Aug. 15, 2012
“I see the people working and see it working for them.” (Sat In Your Lap)
The Dreaming by Kate Bush is a strange 1982 album that many believed had destroyed her career. Two weeks before her first ever performance of “Running Up That Hill”, the NME had written an editorial asking whether she had burnt herself out completely. Obviously “Running Up That Hill” (recently used to great effect in the Olympic Closing Ceremony) and the parent album “The Hounds Of Love” that followed showed that she had plenty more up her sleeve.
Tags: Understated Classics, Kate Bush, Music, Twelve, Pop, Rock, Electronic
Aug. 15, 2012
“The Gone-Away World” is a novel by Nick Harkaway. It’s about a world slightly askew to our own in which the powers-that-be have deigned to unleash a weapon that simply wipes the enemy out of existence. Unfortunately the enemies also have the same weapon and there are terrible consequences to the extent that the very fabric of reality is threatened. If you don’t already know what reification means, you will by the end.
Tags: Books, Nick Harkaway, Science Fiction, Twelve
Jul. 31, 2012
Just a short album digest this month. I bought a stack of CDs and am parcelling them out over the next few months (together with important additional releases as they crop up). This is in the hope that I can write more considered pieces about each one. This month I’ve grouped together albums with monochrome covers and a BT album from June that I found out about recently. These albums are not just linked by their artwork, they also form a cohesive whole.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, July, BT, Actress, Monolake, Mohn, Twelve
Jun. 30, 2012
Three fantastic albums for Album Digest June 2012:
Saint Etienne Words and Music by Saint Etienne Liars WIXIW Hot Chip In Our Heads This month is a curious selection in that the albums are all by bands that I already own a few records by. When there is so much other directly related material that you can write about, it makes focussing on the album in hand quite difficult. I am always thinking up rankings and comparisons.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, June, Saint Etienne, Liars, Hot Chip, Twelve
Jun. 29, 2012
This post is about the films of Wes Anderson. I am no expert, I’ve just watched them all recently (inspired by seeing “Moonrise Kingdom”) and spotted a some similarities and differences between the films and I thought it would be fun to write about them. My appearance on Mastermind with “The Films of Wes Anderson” as my specialist subject will have to wait for now. Feel free to add to the discussion in the comments.
Tags: Films, Lists, Wes Anderson, Twelve, Yellow
Jun. 25, 2012
As indicated by my reading list posted a couple of months ago (which has since been added to here), I’ve started to try to read more about the things that I felt that I did not understand so well. Most notably perhaps is this book “on love” by Helen Fisher. Lest there is any innuendo it is not a book about technique nor does it attempt to explain love to those who have never known it, instead it assumes that we have all been there.
Tags: Helen Fisher, Non Fiction, Books, Twelve, Self Improvement
Jun. 25, 2012
More books to add to the “University of life” course list. From top to bottom: I picked up “Generation X” for 50p in a charity shop in Tintagel. “Everything Is Going To Be OK” is a picture book full of inspirational mottos. “The Happiness Hypothesis” is the most useful and interesting book that I have read in a long while. I decided to read “How To Write A Sentence” as an alternative to Strunk and White’s “The Elements Of Style” which, while useful, can be a little stuffy!
Tags: Books, Lists, Photos, June, Twelve
Jun. 24, 2012
This arrived on Monday and I thought I would give it a post of its own because at over 3 hours of music, I am unlikely to do more than dip into it before writing the album digest next week. It is a far bigger and more enjoyable artefact than I thought it was going to be, so it probably deserves special attention for that reason too.
CAN are a German (“Krautrock”) band that I got into about four years ago after my interest in the genre was sparked by the “Neu!
Tags: Music, CAN, Twelve, Box Set, Rock
Jun. 17, 2012
Another book from the “university of life” pile (though not in the picture), “Gonzo” is the biography of Hunter S. Thompson in graphical form. In case you don’t know his work, Hunter S. Thompson was a journalist who invented the so-called “gonzo” style. This was basically to rock up at some major event and become embedded within it, usually writing up a long form piece from an outsider perspective. He was particularly famous for his work on the Hell’s Angels and Richard Nixon’s campaign for presidential re-election in 1972.
Tags: Books, Graphic Novel, Hunter S. Thomspon, Will Bingley, Anthony Hope-Smith, Twelve
Jun. 16, 2012
Tonight I avoided the first half of the football along with my friend Albert Jan and we went to watch “Moonrise Kingdom” at the wonderful Everyman cinema in Hampstead. It was a real treat in every sense. To start with, the Everyman is a lovely cinema. It is quite expensive but you do get what you pay for: a comfortable seat in a great theatre and the chance to watch more than just the latest blockbusters (though it shows those too).
Tags: Films, Wes Anderson, Twelve, Moonrise Kingdom
Jun. 5, 2012
Say what? We’re allowing compilations now?
Yes. Why not? A good mix is as much an artistic statement as a full-blown single artist album. It takes a lot of skill to get from A to B and keep everything on the boil in between. This Fabric mix by The Amalgamation Of Soundz is one of my favourites because it is a downtempo (but, crucially, not too downtempo) compilation delivered with flair and using what I consider to be unconventional sources (soundtracks, tribute albums, hip-hop) to do it.
Tags: Understated Classics, Fabric, Music, Twelve, Electronic
May. 31, 2012
Four albums for Album Digest May 2012:
Jack White Blunderbuss One Little Plane Into The Trees Beach House Bloom Oxia Tides Of Mind The April album digest was rather short on songs, so this month I decided to look for albums that were more based around songs not tracks. Electronic music is relatively easy to write about: the music is often simple (but not always), there are recognisable structures and genres (but not always), and there are conventions that are adhered to (but not always).
Tags: Music, Album Digest, May, Jack White, One Little Plane, Beach House, Oxia, Twelve