Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Strange Days Indeed!
It’s the first Friday of a new month (on some parts of the globe, anyway), so, please, come and join in the Zoom session, make yourselves comfortable with a refreshment of your choice, and share with us – what have you been reading / watching / listening to or otherwise consuming in the last month.
Have you been listening to more music than usual ? Comfort-binging on old episodes of Porridge? Baking ?
All best wishes to everyone – stay safe, stay sane
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FFS. Can’t just be Mancs though. Any coronamorons ’round your way?
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What does it sound like?:
bow church is a one man affair, courtesy of one David Whiting. It started out as a London based witch house (remember that?) project, but since Whiting’s move to Berlin has been absorbing influences from the experimental electronic and goth scenes there. Following 2018’s Canon, this new album is one of my favourites of the year so far, and definitely my favourite title.
Musically, it’s dark but melodic gothy electronica that takes in techno, ambient, and industrial, with a few hints of 80s synthpop as well. Thematically it seems to hearken back to pre-agricultural civilisations, with track titles like “Thaw”, “Hunt” and “Gather”. It’s tremendously atmospheric stuff that sounds superb played loud. I’m throwing around words like ‘dark’ and ‘goth’, but there’s also melody and beauty here, with the rush of transcendence the best electronic music offers. Imagine if the Chemical Brothers decided to skip headlining Glastonbury one year and instead did a gig wearing hoods and cowls in an ancient stone circle, with no audience and the mist pooling around their feet in the moonlight. Yeah, that good.
What does it all *mean*?
never know what to write here
Goes well with…
late » Continue Reading.
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If you’re wondering how you’re going to fill in your time for the next few months of lockdown, wonder no longer! Infinite Jest is an astonishing 99p on the kindle today.
Seriously, if you’ve ever wanted to tackle David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus, now is the time.
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I see that it was on this day, 50 years ago that the Beatles ended.
I got nothing [I was 6 and would have been out on my bike all day], but perhaps you have some remembrance of the day?
Or maybe you’d like to post your favourite Beatles song, or perhaps a playlist or video clip?
Or maybe, you’d like to tell us all why you still don’t get what all the fuss was about?
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Oh Massive, I know this is a trivial and very definitely first world problem, but it’s driving me nuts. I have an iphone for work, on which I keep some music, via itunes, and the iphone and PC it runs off are synced most days. With, to be fair, very little in the way of problems up to now. I have recently got a new iphone 11 (upgrade from an 8) and what’s happened to my music library on the phone is somewhat perplexing. The album covers for my various albums seem to have been randomly allocated , mostly to the wrong albums, but with some kind of pattern occasionally, and some are still correct. For example, Office Politics by the Divine Comedy shows the Foreverland cover. I Need a New War by Craig Finn, and We All Want the Same Things for that matter, show the Clear Heart Full Eyes cover. Clear Heart Full Eyes itself has the cover of Underwater Sunshine by the Counting Crows. Commontime by Field Music still has the right cover on the phone, but Open Here shows the Eliza Carthy Big Machine artwork. The Big Machine album shows the correct artwork. All the artwork » Continue Reading.
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I’m just tickling here so nothing pithy please.
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Is he right?
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Just over five years ago I acquired a “Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB”.
It’s seen sporadic use. At a guess, probably one hundred sides played, certainly no more than two hundred.
One of the reasons I’ve not used it so much is that it has a depressing tendency to jump, usually backwards. Mostly on my heritage collection but also on two brand new LPs. A good proportion of my older records are played-once, so they should be in pretty good nick. After I bought a cassette deck I copied all purchases straight on to tape and played the music from there – at that time I aspired to own a really good turntable one day* and wanted to “save” my precious records for that event. The advent of CDs eroded that dream – once I’d got a CD player the quality seemed great to my (not very discerning) ears and the rot set in.
(* I’d been indoctrinated by my father who had a pair of Garrard 401s with SME pickup arms.)
After a session last Sunday when six sides played yielded two jumping tracks I became a bit despondent. Then I started to wonder if I’d not set the » Continue Reading.
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What does it sound like?:
Well, that was unfortunate timing – after a time spent building an audience, Facebook followers, and YouTube views, Block 33 unleash their debut album (to be supported by an Album Launch Party at the 100 Club) at the start of April. But with the world in lockdown, the Album Launch Party is deferred to September. The album did come out as planned though – and it ain’t bad at all. It’s had a fair few spins, and there is a very high possibility this will be in the Year End lists. It’s a definite contender.
The official narrative (from the bands Facebook page): Block 33 are a brand new mod revival band from the South of England. The band are a familiar mix of Energetic driven guitars, rolling bass, charging punk rhythms & quintessentially British, rasping yet melodic vocals that altogether make for a nostalgic sound catered for fans of the modernist subculture.
Note the word “Energetic”. Yes, oh yes. There’s plenty of Energy here.
11 tracks all meeting the criteria/description above, with a blend of the familiar and the new. Do you want a simple redux description: Take the drive of Oasis, » Continue Reading.
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I was very amused by a piece by Nancy Banks Smith in today’s Guardian about the Queen’s speech to the nation on Sunday night. It mentions the time that T S Eliot came to the palace to read poetry.
“The royal family are not partial to posh poetry. The Queen Mother was once reported describing a poetry recital at Buckingham Palace during the war. “A rather lugubrious man in a suit read a poem. I think it was called The Desert. At first the girls got the giggles and then I did and then even the king. We didn’t understand a word. Such a gloomy man, he looked as if he worked in a bank.”
It was Old Possum in person who, when not dashing off The Waste Land, did indeed earn a crust in Lloyds. In view of the hostile audience reaction, someone should have warned TS Eliot to switch to his Book of Practical Cats. “ (Link to article posted in comments)
Anyway, I sent the article to a few friends and one of them countered with this clip of Alan Bennett reading from his short story “The Uncommon Reader” in which Queen Liz develops an illicit taste » Continue Reading.
Sad to hear that we have also lost Hal Willner who assembled the great ‘Stay Awake, interpretations of Disney film songs’ album and tribute albums to the music of Kurt Weill to this bastard virus yesterday.
Also it went under the radar that last week former Ze Records artist Christina Zilkha died … a quite unique artist and part of the New York scene.
Very sad both of these, it worries me how many more we will lose before their time.
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I need a little advice please. We have two identical 2009 Mac Book Pro OSX10.10.5 and my personal MBP which is 2015 OSX 10.14.6. My wife just pointed out that when she backs up her 2009 unit with time machine, when looking at the TM back ups, she can’t see the individual files eg 2019 invoices. This is the same on both the 2009 machines. Looking at the Time Machine back ups for my personal machine, approx 3 years old, I can see all photos, documents etc. The difference seems to be that on the 2009 units there is only a Shared folder rather than a folder named for the user, as on the 2015 unit. Is this normal? Are all the documents being backed up and just not visible?
Many thanks
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This album came to grief in the Pledge Music crash. However in June last year John Campbell gave notice of a Just Giving fund raiser to “finance the manufacture and publication of House for Sale”. I did go to Just Giving but could not find the campaign. I have heard nothing more in the intervening 10 months. I know a few others here had also paid money to Pledge Music – has anyone read/heard anything at all? Is it totally dead now? Is there any hope that it might come to pass that the disc gets released?
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I’ve been delivering for a well known online retailer for a couple of weeks now and it’s been a baptism of fire in some ways, not so much in others.
Induction was reduced to one short day where more time was spent telling us about how to drive a van safely than about how to use the delivery app which is now installed on my phone. The induction used to be 2 days, then 2 days out with an experienced driver but they can’t have people in such close proximity so we were just thrown in the deep end although given shorter “nursery routes” to help us get used to things.
I hadn’t realised that the rounds are staggered during the day. I’ve no idea what time the first ones leave but I’ve had 2 different time slots so far: enter depot at 10.10 or 11.20, queue to be moved onto loading area approximately 20 minutes later. During this time you are sent route details and you need to make a list of the order of the parcel bags so that the van is loaded in the correct order so as not to waste time looking for the next bag » Continue Reading.
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This drawing fun for all the family will easily fill up at least 120 seconds of your day with high level entertainment, while also improving your artistic prowess no end. Good luck!
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13/04/2020
This may be of interest to those of a folky bent. The excellent Folk on Foot podcast is streaming a virtual festival on Easter Monday with artist like Bella Hardy, Julie Fowlis, Jon Boden, Martin Simpson and Karine Polwart all performing thirty minute sets form their front rooms. It’s a great line up. They are fundraising as well, and splitting the proceeds equally between the artists and the charity Help Musicians UK.
These performers have all been on the podcast and have been uniformly excellent, so it should be a good one
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Interesting article from The Quietus from ex-Word scribe about who were the biggest winners in the download & streaming wars
https://thequietus.com/articles/28068-napster-metallica-dre-beats
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As soon as I heard he had contracted the virus I reckoned he was a goner given his health issues and age.
Glad he was still touring and getting heaps of recognition in his twilight.
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Where do we go from here?
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Series 3 (1950s, 60s & 70s) of my fave BBC Radio 4 doc starts today.
“Clarke Peters continues his compelling history of Black music in Europe.”
Previous 6 episodes available to listen online. Cough {get_iPlayer} cough.
Any excuse to post some Nick Drake.
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While I am not a fan of him or his politics, I really hope he pulls through. What a devastating situation.
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What does it sound like?:
Here are the facts – this is a live recording of Judy Dyble and the Band Of Perfect Strangers. They are accompanied by the Ad Hoc strings. The performance was at St Barnabas’s Church in Cambridge, in September 2016.
I thought I had heard very little of Judy’s work. I’m sure I have heard her album as a member of Fairport Convention and probably some Trader Horne. Beyond that I thought I was ignorant, but according to Wikipedia (I don’t have any biography or sleeve notes to go with this) she retired from music in 1973, with a few appearances at Fairport reunions being her sole output until she returned to the music business in 2003. So it seems that there is not that much of a gap in my knowledge given that much of her catalogue since 2003 has only had limited release. Looking at Discogs the eight albums she has made since she returned in 2003 have been released on fairly obscure, independent labels.
So, potted history aside, what’s the album like, you want to know.
Can a record be too polite? In a song titled Silence, Judy sings (albeit with respect » Continue Reading.
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£3,000 to be a honoured guest? Am I reading that right?
https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
