Apr. 30, 2013
Some great albums this month!
The Flaming Lips The Terror Wire Change Becomes Us James Blake Overgrown The Knife Shaking The Habitual The Flaming Lips The Terror How you view The Terror pretty much depends on how much you have kept up with The Flips output since their last official album, the clanking double behemoth in Merkin packaging that was Embryonic. The irony being that I used Embryonic to deal with a break-up and The Terror is pretty much about… a break-up.
Tags: Album Digest, April, Music, The Flaming Lips, Wire, James Blake, The Knife, Thirteen
Apr. 11, 2013
I was fifteen when I first read “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac and recently, after twice as much lifetime lived, I was able to watch the film version directed by Walter Salles.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
Tags: Books, Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac, Thirteen, Fiction, Films
Mar. 31, 2013
Just the David Bowie album this month as it’s pretty much the only new music that I’ve listened to.
I must admit that I had no idea what to expect of “The Next Day”. It comes almost exactly ten years after “Reality”, an album that I have never really got into despite it having some pretty decent fun tracks like “New Killer Star” and a nice cover of “Pablo Picasso” that has never sent me in search of Jonathan Richman’s original.
Tags: Album Digest, March, Music, David Bowie, Thirteen
Mar. 18, 2013
A while back, I decided I was going to write about the Iain M. Banks sci-fi-novels (mainly as a respite from having to read and write about J. G. Ballard novels, but I only got as fas as writing about the excellent “Against A Dark Barkground” and re-reading the first of the Culture novels “Consider Phlebas”. WARNING: Some plot spoilers follow (but not too many).
I’m not sure why it has taken almost two years to write about this novel.
Tags: Books, Iain M. Banks, Science Fiction, Thirteen
Mar. 13, 2013
“Walking With Thee” is the second album by Liverpool band Clinic. It was released in 2002, which seems like an age ago now. Even longer ago they released the single “The Return of Evil Bill”, which was got me interested in them in the first place.
I recently got back into “Walking With Thee” when I picked “Vulture” in my A-Z of Animals playlist last month. I’d forgotten just how great a song it is, both musically and lyrically.
Tags: Understated Classics, Music, Clinic, Thirteen, Rock
Mar. 5, 2013
I have had a lot of ideas for posts swirling around in my head in recent days. This is because I have actually done quite a lot of cool things in that time, and because I have hung out with some great people who make me think, and because I always have a whole load of things bouncing around in there anyway - space junk of the mind. I was thinking about how to put together these thoughts I have been having about art and about stories and yes, about love too.
Tags: Art, Laurie Spiegel, A Bigger Splash, Thirteen, Music, Electronic, Tate Modern
Feb. 28, 2013
Most Februaries are quite quiet when it comes to albums (though this was not the case back in 2011) and although only the Foals album is a major release, I was quite surprised to find myself with four decent albums to write about. They are:
Darkstar “News From Nowhere” Foals “Holy Fire” Daniel Hope “Spheres” Apparat “Krieg und Frieden (Music For Theatre)” Darkstar “News From Nowhere” I don’t need to give too much biographical background for the Darkstar album as I don’t know too much about who the are.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, February, Darkstar, Foals, Daniel Hope, Apparat, Thirteen
Feb. 26, 2013
The existence, or impending existence, of a new novel by Thomas Pynchon was announced today. I have all his previous books (seven written over a period of about fifty years, a pace that I definitely approve of), though he’s a hard author to get close to: I’ve only finished three and started four up till now. The unfinished one is, of course, Gravity’s Rainbow (GR) and somewhat perversely, I have two copies of the thing.
Tags: Books, Thomas Pynchon, Thirteen, Fiction
Feb. 11, 2013
The other weekend, beset by insomnia, I decided to follow my own advice and get up to do something instead of wallowing unable to sleep. I pulled my emergency jigsaw out of the cupboard and set to it. I should stress that I mean a jigsaw puzzle and not an actually jigsaw: DIY at 2am is not such a good idea!
I’d forgotten how interesting jigsaw puzzles actually are. As I sat there contemplating the 1000 pieces and wondered exactly what I’d let myself in for, I found myself thinking about a number of things.
Tags: Fun, Games, Thirteen
Jan. 31, 2013
Only one of this month three albums was actually released this month. Nelly Furtado’s Mi plan was actually released over three years ago - I only discovered it last year when I wrote the September album digest following the release of “The Spirit Indestructible”, or it might have been when I wrote about “Folklore” at around the same time.
Anyway, I guess these are albums that I bought with my Christmas gift vouchers!
Tags: Music, Album Digest, January, Everything Everything, Frank Ocean, Nelly Furtado, Thirteen
Dec. 31, 2012
Three albums (one very Christmassey one!) and an EP this month.
Tracey Thorn “Tinsel and Lights” Woob “Have Landed” Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin “Instrumental Tourist” Burial “Truant / Rough Sleeper Tracey Thorn “Tinsel and Lights” “Tinsel and Lights” is that rarest of records, a Christmas record that is perfectly suited to the season and is not in any way overbearing or irritating. Most albums that are Christmas themed are usually centred on lots of covers that are taken from a small subset of well worn classics.
Tags: Album Digest, December, Music, Tracey Thorn, Woob, Tim Hecker, Daniel Lopatin, Burial, Twelve
Nov. 29, 2012
Pretty much a sliding scale between songs and electronic wibble on this month’s albums and a particularly damp, chilly feeling to proceedings too.
Bat For Lashes “The Haunted Man” Ital “Hive Mind” and “Dream On” Björk “Bastards” Brian Eno “Lux” Bat For Lashes “The Haunted Man” When it comes to Bat For Lashes, I prefer her first album “Fur And Gold” to her second “Two Suns” because when I listen to the latter I don’t feel connected to any of the songs.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, November, Bat for Lashes, Ital, Bjork, Brian Eno, Twelve