audiovisuals

back from a thoroughly enjoyable, if not a little flat-strap tour of melbourne and its people. was good to feel part of the rhythms again though. there's a lot to like there. but it remains a future contingency for the moment, and perth has plenty to keep my thoughts busy. my raw comedy semi-final is on this thursday at the charles street hotel, and i'm doing a run through of the material at the shapiro comedy night at the brisbane hotel on tuesday. i'm rather excited actually. and if the prospect of 5 solid minutes of jokes about cancer gets you all hot under the collar then you should come to one/both of them. tumour humour is the new aids.

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remember prince? me too. what i don't remember is this 1987 incident involving james brown and a black michael jackson all whiling out on stage together. only problem is that prince seems like he may be a little... hepped up. as they say on the streets. best vocal performance ever? almost definitely



if i was manager of an office, everyone would be using hawaii chairs. hell, i'm tempted to get one for home. i just can't get that jingle out of my head...



and finally for some audio. radiohead's 'in rainbows' was not only a pretty stonking album, it was also a pretty stonking exercise in the capacities of digital distribution. their 'pay as much as you want' policy was both reasonably revolutionary, and awesome. of course a subsequent experiment by the slightly less cultish trent reznor and saul williams entitled 'the inevitable rise and liberation of niggy tardust' has not fared so well, but the idea of freely available music underpinning a new musical economy is kinda intoxicating. but i digress. yesterday i stumbled upon a project by producer/dj amplive called 'rainydayz', a hip-hop recreation of 'in rainbows'. despite being hit with a cease and desist halfway through, amplive managed to plead his case and now the album is available for FREE from the website behind these words. While it's a little patchy, there's some pretty cool tracks on there and it also features vocals by a whole suite of mcs, including perennial favourites chali 2na (who has the deepest voice in the universe) and del the funky homosapien (who doesn't). definitely worth the download though. think of it as doing your bit for the new musical age.

the party tracks

now, this is where it gets fun. just in time for new years. if you're still browsing around the internet at this hour. in which case there's every chance your new years might not be quite so... rocking....

so. this is the year that i found myself introduced to the (sometimes) glorious world of mp3 blogs, with its immense bounty of variable quality music. it's been rather interesting to watch an entire genre of music be shaped and subject to the vagaries of these abstracted, dispersed institutions, but there's no denying their effectiveness. and addictiveness. i went from checking two blogs at the start of the year to having RSS feeds from at least 30 by the end. i've seen blogs come and go, fallen in and out of love with different blogs, started contributing to one in particular (the mighty electrorash) and downloaded a huge, huge amount of new, exciting music. all in pursuit of some yet to be fulfilled dream of djing. sigh. but i tell you, it has been fucking hard to trim it all back to 5 party tracks, but, well, here we are.

pharaoe monch - body baby (sinden and the count of monte cristal remix)

one of the more intriguing sub-genres to have burst to the fore this year has been the aptly named 'fidget house', a kind of squelchy cross-breed of b-more/crunk and electro. it can be a little obscure (switch tracks especially can be reasonably alienating if its any earlier than 3am on a given club night; around then though it goes down an absolute treat) but they're always fun, a bit tongue in cheek and a bit different. it has to be said that all of the sinden and count of monte cristal collaborations sound exactly the same, but that in no way stops them from being awesome. as dan pointed out, if you put this tune on in the background, absolutely everyone in the room will start nodding along. supremely funky, with great chopped up vocals from mr monch and a lot of handclaps.

digitalism - pogo (shinichi osawa remix)

shinichi osawa has got to be my producer of the year. he's been kicking around the electronic music scene since the early 90s, so, as you'd expect, his remix work is a cut above the rest of the electro bandwagon dross. brilliantly produced, respectful of the original, with heaps of melody and wonderfully hectic drum lines, and always driving as fuck. also, he really likes his build-ups. that gets you lots of brownie points in my books. this is shinichi remix work at its best. it still sounds like pogo, but it's harder, has better breakdowns/build-ups and is all round immaculately produced. even people who don't like dance music like this track. thoroughly recommended.

simian mobile disco - sleep deprivation

the opening track from SMD's superlative 'attack decay sustain release', sleep deprivation is a creeping, epic, meldodic stomper. emerging from absolute silence, it takes about a minute before it gets to full volume, and from there it just builds and builds. brilliant set starting or set ending material, it does exactly what the name suggests: gets yo lazy ass moving.

electronic battle weapon 8 - the chemical brothers

speaking of superlative: HOLY FLURKING SCHNIT. this song is off the fucking charts. first heard at fabric last year, it made both me and dan lose our goddamn minds. and it still has the same effect now. this song is essentially all build-up. after a couple of minutes of teasing you with a quirky, rolling beat it absolutely unleashes and rarely lets up for the rest of the track. the break down sections are filled with such suppressed energy i can barely contain myself, and then every time it drops i turn into a shouting, jumping, arm flailing madman. it really is something else. one of the best pieces of dance music i've ever heard. my god the chemical brothers are good.

timbaland - miscommunication (the bloody beetroots remix)

the bloody beetroots have been intimidatingly prolific this year, seemingly busting out a new remix every fortnight or so. however, unlike many of their effusive electro contemporaries, most of these remixes are actually good. this one especially. man i listened to this a lot. it basically alternates between a few different phases for the entire length of the track, but each part sounds differently, and equally, joyous and filled with party. as will you be when you listen to it. joyous and filled with party. sweet.

the albums

i procured a lot of new music this year. when i talked about bandwidth consumption before, it must be admitted that a fair portion of it also went on the seemingly endless travels through the jungle of mp3 blogs in the pursuit of new, and typically banging music. of course this kind of musical exploration tends to militate against the enjoyment of full albums, but there still remained a few which really captured my interest through the year. here's five of them. in no particular order. with sample mp3s. hip hip.




burial - untrue

only released in november, a huge amount has already been written about this sophomore effort from secretive dubstep producer burial. secretive as in apparently only a few people know who he is in real life. how delightfully intriguing. but that kind of ambiguity fits the music perfectly, a relentlessly atmospheric blend of garage-revivalism, ambient washes, distorted vocals and thick as night bass pulses. untrue is what everyone says it is: the perfect soundtrack to every rainy night in the city, replete with the half-glimpsed echoes of the evening just past. different and masterful. listen to it on a good set of speakers.

burial - untrue




the field - from here we go sublime

a charmingly minimal cover for a charmingly minimal album; this was the cd that really set me off onto my minimal techno semi-frenzy. having always been a bit of a minimal hater prior to this point, actually enjoying this album came as a bit of a surprise. becoming lightly obsessed with it even more so. with the amount of study i was (purportedly) doing this year, half the appeal of minimal was the lack of action within individual tracks. but the thing is, once you really start floating along with them, you realise how exquisitely crafted they often are, how the addition of a single element can completely change the tenor of a tune, sweeping you along in the hypnotic wash of its subtly shifting repetitions. the remarkable thing about this album is its ability to make warm and oddly beautiful the glacial numbness of its skittering beats, a problem (at least to me) which much minimal struggles to overcome. the fifth track, everyday is a case in point. thick bass drones serve as the platform for a chopped up, sharp edged drum loop, which gives way to arcing bursts of melody that cascade up and down the octave before the strangled loops of a distorted human voice phases in and suddenly it sounds as rich and full as anything you've heard. glorious. possibly sublime.

the field - everyday



radiohead - in rainbows

in addition to being one of the better experiments in the power and potential of the internet to revolutionise the music industry, this was also, and more importantly, a great album. in rainbows is probably about as poppy as radiohead have ever gotten, but they've achieved it without surrendering any of their sadness and anger. while, by and large, i don't have much time for the mumblings of indie rock anymore, there's just something about radiohead which i find immediately and utterly engaging. they're all wonderfully crafted and varied songs here, and thom yorke is in fine form, doing what he does best: depressing the fuck out of everything withing audible range. unfortunately the album is no longer available for download (where one could pay what they thought the album was worth - even if that was $0), but it's well worth finding in plastic form if you haven't already.

radiohead - reckoner



gui boratto - chromophobia

his kompakt record label affiliations aside, i don't really see gui boratto as being particularly minimalist. he's a bit more booka shade by my reckoning, although with a slightly harder and more propulsive edge. but even that's a fairly partial account of chromophobia. one of the better descriptions came from the pitchfork review, which described boratto as a 'sleight-of-speed' master; his tracks are produced to generate the auditory illusion that different elements are moving at different speeds. but at the same time these tunes retain a proper sense of both momentum and melody, and it is this that makes chromophobia feel like such a cohesive album. whereas 'from here we go sublime' can sometimes feel like a grab bag of individual exercises in minimalism loosely thrown together, there is no doubting the arc of chromophobia. the beginning songs are coated in paranoia and industrial-edged scattershot, while the middle part, from the title track on, swing more towards the minor change melodic house so beloved of 2006, before warming up into the expansive and glorious 'beautiful life', the album's anthemic climax, which leads on into a final descent into melancholy. it's a pretty sweet ride.

gui boratto - beautiful life



justice - †

it had to get in there. the bizarre thing about this album was the fact that it was almost as good as everyone thought it was going to be. because those were some pretty fucking high expectations. i'm not going to say too much about it, because the web is already drenched enough in laudatory writings about justice as is, but suffice to say that in 2007 this album (possibly alongside daft punk's alive) seemed to catalyse a particular generation's newly relaxed attitudes towards electronic music. and unadulterated hedonism. it was also the year in which i learnt to stop worrying and love electro. it's a fun time to be young and irresponsible.

justice - genesis

thank heaven for little girls

there's something intrinsically wrong with that title, isn't there? something fundamentally creepy and unwholesome? fortunately for me, and for the school-age female population of perth, it wasn't my idea. part of my christmas loot this year was the very funny tom reynolds book "touch me i'm sick: the 52 creepiest love songs you've ever heard", pseudo-sequel to "i hate myself and i want to die: the 52 most depressing songs you've ever heard". in the former, reynolds explores in some depth the song "thank heaven for little girls" from the 1958 musical gigi. the films is ostensibly about the blossoming relationship between the eponymous gigi and her ardent admirer gaston. but, there's a catch: gigi is being groomed to be a courtesan. for those not overly well-versed in the vagaries of early 20th century french culture that means whore. high class perhaps, but there remains a definite emphasis upon the exchange of money for particular services. luckily gaston, who, classy rogue that he is, was in line to be gigi's first client, decides he'd prefer a more long-term arrangement and so marries her instead. presumably buying out the madame. oh happy day.

luckily this was 1958, and they probably referred to it in such charmingly clothed language as 'seamstressing', but it doesn't change the fact that the song which bookends the film is reasonably unnerving.



even beyond the atrocity that is mr chevalier's french accent, and the fact that a seventy year old man wearing a top hat is sitting in a park watching a suite of young girls frolicking, certain lines have become reasonably distressing over the past 50 odd years. for instance, the refrain 'their little eyes, so helpless and appealing' has not, it must be said, aged all that well, while his later spoken word break "it's about one in particular, that one, her name is gigi. giiiiigiiiiii. hehe. what you have to look forward to. hehe. gigi." sounds sleazy, even by french standards. he is, after all, predicting her eventual passage towards prostitution. and as reynolds puts it, the man 'beams like a lighthouse on amyl nitrate'.

sure it's well-meaning, and musicals aren't necessarily the best candidates for literal interpretation, but times have changed. when one talks about their affection for children these days, the fewer specifics the better. the phrase 'i love children' is endearing. the phrase 'i love eight year olds' is not. if this guy let rip into song during the interview, i can't help but feel that his chances of procuring a 'working with children' card from the police department would be shit to none. now we just have to work out how to keep him out of the parks...

lingual luke loves liminal language

as we run toward the end of the year, the mass of printed and digital media becomes overrun with lists: the oddest, the best, the worst, the newest, the most confusing, the cringeful, the other. but two additions to this efflux which caught my eye over the last couple of days have been contributions regarding the state of the english language throughout 2007.

first we have ben schott's (he of the miscellanies and almanacs) appraisal of the neologisms (new words) bequeathed to us by the media in 2007. you can find the full listing here, but these are some of my favourites

Pitch Beast • animals used in advertising: usually cute, for example penguins. (or crocodiles)

Ghost Flights • empty aircraft flown only to keep key airport ‘runway slots’. (seems environmentally sound)

Pansurgency • global terror threat, defined by the US National War College as a strategy to ‘incite worldwide insurgencies to overthrow Western ideals and replace them with a new world order under radical views of Islam’. (i get the feeling that me and the good people at the US National War College could differ on certain fundamental precepts of the international order)

Podslurping • illicit copying of data to a portable storage device (eg, iPod). (i can't think of too many people who could actually fill their ipods without it)

Folksonomy • user-generated index to online content, created by linking descriptive tags to content. Thus Tagging • adding descriptive tags to online content to aid searching. (this consumed at least 2500 words of my thesis)

Cyber-vetting • using the web to assess the (inter)Net Rep(utation) of potential employees/employers/lovers. (yeah... if a prospective employer ever chose to casually browse through my myspace/facebook pics, i can't help but feel it would be that much harder for me to secure employment...)

[courtesy of the times]

and second we have merriam-webster's recent declaration of their new word of the year: w00t. yes, that's right, w00t. from abc news (in america):

"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher's online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.

Merriam-Webster's president, John Morse, said "w00t" was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.

i'm so glad that he used the word 'whimsy'

[seen at neatorama]

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in totally non-self-conscious fashion, i'm going to throw up a few of my own lists over the next few days. expect albums, artists and youtube vids. in five or ten entry format. depends how hard i find it to whittle down.

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had another dose of chemo yesterday and still seem to be remarkably unaffected. no nausea, no disintegrating nails (yet), no rashes, no cramps. moreover, thanks to the immune boosting super shot from last week, my white blood count is through the roof, making me feel lightly invincible. so much so that i just bought myself a ticket to daft punk.



oh. fuck. yeah.