Campari Photoshopping Once More

There was a minor uproar late last year when Campari, the alcoholic apertif, decided to photoshop Jessica Alba down around her waist, essentially pushing her to a point nearly beyond shapely recognition. Now the company has made the decision to hire Eva Mendes and Salma Hayek and although Hayek’s are basically just polished to make her look like a plastic doll, some of the Mendes photos have seen her bustline shopped literally beyond comprehension.

The question someone must surely be asking by this point is why? Why does his company continue to hire these notoriously beautiful women and then crush them into some bizarre form of ‘accepted’ beauty? Beautiful women photographed by someone with ability need no editing to still look beautiful. Surely, surely, there is someone in advertising/publishing that understands this. Isn’t there?

Arts: Sam’s Albums of the Year

It’s been an excellent year for albums, a host of career-best performances and a slew of records which seems perfectly to capture the mood of western nations. A mix of cathartic rage and reluctant hope for a new age as the Bush years ended in the most miserable fashion. The albums I’ve chosen all seem to capture at least a part of this prevailing mood and understand that the collective consciousness desires party and loud, head-clearing tunes to forget, but also songs that empathise with the downer culture so slyly farmed into existence in the past eight years. So, without further rambling ado, my albums of the year, post-jump of course.

13. Deerhunter – Microcastle / Atlas Sound – Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

Those who know me will tell you that this choice is a nye-on miracle. Deerhunter sit inside a bubble of my musical mind, alongside Animal Collective, as a band which all sources I trust seem to love but that I just don’t get. I still don’t like Deerhunter’s previous album, Cryptograms, but Microcastle has burrowed into my mind with espionage-like stealth. I’ve come to appreciate the album in the past few weeks as something of a modern, psych-ambience minor masterpiece. It’s far from perfect but when it hits its stride, as on the superb ‘Nothing Ever Happened’, it’s a truly incredible album. Microcastle shares its spot with Atlas Sound’s Let the Blind… partly because Deerhunter’s Bradford James Cox is the band, but also because the two albums share a similar space of finding a spacey beauty inside sounds to encourage feelings of isolation and loneliness. Two minor works of brilliance, and a musical hurdle overcome. Animal Collective, you’re next.

12. Rachael Yamagata – Elephants… Teeth Sinking into Heart

Yamagata has become the Emmylou Harris of her time, lending lush vocal harmonies to a number of semi-indie luminaries, most notably working alongside Ryan Adams and Conor Oberst. Her second album picked up where its predecessor left off, producing astonishingly beautiful, languid and touching hymns about the kind of calming, soothing love you imagine is practiced among only the effervescently artistic sects. Along with her encompassing voice, she’s also a sterling songwriter and here finds more time to allow her voice to frame the songs while never skimping on the semi-country arrangement, placing her closer to being a less-caustic version of Jenny Lewis. The most lasting moment comes with ‘Don’t’, a fragile, to the point of the listener fearing it could disappear at any second, and heartcrushing piece that should soundtrack everyone’s favourite indie movie love scene next year. In a world where Duffy is among our top sellers, more people should venture further back in the alphabet in their local record store and treat themselves to something with a little more soul than a Dusty impressionist.

11. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig Lazarus Dig

All these years gone and yet, everytime he return to the fray, Nick Cave continues to produce funky, dirty and weird records that, with growing frequency, rock like the angriest punks in your local dive. While Dig Lazarus Dig never really scales the heights of the ridiculously brilliant Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus from a couple of years back, it does incorporate much of the garage band thesis explored on Grinderman into the general sketch of the new work. Dig Lazarus Dig rocks and swings hard, sounding like The Stooges one minute, The Doors the next. It’s groovy, sexy and oddly sensual in places, although the kind of sensual that carries an element of danger and potential doom in the distance. If nothing else, Cave appears to have embraced age with vigour, both accepting the march towards death and simultaneously rejecting all the conventions that should transform him into the most gentle of rock dinosaurs. Instead of falling into that trap, Cave continues to impress and could still kick any young band around seven ways from Sunday on stage.

10. Why – Alopecia

Categorising is much derided amongst musicians but so often they make music which can so easily be filed within a given section. Why isn’t quite uncategorisable but the music on Alopecia certainly skirts a rarely-successfully-tread line between alternative rap and modern indie rock. There are moments on this record that make you forget this entirely as stories are weaved around crisp wordplay and love/hate vocals, then followed by a soaring chorus and some bombastic, yet somehow still understated, backdrops. It remains low key throughout as lead man Yoni Wolf deals up tales that managed to be down and up, often within the same verse, while retaining a political bent without falling into prosletysing. Sometimes beautiful and usually at least intelligent, this is the kind of cerebral mixture of hip hop, electronica and indie which rises above the alienating experimentalism of previous efforts within the ‘genre’. Try before you buy but I promise you won’t be disappointed if you give time.

9. Portishead – Third

Portishead were always brilliant. They plowed their own furrow which was ripped off by a number of less suitors to their crown in the future who forgot to write their ‘dinner party music’ with the kind of depth that meant that while pleasant, Portishead always created records which dug deeper than your average. Doubts that third might not work seem only to be based on other bands coming back after lengthy hiatuses and all were rewarded with maybe, just maybe, their absolute best album. Third is oddly confrontational, setting out with something to prove and proceeding to prove every inch promised. The music flits between relentless beauty and harsh, sexy noise. Beth Gibbons asserts herself across the tunes, bringing folksy charm to songs that in sound batter, beat and lull. ‘Machine Gun’ and ‘The Rip’ stand out but so much here just transcends the ‘comeback’ tag, leaving all the pretenders yet again wondering what they can possibly offer.

8. Grouper – Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

Entirely thanks to my lovable and oft-unstoppably drunk writing buddy John, Grouper have entered my life and look unlikely to leave anytime soon. If a more haunting record is released in the coming year, nightmares of the most ethereal kind will ensue. If a folk revolution was allegedly started in the past year through Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver, this album should be the true frontrunner for attempting to drag folk music into a new era. Reverb saturated mood pieces all with liberal sprinklings of open-tune acoustic guitar frame the voice of Liz Harris. The songs drone and shift slowly around, always grasping attention while never on their knees pleading your listening time. This is music to soundtrack the very calmest times prior to the harshest storms and might well be the most beautiful album of the year which never seems to be aiming to create anything to be termed under the conventions of traditional beauty.

7. No Age – Nouns

Possibly the perfect album to follow on from Grouper, sharing a space entirely left of that band but occupying a spiritual kinhood space in which music is made with bull-minded singularity, looking to simultaneously be cathartic and oppressive. No Age produce some of the best noise rock this side of anywhere. The full album is a short, sharp shock of pummelling guitars which never outstay their welcome. They almost never reveal any sort of pop sensibilities and yet the album itself is near sing-along in places. It’s addictive, violent and burning with youthful rage. It may never have aimed to find itself on such a mantle, but this is the record that most succinctly represents the mood of so many young people, only in the past year finally understanding the pain their parents have experienced in living under the policies and missions of the Bush administration. This album finds the primal scream so many of the politically-savvy would want to throw into the world and, more than any of this, it rocks its fucking balls off.

6. Frightened Rabbit – Midnight Organ Fight

I mentioned earlier that people buying the bloodless music of Duffy should seek further back and find themselves some Rachael Yamagata. Well, on an even broader note, all of those who this year indulged in purchasing Coldplay, Glasvegas and Snow Patrol for their Range Rover stereos should reconsider and get themselves Midnight Organ Fight. All of the bands above undoubtedly write and produce some wonderful songs, but they are so hard to like because such as sense of commercialist ambition seeps into their personas (less so Glasvegas, in fairness). This album blows all out of the water, both in terms of soaring choruses and songs which manage to blend Nick Cave-like lines of caustic romance and heartbreak with a gritty, hard Scottish singer’s love of lilting/bold vocal choices. Every song on here could so easily fill the air at Glastonbury but will never get such a chance, maybe a good thing for us fans. This is music that feels like it belongs to the listener, like it was made in diary entry form and we now hear the heart of the man pouring into the ether. If their brilliance at writing stirring modern rock songs was matched by success commercially, Chris Martin would start to sleep very poorly indeed.

5. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

Last year, The Hold Steady created the album which, alongside The Shins’ Chutes Too Narrow, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoise and The Mountain Goats’ The Sunset Tree, as my favourite record since the turn of the century. Stay Positive is a fine follow-up to that epochal work of genius which struggles to maintain the highs but provides much food for thought for future Hold Steady full-lengths. The highpoints are outstanding (as I mentioned in my songs of the year post previously) but the overall mood is less open and friendly than Boys and Girls in America. This isn’t a party album, this is the morning and the year after the party. You have boyfriends trying to find middle grounds in burgeoning relationships, being arrested after a hard-drinking night in Memphis and other pieces which locate darker sides of growing up and the problems we all face. It’s another of the records I cited earlier as capturing a mood amongst listeners of pessimism for the future but this time finds that optimism that surely all now have during the age of Obama. It’s not by any means an explicitly political record but The Hold Steady do seem to focus on finding that mood of listeners. On Boys and Girls they blew out the party, examining the melancholy of youth and now they find the that melancholy flourishing and need to resolve to beat the downer. Still, if nothing else excites you about that, it does include the line ‘Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer/I think he might have been our only decent teacher’ on ‘Constructive Summer’, maybe the single finest thing in the band’s entire canon.

4. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

Hyped through roofs covering other roofs, Bon Iver’s record justifies the vast majority of the slavering praise smothered on it throughout the year. It is certainly amongst the most jarring, wrenching heartbreak albums ever committed to vinyl, served well by its backstory of being created in hermit-like isolation by Justin Vernon where only his thoughts, which were likely unpleasant, angry and sad, could accompany him. Despite that, he finds a space of folk music which draws somewhat on the cathartic kind of indie rock perfected on the debut of Arcade Fire, blowing his top about love and life with nothing held back and all forms of sympathy and empathy elicited. When he allows himself to bring arrangements on top, he’s a dab hand at avoiding this becoming a distraction from his cutting voice, an instrument in its own right that he uses primarily for throat-shredding emotion which characterises the mood of his album. Not to end on a downer for Vernon, but you wonder where he can go next. Heartbreak is a deep well to be mined, but his experience here seems of such grave importance to his emotional state that you wonder whether going beyond the second and third records, quite what he will provide his audience with that can match what he served up for the debut.

3. Fucked Up – Chemistry of Common Life

The most brilliant hardcore record since the century rolled over, Fucked Up have created a brutally angry, epic rock album that, like the best genre albums you will hear, pushes boundaries while also adhering to the tick-boxes of its chosen musical sector. Fucked Up’s record, their best by a distance, starts with flute which must at least partially reference the prog adventures of Jethro Tull, before launching into the slow-motorik guitars which back the guttural howl of singer Pink Eyes. The record flirts on the edges of prog constantly, allowing the songs to breath far more than the more punk-leaning portions of the hardcore world, which mostly serves to provide an indication of the kind of guitar brilliance that does exist in the genre’s internal world. They put all others to shame with their chops and the conviction of the album which really does provide the world with the kind of primal scream more would enjoy could they find the bravery needed to embrace such an adventurous, essentially punk band.

2. M83 – Saturdays=Youth

Three albums in and M83 have found a groove they like at last. Their first two albums, mostly MBV-aping and occassionally brilliant, have been distilled through a lens covered entirely with records that soundtracked the best John Hughes movies in the 1980s. Saturdays=Youth is the soundtrack to the movie Hughes would have made today, indulging heavily in teenage pretension and woe-is-me romanticism but all set to rousing, thick dream-pop and only, at just the right times, entering back into soundscaping guitar at crescendo to send songs out on supersonic highs. While it’s essentially just a case of the band taking its sound and throwing it through the pop mixer, the discipline with which they play and indulge in whims and yet maintain the structure and quality of the songs is astounding. The very best moments, especially ‘Graveyard Girl’, explore emotions that most of the gothmo bands peddling black eye-liner and self-harm could never capture while avoiding over-sympathising with its protagonist, allowing us as the audience to decide how we feel about the character M83 put forward to us. You may find that their heroines and heroes are a turn off, too much teenage romance and sugar-sweet melody, but walk away from this lot at your peril because beneath such superficiality lies losing-virginity album of this decade.

1. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

The first two (widely available) records from TVOTR are brilliant in their own right. The first is inventive and plucky, innovative in the most charming way in blending indie, electronics and doo-wop. The second is astounding, one of the finest of the past five years, a claustrophobic epic which explicitly explores the kind of negative mood that the world was experiencing at the time. Neither were fun. They are brilliant, but Dear Science is everything I ever wanted to hear when expecting another album from TVOTR. It’s warm, live-sounding and empathetic. It’s funky, almost Prince-funky in so many places, and its optimistic. ‘Golden Age’ is peppered with incredible musicianship of the kind Nile Rodgers would be proud and provides a prophetic anthem surely influenced by the kind of hope audacious proposed by Barack Obama and his rise. Outside of that, they make sexy and dirty pop songs, still filtered through the avant-lense favoured by Tyondai Braxton, and even indulge themselves in one song, in ‘Shout Me Out’, that kicks into gear in the finest fashion of the most fist-pumping rock music available. Dear Science is by such a distance the year’s best album, it becomes near unfair to compair. Every song sounds perfectly formed but without the kind of perfectionism which created distance with the audience on the band’s other albums. Everything it in its right place but this time the heart is part of the puzzle. The songs exude an energy and warmth that nothing else managed to achieve in the past year while still losing nothing of the epic subject matter that the band’s other work vanishes into. It is their best, the year’s best and could provide a soundtrack to the coming year which, while tough, finally is touched by a light emerging at the tunnel’s end.

The Most Honourable of Mentions: Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue; Titus Andronicus – The Airing of Grievances; The Black Keys – Attack & Release; Beach House – Devotion; Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes; The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns; Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Lie Down in the Light; Harvey Milk – Life… The Best Game in Town; Flying Lotus – Los Angeles; Sigur Ros – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust; Beck – Modern Guilt; MGMT – Oracular Spectacular; Man Man – Rabbit Habits; Vivian Girls – Vivian Girls; Marnie Stern – This is it…; The Dodos – Visiter; She & Him – Volume One; The Week That Was – The Week That Was; Lindstrom – Where You Go I Go Too; White Denim – Workout Handshake; Lykke Li – Youth Novels; REM – Accelerate

Politalking Arts: Sam’s Songs of the Year

What better way to kick off the arts section of Politalking than naming a massive lump of the best songs from the past year, in the opinion of this writer.

So, following from John’s list last week, here we go. One song per artist, except for a couple of cheat ties. 

20. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal

One of the year’s biggest buzz bands and makers of a lovely, autumnal, oaky record. This was easily the finest moment, the one where they reconciled their obviously-deep love of wood shack singer-songwriter odes from the 1960s and soaring modern indie rock. Also, possibly the best vocal harmonies of 2009.

19. The Kills – Tape Song

Makers of the year’s sexiest record, again, and again its the moments when Alison Mosschart takes control that things really kick into gear.

18. Lykke Li – I’m Good I’m Gone

Another key buzz act of the year, this was her melancholic disco masterpiece. The album itself is also quite beguiling but ‘I’m Good, I’m Gone’ seems to be in a league of its own, capturing a strident female in a moment of, dare I say, Beyonce-esque badassery tinged with sadness.

17. Magnetic Fields – A Nun’s Litany

Stephen Merrit seals his place amongst our finest pastiche-ists comics, constucting/deconstructing a classic American songbook piece in which the female singer details her dreams to be variously a topless waitress and 

16. Vivian Girls – Where Do You Run To

Time to get NME. Here we are treated to an alliance of Phil Spector girl groups, K Records lo-fi and rattling 80s guitar-pop in the vein of Young Marble Giants. Their album, twenty-two minutes long from door to exit, is only slightly over an EP but the commitment to the vision of creating an amateurish twee-pop piece for modern times succeeds perfectly and this is the finest moment of their year.

15. Lyrics Born – I Like It I Love It

Party hip-hop is tough to come by in a form which eshews the celebration of ‘bitches’ partying in a ‘pimp’s crib’ blah blah blah. This is maybe the best piece of gonzo party-style hip-hop I’ve heard all year, bouncing and shouting its way along with lyrics a young lady in the sights of our protagonist without demeaning her into the role of ‘ho’.

14. Soko – I’ll Kill Her

I’m a sucker for a sweet little accent on the female singing and Soko not only has this but also a tongue to snap your neck as you lean in to here. This, a paean in some respects to jealous love, sees her threaten the death of a the new girlfriend of her ex with a fearsome-ness that belies her deeply cute accent.

13. MGMT – Time to Pretend

There album has been a surprise hit from the year, a swirling painting of electronic psychadelia promoting hippie values and wallowing in the star-child beauty of nature and life. ‘Time to Pretend’ is one of a number of outstanding singles on the album but the one that captures the magical-realism of  their manifesto, making a psychadelic journey without twenty-minute guitar solos and with a slight degree of melancholy.

12. Parts & Labor – Nowhere’s Nigh

From art-rock to art-pop, Parts & Labor’s Receivers record has catapulted them into the blogosphere through manging to find a balance between their noise and art past and a new pop sensibility. ‘Nowhere’s Nigh’ is the most driving single they could have released to represent the record, a relentless anthem that provides a taster for a truly outstanding pop-art album.

11. Beyonce – Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it)

Over the course of full albums, Beyonce struggles massively to provide the kind of vitriolic, cathartic records that her singles always showcase. ‘Crazy in Love’ may remain her defining masterwork but this is something to savour. ‘Single Ladies’ is a bouncing, rollicking piece of feminist-pop, the kind of which only Beyonce can really do with such a perfect amount of arrogance of softness.

10. Why? – These Few Presidents

Why?’s Alopecia is the best he’s made as yet and is filled with really excellent songs which form a whole, rather than his work with Clouddead and solo which form fascinating wholes but rarely provide anything to grasp onto on a single basis. ‘These Few Presidents’ defines the difficulty in categorising this lot, blending spoken-word alt-rapping with indie rock background and folk-style wordplay. This one however manages to give its audience the kind of chorus needed for this to stay in the mind outside of its place on the album.

9. Frightened Rabbit – The Modern Leper

Everything you want Snow Patrol to sound like, Frightened Rabbit do. You have the soaring choruses but rather than be accompanying by meaningless middle-of-centre dross lyrically, this Scottish troop hit you with constant, Nick Cave-esque lines that tear you up and make you laugh. ‘Modern Leper’ is a brilliant song, puncuated with fast-strummed mandolin and betrothed with a fine line in black humour about relationships, just like the rest of their outstanding new album.

8. TV on the Radio – Shout Me Out

I honestly could have picked about eight different songs from Dear Science to put on the top of the year, but ‘Shout Me Out’ has proved a key turning point for me in my relationship with the work of TV on the Radio. The song brings fully in the focus in the surging indie-rock they hit us with on ‘Wolf Like Me’ on Return to Cookie Mountain but, rather than claustrophobia and cold detachment, here you feel a tangible sense of feeling in the music being played. When ‘Shout Me Out’ kicks into gear and the band flies off into the land of rock heroics, you cannot help but rejoice that the best art-rock band to emerge since Radiohead have made their Bends. Bring on the OK Computer.

7. M83 – Graveyard Girl/Kim & Jessie (tie)

Maybe the best 1980s band not participating in the scene-revival of the decade, M83 moved onto their third record this year, after two good but never transcendent works, and threw away difficult-third syndrome to produce their most focused, addictive work yet. ‘Graveyard Girl’ and ‘Kim & Jessie’ are the songs you want to here soundtracking whoever becomes the John Hughes of this generation, concerning themselves with teenage angst, lust and doomed romanticism with soaring guitars and lush soundscapes and just a hint of the kind of teenage pretension that a movie like that would need. Until then, we’ll just have to create stories in our minds to accompany the brilliant music this band is producing.

6. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Luciana

They have a somewhat over-enthusiastic drummer who seems to believe all he does is propellant indie-dance, but Rural Alberta Advantage are my find of the year, given to me by the excellent Chromewaves blog. This is their most addictive track, one where the drummer fits perfectly with the song and you are treated to a thumping, pleading vocal over breathless and funky guitars. Given time, this lot could be the new Modest Mouse.

5. Kings of Leon – Sex on Fire

The career progression of Kings of Leon from has been startling to watch. As their contemporaries, including The Strokes and The White Stripes, break off into solo acts or take their place amongst the aged rock glitterati respectively, KofL are now playing super-size arenas and headlining festivals with aplomb, not to mention topping singles and albums charts around the place. Whethere their success is fully deserved on the back of this record is in question. As good as their second and third were, the fourth feels more tired and, criminally in places, tailor-made to achieve the kind of success they want. For all that though, ‘Sex on Fire’ is a ridiculously brilliant song, the kind of radio-rock single that places bands onto heavy rotation across all radio stations in the land. It might be their best ever single moment, capturing the midpoint betweeen their stadium tendencies and sweating, small-club-band sexiness and swagger.

4. Mountain Goats – Sax Rohmer #1

John Darnielle is amon the most manipulative songwriters on the planet. He indulges so heavily in ascending vocal lines and lyrics which swerve slightly left of centre but still hit the lowest denominator of your emotional music listening. ‘Sax Rohmer #1’ is as good as any of the surging romantic songs from his past, weaving a murder mystery tale punctuated by a chorus to be sung only when the drink has fully overtaken inhibitions and feelings must be made clear. Again, the record from the band isn’t the best they’ve made, but this song stands amongst the finest produced by Darnielle and Co.

3. Bon Iver – Skinny Love

One of the key proponents of the apparently ‘new’ folk that has come into full focus in the past year, Bon Iver has been a buzz act for the whole year, creating music which sounds not from another time, but just another state of mind. ‘Skinny Love’ is a raw, heartwrenching tale chronicling the break-up that Iver, or Justin Vernon, goes into grand detail on in the album as a whole. Perhaps it is, akin to Fleet Foxes, a new style of folk which captures something openly new in the genre, making music literally recorded in a remote shack which sounds totally in tune with the general sense of disenchantment felt around the world.

2. Lil’ Wayne – A Milli

Some songs are near inexplicable in their genius, a sub-genre that ‘A Milli’ seems to define. The song is nothing, its created of minimal drums and a looped voice chanting ‘A Milli’ over and over throughout its duration. Over this, Wayne spins a tale which stands as the finest brag-rap since the heyday moments of Jay-Z. Top line to entirely make those understand the genius of Lil’ Wayne: ‘Don’t you hate a shy bitch?/ Yeah I ate a shy bitch/She ain’t shy no more she changed her name to my bitch’.

1. The Hold Steady – Constructive Summer & Slapped Actress (tie)

Sorry to cheat again, but separating those two is damn near impossible. ‘Constructive Summer’ shares much with ‘A Milli’, a driving rock tune made of little more than sweat, spirit and piano which is decorated by some of Craig Finn’s best lyrics including the clarion call of ‘Raise a toast to Saint Joe Strummer/I think me might have been our only decent teacher’. Maybe even better is ‘Slapped Actress’, the closing piece for the pre-encore portion of their gigs and closer fully for the album. The wordless refrain is marvellous for sing-a-long but the construction of the whole song is genius, calling on Finn’s apparently life-changing experience of watching John Cassavetes’ Opening Night as the band frames all in epic, stadium-sized emotions and epicism. They didn’t make the best album of the year this time around, but they still can’t be faulted for providing exhilarating rock music for the heart and mind.

An extensive list of honourable mentions should be listed but that’s really not something Christmas time allows so here’s a sampling of other songs I have truly loved from the past year.

Jenny Lewis – Acid Tongue, Lisa Hannigan – I Don’t Know, Low Red Land – Dog’s Hymns, Glasvegas – Geraldine, Of Montreal – Nonpareil of Favour, Benji Hughes – I Went With Some Friends to See the Flaming Lips’, Kid Cudi – Cudi Get, Islands – I Feel Evil Creeping In, The Melvins – Nude With Boots, Tilly and the Wall – Pot Kettle Black, Jenny Owen Youngs – Fuck Was I, No Age – Errand Boy, Camille – Sanges Sweet, Death Cab for Cutie – I Will Possess Your Heart, Yael Naim – New Soul, REM – Supernatural Superserious, The Black Keys – Strange Times, Portishead – Machine Gun/The Rip, AA Bondy – There’s a Reason, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Albert Goes West

Politalking Arts: John’s Music Picks of 2008

It’s my turn now. A few years ago my taste in music was once described by Sam as “viciously eclectic”. Time has dragged on and I don’t think much has changed:

1. KTL – Theme

KTL is the unbelievable pairing of Sunn O))) doom-monger Stephen O’Malley and noise musician Peter Rehberg (Pita) who also heads up the Mego label. Their second album is widescreen drone electronica that has such a monolithic presence. All four of the tracks are stunning examples of ambient at it’s most beautiful and terrifying but the 27-minute masterpiece “Theme” is a crushing and rapturous experience. The same twinkling theme is repeated over the course of 24 minutes after a dull heartbeat introduction which somehow just keeps getting louder and then louder still. Each time you get comfortable with the the levels the track lays down another layer of white noise. Breathtaking.

2. Grouper – Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping

I’ve heard Portishead’s music described as “death folk” which is sort of cute but doesn’t really do them justice. Grouper however is death folk through and through. By no means do I mean Grouper write grief-laden ballads but craft songs from the roots of folk gone to waste somewhere. Reverb and distortion-soaked pieces that sound like a happily decomposing Jose Gonzalez. Grouper is just one girl and a guitar but these are big pieces, tender and bewildering, heart-breaking and muddy. The best way to describe it is by comparison to dubstep guru Burial. The ethos for the two artists is the same; to create music in their own domains constructed using decaying memories of their influences rather than modulated pastiche.  

3. The Hold Steady – Slapped Actress

By the time I get to the rousing wordless refrain at the end of this album-closer I’ve usually got a lump in my throat. The Hold Steady’s album “Stay Postive” has a few little mis-steps but on the whole it’s a band who are at the absolute top of their game. “Slapped Actress” is the superlative example of what makes this band so great, the elements are all here: the staple mythology of Charlemagne, Gideon and Holly, Craig Finn’s delicate musings on being in a rock band, a killer riff from Tad Kubler, sweet and charming keyboard work from my man Franz, the anthemic chanting… I love them.   

4. Venetian Snares – Flashforward

Twenty albums in ten years (not counting the other aliases) and still the fountain of creativity that Venetian Snares draws from seems to be without end. Probably the hardest working man in extreme electronica, if there is such a thing, Snares’ work is not often terrible but there have undoubtedly been a few duff releases along the way. “Venetian Snares baffles me, if he showed some restraint and kept back some of the more impressive tracks rather than releasing an album a week, a collection of his finer work would be incredible. “Detrimentalist” is one of those rare albums of his where for the most part every track is a gem. All highly-polished and abrasive hardcore in a junglist mode, “Flashforward” being the pinnacle, demonstrating what this man can do when he really wants to f*** you up. Apologies for the vulgarity there but once you get to the 4:10 mark you’ll see what I mean.

5. Portishead – The Rip

Quite possibly the most gorgeous track Portishead have ever made, The Rip is almost completely unlike the Portishead from ten years ago but strangely familiar all the same. Their long-awaited comeback this year has been an unmitigated triumph as evidenced by their album “Third”, a towering work of virtuoso production and expert songwriting.

6. Meshuggah – Bleed

Still the most talented and terrifyingly gifted performers in metal, Meshuggah’s album obZen is a little patchy but it’s worth it entirely for “Bleed”. Tomas Haake is a drummer I’m slightly afraid of and this track demonstrates his mastery of polyrhythms and double-bass work.

7. Gas – Gas 2

Granted this is from the gorgeous re-issue of four Gas albums from the 90s, “Nah und Fern”, the second track from the CD “Gas” is sludgy and soulful minimal techno which really made an impact on me this year. It seemed to come along at the right time and already there’s a deep nostalgic element to this music, I took a stage show to the Edinburgh Fringe this year and Gas was one of the artists I would play at night to help me sleep. Beautiful and hypnotic, this is music to collapse in to.

8. Datassette – Minus Fourteen

Another Edinburgh Fringe one here, although this one was actually released this year. Datassette is a guy who knows his electro and “Minus Fourteen” is an up-tempo stomper with a charming bass line and funked-up drum programming. Just think Boards of Canada on a deadline. Datassette’s strength is not so much the melodic or rhythmic components but his control over production and direction. The self-titled album from which this track is taken is a great collection of modern and deceptively simplistic electronic music, the first track “Running Away” is also very highly recommended.  

Golden Globe Nominations Announced

Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are the leading films in the Golden Globe nods announced today, taking five each. Doubt also received five but across only acting and script categories rather than the biggies for Director and Film. Slumdog Millioniare, Danny Boyle’s much-loved story of an Indian lad winning Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, racked up one for director and film along with score.

The favourites though may spread wider. Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and Sean Penn in Milk possibles for actor and Kate Winslet, a double nominee for Revolutionary Road and The Reader in Actress and Supporting Actress, could well win either. The surprises came in Supporting Actor with Tom Cruise grabbing a nod for Tropic Thunder although a nice touch to see both Brendan Gleason and Colin Farrell nicking nods for In Bruges.

Whether its indicative of the Oscars, I don’t know. The massive snub to Australia seems to have killed its chances off but otherwise, the race remains open.

Actor in Austria Slits Throat on Stage

An actor in a production of Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart, about Mary Queen of Scots, slit his own throat on stage after a prop knife for use during a suicide scene was switched for a real blade.

The incident, in which the actor is alive and relatively well, has sparked rumours of possible backstage jealousy and other salacious, intriguing bits of real-life Cluedo thinking. Could be interesting.

The Problem With Indie Music

Kings of Leon front man Caleb Followill’s recent revelation that he’s anorexic has highlighted the issue of weight and body image in indie music. The Guardian has a deeply fascinating look into the issue, an issue that seems very obvious all of a sudden. When you think about it, seriously what’s the deal with indie kids being so skinny?

[Source – The Guardian]

Is Playboy on the Way Out?

Susannah Breslin, writing on Slate’s XX Factor blog, believes the demise of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire could be at hand following the resignation of his daughter Christie as chief executive of the group. Breslin, who worked for Playboy in the past, said all inside the organisation know the problem now is Hefner himself, unable during his days as a walking, mumbling self-parody to make the kind of savvy business decision that has kept the empire alive.

Polanksi Wants Charges Dismissed

Lawyers working for director Roman Polanksi have filed a suit in Los Angeles to have the charges on him regarding a thirty-year-old case involving accusations he had sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. Polanski wants the charges to be dismissed on the grounds that ‘a pattern of misconduct and improper communications’ had been involved in the original investigation, a view that has gained traction following a documentary about the issue earlier this year.

A Female Doctor Who To Act As Role Model

UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology has called for the next Doctor Who, to takeover after David Tennant leaves the role next year, to be a women. The group believes such a move would encourage more women to move into the science arena.

I can’t see that would be very likely but hell, why not a female Doctor Who? The problem for most fans of Doctor Who, of which I am definitely not, is that they will argue violently against such a move unless the women is cast for a genuine, narrative-based reason.

Daily Morsels

Skiing just got even more awesome.

Wondermark cards are stupefyingly hilarious.

Charming portraits of 70s rock stars at home with the ‘rents.

Michael Phelps is a goddamn fish. I mean, seriously.

Tescticle cookbook. True story, click the link if you don’t believe me.

A look at Barack Obama from back in the day.

Daily Morsels

Chinese farmer constructs army of robots.

Santa is fired from Selfridges for being “too friendly”.

Drinking heavy water might have geriatric qualities, may not turn eyes blue within blue however.

Cold-hearted b*stards want to deny a disabled child his miniature pony.

Boris Sister Wins Bad Sex Award

Rachel Johnson, the novelist sister of London Mayor Boris Johnson, has won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award from the Literary Review for scenes which appear in her Shire Hell book.

From The Guardian:

Johnson was singled out for her novel’s slew of animal metaphors, including comparing her male protagonist’s “light fingers” to “a moth caught inside a lampshade”, and his tongue to “a cat lapping up a dish of cream so as not to miss a single drop”. Literary Review deputy editor Tom Fleming was also disturbed by the heroine’s “grab, to put him, now angrily slapping against both our bellies, inside”.

“You sort of think it might be a typo, but she is actually referring to his penis as him. It’s a mixture of cliché and euphemism, but it’s also very spirited – A plus for effort,” he said. “All the entries were equally awful this year, but Rachel Johnson had the worst metaphors, and the worst animal metaphors.”

Axel Rose Attacking China?

State media in China has launched an attack on the new Guns n Roses record Chinese Democracy, accusing the album of being an attack on the nation. The Global Times in the country said on Monday that unnamed internet users said the album was part of a Western plot to ‘grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn.’

Make what you will of it but this is surely the most vitriolic attack on a Guns n Roses album ever.

Jobs Cuts for Bob & Harvey

Bob and Harvey Weinstein have announced plans to cut 11% of the workforce at their production venture Weinstein Co in the face of the economic crisis.

The entertainment industry it seems it really not immune to the problems with a number of studio cutting jobs and production budgets recently. What’s potentially troubling is that smaller, less well-capitalised studios, like Weinstein Co, are going to struggle to find the money to carry on and are likely to be absorbed by the larger players. The death of indie cinema is not night but it the alternative industry could be dented badly by the downturn.

What’s needed is for the stars starting up production companies, including the likes of Drew Barrymore and Brad Pitt, need to start plowing money into the smaller projects from the hefty paychecks they get thrown from their own starring roles. This should at least provide a strong revenue stream from some smaller players which could then grow to gain a little more heft in releasing interesting, challenging movies.

Palin & Joe the Plumber Books Good

Jean Hannah Edelstein on The Guardian argues that Sarah Palin and Joe The Plumber moving to write books should not be viewed with the snobbish elitism that the US literati are showing, but rather should be welcomed.

Her theory unfolds thus:

Now I’m no Palin supporter, but I think it’s a good thing that Palin and Wurzelbacher are writing books. Because by choosing to write books, as opposed to becoming talk show hosts, or country singers, Palin and Wurzelbacher are tacitly endorsing two of the things that Blue America loves the most, and which Red America has often disdained: freedom of expression and reading.

Daily Morsels

Let’s peek inside a frozen pizza factory to find out how they make the frozen pizzas.

The reviews are starting to crop up for Chinese Democracy, here’s one from the Guardian.

Light waves can act as sound waves, meaning infra-red based implants for the deaf.

Noticed a drop in email spam recently? Here’s why.

World leaders snub George Bush. Hilarious and slightly heartbreaking.

Daily Morsels

We may not be alone in the universe, excited scientists report.

Breathtaking domino event that beggars belief . You have to wonder though, why?

The BBC are making their two primary terrestrial channels available to watch live online from next week.

Court proceedings start for a woman who started a hoax MySpace account which prompted a 13-year-old girl to kill herself.

National Geographic: The Video Game.

Honourable mention today goes to this article here for it’s stunning use of today’s morsel picture, an article about the increasing risk of a dangerous deflationary period. 

Who Loves Scrabble? Everyone

Scrabble has regained its crown as the UK’s favourite game, mostly attributable to the huge popularity of Scrabulous and brain games on handheld consoles like the Nintendo DS. Sales are up 30% in the first nine months against the comparable period a year earlier, according to data from NPD.

Now folks, this is all well and good. Scrabble is great. But when, oh when, will The Game of Life makes its full comeback and bring existential crisis to the wider market once more.

Daily Morsels

Let’s test ourselves at home. why not.

It’s already been linked here in the Daily Morsels but I couldn’t resist following it up. The Minority Report-style gesture operating system is having its development assisted by one of the science advisers from Minority Report.

A graph showing the number of zombie movies made each year since 1910.

24-hour World of Warcraft marathon ends in convulsions. I’m so glad I cancelled my subscription a few weeks ago.

Man invents vibrating toilet seat. Rest of us ask: why?

Prince: Jehovah’s Witness and Homophobe

Prince, now a Jehovah’s Witness after his many years of deeply, deeply un-religious music, has been making a few comments recently about homosexuality and its standing in contradiction to his new found beliefs. In short profile in The New Yorker, the diminutive genius of Minneapolis makes a few comments regarding his views on major issues, including abortion and gay marriage, by quasi-cryptically stating: 

God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’

There’s been a little reaction to this from a few bloggers and Jezebel has a breakdown of a few songs which seems to greatly contradict Prince’s views at current with those he espoused during his 1980s heyday.

I hope, for sake of his legacy, that Prince is not about to fall into the traps Michael Jackson did and start sounding so mad that the greatness of his music is forgotten. This is unlikely to happen given the deathless genius of much of his work but it would be greatly sad for a man who wrote ‘Sign O’ The Times’, maybe the defining song to interact with the early-AIDS era, to start proselytizing the gospel of homophobia across LA.

Guitar Hero Is Changing Music Consumption

David Edery, worldwide games portfolio manager for Xbox Live Arcade, provides a guest post on Freakonomics today on the way in which music consumption patterns are shifting in the age of Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

He makes a persuasive point and what will be interesting is the way in which music distribution could change in the light of the success of bands like Aerosmith in providing their music for specialised Guitar Hero editions. Perhaps we are likely to see bands giving their music to Xbox to offer on Guitar Hero on release, giving fans the chance to play and fall in love with the song.

Being an avid player of both games, I can attest to the power of Guitar Hero to make certain songs become part of your musical lexicon. Among my choices: ‘Slowride’ by Foghat, ‘Carry on Wayward Son’ by Kansas and ‘Shout at the Devil’ by Motley Crue, not to mention ‘Just What I Needed’ by The Cars and oh so many more.

Daily Morsels

The son of the King of Bahrain has sued Michael Jackson for apparently failing to produce an album promised to the prince.

George Packer interviews David Kilcullen on his views on Afghanistan.

Salon has an interview with Bill Ayers.

Slate has a four-part discussion of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.

More countries are making the spreading of HIV illegal? Was this not already illegal??

The Clintons are being vetted by Obama advisers. Bill’s finances may cost Hillary her post in the new cabinet.

Daily Morsels

Apparently authentic vampire slaying kit fetches almost $15,000 at auction.

Interview here with Malcolm Gladwell, one of modern life’s pre-eminent thinkers.

Helen Mirren should be banned from talking about rape, ever.

Chinese art is going through a marvellous renaissance.

Paul McCartney wants to finally release Carnival of Light, the lost epic of The Beatles.

Daily Morsels

A British teenager gives up his current life to spend the rest of his days online. 

Lasers will be hitting the front line soon, Skynet going through primary bootup sequence.

A sewing machine that visualises sound through humble needle and thread.

Salon.com dissects the Lolcats phenomenon.

Gesture-based operating system gets tantalisingly close to complexity seen in Minority Report.

Underground data centre in Sweden looks like the set for future James Bond venture.

By the way, the picture is the result of an ill-fated Google Image search for “terminator lasers”. I was desperately trying to avoid posting a lolcat otherwise I think Sam would’ve fired me.