Dag 1405: Alive and kicking at the country club

It's great when things happen by chance.

Last night was just such an occasion.

anticipation

Some months ago Mr Cloudhand and I decided it was about time we had another trip out to a concert together. We each had a list of groups we wanted to see and The Cure was pretty high up on each or our lists. So every now and again I had a look on ticketmaster to see if there are any good gigs on the horizon. At some point I noticed that The Human League were going to be touring. I used to really like them and hadn't seen them live since 1980 so I had a look to see if they were playing in Leeds on a weekday night, thinking I could have gone after work. They weren't so I forgot about it and carried on looking for a suitable gig for the Grand Critical Mass/Cloudhand Royal International Gig of the Year Show Award Big Night OUt.

One friday after this I noticed somewhere that The Cure were postponing some gigs in America. This made me think that they may be going to play some gigs in Europe at some point so I set up an alert for them on the ticketmaster website.

When I went to bed that evening I checked my email and there was an email from ticketmaster saying The Cure would be playing a single UK date in 2008 and tickets would be on sale at 09:00 the next morning. So I was on the website at 09:00 the next morning and by 09:10 I had secured a pair of 'standing room only' tickets. If I hadn't put that alert in the day before I would not have known about it and it would have been sold out before I was even aware of it.

Although that was something that happened by chance, it wasn't what I was intending to write about, so lets get back to the core subject without further beating about the bush and going off at tangents, which is something I do sometimes do, but not on this occasion.

anticipation 2

So, I had my Cure tickets safely stored away and was thinking that I may have only managed to get to 2 gigs in 2007, but I had a great one coming up in 2008 to look forward to when I got an email from Denmark (the land of the normally behaving sun). I briefly mentioned this email as a post scrip to this post.

The email was asking about for some info about some Human League tracks I had played live in 1982. I provided the info and we got chatting a bit and Niels asked if I was going the see The Human League on their up and coming tour as they were playing the whole of Dare and it was generally anticipated that it would be a really god show.

I replied saying I couldn't make it, but that got me thinking that I would actually really like to see it. I checked the dates again and the closest one was in Sheffield but I was meant to be going to a barn dance that evening that had been arranged months before. I tentatively mentioned that I would quite like to go, but was firmly told that I couldn't as I already had arrangements for that evening. The next day I mentioned again that I wanted to go and was told "Ok we won't go to the barn dance so you can go".

I went straight onto the ticketmaster website and saw that tickets were still available. I requested 2 and came back saying my request could not be fulfilled. I tried putting in 1 and it came back with ticket A27 on the balcony. So there was only 1 ticket left. I could have bought that, but I would rather have gone with someone than on my own so I had a look on eBay.

I could tell a story of about 3 or 4 paragraphs about how I ended up getting the tickets, but I don't want this to be 2 long so we'll just skip to the fact that I managed to win 2 tickets in row F of the front stalls and my Dad had said he would like to come along so I also had someone to go with. Looking at he plan it looked like row F was on an angle at the side of the stalls, so I guessed we would be near the front, but with a side on view so we may not be able to see the whole stage.

As mentioned before, a few times, I have been compiling a list of all the gigs I have been to and have been creating events for them on last.fm. I found that someone had already created an event for this gig, but I didn't add my attendance until I had the tickets in hand, so as not to tempt fate (apparently fate doesn't like being tempted or something). Anyway, while surfing around I discovered that the support group was to be a band called Onetwo featuring Paul Humphreys, from OMD, and Claudia Brücken, from Propaganda.

I have to admit that I was never a big OMD fan. The only thing I ever bought of theirs was the cassette of Dazzle Ships and I only liked some of the songs on it. I should still have this cassette, as my cassette collection seems to be one of the few things I have from my youth that has survived.

However, I was a very big fan of Propaganda. I bought their first 2 albums (also on cassette, so I still have these) and used to play them a huge amount in the 1980s. I even went as far as tracking down a live recording of them, though I never got chance to see them live (and always regretted it). So the prospect of seeing Claudia Brücken play live got me really excited - I was going to be seeing 2 great bands on the same night.

The last time I saw the Human League was the last night of the Travelogue Tour. Shortly after that Martin Ware and Ian Craig marsh left and they were replaced by a couple of girls Phil Oakey had spotted in a nightclub. I carried on buying their singles until I heard Don't You Want Me. It seemed to me thay had suddenly become a pop band and I was no longer interested. I didn't buy Dare or anything they released since (although I haveto admit I did like some of the songs I heard them do on Top of the Pops over the following years).

So last week I bought a copy of Dare and loaded it into my iPod. The 2 songs I was dreading hearing were at the end of the album so I listened to it all apart from those 2 songs and was amazed at how good I thought it was. It wasn't really poopy at all and most of the songs were definatley in the same vein as the original Human League. So now I was even more excited about going.

So at last we get to the concert itself.

Our seats ended up not being at the side, but bang in the middle of the ninth row in the front stalls, so they couldn't really have been much better. The view was great.

There weren't many people in as we sat down, but just as we had got comfortable some people walked onto the stage and Onetwo started their set. I felt it was a bit of a shame that so few people were in, but as they played more and more people started arriving at their seats so the applause was getting more as their set went on. I was expecting the highlight of their set to be the Propaganda song Duel, but fantastic though that was it was their version of the Associates song Club Country that got the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Every breath you breathe belongs to someone there

It was simply amazing, just as good as if the Associates themselves were performing it. I had been lucky enough to see them in the 1980s and never thought I would hear any of their songs live again so it was really special to hear Onetwo perform such a great version of it. Duel was a close second though and was a great close to their set. I really hope I can see them live again. I bought their CD the gig and have been enjoying listening to it as I have been writing this.

After the interval the hall was bursting with people and suddenly some lights came on behind the Dare banner (shown above) and we could see the bands outlines as they went straight into The Things That Dreams Are Made Of. It was a fantastic opening to a gig and it never fell below that level for the whole evening. All the songs form Dare sounded better than the recorded versions and, dare I say it, even Don't You Want Me, sounded good last night. I took loads of photos, but most of them have come out blurred. The best of them can be seen here.

Being Boiled

I have to say that the stage set with its moving screens showing video images was one of the best I have seen to date and I even spotted a couple of Korg MS2000BR modules in the racks in the middle of the stage, which was good as I have one of those.

Some of the images on the screens were from the late 70s early 80s era and went really well with the songs. When Dare finished there was an instrumental song while Phil and the girls went off for a costume change and then they came back and performed loads more great songs. I really enjoyed them all but the one I was waiting for was Being Boiled and it was saved for one of the encores. When it came it was, for me, the highlight of the evening. The visuals were great and reminded me of the visuals they used to use when I saw them back in 1979 and 1980. The final song was Together in Electric Dreams and it was a great end to one of the best gigs I have ever been to.

If it hadn't been for that email from Denmark I would never have gone - so thanks Niels and I hope you enjoy the Copenhagen show as much as I enjoyed the Sheffield one.

Dag 1334: The Black hit of Space

After posting my first video onto YouTube the other day I spent some time last night having a look at some of the music videos they have on there. I was amazed at how much of the stuff I like was there.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have recently discovered this site (which has loads of great info about minimal synth and similar music from the late 70s and early 80s) and from this I discovered that the owner of this site also runs a weekly radio show on East Village Radio called Minimal-Electronik Plus. This is available as a podcast so I have subscribed to it and its been great listening to it each week on the train and the gym. One of the tracks I recently heard in this show was Alone by Colin Newman of Wire. I first heard this song when it was covered by This Mortal Coil on their album Filigree and Shadow. The original version was also used in the film The Silence of the Lambs. This is a great song but the only version of it I could find on YouTube was a clip from Silence of the Lambs. I did find some other interesting Wire clips too though, and also this fantastic video.

Apart from Minimal-Electronik Plus I have also been playing pr0nography by The Cure to death in recent weeks and particularly the track Siamese Twins. I had a look to see if I could find this track on YouTube and came accross this version with some modern dance going on to it (I bet DJ will like this). I realised that I had seen this on TV when it it was originally done all those years ago. I am hoping for a joint Critcal Mass/Cloudhands outing to see The Cure at the first possible oportunity.

Anyway, I then started looking for some of the bands I used to like back in those days and tried searching for I'm so hollow, who used to be one of my fave raves (I even used to have an I'm so hollow badge which was black with I'm so hollow..... written inside a cloud - wish I still had it).

Then I had a look for the Human League and found some pretty interesting early stuff. I bought Reproduction from iTunes a couple of years back (I had originally had it on vinyll, but haven't had a record player for about 15 years - in fact my kids don't even know what records or record players are), but I no longer had a copy of Travalogue, which I really used to like) so I did a search for Black Hit of Space (one of my alltime favourite Human League tracks of all time) and instead of coming up with a Human League version of it, it came up with this - which I think is great and I'm glad I found it.



This got me wanting a copy of Travelogue again so, as is ones want when its late at night and one has had a few drinks, I logged straight onto iTunes and bought it. I then tried to find something else to go with it and nearly bought A-Z by Colin Newman and spent quite some time deliberating on one of Twilight Ritual's albums, but in the end I managed to get away with just the Human League album.

I listened to it for the first time (since I had the LP) on the train this morning and here are my thoughts:
1. Black Hit of Space.
This track is, in my opinion, one of the best Human League songs ever and was definately an inspiration for the Strange Devotion track Danger Line. I remember when travelogue came out one of its criticisms was that it had been over produced. I agreed to some exstend and always thought this one was of the tracks that suffered from this. I always thought the live version sounded better, but it is still a great song full stop.
2. Only After Dark.
I always thought this was one of the weakest tracks on the album - it's ok but not as good as the rest.
3. Life Kills.
This is another great track and very much in that early Human League style. The only thing that lets it down is those analogue brass sounds. I have never liked brass sounds from analogue synths. In fact I haven't liked them from digital synths either. If you listen to any of my stuff you will notice that I never use brass sounds on anhy tracks. Anyway, apart from the brass sounds this is a great track.
4. Dreams of Leaving.
This is an absolute classic and up there with the best Human League tracks ever. It is even quite a moving song in many ways. The opening verse makes one think of people trying to escape from an opressive regime (and or country). We then get a fantastic analogue instrumantal section and move into the last verse which is very similar to the first but the location has moved to a modern day office environment - very clever lyrics indeed.
5. Toyota City.
This is the first instrumental on the album and, as could be guessed from the title, it has a bit of a japanese feel to it. Maybe not an outstanding track, but good nonetheless.
6. Crow and a baby.
I hadn't heard this album for such a long time that I had forgotten most of the tracks. This was one of the few that I didn't forgot and I can even remember them playing it live. This is classic Human League - great stuff.
7. The touchables.
When I read through the track listing before playing this I felt I had no idea what this track was - I couldn't remember a thing about it, but when it statred playing and I heard the line "Speaking of which, what is your choice" and realised that I had been singing this line to myself regularly for years without even realising what it was. I have no idea why and as the song went on I realised I had no memory of the chorus at all - it just seemed to be that first line that I had kept on my mind for all those years. In fact, listening to it now I have to say all in all it is one of the weaker tracks on the album. I wonder why that first line had stuck in my mind for so long?
8. Gordon's Gin.
This is the second instrumental on the album and I remember this being one of my favourites back then, when I was about 16 years old. It still sounds great.
9. Being Boiled.
Being boiled was the first Human league single and tghis is a souped up re-recording of it. I remember being absolutely stunned when I first heard the original - I don't think I had ever heard anything like it before. This is one of the 2 Human league tracks that Strange Devotion played live. This version is still really good, but it does suffer a bit from over production and it has those brass sounds in it.
10. W.X.J.L Tonight.
This is the last song from the original album, though the iTunes version has 7 extra tracks. This is another really great Human League track. It is about the death of radio shows with DJs and is somewhat moving in some strange way - you really feel sorry for the guy who is singing it (I mean the radio DJ guy, not Phil Oakey).
11. Marianne.
This was originally a single and I remember buying it and I can remember them playing this track live. It still sounds good after all these years.
12. Dancevision (instrumantal)
I reckognised this track so I must have had it on some format first time around but I can't remember what it is from - maybe it was the b-side to Marianne? I know I could quite easily find out using the interconnected world wide internet and a computer but I'm just not going to do it.
Great instrumental with a great ending
13. Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing
This is a couple of cover tracks that blend together. I love the way the drums/handclaps slow down as the first song becomes the second. I remember having this back then, but again can't remember if it was an A side, a B side or something else ebtirely. I also remember these tracks from seeing them live. The other cover they used to do live was Perfect Day. I can remember that after seeing them at Wakefiled Unity Hall on the last date of the travelogue tour (which would also be the last gig they played before Ian Marsh and Martin Ware left to be replaced by 2 girls Phil oakey met in a night club) I managed to get back stage and asked one of them what that track was and they gave me a look that said "how on earth could you possibly not know" as they told me it was a Lou Reed track.
14. Tom Baker
I can remember having this track and I think it was the B side to Boys and Girls. I'm pretty sure I liked it at the time, but now I'm not so keen on it. I think the proper Doctor Who theme is better.
15. Boys and Girls
As just mentioned I bought this single when it came out - I have a feeling it was the first release of the new Human league lineup. Again, I thought it was good at the time, but it doesn't sound quite so good now.
16. I don't depend on you.
I have never heard this track before and it sounds like a rather average sounding funky type of disco track and not like a Human League track at all.
17. Cruel.
This is another instrumental and, again, I had never heard of it before. It is just nowhere near up to the standard of the original Travelogue album tracks. These last 2 tracks might just as well have been left of as far as I'm concerned. They sound like a completely different genre of music.
18. The Weekly Woss Weport.
That's strange, I thought there were only meant to be 18 tracks on this release? Its like some sort of strange black hit of space style occurence where no matter what I press on my iPod it just comes up with Weekly Woss Weport and which ever way I turn I see that cheeky grin in font of me so without further ado her we go:
Before we get the first guest we have tghe obligatory joke and this one was about a water butt that is shaped like a bottom - I prssume you have to be American to appreciate this one properly. Personaly, I didn't think that this was a genuine product.

The first guest is Jamie Foxx (who I have never heard of before) and I must say his rendition of YMCA just doesn't fit in with the style of Travelogue at all. He then tries to make ammends by singing some other song but it still has no synths and simply does not fit on this album.

Next up is someone whose name sounds like Beth Ditto, but as I have an ear infection I may not have heard it correctly. I haven't heard of her either. A quick search on t'intenet reveals that I did hear the name correctly and she is a singer who has appeared on the cover of NME. It seems she is from Arkensaw (which is pronounced Arkansas).

Now it is Michael Ball's turn to talk to the hersuit Mr Woss. This is not the best line-up I have seen on this show so far (although I'm sure there are plenty of people who would disagree with me). So, we are now a bit into Mr Balls slot and I have to admit he has come accross much better than the previous guests did.

To round the show off we have yet another band from Sweden. Last week it was The Hives and this week it is Peter, Björn and John. They are not too bad at all.

So, all in all, despite Mt Ball being able to raise a few laughs, this episode of the Jonathan Woss Show made a very disappointing end to a fantastic Human League album which doesn't sound half as over produced now as was reported at the time.

Now I am going to watch an episode of Futurama before going to sleep.

Next week we hope to get James Burke on the case, or at least involved in some capacity or other.

Dag 1321: Världen är allt

My Dad collected me from work at 17:00 and we set off for the M62 for the journey to Manchester. The traffic wasn’t too bad although an accident on the opposite carriageway had caused many miles of tailbacks.

We soon found the G-Mex carpark where the Bridgewater Hall website had recommended we should park. It stated that we should take the tunnel out of the carpark where we would find a lift that would take us up to just outside the Hall. We did this and saw that just outside the lift door were some stairs leading down to an area of water with a fountain in the middle and a nice looking bar called the pitcher and Piano next to the water. SO we went down the stairs and saw that if we hadn’t taken the lift that is were we would have come out anyway.

After some very nice food and a couple of drinks we headed back up the stairs and into the foyer. The building looked very new and I had heard it had fantastic acoustics. I soon spotted the t-shirt stall and spent a bit of time deliberating whether to get a white or a green t-shirt. I ended up choosing the green one even though I knew I would be told it was horrible when I got home (which is exactly what happened). They also had black t-shirts, but I already knew I was banned from buying black ones. I also bought a tour programme (which has a hard cover and a cd on the back cover). And they were both given to me in a tour plastic bag – very nice.

So, £40 lighter, we saw we still had plenty of time before the show was due to start so we went up to the circle bar for a swift half and sat by the window looking out over Manchester. There was a Hilton hotel near the hall that looked amazing.

Just before 20:00 went to our seats. They were in the left hand side circle and I had bought them from someone on eBay as when I tried to book them from either ticketmaster or the Bridgewater hall website only gallery tickets were available. So I was a bit surprised to see that the whole of the row in front of me was empty along with half of the row in front of that. Some of the people around me moved forward once they saw that no one was about to turn up for these seats but we stayed put as we had a good enough view where we were.

The layout of the hall was very impressive and it looked like it had been designed primarily for the acoustics. Behind the stage I could see a collection of massive shiny new organ pipes.

After 5 minutes or so the lights came down, the band walked onto the stage and started playing Wonderful World from the Nine Horse album Snow Bourne Sorrow.

The set list was the same as at the Stockholm concert and was as follows:

Wonderful World
It'll Never Happen Again
World Citizen
The Day the Earth Stole Heaven
Ride
Playground Martyrs/Transit
Fire in the Forest/Ghosts
Snow Borne Sorrow
Mother & Child
Waterfront
Atom & Cell
Sugar Fuel
Brilliant Trees/Fight the Bullfight/Nostalgia/Fight the Bullfight
The Librarian
(1st encore)
Every Colour You Are/River Man
(2nd encore)
Wanderlust

The stage was very large, open and roomy and the lack of a speaker stack at either side gave it a very different appearance from most concerts I’ve been too. Behind the stage was a backdrop with graphics projected onto it that changed subtly as the show went on. It was a great effect and must have taken someone ages to put together.

The sound quality was absolutely excellent, as expected, and, for me, the highlights of the show were Ride, Mother and Child, Waterfront (which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end) and Fight the Bullfight. The only disappointment (and it was only a slight disappointment) was that the arrangement of Every Colour You Are had been changed and had a more minimal drum part. I always thought that the strong drum pattern made this song, but the drums on Fight The Bullfight, however, were fantastic and more than made up for this.

The band consisted of:
David Sylvian – vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
Steve Jansen – drums and occasional keyboards
Keith Lowe – Bass
Takuma Watanebe – grand piano and keyboards
There was a flute and (possibly) oboe player for about half of the songs, but I didn’t catch his name.

David Sylvian sat on a stool throughout and didn’t have a strap on either of his guitars. His voice was just as good as on his recordings and he had white shoes.
Steve Jansen has a rather strange looking drum kit with an electric bass pedal instead of an actual bass drum. Despite what I mentioned above, the drumming was excellent and varied from fairly loose swing styles through to very tight minimal drumming and the rock drumming style of Fight The Bullfight (if that is what style that was).
Keith Lowe sported a leather kilt and had 2 electric basses (one of which looked like a Danelectro Longhorn) and 1 electric double bass.
Takuma Watanebe played what must have been a concert grand piano (it looked huge) and had a short keyboard and an Apple MacBook Pro next to him and a larger keyboard on top of the piano (unfortunately I was too far away to spot what these keyboards were. His piano playing was excellent throughout and incredible of Mother and Child.

encore

The lighting was pretty dark throughout so I wasn’t able to get any decent pictures, even after I had managed to work out how to disable the flash.

Of the songs I didn’t already know; It'll Never Happen Again is a cover of a Tim Hardin song, Playground Martyrs is a track from Steve Jensen’s new album Slope and Transit is a song from Christian Fennesz. I think that Sugar Fuel is a track by a group called Ready Made, though I haven’t been able to find out much about this track at all.

There was a standing ovation at the end and after both encores.

after the show

So overall it was a great evening. There was no support and the concert lasted from 20:00 to 22:00 with no breaks. We thought we would be able to get home in good time, but unfortunately the queue for the carpark ticket machine was massive and it took half an hour to finally get to the front. As the queue was so big when we got there I felt sure there must not have been any more machines especially as more and more people tuned up and joined the queue behind us. As we drove round the carpark I saw another machine at the other end of the carpark with no one anywhere near it, so I guess they could do with better signposting to the locations of the pay stations.

Dag 1255: A Forest

The sun shone obliquely through the foliage leaving patterns on the damp musty ground. No one heard the snap of a twig under foot save the fatigued and stooping figure that caused it. He had been travelling for 3 days and he had no idea where he was. He didn't even know what country he was in, but he had an image engained in his mind of an upright girder, surrounded by water, reaching into the sky. The top of it was bent and a human figure was standing there with arms stretching up towards the sun. He had no recolection of ever seeing such in image other than in his dreams.



He had fallen asleep in one of the business lounges at Heathrow airport, or at least he thought that's what had happened. He hadn't noticed the intense looks he had been getting from a group of similarly dressed men at the next table and he hadn't noticed that when one of them had dropped a pen next to him they had poured a little white powder into his drink as they picked it up.
All he knew was that as he drank his drink he felt more and more sleepy.
When he woke up he was in a glade in the middle of a forest. There was a small wooden building in the glade. It was painted bright red, but the paint was peeling and the door was hanging from one hinge. When he first came to his senses he had headed straight for this red house but it was obvious from the layers of dust that no one had been inside for many years.
He pushed the door and there was a clatter and a cloud of dust as it fell backwards into the main room of this small red house. At one end of the room was a stove. Like everything else it was covered in dust, but it contained a bed of rolled up newspaper with a layer of sticks above that and a few cracked logs on top.
Next to the stove was an unused box matches. The box looked old and had a picture of a lion in the middle with the legend "The Lion Safety Matches" and "made in Sweden". He opened the door of the stove and looked at the corner of one of the pieces of newspaper. It had the date 1st February 1973 written in smudged ink. This fire had been waiting for a long time to be lit so he struck a match and held it against the corner of paper.
The fire soon took and he began to feel better as the warmth from it crept through his body. There wasn't much furniture in the room but his eye was drawn to an 18th century side board under the window. He opened the doors and looked inside. He was surprised to see a portable Bang and Olufsen cd player and next to it a small pile containing 3 CDs. On top of the side board was a moleskin notebook and a mont blanc pen.

He had nothing better to do for the time being so he picked up the first cd and inserted it into the slot.

Maps - We can create ****
He had heard that the Maps were a group to look out for as they were doing something very different. When compared to the glut of groups like The Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and others currently doing the rounds he could partly agree with that, however as he listened he thought to himself that although he quite liked the music, it didn't sound radically new. He felt it was more of a follow on from such bands as Boards of Canada, Röyksopp and possibly even Portishead. There were also hints of shoegazing buried in there too, which he felt was definitely a good thing.
The opening track "So low, so high" is instantly likeable, but the albums stand out track is definitely "It will find you" with its ever repeating loop that soon become s engrained in your mind. The instrumentation is varied and although mainly electronic there are also glimpses of traditional instruments like the acoustic guitars intro to "To the sky". He felt that the vocals had a distinctly Scandinavian quality to them, but this could be because one of the band comes from Iceland.
On the whole it is a good rather than a great album, but worthwhile getting if you like any of the bands mentioned as being similar to this. The only duff track, in the opinion of this lost reviewer, is "Glory verse", which is probably best described as boring, but its easy to press the skip button.

After listening to the first CD and writing a short review in the notebook he had a look around to see if there was any food or drink. He expected that if there was any it would be old and inedible, but he was pleasantly surprised to see a large bottle of sparkling Ramlösa and a large bag of sour cream and dill potato chips. Both were well within their sell by date so he took them and put the next cd on.

Mahogany - Connectivity! ****
As the first track faded in the reviewer was instantly reminded of an old Cocteau Twins track. He tried to think which track it could be. Was it Hitherto? No, it was more like Orange Appled. It was interesting that this CD should sound so instantly like the Cocteau Twins as it featured Robin Guthrie and Robin and Liz Fraser's daughter Lucy Belle on a couple of the tracks (though not this one). The music was instantly likeable and definitely fitted firmly into the shoegazing category. Obviously whoever had left these CDs in this hut was a fan of that genre.
As the first track progressed the male vocals were joined by female vocals and the effect laden guitar brought more thoughts of the Cocteau Twins. The next track started off with a telephone ring type sound and sounded similar to some of the music on the Maps CD, but with female vocals. The third track "Supervitesse" had been mixed by Robin Guthrie and reminded me of Slowdrive rather than the Cocteau Twins. The forth track "One plus one equals three or more" reminded the reviewer of Wire, though still firmly within the realm of shoegazing. The reviewer ate his crisps and drank his ramlösa as he jotted notes down on the found notebook.
He wrote that the fifth track "Mantissa" opened with a very Cocteau Twinesque sounding drum machine loop. He couldn't quite think which song it was closest to, but the contenders included "I wear your ring" and "My Truth" among others. The next track "Neo-plastic Boogie-woogie" caught our hapless reviewer completely by surprise. It sounded like the Beach boys in all their Surfin' USA glory (I'm sure glory isn't the word I should be using here). In fact it you wanted to do a jokey take off of the Beach Boys this is what you might end up with.
This is definitely the low point of this CD and things pick up nicely with track 7, the instrumental "Windmill International". This reminded our hopelessly lost reviewer of some of Steve Reich's minimalist compositions. With track 9 came the obvious high point of this CD, the fantastic Domino Ladder Beta (which is repeated featuring Robin Guthrie later on on the CD for an even higher high point).
Looking through the notes left in the notebook I see that the track "My Bed Is My Castle" also gets a mention as one of the stronger tracks and this one also appears twice (the second time featuring Lucy Belle Guthrie). I also see a note saying that the track "Springtime, Save Our Country" could easily have been recorded by Slowdive.
The review ends with a note saying that if the reviewer ever manages to find his way back to civilisation he would like to go and see Mahogany live.

The CD finished and the man through some more logs onto the fire before he reached for the next one.

Magga Stina - An Album ***
The reviewer didn't write much about this, so here are his words in full: This CD opens with some nice analogue sounding synth drones and affected percussion. The first track "In" is very promising, but then it finishes and we are presented by some brass followed by Hawaiian sounding slide guitar and then follows the realisation that Magga Stina is very possible trying to be the Danish version of Björk. The album follows and it could almost be a Björk CD, but not quite as good as Björk. It's not bad, and worth a listen to on occasion, but unfortunately, it isn't brilliant.

By this time it was dark outside so the man thought he should try and find some more food before settling down for the night. He managed to find a tin of Beans and Sausages so he heated them up over the wood stove and ate them with some flat bread he had found in a bread tin in the small kitchen. As he slept that night he had a strange dream of being asleep on a boat and then slightly coming round as he was carried from the boat to the shore by some unknown people. Through his hazy vision he saw the upright girder that was to be on his mind for the rest of his life.

At this he awoke with a start. It was light outside and he thought he had better try and find his way out of this forest. He had one last look around the strange red house to see if he could find any clue to its owner, but all he could find was a poster of Glen Tilbrook on one of the walls and a faded photo under a book about art on the only shelf on the houses main room.



With that he put the notebook and pen onto the shelf next to the black and white photo, left the house and walked due east into the forest.

Dag 1180: Let the happiness in

My life seems to be getting more and more involved in music these days, which is a good thing, but unfortunatley, it is mostly listening to music rather than making it as I just never seem to get time for the latter these days.

My iPod died a month or so ago, but as I had managed to wangle a new W880i, which comes with a gig of memory, out of my mobile phone provider, I have started listening to music on that until I can afford to buy a new iPod. The sound seems noticably better than it was on my old The headphone I had been using were pretty cheap ones I had picked up from Edinburgh airport some years ago as I don't like using the in ear type that come with an iPod. I noticed that the sound from the W880i was far superior to my previous phone and as my headphones were beginning to fall apart I thought I might inverst in a new pair.

I had once tried on a pair of noise cancelling Bose headphones when I was working in Scotland and was amazed at how they much were able to reduce the background office noise. I thought it would be great to get some of those but they just cost so much that I thought I might get some noise cancelling headphones by a cheaper brand instead. I read a few reviews and it seemed that although I could get some for under £100 I shouldn't expect them to work as well as the Bose ones.

So one lunchtime last week I headed out to Richer Sounds to see what they had. On the way there I passed a Bose store and thought I may as well just pop in and see if they had some special one off offer on that meant I could get their noise cancelling headphones at a greatly reduced price. I found that not only did they have the noise cancelling headphones on display (unfortunately only at full price), but they also had 3 models of non noise cancelling headphones - and these were within my price range. The 3 models were in-ear, on-ear and around-ear and each (apart from the on ear model) was hooked up to an iPod so they could be tried out. First I tried on the noise cancelling ones, but the iPod only had a Michael Jackson CD on it so that reduced the value of any test I could do. I then tried the over ear ones and the iPod they were attached to was pretty full of all sorts of music. It actually took me longer to choose what I was going to listen to listen to than I spent listening to it. The sound quality was excellent, but I felt these headphones were too big to wear on the train or when walking through town. The on ear ones were a better size but I couldn't listen to anything with them. I decided that I had originally set out to get some noise reducing headphones from Richer Sounds so I headed of to see what they had to offer.

When I got there I saw that all the headphones were up on racks behind the counter so they couldn't be looked at without having to look around the staff which means you are bound to get one trying to help you sir. I wanted to be able to have a good look in peace. Also, as the headphones were all sealed in their boxes it meant that I couldn't try them out or get a feel for how comfortable they might be. I spent a bit of time looking at the Cd players and speakers while deciding whether I wanted to go up and look at the headphones or not. I was feeling that the sound of the Bose ones was so good that maybe I should just go back there, but then I remembered that I had originally intended to get some noise cancelling ones so I bit the bullet and went up to the counter.

I couldn't see any noise cancelling headphones on the rack and then came the inevitable "Can I help you sir". I asked if they had any noise cancelling headphones. He said he didn't think so, but checked on the computer and then said they should have 1 pair in stock but they must be in the back, so off he went to look for them.

While I was waiting a guy came in with a pair of headphones and handed them over to one of the other guys behind the counter. He explained that he had bought them one month ago and the sound crackled so what were they going to do about it. He handed the headphones over. I looked at them and was astounded to see that the whole length of the wire was filled with knots and some of the knots were themselves made up of knots. It looked a right old mess.

The conversation then went roughly as follows:

Guy behind counter: "Can I help you?"
Customer (handing over a set of headphones): "I bought these from you a month ago and the sound has become really crackly. I expected them to last longer than this."
Guy behind counter: "I can see exactly what is causing the problem - it's all these knots. Audio cable isn't designed to be treated like this and it causes the wire inside to break over time."
Customer: "So what are you saying?"
Guy behind counter: "You shouldn't have let the cable get into this state. This is what has caused the crackly sound."
Customer: "I didn't know that. Can you replace them?"
Guy behind counter: "I'm afraid this can't be classified as damage through normal wear and tear."
Customer: "So what are you saying mate - are you not going to exchange them?"
Guy behind counter: "We can only really exchange things that are damaged by normal wear and tear. All these knots ain't normal wear and tear mate".
Customer: "Yeah but mate no one told me that you shouldn't let them get knots in them".
Guy behind counter: "We don't mention that fact as normal policy when we sell headphones. How did they get like that?"
Customer: "I don't know that just got like this."
Guy behind counter: "Sorry, but there isn't really anything that we can do."
Customer: "But mate how can you say that. I didn't know that I shouldn't let them get like that."
Guy behind counter: "But mate you've got to see that this isn't just normal wear and tear. I don't see how they could have got like this in only one month."
Customer: "What are you saying mate? Are you saying you don't believe me."
Guy behind counter: "No mate, but I can't exchange these as this is not normal wear an tear."
Customer: "What are you saying mate? Are you saying that you're not going to do anything?"
Guy behind counter: "Mate, you could try sending them back to Senheisser to see if they will do anything, but I doubt they will as this is purely down to them not being looked after properly."
Customer: "So what are you saying mate? I appreciate about the knots, but no one told me that I shouldn't let the knots get in there when I bought it so I didn't know that it would damage the cable."
Guy behind counter (still managing to sound incredibly calm and collected): "But mate, really each time you saw that a knot had got into the cable you should have undone it to prevent it getting in this state."
Customer: "So what are you saying mate? Are you saying that if I had undone all the knots outside the shop before I brought it in then you would have replaced it?"
Guy behind counter: "Mate, I can see what condition they are in and I know that it is these knots that have caused the sound to become crackly."

During this conversation the guy behind the counter was staying very calm. I was very impressed with how he was handling the customer and he is a credit to Richer Sounds. I, on the other hand, was getting more and more stressed.
Who in their right mind would let their headphone cable get into that state and still expect them to work? Presumably the fact that this guy is still alive is purely because someone told him to "make sure you keep breathing and eat and drink occassionally" early on in his life.

At this point the guy looking for the headphones for me came back. He hadn't found them so I said I would call back next week and headed back to the Bose shop and purchased the on-ear headphones, despite the fact that I hadn't been able to hear a demo of them. The price was £20 more than the over ear ones so I thought they had to be at least as good.

I got back to the office and tried them out and the sound was incredible. It seems to make all the instruments have their own space in the mix and the bass is one of the best I have heard on a pair of headphones. In fact the best way of describing them is to say they are addictive - I just want to listen to music through them the whole time.

One of the first things I listened to on them was Smile's OK by The Hope Blister. This is a pretty high quality recording anyway and it sounded so good through these headphones that I became very anti-social at work and listened to it over and over again. One of my favourite tracks is called "Only Human" and it was originally recorded by Heidi Berry, who sang "Till I gain control again" on the This Mortal Coil album Blood. I had been aware that she had recorded some albums on 4AD but never heard any of them, but now I really wanted to hear the original version of "Only Human" through my new headphones.

The next lunchtime I trawled round all the record shops in Leeds but couldn't find any of her CDs so I had a look on amazon. The only one that seemed to be available new was Pomegranate (an anthology which includes Only Human), but it had a 6 to 9 days delivery. I ordered it along with Singularity by Peter Hammill and in order to keep me busy while I waited for these to arrive I went back into Leeds and bought the newly remastered version of Secondhand Daylight by Magazine along with a remastered Secrets of the Beehive by David Sylvian (which contains the track Let the Happiness In, also covered by The Hope Blister on Smile's OK). I have been listening to these 2 alot while awaiting my CDs from amazon. I had forgotten just how good Secondhand Daylight is and the David Sylvian album is great to listen to on these headphones as it is such a high quality recording. I hadn't heard this before and comparing the original version of Let the Happiness In with the Hope Blister version just shows how talented the peple invoved with the This Mortal Coil and Hope Blister projects are when it comes to arranging covers of other peoples songs. I pressume that Ivo Watts-Russell is the one who would take most of the credit for this.

The CDs from amazon have now arrived and I chose to listen to the Heidi Berry CD first as it was the one I had most been anticipating. The outcome of this is that I still haven't listened to the Peter Hammill CD (or anything else) since I listened to Pomegranite.

This is currently the my all time favourite CD of all time and I am sure it is going to remain in my top CDs list for the rest of my life. Her songs have a bit of a folky edge to them, and in some ways they remind me of Sandy Denny, who was one of my favourite singers in my youth. However, I certainly wouldn't class her as purely a folk singer/songwriter by any stretch of the imagination. Her voice is both beautiful and mournful and the songs themself are at times melancholic but uplifting and full of emotion. These songs are all over 10 years old, but have a timeless quality about them and sound like they could have been just recorded. In many ways they make me think of my youth, but I don't really know why.

It was interesting hearing the original version of Only Human as The Hope Blister had changed the lyrics around so they were directed at the singer, whereas in the original version the subject of the lyrics is somebody else. This is the only song on the CD to consist of piano and vocals - all the other tracks have a greater number of instruments involved. The tracks that so far stand out as the best are Northern Train (one of the greatest songs I have ever heard), Only Human, Mercury, Time and Follow, though there is not a weak song on the whole CD.

I now wish that I had sought her music out when it first came out so I could have had the chance to see her perform live. Looking at her website I see that she is currently teaching courses in songwriting in Brighton. I feel very jealous of people living in Brighton now as I would love to attend one of her courses, but it would be a bit of a commute from Yorkshire.

Dag 1162: If in doubt, be dancing

As predicted last time I have continued my CD buying spree and have been getting a bit more up to date on the current music scene. In the 70s and 80s I was pretty much up to date with what was going on, but things went a bit out of kilter in the 90s and carried on until fairly recently. The whole thing started during a visit to Scotland when I bought a Capercaillie CD. I liked it so much that I bought all their other albums and started going to see them at every opportunity. I soon started to listen only to Scottish music, but that felt too mainstream so I narrowed it down to only Scottish Gaelic music, then I started learning Scottish Gaelic and narrowing down my music purchases to ever more obscure Gaelic artists. It got to the point that if it wasn't recorded on the smallest most remote Scottish island during a force 9 gail then it was just too mainstream for me.

Fortunately, just when I was on the brink of adding a Mac to the start of my surname and refusing to speak English anymore I started working in Sweden. This enabled me to get into Swedish music and start learning Swedish instead. Fortunately though, instead of ending up only listening to music that was recorded under a midnight sun in the far north of Sweden, I discovered some really great new music that I just would not have discovered if I hadn't been working there (such as Kent, Eva Dahlgren, and even Roxette, who I hadn't been that keen on when they first became known in the UK).

So back to my latest music purchases:

Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I miss Everyone ****

I went to see a band called My Latest Novel in Edinburgh last year (or the year before) and was very impressed. I discovered they were on the Cocteau Twins' Bella Union label. I ended up signing up on the Bella Union website and have had quite a few trips onto it to check out their band roster. There are plenty of interesting bands on there and this is the first one I have bought (apart from My Latest Novel). Like Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails I was presented with a cheaper normal version of the CD or a limited edition double CD at a higher price. Unlike Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails I bought the double CD version, and am pleased I did. The first CD contains the album tracks and the second contions remixes. Normally I think remixes are rubbish, but in this case I don't. The album is made up of 6 instrumental pieces and there are another 6 on the remix CD. The music is very atmospheric and melancholic which makes it fit nicely into the sort of stuff that I have come to realise that I like and the remix tracks sound sufficiently different to make them worthwhile listening so all in all this is a great CD. So far the final track stands out as being a particular highlight with its sparse and beautiful tinkly opening that gradually builds up to a full on climactic end. This is great music to listen to while working.

My Latest Novel in Edinburgh

Other Bella Union artists to look out for are Midlake, Devics, The Howling Bells and, of course, My Latest Novel.

Slowdive - Just for a Day ****

After doing some more browsing on wikipedia I found an entry about a type of music called Shoe Gazing. I wasn't familiar with this term, but it seemed that quite a few bands I really like fit into this genre so I guess I must be a shoe gazer too. So if you see me looking down at my shoes in future now you know why. The article listed many other shoe gazing bands that I hadn't heard before. I thought I would probably like them so I wrote about 12 of the band names onto a post-it note and headed off for Virgin Records in Leeds. After some frantic floor walking I discovered that they didn't have a single band on my list so I went across to HMV hoping they might be better kitted out for us shoe gazers. All I can say is that HMV in Leeds is a veritable haven for shoe gazers. They had multiple CDs from most of the bands on the list so, bearing in mind that I hadn't heard any of them, it was difficult deciding which CDs to buy. The bands at the top of my list (as they seemed to have the most said about them on Wikipedia) were Chapterhouse and Slowdive. There were a couple of CDs by each band and I ended up choosing a slowdive one as they had a girl singer so I thought I may just like them better. This is a double CD containing their first album along with their early singles and Eps. I only found this out after I'd bought it so I was a bit concerned that I may have been better off getting a later album, but as soon as I heard the first track I was transported back to that time period. The music sounds heavily influenced by the Cocteau Twins and as it was in the same style I liked it straight away. I must confess that I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but that is purely down the fact that a) I have bought so much music lately and b) I just keep on going back to the Cocteau Twins time and time again (I am currently listening to Victorialand, again, as I write this). They were once my all time favourite band of all time and they may well just be about to become so again. If only they would finish their unfinished album and reform for a tour - I would probably try and get to every date.

Puressense - Planet Helpless *

Once I had picked my Slowdive CD I decided I'd get one more from my list. I nearly bought a Catherine Wheel cd as the cover looked good and Tim Friese Green (who worked on the later, and greater, Talk Talk albums) was involved, but if I got that it would have meant I was spending more than I wanted to I ended up getting Planet Helpless by Puressense as it was on the list and it was only a fiver. As soon as I started playing it I realised that this was a mistake. Whereas slowdive definitely fitted in with bands like Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil Puressense did not seem to fit the shoe gazing genre one bit. I would have fitted them squarely in with the Madchester bands who I have no interest in whatsoever. I listened to 2 tracks and took it off. This is the first CD I have bought in a very long time that I have regretted. If anyone wants to buy it off me please leave a comment to that effect.

dag 1133: Where do baby beams go when they die?

I have been buying music lately and in some sort of real breakthrough for me it isn't Swedish music.

Månen hänger lågt

Bill Nelson - Getting the Holy Ghost Accross ****:

I originally bought this on prerecorded cassette and it quickly became one of my favourite albums. I tended to only listen to tapes in the car and this was without doubt the tape I played the most. Since I got my first CD player I have been on the lookout for this on CD but no shops ever seemed to stock it. Some years ago I found out it had never been released on CD and that there was a group of fans trying to get people to sent requests to the record company to try and get them to do the right thing and release it on CD. I sent them an email and kind of forgot about it until a few weeks ago when I spotted it in HMV in Leeds. I had been considerring getting a Ramstein CD (because the bass player plays a Sandberg bass), but when I saw this I felt duty bound to buy it as I had sent the record company that email some years back. I hadn't heard it for many years and although it did sound somewhat dated I had heard the songs so many times first time round that it seemed instantly familier to me. It reminds me very much of the Simple MInds album Sons and Fascination. If you liked that album you will definately like this.

Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral **:

I was busy trying to think of a good name for my new musical project and each time I wrote one down I googled it to see if anyone had already used it. One of the names I came up with was Downward Spiral. It turned out that it is the name of a Nine Inch Nails album so I looked it up on Wikipedia and read a few reviews on amazon where in general people were saying it was one of the all time best albums of al time. I saw that there were 2 version of the album available at the moment. One was the standard one and the other was a 2 disk special edition. The special edition was quite a bit more expensive and I knew that if I ended up really liking this I would kick myself if I didn't get the special edition. The album was recorded in the house where Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson and that kind of made me feel that this album might actually just be someone trying to be controversial. I opted for the lower cost version and after a couple of plays it was the right choice. There are a few good moment on it but mainly it comes accross as someone trying to break a few bounderies. I was looking forward to hearing Hurt (the last track) as I realy like the cover of it that Johnny Cash did and that is saying something as I have never liked anything else I have heard by him. Unfortunately the NIN version just isn't a patch on the Johnny Cash version. I may play it again occaissionaly but on the whole it was a bit of a let down, whcih is a shame as I liked the Quake music that Trent Reznor did.

Muse - Absolution ***:

Since getting my new bass I have joined the bassworld forum and really enjoyed reading a lot of the threads. One thread had a few people discussing how good Muse were so I thought I would take their word for it and give them a try. They both said how good they thought the album Absolution was and as it had a song called Stockholm Syndrome on it this seemed the best one to give a try.

The openning track was amazing and I had to play it over a few times before moving on. I got as far as Stockholm syndrome and thought it was all great. It was one of those albums where I keep getting to the end of Stockholme Syndrome and then having to start again from the beginning. I have to admit that the first 5 songs are so good that I haven't actually played th whole thing through yet. The music seemd to me to be pretty unique, but then I realised that it did remind me of another group - one that I didn't know particularly well, and then it came to me, it was Queen. They remind me of Queen, only they are heaps better than Queen were - in my opinion anyway. So well worth checking out if you don't yet know them.

Emmerhoff and the Melancholy Babies - Electric Reverie *****:

I spotted this CD when I was browsing through Virgin Records in Leeds last week. I was looking at the ELP CDS and this was next to it. I liked the cover picture and I liked the fact that the name had the word Melancholy in it as I seem to be really into melancholic music at the moment. I was sensible and didn't buy it there and then - I went back to work and looked for reviews. The reviews were all good so I bought it the next day and was not at all disappointed. The album features a cover version of the song Cowboys by Portishead and it has to be on the best songs I have heard. I feel that it surpases the original. It is worth buynig the album just for this track, but the rest is really good too and it gets better with more plays. I decided that I just had to send them a myspace friend request and not only did they accept, but they put a message up on my myspace page which I think is pretty decent of them. I should also add that I felt that the trees on the cover looked like Scandinavian trees and I was right as they are from Norway.

Robin Guthrie - Continental *****:

I first heard one of the songs from this album when I spotted Robin Guthries myspace page. It sounded just like the Cocteau Twins but minus the exquiset voice of Elizabeth Fraser. I new it was only a metter of time before I bought this and I ended up downloading it from iTunes after failing to find it in Leeds. It is great music to listen to while working so that what I have been doing. In fact it is possible that I have listened to this album more than all the others reviewed in this post. I should also add that Mr Guthrie has a jolly enjoyable blog.

Big Star - Third***:

This Mortal Coil covered a couple of songs from this CD on their first album (It'll End in Tears) so I thought it would be good to hear the originals. There are 2 tracks from this album on the "It'll end in tears" TMC album and as the TMC covers are usualy pretty different from the originals I had no idea what to expect of the originals. It turned out thet the originals were pretty similar to the ocvers and wher I thought Howard Devoto was probably being pretty left field in his singing on Holocaust - it seemed to me that he was just trying to be as close to the singing on the original as he could. All in all I liked both the songs that TMC covered and I quite liekd a few others, but this is not an album I have felt compelled to return to much. I prefer listening to It'll end in tears as the other songs on it are beter than the others songs on Third.

There are a few more new bands I have spotted and may be making a few more purchases pretty soon. Reviews will no doubt follow at some point.

Dag 891: det spelar ingen roll

You may have noticed that I have been providing occasional sustenance for those living in a world devoid of quality biopic film reviews by delivering timely reviews at critically opportune moments, thus helping the film going public in general. However, you may also have noticed that while I have been paying homage to the genre of film I have been sadly neglecting the humble book.

This is probably because I haven't read a book (i.e. a fictional story) for around 2 years and this blog has only been around for about that length of time. It is a shame I haven't read one for so long because It is quite possible that in my lifetime I have read more books then I have seen films (though it is also possible that I have seen more films than read books - I've no idea one way or the other to be honest) but, regardless of that, I feel, it is about time we had an official björkbjiggler book club posting.

I have been interested in books since the very first time I became interested in them and have always had one on the go. The thing with books is that it isn't just reading them that is enjoyable, but it is just as much fun buying them and looking at them on your bookshelf. The contents of a persons bookshelf probably says a lot about the person whose books they are.

I may not have finished a book for the last 2 years, but I have had one on the go for the whole time. I started reading it during my last holiday in Spain and haven't yet finished it. I have bought quite a few books since that one, but I can't start reading a new book until I've finished the previous one (in fact that statement is not quite true, it should read - I can't start a new fiction book until I have finished the current fiction book - I am allowed to read non fiction books while I am still reading a fiction book because they don't interfere with the plot). The book I currently have on the go is Detective Inspector Huss by Helene Tursten and there are 3 main reasons why I haven't yet completed it:

1) It is a bit heavy going - this allowed options 2 and 3 to creep in via the back door (as it were)
2) Sudoku - I used to read on the plane each week, but then I started doing sudoku instead
3) Family Guy - I used to read in bed every night until I discovered Family guy and now I watch and episode or 2 of that instead

So I am in a pretty sad state of affairs, book wise, but this week I have decided to break the stagnation and get back into books again ("hooray" I hear you cheering). And I have just bought 3 books and 4 cds to celebrate my return to literary prowess.

Now for the science part:
So how did I come to be reading a book that is a bit heavy going? Because it is set in Sweden and written by a Swedish Author, of course - nincompoop. Almost all the books I have read over the last 5 years have been releated to Sweden or Scandinavia in some way (they have also all been detective novels).

Now for the book review part:

Last week I bought 3 books and 4 cds, but I also bought a cd and a dvd in Sweden recently so I'll include those here as well:

The Books (3 for the price of 2 at waterstones):

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: Adult Edition (Paperback) by Mark Haddon

This was recently recommended by Adrian and I had actually thought about buying it when it first came out after hearing about it on a radio 4 program. At that point I had never heard of Aspergers so had no interest in it from that perspective and I also didn't like to think that a dog had been killed, so I didn't buy it at the time. However I have become interested in Aspergers over the last few months, and have been reading a good book about it on the train over the last week or so, so now seemed like a good time to get over the fact that a dog had been killed and get the book.
The first thing I noticed about the book is that the first chapter is chapter 2. I think that is really funny so I know I am going to really enjoy the book and I can't wait to start reading it properly - the trouble is I haven't finished my current book yet. I tried to find my current book last night, so I could try and rush through it, but couldn't. Maybe if I can't find the book that means I can go on and read this one - I would just have to make sure that if I ever did find that book I threw it out straight away.

There is also a children's version of this book which I may buy for my children.

The Man who Smiled by Henning Mankell (paperback)

This is the latest of the Inspector Wallander novels to be released in english, but it is not the latest in the series - it is from earlier on. It annoys me a bit when they do this because I like to read books in the correct order. I bought all the other Henning Mankell books as soon as they were released in English in hardcover, but I didn't get this one straight away so it is paperback. It is also the first time I have watched the film of the book before reading the book. I bought the DVD of this (Mannen Som Log) when I went to Stockholm with Adrian last year to see a Kent concert. While I was buying this DVD he was probably in some park in Stockholm pretending to be a tree or something. You may have noticed him. Anyway, I really enjoyed watching the film. This is one of those stories where nothing particularly spectacular happens but it was great all the same. Reading this book after watching the film will be a bit strange. I can't think of any time when I have watched the film before reading the book - it has always been the other way round.

Calling Out For You by Karin Fossum (paperback)

This is the fourth book in this series. I have the other three but have only read the first two so far. I really enjoyed the ones I have read so far they seem very true to life rather than the exagerated thenes you tend to see in Hollywood films and I felt I could really imagine what made the characters tick. I admire the fact that she doesn't just write about normal people with happy normal lives but includes a variety of characters (e.g. criminals and mental problems etc) and she really makes you feel you know where they are coming from and why they make the decisions they do. Nestor tells me I must move on now.

The CDs (from cdon.com - I've always had good service and really quick delivery from this company):

Eskobar by Eskobar (CD)

I've only listened to a couple of tracks from this so far. They were fairly mellow and acoustic rather than rocky, but hopefully there will be some rocky ones in there too. When I bought my first Eskobar CD (There's only now) I got into most of the tracks pretty quickly with the remainder taking a while to get into. The next one I bought (A thousand last chances) took me much longer to get into and I suspect this one may be the same. Not that it matters, because I always enjoy the process of getting used to music by a great band (which Eskobar certainly are). I haven't managed to get to see then live yet, but they are on my list.

Liebeling by Andrea Johnson (cd)

There was a track by Andreas Johnson on a trigger happy TV soundtrack cd I bought years ago and I had been thinking about getting this cd ever since, but never got round to it until I saw this at cdon.com for 4.95 euros so I thought now was the time to get it. I have only listened to the first track so far, and I played it 5 times in a row - glorious! I'm sure I'll get round to playing the rest at some point.

Äventyr EP by Eva Dahlgren (CD)

This is the first of the new batch of CDs that I listened to. It is the first new Eva Dahlgren music I'd heard for years and I was a bit worried that her music may not have been as good as it used to be. However I really enjoyed it but the downside is that it reminded me I have not managed to go to a concert of hers yet and don't know what prospect there is of me ever managing it. When I was last in Sweden it was announced that she was playing at a free concert in Stockholm 2 days after I was due to fly back home - bummer!

Snö by Eva Dahlgren (copy protected CD)

After enjoying the EP it was time to move on to the album. Eva Dahlgren's last studio album (Lai lai) was release around 6 years ago and was so good that I just didn't see how she could ever produce anything even half as good again, so I didn't buy this when it first came out last year - I was scared of listening to it. I started off with the first few tracks and thought it sounded good, but nothing special, but as the album progressed it just seemed to get better and better and during track 9 (Det som bär mig nu) I felt the same as when I first listened to Lai Lai. That tracks was as good as anything on Lai lai and I have played it many times since. The album as a while is reaqlly growing on me butg I just have to keep going back to track 9 again and again. In conclusion a fantastic album and easily up to par with the ground breaking Lai lai.

If you haven't heard any music by Eva Dahlgren buy Lai lai (if you can get hold of it and Snö.

It doesn't matter if you can't understand the words because the music is out of this world.

Buy them and you will know. And then buy some jewelrey by Efva Attling.

The Swedish purchases:

Favoriter på Svenska by Shirley Clamp (CD)

Some years ago when I was browsing in the music/DVD section of NK I noticed that I really liked the music they were playing. They had a stand on the counter marked "Nu Spelas" which had 6 empty CD cases on it. So while I listened to the music I examined the 6 cd boxes to see if I could work out which was the one that was currently playing. I could have simply asked someone, but I didn't feel up to taking the easy option, so I carried on trying to work it out. I ended up thinking that the most likely one was Den Långsamma Blomman by Shirley Clamp so I risked it and bought it. When I got chance to play it I realised I was right. This music is probably well and truly classified as pure pop music and it is not a genre of music I would normally touch with a barge pole, let alone listen to, but it had something different about it that I really liked - in fact you could say it had a certain "quelle heure est-il" about it. Shortly after buying this we went on holiday to Spain and this CD never left the cd player of our hire car. The music is really uplifting (apart from "Jag fick lånar en Ängel" which can reduce you to tears even if you can't understand what she is singing) and goes really well with the hot, bright sun and holiday atmosphere. Every time we played the CD after our holiday it reminded us if the holiday. So on our next trip to Sweden I bought her next CD (Lever mina Drömmar) and that one stayed in the CD for our last Spannish holiday and now reminds us of that one. Our last Spanish holiday was two years ago (which is when I started reading my last novel) so when we went to Sweden this year the first thing I did in the NK music section was to look and see if there was a new Shirley Clamp CD to take with us to Spain this year - there was, so I bought it.

This one is different from the others because all the songs are cover versions. I even thought I may not like it, but as soon as the first song came on I knew I was wrong. The album isn't as upbeat as the last two, but the songs are great and are made so much greater by her fantastic voice. The CD opens with her version of "It must have been love" by Roxette . The original song is great and very well known, but this version just seems to take it to a whole new level. The only downside to the CD is the inclusion of a Leo Sayer song - but that is easily skipped and the rest is great. The highlights are:

- När kärleken föds - It must have been love by Roxette

- Öppna din dörr - I've never heard the original version, but it seems to be by Tommy Nilsson

- Tro - Tro by Marie Fredriksson (fantastic song - Marie is also the singer with Roxette)

- Hur sköra vi är - Fragile by Sting

I am already looking forward to driving thorugh Spain with the windows open and this CD blending in with the hot spanish air (though the other Shirley Clamp CDs will also be getting another airing too).

Steget Efter by Henning Mankell (DVD)

I haven't watched this DVD yet, it is still sealed in its wrapper. I am really looking forward to seeing it, but I want to wait until a really good time to see it. I may save it until we are on holiday and watch it on my laptop. This is based on the book One Step Behind by Henning Mankell and it was while reading this book that I realised just how good his books were. While I was reading this book I thought it was the best book I have ever read. When I watch this I will have an ice cold Absolut Vodka with sprite and a bowl or two of top quality snacks. .

"It doesn't matter how we cry our tears,
the answer is a whisper in a far away world."

Dag 563 - I once wrote a poem of stillness and sadness

.......but I'm not writing poems anymore.

However, last night while watching an old episode of Inspector Lindley a couple of song lines came into my head, so I got hold of my lyric book (last added to in the 1980s) and wrote them down. Throughout the reminder of the program further lyrics came into my head so I added those and ended up with nearly a songs worth. They'll need tidying up a bit, but I will then try and write some music to go with them. This will be a first for me, as I usually write the tunes and then try and think of some words to go with them. I will possibly blog them when complete, but not here - I'll do that in my other blog.

Last Saturday night when I went to bed I decided that instead of subjecting innocent bystanders to me rambling on about my music I would create a new blog specially to allow me to do that (at 02:30 I thought it was about time to finish my first post and go to sleep). This means people can read that one if they want to, and the regular punters can stick with this one. So this is the last post here about my own music - you'll still get postings about other peoples music from time to time though. I won't be putting a link to my new blog here, so if you want to read it you'll have to find it for yourself. I'm sure it won't be hard to do. In fact there are 10 clues to its location on this blog, 3 of which can be found before the first line.

The other thing I will be carrying on here are my indepth film analysis, reviews and commentary.
So, a few weeks ago I finally got around to watching Mulholland Drive. It was very watchable and I did enjoy it, however, I did not understand one bit about what was going on with it. I even got confused about who was who, and when I saw those small versions of those old folks doing a jig or something I became even more confused. After it finished I looked at the extras to see if that might help me understand what I had just seen. These included 10 clues to understanding the film. Clue number 1 stated that there are 3 big clues before the opening titles. Ok, I thought, so I started watching the film again, but it began with the opening titles - so how could there be 3 clues before them??? I wondered if there was meant to be a bit before the titles, but it had been cut from my version of the DVD. I could well believe that, because someone had certainly been fiddling with other bits of the film on my copy. For example, just before the lesbian scene (that Adrian has previously alluded to) one of the actresses removes here bath robe. On my copy of the film someone has done a bit of pixelating (like they do to hide peoples faces on crimewatch) only they had missed the face completely with their pixelating. Also the lesbian scene was suspiciously short, so I think someone had got a bit happy with the scissors there too. This was most surprising on a film that I bought in Sweden! Anyway, then I decided that there was no explanation for the film, it was just made up and wasn't supposed to mean anything and the so called '10 clues' were just to get people even more confused. I was so convinced of this theory that I looked it up on the internet and discovered a site that could explain the story, and after reading this explanation it all began to make sense. I'll be waiting a bit for me to forget some of it, and then I shall watch it again.

Day 536: Film 2005

It's a question of sport
but not real sport - only in thought (sung to the theme tune for film 87)

So I haven't seen a huge number of films recently, but here are the in depth reviews of those I remember:

Secret window: I've been meaning to watch this for ages and finally saw this on tuesday night. It was pretty good to watch, but I wasn't too impressed with the ending.
Hide and Seek: I saw this before watching Secret Window. They have similar twists to them, but I got the twist in this one much earlier than I got the twist in Secret Window. Both films were pretty enjoyable though.
The Life Aquatic: I rented this last weekend and from the cover and the cast it looked like it would be really funny, however the humour is pretty subtle and seemed mainly to be take offs of the old Jacques Cousteau films. If you hadn't seen any of those you would be struggling to find the humour (and even if you had, you still have to work at finding the funny bits). I admit that I got bored around half way through and switched off. Maybe I would have enjoyed it better if I was in a different frame of mind.
Dodgeball: Waited ages to see this as I wasn't expecting it to be that good, but it was better than I expected. The story line was pretty obvious, but I think it was meant to be.
Gothika: I really enjoyed this - it is a tip top top of the range film.
Mannen som log: This is the third in the series of these films based on the Henning Mankel books. It was the first one I had seen without reading the book first - I haven't even noticed this book as being available. It was shorter and less dark and forboding than the previous two (or at least shorter than the second). It seemed, therefore, to be more commercial and user friendly that the others. I still enjoyed it though. I did cheat a bit by putting the english subtitles on, which wasn't an option with the previous 2 films in the series.
Meet the Fockers: I enjoyed this film alot, but I still prefer Meet the Parents (Släkten är värst) which is one of my all time favourate films of all time.

I have Mulholland Drive and Spirited Away waiting in the wings to be watched (both bought on my last trip to Stockholm), but the time hasn't seemed right for either of those just yet. Spirited Away is a Japanese film which is dubbed into english (if you bought it in the UK), but my copy is dubbed into swedish so I have to wait until my brain is in need of a good work out before watching it.

Dag 378: Life in the slow lane

Last evening I watched The Missing. Reading the back cover it sounded like the ideal film for me to watch for the mood I was in at the time. It involved somebody who was seeing a therapist after her son was killed in a plane crash, but the therapist says she has invented the son and he never existed. I knew the film had a twist in it and when it was revealed it certainly was not what I expected. I won't spoil it by saying what it was, but the film did go down hill a bit when the twist was revealed (although it was still ok). There were two points in the film where I literally jumped out of my chair, which gives it a few bonus points.

As mentioned previously, I am being kicked out of my Scottish residense on 1st April as my land lady is returning from Australia and wants her house back. I have been torn between getting another place close to work or getting somewhere in Edinburgh. I am not the best person at making my mind up about things, but I started looking at flats near to work last week (in person) while looking for flats in Edinburgh on the internet. I saw a place near work last Friday that was really nice, but I also found a flat in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh (so it was pretty central) and came with a private parking place which made it even better. I had the weekend to think it over. I decided I wanted the flat in Edinburgh, but Monday came and I thought about how if I took the flat in Edinburgh I would need to arrange to go and see it one night after work and it would mean driving all the way in and then I'd need to get a move on to get it all sorted by 1st April and moving my stuff might have needed more than 1 trip and so I ended up taking the flat near work out of sheer laziness. It is really nice inside and has nice views out over parkland at the back, but I can't help feeling a little disappointed that I was too lazy to go for the one in Edinburgh. Maybe when my new land lady comes back from her trip abroad (there seem to be a lot of Scottish ladies going on trips abroad just now) I will still be working on this same project and maybe I will have got my act together enough to make the effort to finally move into Edinburgh. Or maybe things will go even better and I will finally get to make my dream of moving to Sweden a reality instead.

Day 376: you and me death

When I arrived back at my normal home last Friday night the new Kent cd "Du och jag döden" was waiting for me. The first visual impression is that it is pretty black - the Max 500 cd that arrived a week or so earlier was black (like an old playstation disk) with black label and in a black sleeve, so I had kind of expected the trheme to carry on. This cd was also black like a playstation disk. The case was made of dark smoked perspex so you could just see the cover through it, which was also on black paper. The front cover picture is a skeleton playing cards with an ugly bloke, but on close inspection you notice that it isn't a bloke and she is a little odd looking (I hope it isn't based on a real life person - if so I hope I haven't caused any offence, and I'm sure you look good in real life). The pictures inside the booklet are also of this skeleton and girl - they are computer generated and the skeleton has quite a puppet like appearence, probably due to the fact that it has very long and very thin arm and leg bones. The girl has a big nose.

I didn't get chance to listen to it until Saturday morning on my way into town. The first track opens with a really great instrumetal section with some intresting drum interjections that got me liking it straight away. The whole cd has a real air of quality to the sound, production and arrangement. It has been a fair gap between Vapen & Ammunition and this one, but it is obvious that on listening to it it is going to be compared with it. V&A seemed, to me, to have some quite differring, but equally good songs that one could get into pretty much on first hearing. The songs on Du och jag döden seemed not to have the same instant catch to them, and each song seemed similar to the previous one. But I could tell that with more an more listening they would grow on me and probably reveal more depth than one tends to get from songs that hit you more on the first listen (as happens when listing to Peter Hammill). I do tend to feel that the more it takes to get into some music the more rewarding and long term the listening pleasure is (apart from stuff which is just plain crap of course).

I am currently on about my 7th listening and I am beginning to remember the songs more and as expected each one no longer sounds at all sumilar to the others (though there does seem to be more of a consistent style than the songs on V&A). Until now V&A was pretty much the best cd I had heard, but I di think the new one is going to at least match that. I'm really looking forward to hearing some of these songs at the concert in Stockholm at the end of May.

Day 357: the tide of smiles turning

It is, yet again, some time since I wrote something, so here is the update (in no particular order):

1. When I access www.blogger.com on my Apple Mac I get loads of Japanese text for some reason, but once I have logged in it goes back to English. Does anyone else suffer from this?
2. I am being kicked out of my Scottish accomodation on 1st April, due to the return of my landlady from Australia, so I need to find some new accomodation before then. I don't seem to be able to motivate myself very much on this though. I guess I will feel a bit more motivated as April 1st draws closer.
3. I have managed to book flights for myself and Adrian for our up and coming visit to Sweden to watch a Kent concert. I am very much looking forward to it. I need to find some hotel accomodation and also think of some good stuff for us to do while we are there.
4. My copy of Max 500 arrived at the end of last week, so I have been playing that over and over again and am very impressed with it. I am already looking forward to getting the album when it is released later this month. In fact I have just pre-ordered it from www.cdon.com (I can't be bothered to put links in just now - but I may come back and sort it out later).
5. I saw a film called The Clearing last week with Robert Redford. It seemed to have some sort of twist in it and I realised I had got the twist about half way through and looked forward to finding out I was right at the end, but when the end came no twist seemed to be revealed. It is possible that it was revealed, but I missed it due to be just about falling asleep by that point so I will probably need to watch it again just to check. Apart from that I enjoyed it, but not as much as The Village.
6. When I finish work tonight I will buy a portion of chicken fried rice from the chinese takeaway in Mid calder and when I get home I will eat it out of a warmed up metal bowl while watching an episode of Jonathan Creek and enjoying a glass of Absolut Vodka and Sprite with 2 ice cubes. I have done this every week, on the 1 night I work late, for a very long time now and feel I may be getting a bit set in my ways.
7. I once read that each of us is a different person (or personality) depending on who we are with at the time. I have remembered this for most of my life so I guess, at least for me, that it must be true.
8. I find it fascinating to look at the stats for this site and see what searches people have entered that have led them to this site. Recently there have been a lot of searches on "Critical Mass", and we often get them from search strings including "Kiss DVD players". We have also had links from the following:
- Cremola Foam
- The plastic bits on the end of shoe laces
- Shirley Clamp smoking
and
- Wet f*nnies
Most of the funny ones have skipped my memory, but I'll see if Al can remember any more tomorrow and add them here if he does.
9. Al and I have tried to put our pictues up in Hot or Goat (there is a link at the right hand side), but we haven't managed to get our pictures a suitable size to get them accepted yet. Once we get our acts into gear we will post it here. Of course Al is bound to get more votes than me, but its only because he has hundreds of photos of himself to choose from, and I only seem to have 1 of me and its got my previous glasses and there is a monkey on my shoulder.