Warning: When I am a tactical voter I shall wear purple

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On Monday whilst pottering around London between food and film I meandered past the LibDem flashmob at Trafalgar Square. It was an awkward affair, not least because yellow isn’t always the most flattering colour. Not sure why but I commented to a friend that the square would probably be busier this weekend with an inevitable campaign for fair votes.

Lo and behold:

Take Back Parliament, Trafalgar Square 2PM

Now there are the usual convenient half truths backing this demonstration including the inevitable

if enough of us get involved the demand for change will be irresistible!

Oh, if only. It won’t be like that, there’s going to need to be a lot of pressure to keep reform at the heart of the political agenda. Many Tories are busily pushing out the line that no-one was demanding electoral reform on the doorstep. That’s irrelevant. What matters is what can we do to ensure we are adequately governed. They are right that we need some form of strong government, but to me that can only come from a Westminster that is more inclusive and open to smaller parties both electorally and procedurally. It is madness that TV gave Clegg a fairer platform than the house of parliament ever could. If our politicians can agree the rules necessary to run unprecedented debates on television they can surely agree to improve our system of government and debate.

So I’m going to go and potter about in Trafalgar Square again, turnout for this could be slim, but I don’t care. I’ve spent over a decade believing in electoral reform and it’s about time I got off my backside and did something about it.

Tracks of 2009 – pt. 2 – go with the floe

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Following on from part 1 – busking it, more great songs from last year.

Annie – Anthonio

So much to love about this. For starters, it’s Annie and she’s still as ace, different and lovely as ever. Her breathless, almost ethereal stacatto vocals undercut by a questioning echo are an utter delight and work really well against Richard X’s production which appears to have nicked a bassline from Popcorn. And there’s a 90s boy-band style key change at the end, though that’s not the only surprise.

Hafdis Huld – Kongulo

A song about the human spider, Alain Robert – almost a shame they didn’t get him to star in the video really. A simple song about a complex man, fun, breezy and joyous from start to finish. Why did I overlook Hafdis for so long, and why have I failed to see her live in London? And do I just have a weakness to icy voiced nordic maidens? Possibly.

The Whitest Boy Alive – Island

Enough of the effortlessly cool then, time for the nerdy and awkward getting to rock out. I was pleasantly surprised by the first Whitest Boy Alive album, Erlend Oye was always my favourite of the pair in the Kings of Convenience and only part of that was because he was so obviously the nerdy awkward one on their album covers. There’s a hesitance to the underlying beat of this song that fascinates me, and the way the instruments come in and build up play around and then slowly depart has the atmosphere of a 12inch mix but seems just to be there to allow the band to expand on their theme.

Royksopp – Vision One

I mentioned this track earlier in the year because I was so fascinated with the sound of it, especially when I found it was based on Royksopp’s remix of a rather decent Japanese orignal by Eri Nobuchika. Hearing this song was the moment that Junior clicked for me and I finally felt that I could forgive Royksopp for The Understanding which is, listenning to it now a good album ruined by a single song (49%). I guess the genius of this – and it rests back in the Japanese original too – is the combination of an aggresively modern sound with a lament for what we’ve lost.

Fever Ray – Triangle Walks

I’ve always been of the camp that preferred The Knife’s version of Heartbeats to Jose Gonzales’ cover (remember him?) but had never quite had an album by The Knife gel enough with me to make it a choice favourite. Karin from The Knife in her Fever Ray guise is somehow much easier on the ears without compromising on the sound. The kind of haunted lullaby I suspect you need when you’re close to the midnight sun.

Still to come: France!, ElectroygoodnSS and my innevitable devouring of American indie.

Tracks of 2009 – pt. 1 – Busking it

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After much soul searching, some blog eating posting and a bit of prevarication here’s the first music of 2009 post. Yet again I’m going to go for a different format to before and so I’m just going to use youtube this time.

This first collection of tunes are all bands from these isles and like a lot of bands I like their names begin with M (see also Madness, Misty’s Big Adventure and Moondog) – somehow I’ve wound up with a loose theme which is that all of these videos show them busking or performing in a bandstand.

Micachu – Curly Teeth

Micachu’s debut got held up the other day as one of the albums that the mainstream missed last year. I’m a bit perplexed by that, Micachu are easily the best known of the acts I’ll mention here and only because they’re on a major label. I think anyone who believes that producing a decent album or song alone will get you noticed is ascribing magic powers to the works of critics and the internet. Both the great unwashed and washed alike will like what they like when they like and anyone who despairs at them for it misses the point. Maybe the BBC are just grumpy their own hype had no effect. <RANT OVER>
On the actual music, well it’s oddball instrumentation with wailing vocals and production from Herbert. Impressively it’s not all about the studio wizardry as this live performance shows that the songs are fed as much by musical efforts as those in production.

Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.1

God I love Meursault. I saw them live twice in London, but must catch them back home in Edinburgh some time. Most of my experiences of their live shows have been akin to this performance, stripped back and haunting. This song is determinedly earnest but an absolute joy as they segue from handclaps to wailing vocals.

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5 years of London does not equal 5 years of playlist

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It’s time for my annual X (X being 5 this year!) years post in London post (well, almost a month over, but hey). This year I’ve made a Spotify playlist of music that I associate with London having listened to it whilst here, or as I’ve roughly titled it London’s Track Record.

The idea here is that these are the songs I most remember from the last 5 years, I’ve put it all in a rough order of when I listened to it first.
You can link straight to songs below, and I’ve whacked some comments alongside justifying my choices. Do please comment and nag if you need an invite for Spotify, I have some to spare.

Enjoy. I blame Pitchfork for making me get all musically retrospective with their P2K feature. Proper were the 00s a good decade for music posts to follow…

London’s Track Record

Ratatat – Spanish Armada

My main listenning on train south was Ratatat’s debut album which had obsessed me for a while, if I hear the last few songs I always feel like I’m heading south for some reason.

Fridge – Cut Up Piano and Xylophone

My initial commute to work was cross-town from my aunt’s house in Leytonstone. I found myself with a good hour or more to fill so would read and listen to music a lot in the mornings and evenings. One morning I was changing trains at Gospel Oak when I hit this track just as I descended the stairs to get the train. It felt weirdly apt and set me up for the day

Sufjan Stevens – John Wayne Gacy Jr

I doubt it’s possible to really have been an indie kid and missed Sufjan, but for a while I was rapt and remember spending a lot of my first London summer relaxing and listening to this whilst reading.

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St Vincent – just a damn fine Actor

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stvincentactor This week I have been mostly listening to the new St Vincent album, Actor. I originally tripped up over her first album Marry Me on emusic, having seen it reviewed on Pitchfork. Marry me was stuffed full of lengthy, wordy songs with her clear and crisp vocals matched with equally clear and crisp guitar and light orchestration which made it at times feel like some kind of Broadway musical. If anything frustrated me it was a slight lack of edge, but I still loved what was there.

Then, smack out came her new album Actor preceded by the single Actor Out Of Work, which hinted at but didn’t reveal the fine balance that the Actor would tread.

For St Vincent it’s indecently loud, with NOISE everywhere, little wonder the others in the music video are crying. There’s also distortion everywhere, and it’s distortion that this album really specialises in. [1. At times, having just installed a new sound card, I was getting concerned my drivers were installed wrongly and malfunctioning.] One track that’s really come to be my favourite is Marrow, where the noise and distortion is combined with horns to create a fascinating funky backing to the kind of pitying lyrics that I’m more used to hearing from male vocalists. [2. maybe because I listen to more of them]

In a rare move, critical judgement of this album is similarly positive elsewhere though I am perplexed by an NME review that seems little more than a list of name checks.

Come On August, Want Ponyo NOW

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As you probably know I’m a massive Studio Ghibli fan. Their last couple of films were sadly a bit disappointing partly due to lower levels of involvement from their (inevitably exhausted) genius director Hayao Miyazaki. [1. Though in truth his colleague Isao Takahata has also produced stranger and more fascinating films] Thankfully, their latest film Ponyo on the cliff by the sea has all the hallmarks of plenty of involvement from Miyazaki and now has a release date of sometime in August, maybe (TBC). I can barely wait.

Anyone looking for an interim Ghibli fix would do well to read over The Ghibli Blog, I really liked this music video in particular.

"in power too long"

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“I cannot think of a better symbol of an out of touch, authoritarian, failing government that has been in power for too long,” Green said

Damian Green in The Guardian today

The Tory leader said Labour had “been in power too long” and Gordon Brown had to end “this sort of nonsense”.

David Cameron seeking reform of No. 10 on BBC News on Tuesday

Doesn’t it occur to you to say, perhaps, maybe after fourteen years we have been in power for too long and that’s why there is this deep cynicism.

John Humphrys interviewing Education Secretary David Hunt in 1994

21/08/2008 It seems to be the Conservative sound bite of choice right now, but it seems an odd one if you ask me. What are they actually proposing? Are they asking for a two term limit of parties or leaders being in government? No. Are they proposing reforms of the electoral system? No. We might get some boundary changes, albeit on a larger scale than usual as we dispense of 60 or so MPs, and every time those happen after a change of hue, there’s always a strange bias towards the new rulers. Something that generally speaking ensures governments stay “in power too long”.

What has propelled this rallying cry? A man working in 10 Downing Street making up lies, then not using them but communicating about them with an idiot affiliated to the Labour Party (Derek Draper). Call me a bit cynical but I find the rage of the Conservatives more than a little artificial. I don’t think a competition on who can be the least tainted MP is what Westminster needs right now, what it needs is debate and reform. And we poor voters look likely to get neither and then end up with the Tories “in power too long” again. Little wonder the country lost appetite for a snap election last year, I suspect we remembered how little difference it would make.

In my more optimistic moments I hope that this seemingly inevitable Tory government does at least correct some of the excesses of legislation from the past few years then implodes after two years and thus forces us finally on the road to full reform when we finally fail to have enough people to agree and form a ruling party. My more pessimistic dreams end with us all bowing down to our new ruler King William.

Pushed Too Far

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The Guardian are claiming an exclusive tonight with video of Ian Tomlinson, the man who died during the G20 protests being pushed to the ground by police. There’s no clear injury that looks to have killed him but he is known to have collapsed shortly afterwards.

The footage is sickening and reinforces all that is wrong about the notion that kettling and being strong against protests is just a necessary evil. It is never good to excuse violence by the government against it’s citizens. I accept that there may come a time when violence is necessary but nothing shown in the Guardian video seems appropriate.

What annoys me further is this quote from the IPCC in the same article:

“People are putting pictures on the internet, writing on blogs and talking to journalists. But we really need them to talk to the people who are investigating what happened.

massive edit
If you google the IPCC you get a rather annoying website. If I had a complaint I’d probably want to phone someone. There’s no central phone number and instead you have to pick a region first. If this was someone who’d just collapsed and died in the street and there was no police involvement we’d ring 999. We as citizens understand that. So why is the IPCC harder to get hold of? Surely it’s in their best interests to make it easy to take evidence?

We need a better way, firstly of policing demonstrations and secondly of investigating misconduct in the police. And looking at the goings on in Westminster of late a way of upholding standards there might be handy too. Bah, I hate everything tonight.

Royksopp's Junior has (awesome) J-Pop Roots

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royk-junior

I’ve been really enjoying the new Röyksopp album Junior, and have been rather taken with a number of tracks which appear to me to have the spirit of the soundtrack of the Amiga game Lotus III within them.

One song that has rather caught me is track 3, Vision One. It has a really rather awesome glitchy synth sound (or sawtooth if you want to use a proper term and refer to the waveform). It’s also actually an English re-recording of a remix they made of the Japanese pop artist Eri Nobuchika, but not in a shitty Basshunter way (still got a soft spot for the original complete with IRC references).

Sing A Song / Royksopp I Kramsno_ Remix – Eri Nobuchika

The original also has a music video which is on YouTube, and you can start to hear where the remix came from.

Rather a beautiful video, too.

Edit The lyrics of the original are rather barking when translated directly, but the new English lyrics are remarkably close in theme.

Pagan Wanderer Lu – Fight My Battles For Me

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fightmybattlesWere you to try and create a musician for me to admire, I’d think it hard for anyone to come up with anything more suitable than Pagan Wanderer Lu. A keen social commentator, multi instrumentalist and lover of melding the the slight and heartfelt sounds that sometimes typify bedroom indie to the louder electronica sounds that are so often in fashion he’s right up my street.

As part of his own publicity push for his new album (available in some good shops) he’s been making a series of videos for the songs on it. Here’s Anger Management which leads off the album.

The album is a mix of old and new, with the old receiving a lot of interesting tweaks. Of the songs that are fresh to me my favourite is (You & Me And) Winston Churchill which kicks off with a seemingly un PWL-like piano and real drums but has some of his nicely awkward lyrics

You and me and Winston Churchill
went to a rave on ecstacy
He said “these brightly coloured lights and bangin’ tunes do not one thing for me”

and leads nicely into the most awesome core of the album, as the, well, bangin’ tunes start to kick in.

The awesome Tree Of Knowledge follows, without any changes from the successful single mix and is a profusely profane ponder on er, education and stuff with many mentions of engorged phalluses. And he says vagina in it too, titter.

Startup chimes, cross the Rio de Palazzo
Boats go by, but I’m looking through the wrong window
Sentenced to life, I can stop anytime I want to
But I’ll press F5 just one more time…

2.0///The Bridge of Sighs laments the dangers of web2.0 culture and was originally featured on the limited (and damn fine) Omega Point EP, about which more when I’ll round up 2008.

Stop Traveller! Stop and Read! reminds me of the days I used to work back in a bookstore and the aimless feel you can get in your first work out of university.

The Memorial Hall pops up next in (shock!) yet another new version. At first I was slightly resistant to the new version, as for me the slow intro is fun, but it’s when the song reaches full tempo later on that it really reaches greatness. There is, alas, no video for it yet, but I’ll post it when it pops up and I’ve even sketched a bit of a storyboard for making my own video, which PWL himself appears to be encouraging.

This may well be my favourite PWL verse by some distance

Now we remember the disco
They’re holding tonight at the Memorial Hall
I hope to meet eyes with your sister
As she stands like a flower by the plaque, by the wall
But the alcohol kicks in and somehow instead
the words on the plaque just take over my head
I think I shouldn’t be dancing with so many dead
But I’m wrong

The album doesn’t end with the next track, Simple Life/Repetition but I’ll stop my track by track here as I feel these are the core tracks that really make the album work.

And if we’re all just machines
For replicating genes
Then what the hell can any of this mean?

Do go and listen to PWL’s music via the videos on his site, and if you like a bit buy the album.