itunes shuffle no. 1

a little more for little you 2:58 The Hives Tyrannosaurus Hives Punk
Reconstruction 3:21 The New Year ATP 2002 (Disc 2) Alternative & Punk
Invisible Train To Earth 1:53 Guided By Voices Suitcase 5 Alternative & Punk
Passo Le Mie Notti Qui Da Solo 2:57 Stevie Wonder Mo'plen 4000 - Glamorous Boogie Grooves For A Fashion Lifestyle World
Bird on a Wire 3:40 Rogue Wave Descended Like Vultures Alternative & Punk
Other Voices 4:28 The Cure Faith Rock
Paper Girl [Different Version] 1:46 Guided By Voices Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow Alternative & Punk
Eyes Without A Face 3:59 Paul Anka Rock Swings Pop
Bocuma 1:35 Boards Of Canada Music Has The Right To Children Electronica/Dance
People's Parties 2:15 Joni Mitchell Court And Spark Folk
A Lot to Say 2:47 The Gentlemen Brass City Band Rock
Car On A Hill 3:02 Joni Mitchell Court And Spark Folk
First Verse 7:51 Mujician Poem About The Hero Jazz 1 19/01/2006 10:37
Back On The Chain Gang 3:52 The Pretenders The Singles Rock
bardo2002-11-22t3 6:35 Bardo Pond Live 2002
Gogonal 5:07 Mouse On Mars Niun Niggung Electronica/Dance
Circloid Bricklett Sprüngli 2:18 Mouse On Mars Niun Niggung Electronica/Dance
Track 11 3:35 Boom Boom Satellites Photon
One Very Important Thought 1:14 Boards Of Canada Music Has The Right To Children Electronica/Dance
Cruiser's Creek 4:15 The Fall 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong Alternative & Punk
Skin Parade 2:57 Guided By Voices Universal Truths And Cycles Alternative & Punk
Men Who Create Fright 2:11 Robert Pollard Kid Marine Alternative & Punk

...
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using an itunes library has made me play stuff in different ways, importing stuff i forgot i had, thought i'd lost, moving away from a disc/whole album way to play music and even think about music, having stuff available at one click, exploring random corners. interesting when put on shuffle. it's just another way to rearrange what's there but for now it's still new and exciting to these ears.

Watching Music Television 2

Long lines out of control
empty roads
walking in house
regular bar
marked on bag
open mouth
native feel
harshing my vibe
red Tee
additional voice
blurred vision
nature controls
i love you / in a car
distance
mirror revenge
reunion drifts to laughter
rockin'
shadows of the audience
central figure
astronauts on tv
flickering in front of the hand
distortion signals relief
mushroom head switches
release
sudden movements
smash head into glass wall
release in thousand floating particles
china over the drums
slipped into water again
snapshots of a profile by the microphone
smiling again
relief
double heads
valley of water
hair waves
dark lines define hurt
chorus, suddenly the chorus
despair in open mouth
particles
heads moving
dreadlocks, tribal drums
silhouettes
noise

To vote for Pete to win:Text PETE to 84444 or Call 09011 32 33 08

:-)))

"Has Big Brother destroyed you?"

Breakfast on Pluto

Cillian Murphy as orphan/performer/drag queen Kitten in 70s Ireland and London, softly spoken, camp, outlandish, but never too far away from life's relentless firing line. A really great heartfelt performance in a film that tells a story in episodes that equally sad, shocking, as well as funny and uplifting. He comes through in the end, just about, and survives, where others failed. I think I will watch this film a few more times, a lot to like here, wonderful period details...

















And here we have ... miaow! droooool! ... This is Gavin Friday, formerly of arty queer pagan punks, the Virgin Prunes, one of my all time heroes, as glam rock singer Billy Hatchet who takes Kitten under his wing for a while. Oh maaaan, I haven't seen Gavin on a stage since the Shag Tobacco tour in 95 or something. He sings and performs a few numbers in the film, a couple with Kitten dressed as a Squaw, and he's still got it. There's a moment when he's on stage in full glam outfit and his voice softens for a moment that is pure Gavin and gave me the goosebumps. More pleeeease!

Princes Risborough to Great Missenden

the edge of Monkton Wood , keep walking along the edge of the woods...(it says in the book)


these sheep were running towards me, in the beautiful winter evening sunshine.

I think I want to explore the Chilterns a bit more this year, it's pretty, quiet, deep countryside, a bit eccentric, definitely a world away from London though it's connected with it, some places even by tube. I even like the small Chiltern Railways Marylebone station, it already feels like somewhere with a different pace.

John Cale's smokefree tour

Someone from the Smokefree London yahoo group I've set up, has written an excellent article on John Cale's smokefree European tour and smokefree gigs in general. It really speaks my mind in many ways and it'll be interesting to see whether it will create some further discussion among gig going punters and promoters. The Garage really is a terrible smokehole IMO, and I've been avoiding it for a while. I almost walked out of the excellent Deerhoof show there a little while ago just because of the smoke. For now, well done, John Cale and Gab Starkey!

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14932-2000092,00.html

The return of Nosmo King

John Cale is about to set out on a smoke-free tour. Gigs in Digs organises fresh-air concerts. Gabrielle Starkey is de-lighted

John Cale is recalling his youth. “Pneumo is a word that rings a bell in Wales. Pneumonoconiosis. Black lung. Because of the mining. In the still calm of a Sunday morning, when people were shuffling to and from chapel, you could hear the wheezing coming down the road, you know, from pneumo. And then these people would be smoking.”
The veteran art rocker is explaining why his European tour to promote his new album blackAcetate will be a smoke-free zone. Apart from growing up among black-lung sufferers, Cale had bronchitis as a child which left him sensitive to cigarette smoke. “If people are smoking my voice disappears. And all the remedies in the world won’t put it back together.”
In the live fast, die young world of rock, Cale’s position is literally a blast of fresh air. When he plays the Garage on Wednesday, North London’s premier rock fleapit will ban smoking for the first time in its 13-year history.
For my part, I’m ecstatic about Cale coming to town. My boyfriend is just as sensitive to smoke since giving up five years ago. It puts the kibosh on nights out down the pub (smoking areas, he says, are “like having a p****** area in the swimming pool”), and means that he’s never seen me perform in my alter-ego mode as a singer-songwriter. Cale’s concert will be the first rock gig we’ll have been to together. Sure, there are bigger, smarter venues that are smoke-free, but they are fully seated affairs, hardly the cramped, sweaty experience of a proper rock gig.
But if non-smokers move in restricted circles, it seems as if we’re in good, and increasing, company. Paul Chi, a Brighton-based music promoter, became so sick of the ever-present haze of fag smoke in bars that he founded Gigs in Digs, where the artist comes and plays in your own home. Its most famous proponents are Nizlopi, that exuberant duo whose JCB Song got to No 1 just before Christmas. “I came up with this whole idea of putting on gigs that had an ethos," says Chi. “And the ethos was low noise, non-smoking, the choice of whether to have alcohol or not, and child-friendly. I got into the whole idea of them being accessible."
So Chi’s concerts are a healthy option for the under-18s, which is another leap forward, because teenagers are continuing to take up smoking at an alarming rate. Kids copy their musical heroes, and if they hang out in smoky bars, then smoking and drinking is what teens will aspire to.
But the image is misleading because only about a fifth of the adult population actually smokes and, according to Chi, the idea that all musicians are slaves to the weed couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I know many musicians who hardly drink and don’t smoke, but they’ll play anywhere because it’s the only way they’ll get any work."
Another, more puritanical, group of anti-smokers also targets the younger generation. The Straight Edge movement, which grew out of the 1980s American hardcore punk scene, encourages teenagers to avoid all types of culturally condoned “poisons”, including alcohol, nicotine and even caffeine. Luckily for Cale’s fans, he is not quite so hardline: “If someone’s in the front row and blowing it in your face, you can say: ‘Look, either you are bad mannered or you’re nuts. I’m trying to work and if you keep doing that it’s going to be a much shorter night than anyone would like’.”
But in Spain, where smoking is almost a national trait, there was one audience that didn’t quite get it. “The first thing I said was: ‘Thank you for not smoking this evening,’ and they were pretty good about it. And then when I went offstage they were going crazy, they wanted an encore so I went out again.
“And in that gap they’d all lit up and when I went back out I was confronted by this wall of blue smoke.” He laughs. "It was amazing, just like this wave coming at me.I couldn’t do the encore."
John Cale’s tour starts on Jan 24 at Manchester Academy (0161-275 2930). www.healthyconcerts.com/artists/gigs_in_digs http://www.ash.org.uk/ http://www.freshaironline.info/

some photos from Chris' birthday drinks

involving a wig. We were drinking mineral water all evening, I was impressed it was actually possible, and I felt pretty good as well. A good evening!

Random voyage of musical discovery pt.1: The Pastels

Our house is full of music, discs, tapes, old vinyl are stacked everywhere and sometimes in inappropriate places, I don't always know how to tap into our vast collection in meaningful or methodical ways, and itunes is filling up (I imported over 500 GBV/Bob Pollard songs over the weekend, and that's nowhere near all of it). Still, I sometimes feel ignorant, especially when it comes to older OR contemporary, more obscure or regional bands or artists that I might have heard about a few times but never actually consciously listened to. I guess that's one of the beautiful things of living in the days of the internet and the availability of music and information about music. There are so many ways to fill the gaps.

So to start somewhere I though of a little game that would more or less lead me from one band or artist to the next without me making too many conscious choices about the direction. I quite like abandoning the moment of a personal decision, or direction, it can strangely liberating and can lead you to places and situations that you wouldn't have found otherwise. Leave the building and walk right, then left, then right, ad infinitum and see where it takes you. Then do it the other way round, first left, then right. If in doubt about something, toss a coin. Start reading the whole library by reading one book and then reading the one next to it, ad infinitum (I seriously did this for a while in the libraries of the University of Constance and Sussex Uni, with mixed, but interesting results) Buy albums by artists who want to be your friends on myspace, if you find them cheap at Oxfam. Oh, wait...

Anyway, talking about..., the Oxfam Music shop in Ealing is a weird occasional treasure trove. Now the word seems to be out, but you can still get interesting things at reasonable prizes there. And contribute your money to charity. There must be some local music journalists... My main catch there has been finding the first Wrens album ' Silver' for £2.99, which is seriously sold out and allegedly would be a really hot item on ebay. (You can just about hear the band that made 'The Meadowlands' lurking in there somewhere, but it mainly sounds like a Pixies inspired noisy weird pop band with short, sharp songs) So shopping in there quite often throws random musical goodies my way, often from a few years back, but sometimes brand new or even promos.

I found The Pastels compilation 'Truckload of Trouble' in there the other day. So it got me thinking, that I don't know near enough about Scottish bands of the early 90s, and that there might be so much out there I could tap into if I would follow on by association. So I want to start a chain of records in my collection, starting with this one, mainly by looking on amazon's helpful links to other artists people that have bought this album have also bought, and lead on from there. And/or if amazon doesn't work I want to find inspiration in other weblinks that come from the previous band or artist. It should be bands or artist that I have not got any albums by, and there should be some good reviews, or something that recommends them. Just see where it will go and what I will discover. I want to research and write a bit about each record too. This should happen at least once a month, to keep it flowing. The Vaselines are next.

Anyway: The Pastels. 'Truckload of Trouble'. Great title. I like some of the
songs, but I'm thinking I might need to get some of their later albums to get a bigger picture. This one is a compilation of singles and unreleased tracks, and the quality is a bit varied. The overall feel of the songs is a bit impenetrable at first, woozy, lazy-sounding, occasionally pouting and introspective and, I guess, insular pop with very flat vocal delivery, with the occasional guitar pop gem, or a more urgent groove, to wake you up. It's all quite charming after a few listens though, and even the flat vocal delivery of Stephen Pastel, that's been criticised by various people, starts to make sense. They seem to live and mope about in a sonic space of their own, and I can (vaguely) see why they were so influential, even though there's a sleepiness here that doesn't always connect with the here and now. I'm not sure all of this needs to be remembered. But I'll go back to this one, I'm sure... Thanks for listening.

Daytrip to Oxford

Oxford Round Walk from The Time Out Book of Country Walks. All of these walks are highly recommended, even though I haven't done them all yet :-)

This was a couple days after Boxing Day and Day two of Simon and Thomas's month long trip
'On The Wagon'















The riverwalk, beloved of many local poets past and present...





















rocking the ruins of an old nunnery by the river

















sunset over train wagons by the canal


















finally arriving in the blurry evening lanes of Oxford

2006

Dennis Cooper asked on his blog what his blogs readers' artistic New Year's resolutions were: http://denniscooper.blogspot.com/2006/01/resolution.html So I thought about this for a while and decided to write some down myself. This is going to be a bit longer, as I want to really write down everything that is important to me, and also spend some time about the backstory, and it will roughly be in three parts. It would be easy to say I'd be happy to just have another year like the last one, cause in some ways it wasn't such a bad year. But I've come to the conclusion that I might want to build on some stuff that has happened and brought me where I am right now and become more focussed, and writing this down might help me to be to be a bit clearer about what i would like to achieve, and be realistic about it too. In some ways I feel it's somewhat successful to hold down a job and pursue artistic or other interests in your spare time, therefore acquiring the luxury of not having to worry too much about marketing your art and effectively selling it to make a living. However, working and living in London devours such a large chunk of time and energy I'm not always in the right mindset to really be where I want to be. I've also retreated more and more into a more passive mindset that likes to consume, listen, read, and maybe reshuffle, and rearrange, but not necessarily put out anything. There's nothing wrong with it, of course, but I think maybe it's time to make a more concerted effort to build on what's already there. It's all possible.

Firstly, my band Plus has had a good year in some ways, nothing major happened, we didn't even do that much but we played a few good shows that I was happy about, especially the last one definitely had something, got under people's skins (fortunately it was filmed as well), and we recorded some new material, which is pretty strong, and to me marks an improvement to the previous record. Our first album, 'In the Safety Community', recorded in early 2003, has its full-on, weird moments, and collects a lot of our older material, but somewhat lacks focus, especially in some of the singing (which is entirely my fault!). I feel this new one, 'Hairy', benefitted from the past experiences. I made myself write lyrics for every single song, and, in one case, used some Pynchon lyrics from 'Gravity's Rainbow' (!), blended with my own. As a result, it hangs together better, and we are taking a step forward and moving on. It's still not perfect, and still sounds like a demo, but there are a few tracks on there, especially 'Teenager', 'Tired Eyes', 'Ephedrine Daddy' and 'Seeing Time' that I wouldn't have a huge problem sharing, even with complete strangers, in fact the whole thing is more how I want this to sound like. We still haven't worked out what exactly we're going to do with it, but the CDR I've started circulating has had some good response, which confirms how I feel.

We are terminally slow, it takes us weeks and months even to arrange a rehearsal, but I always felt that this was one of the key reasons why we're still doing it, at our own speed, in our own chemistry, and it's a fun ride when we do it. However it would maybe be an idea to stay focussed and try not to lose the momentum, which has happened before, firstly by writing more material and possibly recording it (Chris records a lot at home these days anyway, and it actually sounds really good), playing a few more shows, and promoting the material we've got, not in aggressive/naive kind of way, but having the confidence to put the word out. Something, something small might happen. We are really good when it comes to it, it's just not so easy to present ourselves as we really are, which is something that usually comes out after a couple of hours of rehearsing on our own, when things really kick in. However we're really letting rip on stage these days, it's taken a while, but we are getting better at playing live.

Secondly: my writing. I recently thought that it has gone stagnant to the point of no return. It's partly that I don't want to sit in front of a computer outside of work, and there's too many distractions to really focus on it, so there's too many long breaks. Plus it still seems to go nowhere. Over the last I don't know how many years, I've written three long pieces, 'novels', whatever you want to call them. They are kind of similar in tone, long stream-of-consciousness pieces, that have a vague, vaguely trippy theme, and then go on a long ride with it. Though the passages hang together, there's a lot that is, frankly, incoherent and virtually unreadable, and basically succumbs eventually to some sort of weird mindspin drifting further down into some abyss, mental meltdown. Sometimes I read a few passages later and it blows me away, and even while I write them I get lost in them. It's written as if under self hypnosis, sentences follow each other, and I often don't know where it's really going. It often involves several subjects interacting in some neverending conversation. All of them are unreal in some ways, vampires or ghostly presences. It certainly could do with *some* editing, though I've often found out by looking at them that the sentences are just right the way I first wrote them, even if they sound weird at first, there's a certain gravity there I don't want to disturb afterwards. Needless to say, they are not be published in any way, I certainly don't intend to even give them to anyone, well, okay, a couple of people saw bits and pieces. But there isn't much point, they are weird exercises, and though some of this material blows my mind when I read it, it's no....no...

Okay, the first one is called 'The Colour Ward' and probably plays inside some sort of mental institution, where colours take the place of drugs and become psychoactive substances. There's nurses, doctors, corridors, closed rooms etc. 'Do you want to buy some colour' 'you want to get more colour into your life'. God, I need to read it again to remember what's going on in there. It took ages to write but isn't even that long...

The second one is called 'Yes Wave' and probably deals with me moving into London, the big city and all the additional pressures. It's kind of an exploration into the sinister aspects of positivity, the relentless upbeat tone, the more commercial environment, the saturation of messages, the tube, the property market, the different, relentless pace etc. I guess 'Yes Wave' shares with my band Plus the idea of transforming positivity into something that is really dark, negative, or at least unknown. Saying yes will get you in touch with what you negate.

The last one is called 'The whip' and I guess deals with sadomasochism, among other things. It's got some really vivid imagery, like blurry polaroids of war zones, corridors again, secret rooms, masters and slaves, and a lot more sex basically. I made myself arrange it in 5 equally long chapters. So it's been finished not too long ago, well, as good as finished anyway as it's going to get, having the exact length prescribed in advance. I feel empty now. This whole idea of writing longer pieces has been to try to see whether i can actually do this, i used to write only shorter pieces. But I'm not sure how successful it's been.

For future reference, all these are safely stored on our laptop, and on various labelled diskettes lying around, one in a bag of old paintings at my parents house. The Whip is called hotdog.doc for some reason...Before those I wrote several shorter pieces, starting with a cycle of shorter and very short pieces called 'Vampire Stories' (and before that I wrote in German). One of those, the one I thought was really good at the time, is here: http://www.suspectthoughts.com/lake.htm . It's not really that representative of how I write today (it's more than ten years old) but maybe illustrates the strengths and weaknesses to some extent.

Okay, to move on, I'd like to find a way of writing that puts me more in control of where it's going, is maybe a little less instinct and more direction. Something that I feel comfortable sharing with others. Something that is more memorable, even to me. But also something that retains the good qualities I see in the writing, using the experiences I've accumulated on these weird writing experiments I've occasionally engaged in for years. I think it's possible, but it would require some discipline. But I'd be happy if I had one, two, three pieces I'd be really happy about at the end of the year. I think it's possible, but I've got to make it possible. I think it needs to happen. We'll see...

Finally, blogging has been fun and weirdly liberating. I see this blog essentially as my online scrapbook, it's an online space for me to do whatever I want to do with it, post photos, writing exercises, music reviews, anything that happens. I feel the message boards I tend to spend time on don't always give me the breathing space to express stuff I just want to put out, there's always someone who disagrees, or talks too loud, or in a tone I can't connect with. So I'm quite into blogging and I want to continue doing so, keep this growing. It's a good writing exercise, at least. And it's a way of putting things out there that is easy and low-key but can still potentially reach people.

Happy new year! I'm glad I got all this off my chest.

2005

So here's a few records I liked this year. I think this is one of the first times I've sat down and thought about this and it's been fun and made me go back and listen again to some records that I thought were really strong. So here it is with thoughts, comments, stories and observations:

1. The New Pornographers: Twin Cinema

It soundtracked our holidays, which, let's face it, is always a good thing to happen, and just ruled. The first times I've heard both 'Electric Version' and 'Twin Cinema' (I haven't even got the first one yet!) it felt like being hit over the head with a neverending wave of tasty relentless pop hooks but the more you listen all the different tones and subtle shifts in mood come out too. They finally came to play in London for the first time and I managed to see them twice in a week, the second time mainly because our friend Martin came all the way from Switzerland to see them. The 93 Ft East show had the edge because it's a better, airier venue than the Borderline, but both shows were really euphoric, short, intense trips into some alternative pop nirvana, almost as good as GBV shows IMO... Oh yeah, and I do like that 'Letter from an Occupant' song, they ended their set with it both nights, I do need to get 'Mass Romantic', oh yes!

2. Deerhoof - The Runners Four

We're really big fans of the 'hoof, Simon even more so than me, and the last couple of albums, 'Apple O' and 'Milk Man' were both immediate hits in our house. This one took a while to sink in and digest, it's quite a bit longer than past efforts, sounds a bit different, features some low key singing from some of the Deerhoof blokes, and is even more varied in mood, textures, though there's still some fantastic bubblegum noise on there too. When we saw them supporting the Melvins earlier this year and at the Garage a little later the set had changed almost completely to showcase newer material so it didn't quite reach the dizzy heights of the year before, but still, they're unique, and i'm glad they're moving on in their own inimitable way. Satomi did some amazing hand movements to the new songs, and seems quite authorative these days.

3. Guided by Voices - Suitcase 2: American Superdream Wow

Everytime I listen to one of the eight discs from either one of the mammoth Suitcase boxsets, which collect previously unreleased Pollard material from way back til the present, I feel like drifting though a zone where familiar riffs, songs and phrases ride past my mental horizon like weird, hard-to-place memories or random images out of a dream. Time zones are mixed up and weird, almost unlistenable-at-first snippets slowly find their way into your head, after five or so listens everything gets weirdly familiar. This might also be due to the fact that quite a bit of this has been circulated already, notably on that great '30 songs' secret compilation. So I'm bad with song titles here, and identifying and listing songs, but keep having this sensation of 'I love this one' at the same time. And what really works as well this time is the cover art, all imaginary record covers and promotional pictures, lovingly and knowingly put together by rock librarian, Dayton resident and international pop wizard Robert Pollard.

It's been said that 2005 has been a good year for Bob and (the legacy of) Guided By Voices, even though he finished the band at the end of the previous year. For me, the Electrifying Conclusion really was an end and a conclusion, and for the first time in ages I haven't bought all the goodies that came out this year. I'm happy for Bob though and I hope his new album 'From a Compound Eye' gets the reception it deserves, as it's spectacular, even by his standards, but I can't help feeling a bit sad to hear he isn't likely to come back to this side of the pond this year yet again. Hey Bob, please don't forget us over here! What's that noise I hear?

4. The Mountain Goats: The Sunset Tree

It took me a while to even find out about the existence of this record. I was watching 120 minutes, and the video for 'This Year' came on, John Darnielle dressed in teenage clothes playing with a band at a teenage house party with fake blood running down his head and a mad stare in his face singing 'I'm gonna make it through this year, if it kills me'. This record is about his abusive stepfather and presumably a lot of awkward, painful memories. The impeccable, understated arrangements serve to enhance the powerful, lucid imagery, the driving sentences. It's unlike anything I've ever heard, very powerful, and there's definitely some hope and redemption there too.

5. Coil: And the ambulance died in his arms

It's their performance at the Autechre-curated ATP in 2003, posthumously released. We were at that show and it's remarkable how much of the weird atmosphere of that show is captured here. Presumably it was chosen because the last track features a lengthy chant that goes 'somnambulist in an ambulance' over and over. It gave me the chills at the actual show but to hear it now, in the contect of Jhonn Balance's death, it's just... well... very strange. RIP

6. Devendra Banhart: Cripple Crow

This beautiful man makes me smile. When we saw him and his merry minstrels at the Dour festival we were surrounded by a mass of cute stoned half naked Belgian hippies, it was a beautiful sunny afternoon and Devendra really connected with all this with a wink and a gentle smile. "There are so many / little boys I want to marry", WTF?

7. Rogue Wave: Descended Like Vultures

"You can never publish my love....you can never publish my love...."

8. Of Arrowe Hill: Hexadelica and The Speed of Darkness

The Circus Devils didn't release an album on Halloween, so it was done by OAH. This is an album about the year 1969, and only 69 copies of both vinyl and CD were released and have now souled out. It blends in well with their marvellous first album 'The Springhell Penny Dreadful', intricate 60s inspired music with a dark twist. I first saw them when they supported GBV at their legendary, heavily bootlegged show at the Garage in 2001, and saw them quite a few times around that time, mostly in a supporting role, do their short, twenty minute sets that left people wanting more. It wasn't until I heard 'Penny Dreadful' that I really understood what they were trying to do. It's really spooky music, and songs like 'Grandmother's Steps' showed a more gentle side, influenced by both early Pink Floyd and GBV, but with a distinctive sound and lyrical imagery. Adam is the only one left now, but it's still as good as ever if not better. Her Majesty's 23. Psychedelic Battalion is marching on...

OAH on myspace: www.myspace.com/ofarrowehill

9. Boards of Canada: The Campfire Headspace

I looked at Headspace's cover with all the washed out images of faces and landscapes and suddenly some of them seemed to come alive, to step out from that weird imagined collective past they seem to represent, and the ageing process that has corroded the images seems to have been overturned by something pretty spooky. And so with the music. I'm sure in a year's time everything will become clearer. But really, this year has seen me getting more into this mysterious band. Maybe it was the collective anticipation in the air, but 'Geogaddi' was a constant friend, more than the others, I don't even find it as scary or apocalyptic as some, though I kinda like the fact people have all these theories. And this album didn't disappoint...

Also, is this about adolescence rather than childhood now, so there's a linear progression from album to album? I don't really want to know...

10. Why? : Elephant Eyelash

I guess one could think that this comes along as some experimental hiphop, but really this sits right next to early Pavement circa 'Crooked Rain' with its playful, leftfield pop, wayward lyrics and its goofy cover collages. It's a really wonderful record, and it has its tender moments too.

Watching Music Television I

hyperdrawing
filigrane world
gay hustler
visors
dancing aliens
van lights
cowboys microphone empty room
dance routines repetition grey shirts laughter ass clapping
too pronounced
fires circling lights flying apples
the end
curtains haircuts food talking potatoes antlers
dirty grades
tie
spitting blood
stifling food adult
what is it trying to say?
t-shirt slogans
spilt milk
desired fool silhouette identity
masked surfer
walking through screens
holding the planet
green naked
watercooler in a t-shirt disco ball
dark machine
moves on a meadow
city silhouettes fake car
running though the woods
in a cross framed in four screens
autumnal scene
scratching stark tree trunks
guitars a cross victorian clothes
snow seaside forces check lips
brick wall
camouflaged hills
screaming teeth frazzled hair moral panic
tactical error
it's growing in your direction
cycling in space
spikes rhythms egghead
racing through black and white streets
beaches, lights and edges
drifting off on a motorway
autobahn
first rays of the sun
bridges into pleasant fiels
three screens of green lines
car noises blend into harmony
ideal transparent cars
nuclear families
four lanes green hills
four lights over egg heads
middle lane
distorted numbers lead
fitness session
numbers salad
fightin in a marble hallway
swords driving rhythm crashing though barriers
lucid dreaming
shades
mountains corridors doors
fake shootings white dreadlocks car speeds off
driving rhythm
worked out
flying over mountain ranges
speeding
swerving under fire
peaceful meeting
car chase
suggestive colour
fog
follow the sirens
faces distorted swapped
cars overturning
marked side doors
releasing tension stamping on the hood
smashing pieces in all directions
standing on the hood
ghosts consider a free ride
aggravation
unreal identities come to life
landing with both feet
beating against the side
shooting entities
particles
fire
speeding fire
keys collection
black biker gloves
backwards and forwards
fog spinning
walls unreal walls
speeding police cars
against the data stream
succeeding
fire