...as some exciting things are happening! First, it's All Tomorrow's Parties this weekend down at Camber Sands. It should be great, with lots of interesting bands playing, and the weather is looking good as well, so hopefully there will be plenty of frolicing on the beach. I have bought a very OTT pair of aviator sunglasses, which I will be wearing throughout the weekend.
Second, I've managed to blag another work trip, this time to Chicago, at the end of June. I've never been further east of West Virginia in the US, so visiting the Midwest should be very interesting. I've heard nothing but good things about Chicago, in terms of its architecture, museums, food and nightlife, so it should be a great few days.
I now have a myspace account, just like I'm some kind of crazy teenager or something! If you'd like to become my Internet "friend", or if you're a spambot and wish to sell me viagra, you can visit me here.
I watched Primer on DVD last night, a most unusual sci-fi film about a pair of techy friends who inadvertantly build a time machine in their garage. This leads to all sorts of confusion, including some Groundhog Day-style attempts to defuse a tense situation involving a gun-waving maniac at a party.
The movie is nothing like hysterical, slick and over-blown Hollywood sci-fi (Michael Bay's The Island springs to mind). Instead, it is set in the empty business parks and suburbs of what I assume is Northern California, the kind of locales that JG Ballard writes about so well. There is no Eureka! moment for the two protagonists on realising what they have created, but instead a kind of slow, stunned realisation of the implications of their discovery.
The film is extremely opaque in a variety of ways- dialogue is fragmentary, overlapping and tech-jargon heavy and it is shot in a flat, strangely lit tone. Most baffling is the plot itself, which makes sense very little, if at all, with doppelgangers, time-shifts, and a 3rd person voice over apparently being delivered by one of the main characters as a fugitive in an alternate future. Despite all this, the weirdness and distinctiveness held my attention, and it lasted just 80 mins- lucky, since much more would have given me a headache.
I recently bought some bookshelves from the retail panacea that is Ikea, allowing me to rearrange my CDs. As a result, I uncovered some albums I hadn't listened to for ages that were released pre-2000, so I thought I'd give them a listen and post some thoughts.
Lo-Fidelity Allstars: How to Operate With a Blown Mind. This lot were the future for about 5 minutes back in '98- the NME bracketed them in with the likes of Campag Velocet and Regular Fries as "Skunk Rock", which was a total non-starter if ever there was one. Anyway, this album is actually pretty good- the lead bloke declaims away in a Mark E Smith stylee, for that sense of urban dread, over some fairly interesting beats that are not too big beaty. There's one stand out track: Laser Sheep Dip Funk, which is fun day-glo disco of the best kind.
Mogwai: Young Team. Not negelected as the Lo-Fis- they've just put out a well received new album- but I hadn't listened to this in ages. It also holds up pretty well, and probably hasn't been bettered by the band themselves, although apparently their BBC Sessions release is very good. What was interesting was hearing the influence of stuff that I've listened after hearing Mogwai, most obviously Slint and associated bands. So a big thanks to Mogwai for turning me on to a lot of cool bands- and they're also one of the best live bands I've ever seen.
Mu-Ziq: Royal Astronomy. Sorely overlooked, this album is I think something of a minor classic. It reins in some of Mike Paradinas' wilder drill 'n bass (dig that scene!) impulses, instead concentrating on some really beautiful strings and martial beats, making the album sound a bit like the music from Fantasia beefed up a great deal. There's also one killer acid-jungle tune with a nasty vocal sample and an acid line that sounds like a swarm of bees on the attack.
All in all, I've enjoyed doing this, and might do some more- though the question is, is the world ready for the critical rehabilitation of Bentley Rhythm Ace? We shall see.
Now that the web is, according to people like this, more than just the web, I thought it was about time I made a token effort. This didn't involve "mashing up" Google Maps to create a coffee shop locator or some other "totally awesome" feat of programming, but instead putting my favourites on del.icio.us, to be found here.
Sarcasm aside, it's a really useful application, that has allowed me to very quickly discover (among other things) some interesting articles on the Google Print Library Project, on which I will be writing a no doubt fascinating dissertation over the summer.
Something to brighten up the dark days of January: yesterday, I booked tickets to All Tomorrow's Parties festival weekend 1, which is being curated by Mudhoney, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Devendra Banhart.
There are 9 of us in total going: myself, Jude, Nick, Tom, Scott, Annalise, Vanessa, Dan and Lesli. We have booked 2 chalets, which I think is good in itself: possibilities present themselves for having a "quiet" chalet and a "party" chalet.
Of the line up announced so far, I would like to see the headliners, the Drones, Black Mountain, Comets on Fire, Liars, Oneida, Watts Prophets, Bert Jansch and TV on the Radio. Half the fun of ATP, though, is coming across really cool bands you've never heard of. Another good thing about the bill is that the more downbeat stuff is on Devendra Banhart's day, Sunday, by which time in my experience you need a bit of a rest from the previous days' thunderous rock music and general indulgence.
