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Posted on Jul 23rd, 2008 by Alan @ 2:13 pm
I’ll not tell you which category I’ve put each of these in…
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— Filed under: Marillion and Video Killed The Radio StarNo Comments |
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Posted on Jul 18th, 2008 by Alan @ 3:53 pm
Back to mashups today, and this wee gem for your enjoyment. It was done by a fella called Arty Fufkin, who used to have a website with his various mashups on it but doesn’t seem to any more. Shame, as he’s a master of his craft. This one is probably not the best example of his expertise, the two main tracks (Crazy by Gnarls Barkley and The Logical Song by Supertramp) fit together so well that it was probably pretty straightforward to make - or is this in the “deceptively difficult” category of genius??? Either way it’s the only mashup of the two tracks I’ve heard and I can’t imagine it being bettered, so credit where it’s due. — Filed under: Bootlegs & MashupsNo Comments |
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Posted on Jul 10th, 2008 by Alan @ 5:15 am
I’ve no idea how I missed out on Elbow before now. I’d heard a few of their tracks on various blogs and seen clips of them on TV playing festivals, but it was only when I heard three or four tracks from their new album “The Seldom Seen Kid” back-to-back that I grasped the fact that they weren’t some random indie oddballs after all. A couple of clicks later (and I’m making it even easier for you by posting a direct product link below!) and the album was ordered, and it’s hardly been out of the CD player in the week that’s passed since. — Filed under: ElbowNo Comments |
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Posted on Jun 26th, 2008 by Alan @ 2:23 pm
I’ve just been playing with wordle (a gadget that creates text clouds based on the frequency that words appear in a block of text) and I wondered what would happen if I copied and pasted the contents of the current front page of this blog. I don’t know about you, but I LOVE this! — Filed under: UncategorizedNo Comments |
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Posted on Jun 23rd, 2008 by Alan @ 9:28 am
As promised, some new No-Man. I’m posting a couple of tracks so you understand my “WTF” reaction when I heard the second of these for the first time… “All Sweet Things” opens the new album and is typical No-Man, so laidback it looks like this man. Another track in the same vein follows (”Beautiful Songs You Should Know”) before “Pigeon Drummer” plays, and it’s probably the last thing I’d ever expect to hear on a No-Man record. Gavin Harrison is responsible. You bad, bad man. I soiled myself. All Sweet Things: Pigeon Drummer: — Filed under: No-ManNo Comments |
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Posted on Jun 20th, 2008 by Alan @ 3:16 pm
My first No-Man post - but not the last… I’ve got another one on the way with a couple of tracks from their new album “Schoolyard Ghosts”, but first here’s one from their 2001 album, “Returning Jesus”. It took me quite a while to get into No-Man, mainly because I picked the wrong starting point. I started with “Speak”, a 1999 compilation of re-recorded versions of their very earliest material from the days before they had a record deal, and I still find it hard work to listen to it even now that I’m more familiar with them. I think my problem with them initially was that Tim Bowness’s vocals often seem to slow the music down - it’s not the liveliest music to start with, and his delivery seems to drag it back even further. The fact that I persisted with their stuff is purely down to Steven Wilson’s involvement (as you may have spotted the Porcupine Tree kingpin can do no wrong in my eyes). And it was definitely worth persisting, once I worked my way through their back catalogue and found “Returning Jesus” and “Flowermouth” I’ve not looked back. Those two records stand out as their finest work, although this year’s release is pushing them close, as you’ll find out in the next few days. — Filed under: No-ManNo Comments |
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Posted on May 28th, 2008 by Alan @ 10:51 am
It’s about time I posted some more Myslovitz, and I’ve had this track on my mind since the turn of the year. I got the “Skalary, Mieczyki, Neonki” album along with a couple of their earlier releases when we were across in Poland for Christmas and New Year, and I had a rather surreal morning with it as the soundtrack. “Skalary, Mieczyki, Neonki” is an album of improvisations and out-takes from the Korova Milky Bar writing sessions, and is largely instrumental. The album title means “Angelfish, swordtails, neon tetras” - tropical fish - although my fumblings with the Polish-English dictionary failed to identify this common theme, and I thought it meant “Neon swords at scale”! My morning began by waking up early with a hangover (my fifth or sixth in a row, as it was the 3rd or 4th of January and we’d been doing New Year properly). We’d been in a ski resort on the border with Slovakia for a few days, but had come back to Warsaw for the last few days of our trip, and were staying with a friend in the city. She works from home but was out meeting clients, and my other half was away at the dentist or beautician or some such place, hence the early rise. With the hangover to consider, I decided against going out until later in the day, and instead curled up on the sofa in the sunlight to listen to my new purchases - it was minus 10 outside, but in a well insulated south-facing flat it felt like a summer’s day. The soundscapes that make up the first few tracks of “Skalary, Mieczyki, Neonki” soon helped me to drift off into that no man’s land between sleep and wakefulness, until the first “conventional song” jolted me awake. The lyrical theme translates as something like “stand up, life is surfing, don’t be scared to fall”, and something in the music is reminiscent of surfing - possibly the keyboard sound, although it’s more The Doors than The Beach Boys. After that track I dozed off again, only to be woken by what I thought was someone in the flat downstairs hammering nails into the wall. A couple of minutes of this had me on the verge of going down and using my pidgin Polish to give it “that’s plenty!” before the hammering took on a more regular beat, got a bit louder, and sync-ed with the music. Sounded more like someone hitting a drum than hammering a nail too… I can’t find a link to this album on an English language website, but it is available here for 30 zloty (about £7). Korova Milky Bar is also worth getting hold of though, so I’d strongly encourage you to click the link below. — Filed under: Myslovitz1 Comment |
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Posted on May 15th, 2008 by Alan @ 5:15 am
Great article in the weekend’s Sunday Herald looking ahead to tonight’s WGC concert in Edinburgh. I’ll be there, hopefully close enough to the stage to give Malcolm a wee wave! — Filed under: Willard Grant Conspiracy2 Comments |
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Posted on Apr 24th, 2008 by Alan @ 1:23 pm
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Sigur Rós are my new obsession. I’ve had their second album, Agaetis Byrjun, for a few years and have always loved it, but for some reason I’d never laid my sticky mitts on anything else by them. That might well be because I don’t know anyone else who likes them and wasn’t aware when they had new stuff coming out - although my guess is that I do know people who like them, I just have never found out about it. I listen to a lot of Sigur Rós, mate, but I don’t like to talk about it. Mate. My regard for them shot up a couple of months ago though. Whilst shopping for completely unrelated deviant suicide mosh on Amazon, their recommendation widget flashed up a DVD called Heima. It looked interesting, and was duly purchased. Days later, in fact the same day that the DVD dropped through the letter box, I got my weekly email from The Filmhouse in Edinburgh to tell me that amongst the various weird and wonderful films they’d be showing the following week was Heima. I decided to leave the DVD shrink-wrapped for the time being, and watch it for the first time on the big screen. It’s one of those films that holds every last iota of your attention from start to finish. Beautifully shot, and obviously with a stunning soundtrack, it’s the story of their 2006 homecoming tour of Iceland. A tour with a difference - all 13 shows were free, and they avoided typical venues, instead performing in a derelict fish factory, on an environmental protest site beside a hydro-energy dam, a school classroom, etc. That visit to the cinema was the first time I’ve ever been part of a standing ovation at the end of a film! Needless to say I was inspired to order the rest of their back catalogue as soon as I could, and they’ve hardly been out of the CD player ever since. The fact that they’re completely incomprehensible to someone with no knowledge of the Icelandic language just adds to the experience IMHO - I’ve no idea what any of the songs are called (and on one album called () none of them have names in any case) so I invariably listen to their CDs from start to finish - I’ll often get the urge to listen to “that one that goes whooo-ooo-ooooooo-ooo in the chorus” but that’s an itch that can’t be scratched, as I can never remember which album it’s on or what track number it is. My current favourite doesn’t go whooo-ooo-ooooooo-ooo in the chorus, although it does in one of the verses. And I deliberately memorised it’s name so I could blog about it - it’s “Hafsól” from the CD that partners the Heima DVD, Hvarf/Heim. Buy them both now, along with everything else they’ve ever done. — Filed under: Sigur Rós2 Comments |
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Posted on Apr 9th, 2008 by Alan @ 12:39 pm
You will no doubt notice something slightly different about the site today - to celebrate CSS Naked Day I’ve disabled all of the formatting on the site so you can see what it would look like without all of the bells and whistles. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow! — Filed under: UncategorizedNo Comments |
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