last.fm is fun

…in a nerdy kind of way. I sometimes amuse myself by reading journals of opinionated last.fm users and the comments that follow. Here’s an example:

What’s most ironic is that people with lower Eclectic Scores and OMIs than myself are calling me a ’stereotypical closed-minded metalhead’.

Haha, I know I’m a hypocrite, as I too sometimes fall in the trap of posting pretentious nonsense on the internet, but that quote struck me as really funny. The more or less free distribution of music on the internet has given birth to a generation of self-proclaimed music experts, and the best place to see them in their natural environment is last.fm

Are people who flaunt their Eclectic Scores, Open Mind Indexes, and immense collections of downloaded albums, really alienating themselves from the actual music? Who cares.

What I was really getting at, is that the new Cult of Luna album just leaked, and it fuckin CRUSHES. So get it now, it’ll kick your ass and who knows, even boost your OMI.

 

Mudy on the Sakuban - VOI (2008)

I don’t think I’ve heard a “regular” Japanese band yet, and Mudy on the Sakuban are no exception. They play an extremely infectious type of instrumental (what some would call math- ) rock. They remind me a bit of Deep Turtle or Ruins, except with a cleaner sound, employing less sudden time changes and their rhythms being more straightforward, but still wacky enough to make your brain dance.

There’s three guitars in the band, at least two of them are doing something interesting at any given moment. I found myself involuntarily twitching and tapping my foot while listening to the album, had to restrain myself as it’s really gay to do that sort of thing in public. Here’s a song that’ll rock your socks off:

I got the album off the invaluable soundweave blog. Give it a listen if you want to have fun for 30 minutes.

 

Pea Green Boat

An owl wakes up at sea in a pea green boat. It is accompanied by a cat, its natural predator. There is some honey. What chain of events led to this dangerous situation?

Pea Green Boat is a 21-minute spoken word adaptation of the poem The Owl and the Pussycat - Stewart Lee turns it into a very perceptive, dark and funny story.

As with any of Lee’s work (but probably this even more), you’ll either think it’s brilliant or just pretentious British bullshit. I’m reluctant to share it here, because I’d rather you all buy it There’s lots of worse things you could spend £5 on, and you’d be supporting a tr00 underground artist. Listen to a sample and buy it here.

Here’s a quote from the Owl’s diary that may convince you:

Did I tell you the Cat speaks to me? It speaks to me, the Owl. It says it wants to marry me. But it has anxieties as to how we will sanctify our union, as we have no ring. Which is predictable. And, as we are of different species, we could never mate - thus, the symbolism of the ring, binding us together, becomes all-important. It’s all we have.

Also I should mention the background music is great and works perfectly in setting the mood for the story. Alright then, just get the damn thing.

 

The Ocean, more like The Owncean

Welp I just came back from seeing The Ocean, and they destroyed. By the way, this is my 100th post on this blog, yay!

Just 4 of these guys bothered to come to Romania

I didn’t give their album a fair chance cos of the gay vocals, but live they weren’t as noticeable (for the record, just half of the vox are gay, the other 50% are skullcrushingly manly) and the band obliteraped.

Kickass show, the first of many yet to come this summer

Pink metal! \m/

 

Walkershed

I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the great new music I’ve been listening and I know you’re reaaaallllly anxious to hear about it. First thing you should do is check out my 2008 list that I update every once in a while. The rankings aren’t meant to be exact, but the top stuff is generally better than the bottom stuff.

We have, of course, the new Opeth album. If for some reason you haven’t downloaded it yet, one of the more silly ways to get it would be going here first.

You probably know that I’m a big sucker for Opeth, so it was pretty obvious that I’d love Watershed. For me, it’s definitely a step forward from 2005’s highly acclaimed Ghost Reveries: Per has really found his niche in the band and the keys play an essential role in the songs. Bass is great as always, although his parts aren’t as prominent as on GR. Mike is sexier than ever. And the new kids are up to par.

Every Opeth album requires dozens of listens before you can start worshipping it, and Watershed was no exception. After playing it non-stop for a few days (something everyone should do) I can say it’s brilliant but not flawless. Here are some observations, good and bad:

• Heir Apparent is possibly the best song on the album, and one of Opeth’s crushingliest ever.
• Burden feels like the prog song Mikael always wished he could make. And the outro is just perfect, fuck da hataz.
• Most of the songs (HA, B, Lotus Eater, Hessian Peel at least) tend to destroy more towards the end.
• Porcelain Heart starts promisingly after Burden, but is pretty disappointing overall - feels like a bunch of stock Opeth bits stuck together.
• I kinda agree with the review I linked to earlier, in that I wish they’d explored more some of the new influences they’ve incorporated. Like for instance, the kickass electronic droney part in Hessian Peel, I wish they’d kept it going a bit longer, spicing it up to keep it interesting. Also the Scott Walker ‘Cossacks Are’ guitar riff in Lotus Eater doesn’t have a ~disturbing~ effect similar to its counterpart on The Drift, cos they only play it like twice and then do a solo over it - still kicks ass, but the weirdness effect is pretty much gone.
• From what I’d read in Mike interviews, I was hoping his vocals would go more into the Walker direction instead of the Coverdale one - but I’m really nitpicking here, his clean vox are spectacular for the most part.

As far as I’m concerned, Opeth have yet to release something that isn’t great. Although as an Opeth album it doesn’t quite reach the top 3, it’s pretty unlikely I’ll rate anything higher than it Watershed this year.

Other than that, these days I’ve been playing Treny by Jacaszek, a Polish electronic experimental artist - really sweet album. Also one half of the new Esoteric leaked today, gave it a listen and it seems good. Now that the Opeth effect has started to wear off, my interest for new albums has returned: can’t wait for the new Cult of Luna, Enslaved, Black Bonzo and Amplifier’s double treat.

 

I Wish to Register a Complaint

Well, I finally finished the first 4 books of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about a month ago, and I went on to another book I bought in England last year, namely:

It’s a great read for any Python fan (oh and if you aren’t a Monty Python fanatic, what’re you doing reading this blog?), reaching out from the first day of shooting for Monty Python’s Flying Circus, up until the Life of Brian days. The book shows the golden years of Python through Michael Palin’s eyes, and reading his notes on the first TV series, or about the reactions to the stage show, and observing Palin’s relations to the other Pythons is just awesome.

But that’s only one side of it -

 

Watershed!

Welps, the best place on the net delivers once again! Two songs off the new Opeth album have leaked and they’re jizzalicious, of course. Can’t wait for the rest

Here’s a torrent.

 

If You Had Three Wishes, What Would They Be?

It’s time to bring you up to date on what I’ve been wasting my time on - let’s start with TV shows. I finished watching Arrested Development, which is definitely one of the best sitcoms ever, and switched to the UK side to watch Father Ted. I’ve got several shows on my to-watch list, including Californication, Red Dwarf and Peep Show, but they’ll have to wait until I’m done with Ted.

The show was written by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, and is regarded as one of the all-time best British sitcoms. Also, Graham Linehan has (co)written the great Black Books and IT Crowd, and keeps a simply delightful blog, so I just had to check out Father Ted. Here’s a great bit from the start of the second episode:

 

Music Owns.

Just posting to let you know that music is still the best thing in the world. You should be listening to music (preferably this) right now, and as often and as loud as possible every day.

Also, I’ve finished work on the Melloboat Documentary. Get it. Or don’t.

Cockfight.

 

Back from the Boat

The melloboat was everything I expected it to be, and more. Saw two of my alltime favourite bands live (Opeth and Comus), met some friends from the forum, made some new friends, discovered new music, had a couple of walks through Stockholm (wonderful city, I’d probably love living there) and a short one in Helsinki… am I forgetting something? Oh yeah, the incredible amount of awesome live music! Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I’ve filmed a lot of this, so maybe you’ll get a glimpse of what you missed Anyway there’s already some great melloboat vids on youtube so check them out! Oh and check out these pics.

And if you want to read the report I wrote for dinodance, here it is: