. You'll say I am taking this far too seriously but watching The Departed and witnessing the subsequent praise and adulation Marty received actually kinda' hurt.

Thank Whoever, then, for David Lynch who delivered three hours of magnificent dread and weirdness in the form of INLAND EMPIRE. It doesn't matter that I didn't follow the half of it, I loved every damn digitally videoed frame of it. Even when I had no idea what was going on I never felt that Lynch was wasting my time with mere self-indulgent waffle - which, coincidentally, was exactly how I felt reading Ulysses. I seemed to be in that kind of mood in 2007. The only other films I enjoyed at the cinema were Zhang Yimou's Curse Of The Golden Flower which, despite the lukewarm critical response, I really enjoyed, and Hot Fuzz, the most gloriously absurd and entertaining film of the year.

Never mind, I procured lots of good music this year. I got stuck into two genres that I have long-intended to investigate properly: Post-punk and classical. By "classical" I really mean "orchestral", I suppose, because the era I have been drawn to has been that of 20 Century modern composers. Yes, I'm loving all that dodecaphonic atonal shit.

Best albums released this year? Chicago, Detroit, Redruth by Luke Vibert, Book Of Dogma by The Black Dog (well, OK, I admit that this is a compilation of previously released material but much of it has only appeared on vinyl so it still counts), Whisper Me Wishes by Kettel, Oblivion With Bells by Underworld, Foley Room by Amon Tobin and the magnificently barmy Tromatic Reflexxions by Von Südenfed.

I managed to keep a New Year's resolution for once by going to some gigs, something I hadn't done for a long time. I went to see Aim, Bonobo, Underworld and Amon Tobin and I'm so glad I made the effort. Music really is one of the things that makes life worth living - a world without music doesn't bear thinking about.

But otherwise 2007 sucked. Let's see if I can get my shit together in 2008, eh?

Ha. I say that every year.

Slappy Poo Smear

Jeez, 'bout time I wrote sumfink on this 'ere blog o' mine.

Well, I hope you all had an above average Christmas and an adequate New Year. I've already had my first anxiety attack of 2008! That's got to be a record even for me. Never mind, I got better.

Let's get down to the important bit: summary of Crimbo stash!

• Blade Runner 2007 Final Cut Collector's DVD box-set (only one problem: I can't decide which of the five included versions of the film to watch first).
• Jan Svankmajer - The Complete Short Films DVD box-set. Fantastic and surreal animations from the mad Czech genius Svankmajer.
• The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld Deluxe Edition CD. Owned this on cassette years ago but finally got it on CD with an extra disc of remixes. I'd forgotten how brilliant this album is.
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (I loved No Country For Old Men and I can't wait to see the Coen Brothers' film adaptation).
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sachs.
• The Gospel According To Jesus Christ by José Saramago. I've been reading this over the Christmas holiday - seemed appropriate.

A most excellent haul, I think you'll agree. Now, which bloody version of Blade Runner shall I watch first...?

Sundry Saturday gubbins

Walking home from the shop along Walton Street in Oxford and who passes me? Only Jeremy bloody Paxman. S'true.

On an utterly unrelated note, I saw Amon Tobin do a DJ set at The Forum club in London. Fuck me if the bass in that place didn't almost cause a prolapse. A bloody good night only marred by slightly higher than usual Twat Quota in the audience, four Shoreditch yahoos wearing sunglasses in particular. Never mind, it was still a blinding show with Tobin mixing up his own stuff with music that has inspired him into one big jazzy drum 'n' bass pudding. He even played Second Bad Vilbel by Autechre, my favourite track by them and one I never thought I'd here in a DJ mix.

Other than that, nothing else exciting to report. The job still sucks and I'm currently reading The Magus by John Fowles which doesn't.

Random ramblings of a Sunday afternoon

Boy, this blog is dying on its arse, isn't it? I can barely manage one post a week and even then I seldom have anything interesting to say. Ugh. For what it's worth, here are some headlines to tide you over:

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Attended an Underworld gig on Thursday night at the Roundhouse in London. All kinds of awesomeness. Despite their latest album, Oblivion With Bells, being a more relaxed and ambient affair than previous records, they still know how to get people's butts movin' on the dance floor. And singer/guitarist Karl Hyde, bless him, is one of the best frontmen in the business. He bounces around the stage with such joyful abandon that you can't help but grin like a fool and cheer like a lunatic. His enthusiasm is not only infectious but also possibly lethal.

Highlights must include Two Months Off into Kittens into Moaner into Born Slippy [NUXX] into Shudder/King Of Snake - I was flippin' knackered once that little mix came to an end; and Rez/Cowgirl/Rez/Cowgirl was bloody brilliant too.

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For reasons that are far too convoluted to go into, I seem to be engaged in cyber-sex with a pair of sock puppets

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Current cultural artefacts entering my head via various orifices and organs:

• Aram Khachaturian's Gayane ballet suites (Suite No. 3, Gayane's Adagio - used by Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey to introduce the Discovery One on its way to Jupiter - is a sublime piece of music).
• Talking Heads, the early Eno produced stuff: funky, arty, post-punk goodness, yeah!
• Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec. No, not a self-help book but a wonderful French novel that describes a Parisian block of flats, its occupants, their lives and tales relating to their possessions. Funny, inventive and sad. Highly recommended.
• The TV show Heroes - enjoyable, well-written sci-fi/fantasy although it does sometimes take an awful long time for anything to happen. Addictive stuff nevertheless.

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I am also preparing for National Novel Writing Month by trawling the internet for information about bizarre sex fetishes and reading a critical study of the films of Luis Buñuel.

Don't ask.

What are the odds?

About three months ago a friend of mine invited me to an Ian Brown gig in October. Cool, I thought: I don't own any of Brown's solo material but I have liked what I've heard. I agreed to go and my chum booked me a ticket.

Fast forward a couple of months and I discover that Underworld, one of my all time favourite techno outfits and an awesome live act, were playing on the same night. I like Ian Brown but I adore Underworld so I had to tell my friend, sorry, but I wouldn't be going to the Brown gig and, um, if he can't offload my ticket then I'll pay him back anyway, sorry, sorry.

Damn it: the only night I can go and see one of my favourite bands play live turned out to be on the one and only night of the year I was already booked up to go to another gig. Sod's Law. Gotta' laugh.

Doesn't end there, though. I have subsequently discovered that my favourite new band of this year, Von Südenfed, are doing one and only one gig in London in the coming months... on the same night as Underworld. Typical. But it doesn't stop there either: one of my other favourite acts, Prefuse 73, is performing one of only two UK dates on that night as well... right on my doorstep in Oxford. 365 in the year and four bands I would like to see live decide to schedule gigs on the same fucking night?

The universe really takes the piss sometimes.

[On a more positive note, I am going to have the chance to see Amon Tobin in November, so that's OK]

Eclecticism is da bomb

Listening to Mark E. Smith mumbling and yelping on the wonderful Von Sudenfed album "Tromatic Reflexxions" reminded me that I somehow never got round to buying any Fall albums. Most remiss of me considering that I have bought a couple of Pavement albums in the last year, a band clearly influenced by The Fall.

But where to start? The Fall have released over 30 studio and live albums since 1979. Should you just start at the beginning or pick a few random records from throughout their career? Fortunately, I found a bargain in the shape of "The Complete Peel Sessions", a six-disc boxset containing all 24 of The Fall's sessions recorded for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show between 1978 and 2004; a mere snip at £20 and a fine overview of their back catalogue. Absolutely bloody fantastic stuff.

Getting into The Fall's ouevre has given me a bit of a taste for post-punk. The sound of post-punk has been resurrected with great success over the last few years by the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Futureheads and Bloc Party but I wanted to go back to the source. So I picked up "Entertainment!" by Gang Of Four, "Pink Flag" by Wire and "Marquee Moon" by Television, all released in the late 70s, and it is brilliant stuff. Gang Of Four in particular tickle my fancy as their bass-heavy funk-tinged stylings remind me a little of Primus.

Curiously, I've also been buying and listening to Debussy, Stravinsky and Bartók as well. Talk about musical mood swings.

"I'm a minor player in my own life story."

Anthony H. Wilson
1950—2007

Latest aurals in me shell-likes

Have you ever tried to imagine what experimental electro with a mad drunken Manc bastard slurring and barking over it would sound like? Toffee heck-nuts, I know I have!

Well, wonder no more because Mouse On Mars + Mark E. Smith of The Fall = Von Südenfed. Their debut album is called "Tromatic Reflexxions" and it is a magnificently filthy, funky and barmy record.

So, go buy it: that's an order. (Or don't if you don't feel like it).

Going mad. In hats. Again.

Yes, there is an all-new shiny issue of Mad Hatters' Review now online - Issue No. 8 to be more precise - and as usual I have contributed some honks and whistles and parps. You can listen to the honks and whistles and parps I made by going here and here. And why not peruse the rest of the issue while you are at it (but listening to my tunes is the most important bit, obviously).

Enjoy, yo.

I, nerd

My supervisor at work was rather concerned the other day when she found me with dictaphone in hand recording the sound of the faulty office fax machine.

"What a fantastic noise," says I. "I could use that for a piece of music; stick it through a low frequency oscillator and a phasing resonant filter... perfect for background ambience."

She looked at me pitifully. "We really need to find you a girlfriend," she said.

Ballot Box #1

In the start of a new series that will probably fizzle out in a staggeringly short space of time given my equally short attention span... what was I saying? Oh yes, I thought I would canvas the opinions of you, dedicated readers of this almost entirely pointless blog, on a variety of utterly trivial topics.

The first subject will be amusing song titles. Here are some of mine:

• Space Donkeys On Crack by Alexanders Dark Band
• Your Children Are Waiting For You To Die by mclusky
• Mummy, I've Had An Accident by LFO

There you go - now tell me some of yours. It doesn't matter if you actually like the songs or not, the question is only about song titles that have amused or intrigued you.

Thou shalt love this choon

Fucking brilliant...

- Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, "Thou Shalt Always Kill"

Recent sound waves to tickle my ossicles

Or, to use more grammatically incorrect parlance: new tunes what I been listening to:

Dobotsu Bancho, Alexanders Dark Band (DC Recordings)

Perusing Bleep.com one day (curse them and their ever-growing catalogue of innovative, eclectic independent music!) I clicked a random album cover from the "featured" section. I scanned the track-list until my gaze fell upon the song title "Space Donkeys On Crack". "I'm fucking havin' that," I thought. The brainchild of Jonathan Saul Kane (Depth Charge, Octagon Man) Alexanders Dark Band layer farty bass lines and quirky melodies over crunchy breakbeats. The end result is a whole lot of funky electronic fun, eccentric yet accessible. Anybody who enjoys their electronica with a healthy dollop of humour will get a blast from this album. And it's got a track on it called "Space Donkeys on Crack" - what more do you want?

Foley Room, Amon Tobin (Ninja Tune)

I hate Amon Tobin. I hate him because I listen to his stuff and think, "I am never going to produce anything this good. How the hell does he do that?" I know in theory how he does it. His previous albums have been produced by deconstructing lots of old jazz, funk, soul, bossanova records and rebuilding them into entirely new pieces of music. And what wondrous, beautiful music it is. For his latest album, however, he tried a new method of working: going out into the world with a bunch of microphones and recording anything that had percussive potential from factory machines to tigers, motor engines to insects. Add to that contributions from guest musicians (including Kronos Quartet) and Amon created a new palette of sounds to play with. The result is predictably (and infuriatingly) gorgeous. Walking down the street and listening to the track "The Killer's Vanilla" on my MP3 player I found myself on the verge of weeping with joy that, despite all the hate and stupidity and mediocrity in the world, there are human beings capable of producing truly beautiful music such as this. Amon Tobin's music genuinely makes me glad to be alive.

Having said that, there are a couple of tracks on the album such as "The Kitchen Sink" and "Foley Room" that feel more like exercises in percussive sound design rather than complete pieces of music and, while interesting, I can't imagine that I will return to them often. That is but a minor criticism when we are talking about an album that contains the utterly wonderful "Bloodstone", "Esther's", "The Killer's Vanilla", "Big Furry Head", "Always" and "At The End Of The Day". A bloody brilliant album.

Rediscovery Of The Month: Living Colour

I first heard of Living Colour when the Soulpower Mix of "Love Rears Its Ugly Head" found its way into the singles chart in 1990. I didn't actually realise at the time that they were a metal band, albeit a metal band flavoured with funk, soul and hip-hop. I've finally replaced my copies of Time's Up and Stain and - dagnabbit - they are class albums: excellent musicianship, intelligent lyrics laced with a pleasing black humour, Corey Glover's powerful yet soulful vocals and plenty of heavy guitar riffage (heavier than I remember, come to think of it). Basically, Living Colour rock like a muddy-funster and you can stick yer whiny emo cobblers up yer proverbial.

Rock off

OK, having declared to the world that I've rediscovered the joys of fuck-off grungy guitar music lately, I spent this morning listening to Mouse On Mars and have now embarked on an Orb marathon. So much for my alleged rock renaissance.

Maybe if I declare to the world that I don't want a well paid, full time permanent job and would prefer to temp forever then I will suddenly get a well paid, full time permanent job.

Is fate subject to reverse psychology?

Anyway, job applications await...

Let's rock! - Addendum

Oh, and In Utero is and always will be better than Nevermind.

Let's rock!

Hmm, for some reason I have felt the desire to reacquaint myself with guitar music. It started last year when I finally got around to listening to the Pixies (and seeing them live on their reunion tour at Alexandria Palace) and wondering why I didn't get into them the first time around. And then I heard some Pavement, remembered that they were supposedly a big influence on the US indie rock scene of the 1990s, bought Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee (the sexy Special Edition reissues with sackfuls of extra bonus tracks) and decided that they were bloomin' marvellous.

I've also been listening to quite a bit of Faith No More again for the first time in years. They were one of my favourite bands during my late teens and I'd forgotten how much I like them. Angel Dust was and still is my favourite FNM album, heavy yet experimental. I then started thinking about Mike Patton and his many side projects that I've been meaning to catch up on. I already owned Mr. Bungle's eponymous debut album which is fantastically barmy, a disjointed mess of funk, metal, scary fairground music and scatological humour. Not an easy listen but I love it. I never managed to get into their second album Disco Volante - that was too fucked up even for me - but their third and final release, California, is brilliant. The fragmented song structures remain but it is a more laid back, surf guitar inspired album.

I then got the two albums Patton released under the Tomahawk moniker - good old fashioned punky metal - which then led me onto the Melvins (I decided to start with their most accessible offering, Houdini, and I'll then move onto the more 'difficult' stuff).

Whilst still in a Patton mood, I got the Peeping Tom album, a bunch of collaborations between Patton and the likes of Massive Attack, Amon Tobin, Dan The Automator and... er... Norah Jones. Yes, Norah Jones. Mike 'n' Norah duet on a track called Sucker and you'll never see her in the same light again once you've heard her sing the words, "The truth kinda' hurts, don't it, motherfucker?" The novelty value of hearing the purveyor of sweet, folksy pop music cussing like a navvy notwithstanding, Peeping Tom is a superb album. It is apparently what Patton would like pop music to sound like if he listened to pop music and, frankly, I agree with him.

I don't really know why I've suddenly started hankering after big, crunchy, raucous guitar stuff again after many years of immersion in electronica. I guess that sometimes I need some harsh aggressive noise in my ears. Having said that, I have spent today listening to Wagon Christ and Authechre, so go figure.

More Mad Hattering

Issue 7 of Mad Hatters' Review is online now! It features lots of cool words and pictures and noises and stuff! And if you are thinking, "My word, so much to choose from... where to start?" you could do worse than look at Jai Clare's For A Lack Of Words and Lynda Schor's Sex For Beginners 2 because A) they are both great and B) they both feature music by me.

Mad Hatter's Review - Issue 7

Stick it in yer ear

New Feature!

Go to the noise section and gasp in awe at the all new embedded radio thingie - courtesy of Last.fm - that will stream a playlist of the kind of stuff I listen to into your ears. Then decide that I have shocking tastes in music and turn it off.

Osymyso in Dire Straits

No, no, no, I don't mean Osymyso has joined forces with Mark Knopfler. After posting my heartfelt plea for everyone to help a poor, struggling mash-up artist shift a few records, I have since discovered via Osymyso's Myspace page that things are not quite so bleak at the moment for the fella. It appears that he has been working on the soundtrack for the latest cinematic masterpiece from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, Hot Fuzz.

But you still need to go and buy some of his music. (And I'm looking at you, Suw Charman. Yes, Osymyso is a favourite of your beloved Simon Pegg. Mr. Pegg even performed drumming duties on the track Pandemonium from the Fruit From 50-First Batch record. So, if you don't buy any Osymyso music, dear Suw, you are effectively saying Simon Pegg is wrong. You wouldn't say such a thing, would you Suw? You don't hate Simon Pegg, do you? Prove that you don't hate Simon Pegg and buy some music by his good chum Osymyso).

No, there is no level to which I won't stoop.

Save Osymyso!

I first heard about Osymyso a few years ago through his collaborations with Chris "Brass Eye/The Day Day Today" Morris. He produced a remix of Morris' merciless re-edit of George Bush's first State Of The Union speech (which you can find at www.thesmokehammer.com) and also a video remix of the short film My Wrongs#8245-8249 & 117.

Osymyso has been described as "one of the greatest cut & paste men of contemporary times". In 1998 he created Pat 'n' Peg, a brilliant breakbeat cut-up of the Eastenders theme tune with Peggy Mitchell and Pat Butcher having a right old bitchfight over the top. It's hilarious, a work of mad genius. He has released two cut-up albums, Welcome To The Palindrome and The Art Of Flipping Channels, and in 2005 he started the "05my50" project by committing himself to write and record one new track every week during that year. This has resulted in two excellent releases (or "batches") on vinyl entitled Fruit From 50.

He has won critical acclaim from The Guardian, The Face, The New York Times and Q magazine voted him one of the Top Ten DJs You Must See Before You Die. High praise indeed.

I finally got around to buying some of his tunes when I stumbled across them at an online download store and it is all superb. Welcome To The Palindrome is an album of funky beats, squelchy synths and cut-up samples from all sorts of TV shows and movies - an obvious inspiration for the likes of The Avalanches and Too Many DJs. The first two batches from the Fruit From 50 series are superbly quirky slices of electronic music that prove that Osymyso isn't a one-trick cut-up pony. Anyone who enjoys the offbeat style of Luke Vibert (aka Wagon Christ, Plug, etc.) or Mike Paradinas (he of µ-Ziq, Jake Slazenger and Kid Spatula fame) would love Fruit From 50. And Pat 'n' Peg is just so damn funny it hurts. Brilliant stuff. This man deserves to go far.

Imagine my disbelief when I visited Osymyso's website and read the following by the man himself on the forum:

It's been a tough few months, I'm fighting to keep the whole thing going. There isn't enough work out there and people aren't buying my records so I can't afford to produce any new music. Fruit From 50 vol 3 and 4 were ready to roll but the label had to pull the release due to lack of sales on the 1st 2 volumes. The Art of Flipping Channels was the worst selling record in Antidote's history so they won't touch me with a barge pole now and despite very positive feedback from my DJ sets I can't get a booking for toffee.

This is the reality of underground music production, without a label, a manager, an agent or a press officer I am left to do it all myself and it's very difficult to get things off the ground.

If I was a band I would have split up by now but I'm just me and splitting up would be way too messy. I still believe it's worth doing even if it means I have to live exist like a peasant in a mud hut, living off berries and insects.

What?! No, no, no, this simply will not do, will not do at all. Osymyso should be in huge demand. His music is funky, funny, strange, catchy and inventive. He should be inundated with requests to remix and produce mainstream pop acts looking to acquire some credibility and cool. He should be sniffing cocaine off Lilly Allen's buttocks in a hot tub. Well, OK, maybe not that last one but, dagnabbit, Osymyso should be at the height of underground success (if that isn't too much of an oxymoron).

What can be done? Well, for a start, go to www.osymyso.com and download Pat 'n' Peg for free. Once you have stopped laughing, go to Amazon.co.uk, Juno Records or your favourite music retailer and order anything/everything they have listed. If you have no means of playing vinyl records then fear not - Fruit From 50: First Batch and Second Batch can be bought and downloaded in MP3 format from Bleep.com (simply type "Osysmyso" into the search box to find his releases).

So come on everybody. Let's pull together and show Osymyso that there are people who want his music and will pay for it. If you don't then I will get very upset, come round to your house and nail you nipples to the ceiling. Don't say I didn't warn you.

John Peel

Today marked the first anniversary of John Peel's death. Has it really been a year already? I remember when I first heard the news - I couldn't believe it. He was a legend. He did more to promote new music then any other DJ on the planet. So many great artists owe their success to him, to his constant search for innovative, exciting sounds that no-one had ever heard and were unlikely to hear on regular mainstream radio. His desire to seek out fresh talent was insatiable. Listening to his show was always a revelation; you'd hear all manner of strange stuff that you might consider total crap and then he'd play something astonishing.

And who is there to replace him? Nobody. He was unique.

Thank you, John: You left us too soon.