Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #45

I really don't enjoy Christmas and haven't done for about fifteen years. It's pretty much one long capitalistic wank, and considering I only usually buy gifts for my immediate family, I avoid the whole shopping mall extravaganza as much as possible. Sure, there's all that supposed "Christmas spirit" about, making people do and think things they don't for the rest of the entire year. And there's that fantastic family time where you are forced to hang out with relatives who don't really know you at all and don't care to, and who inevitably have nothing to talk about. The only part of Christmas I tend to enjoy is watching the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but without fail, I miss it on TV every year, which only serves to make me more grumpy. I should just get a proper copy of it and be done with the whole thing. (My family has also created a Christmas tradition of searching for our copy of the Claymation Christmas special with the California Raisins, camels in sneakers and bells with faces - we swear we taped a copy, but we have never found it. Again we should just get a new copy, but no one can be bothered.)

One of the most abysmal things about Christmas, though (aside from fruitcake) is the music on offer. When I worked retail for five years, I heard the same loop of Christmas songs for two months out of each year until I wanted to stab my eyes out with candlesticks. The particularly horrendous one that still makes me twitch to this very day is that Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime song from Paul McCartney. It's difficult to find decent Christmas music - I generally grin and bear the traditional family Christmas music like Boney M and Mannheim Steamroller (we usually only play it during our four-Sundays-before-Christmas-German-advent tradition when we light another candle on the wreath each Sunday evening leading up to Christmas). The only Christmas music I have ever purchased is Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and Sufjan Stevens' four-disc set. However, over the years, I've built up a small collection of songs that I find bearable and I've assembled a chunk of them here for the weekly mix. So, when you have to do Christmassy tasks of any sort (wrapping gifts, decorating the tree, baking cookies, running people over in the parking lot), you can have something to listen to. There will be no Band Aid, no Elvis, no Frank Sinatra, and definitely no *twitch* Paul McCartney.

As with my Halloween mix, I've only provided links to every second track, but the full mix is available to download at the very bottom. The mix kicks off with a little rock, including the brilliantly satirical Christmas Number One from last year done by the geniuses of Black Box Recorder and Art Brut. Then there's a little bit of electronic with The Knife and Dandy Warhols before you eventually hit some retro Spectorish songs by The Raveonettes, The Long Blondes, The Hives and Cyndi Lauper, and of course The Ronettes themselves. I've included Stars' cover of The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl classic because I had already used the original Fairytale of New York for a duet mix earlier this year - don't fear, the Stars version is pretty great. Then it goes rather gentle into the good night with Kate Bush, Goldfrapp, Mogwai, Momus, Okkervil River and that duet with David Bowie and Bing Crosby, which must be included - despite its awkward bit of cringe-inducing dialogue - because I love David Bowie. It all finishes up with Kermit the Frog because I love Muppets as much as David Bowie (which explains why my favourite film is Labyrinth). Also, as an exercise in craziness and kicks, I would suggest you take a look at the Last Christmas Web site, where all known covers of George Michael's contemporary classic are gathered. I stumbled across it last year when I started realizing just how many covers of that song I had come across - apparently someone else had already beaten me to the wondering and took that one extra step toward OCD. For this mix you'll get the Manics version from an appearance on TFI Friday (much better than the strange Christmas Ghost song they came up with last year). So, this mix is called Better Than Fruitcake. Bah, humbug!

Christmas Number One - The Black Arts

Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight) - The Ramones

Father Christmas - The Kinks

We Three Kings - Reverend Horton Heat

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Bright Eyes

Little Drummer Boy - The Dandy Warhols

Christmas Reindeer - The Knife

Can You Hear What I Hear? - Bodies of Water

Frosty the Snowman - Cocteau Twins

Christmas Fire - The Deer Tracks

She Came Home For Christmas - Mew

Put the Lights on the Tree - Sufjan Stevens

Child's Christmas in Wales - John Cale

Fairytale of New York - Stars

The Christmas Song - The Raveonettes

Christmas is Cancelled - The Long Blondes

A Christmas Duel - The Hives and Cyndi Lauper

White Christmas - The Pipettes

Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes

Baby, It's Cold Outside - Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews

It's Christmas Time - Yo La Tengo

Carol of the Bells - The Polyphonic Spree

December Will Be Magic Again - Kate Bush

Winter Wonderland - Goldfrapp

Christmas and Train Trips and Things - Trembling Blue Stars

It's Xmas So We'll Stop - Frightened Rabbit

Merry Christmas (I Love You) - Hawksley Workman

Listening to Otis Redding At Home During Christmas - Okkervil River

Last Christmas - Manic Street Preachers

Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby and David Bowie

Christmas Song - Mogwai

Christmas on Earth - Momus

The Christmas Wish - Kermit the Frog


Weekly Mix #45 (Megaupload)

My Top 40 Albums of 2008: Numbers 40 Through 33

As promised, here's the first installment of my top albums of 2008. At the very beginning, I wanted to do a top 20; then it became a top 25; soon after, I made it a 35; eventually, it ended up as a top 40. Of course it now means that every Friday til the end of the year will feature a rather odd yet even eight albums. I will admit that I was still listening and arranging today. The inherent disclaimer in all this is that this list is of my top albums, in other words my favourites. That means that I didn't listen to every major release this year, let alone every release (even music nerds need some silence once and awhile), so I may either be missing out on some potential top albums or I may just be disinclined toward them in the first place - feel free to let me know what your personal favourites of the year were.

Before I dive into the countdown, I'm going to remind you a little bit about what was released in the first two months of 2008. (I was originally going to go a la The Big Fat Quiz of the Year and review the music events of every few months of the year, but I realized that I'm no match for such an activity, especially when I have difficulty remembering what I ate yesterday.) The year kicked off with releases by British Sea Power, The Magnetic Fields, Cat Power, Lightspeed Champion, Sons & Daughters, Beangrowers, the soundtrack for the hipster film phenomenon Juno, and the infinitely bloggable Vampire Weekend, a band that still leaves me completely cold despite the year seemingly belonging to them. As much as their pretentious, arty lyrics and Afro influences should draw me in, they end up sounding like a watery Paul Simon to me. February brought Hot Chip's highly anticipated third album and Goldfrapp's unexpected pastoral turn along with releases from Robots in Disguise, Dirtbombs, The Mountain Goats, The Raveonettes and another Amy Winehouse substitute, Adele. There were also debut LPs by Antarctica Takes All!, Los Campesinos! and the less exclamatory School of Language. Justin Vernon's first album as Bon Iver also made its official release in February.

On to the countdown:

40. The Penguin League - Anarctica Takes All!

As mentioned in the intro, The Penguin League released early in 2008, though it had been previously self-released by the Santa Cruz band. From the first burst of energy coming off the opening track I'm No Lover (featuring the great line "I'm not a lover, but a fighter"), the album cartwheels over itself like an even more puppyish Sufjan Stevens. Using glockenspiels, accordion, violin, harmonica and brass, the record is an eclectic mixture of folk, twee, and shambolic pop. Despite its rather frozen motif, its heart is warm enough to melt any ice shelf.

Flightless Birds - Antarctica Takes All!

Antarctica - Antarctica Takes All!

39. This Gift - Sons & Daughters

On their third album, the Glaswegian quartet turned to Bernard Butler for their production. The result is a blistering, whirling dervish of an album that takes the slightly dark folky bits evident on their excellent debut Love the Cup and transforms them into buzzsaw riffs and big choruses while the darkness continues to bubble beneath the surface like tar. Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson's vocals play off each other and blend in haunting combinations while the pace never slackens. I was fortunate to see them live early this year and it was an absolutely raucous show that largely showcased this record.

This Gift - Sons & Daughters

Iodine - Sons & Daughters

38. Apocalypso - The Presets

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of the Modular record label - rarely is there an artist on their roster that I'm not excited about. Having said that, I didn't pay quite as close attention to the Australian electro act The Presets as I did to many of their peers. It took their second album to really grab and shake my attention like ripe fruit from my skull. There's a hard edge to their synthpop sensibilities, closer to labelmate MSTRKRFT than Cut Copy or Van She, and there are definitely viral melodies along with the relentless beats. The deep, often overwrought vocals can be both soulful and theatrical while the music leaps from grimy depths to soaring heights of melodrama.

This Boy's in Love - The Presets

Talk Like That - The Presets

37. Sea From Shore - School of Language

Also mentioned in the intro, this is the Sunderland group's first album, but not exactly. School of Language was born as a side project of the band Field Music, which is composed of David and Peter Brewis and Andrew Moore, a group that had already released two albums of their own. It is also fitting that two of the tracks (Disappointment '99 and Extended Holiday) feature members of The Futureheads not only because one of the Brewis brothers used to play drums for The Futureheads, but also because I detect a similar off-kilter jittery quality in some parts of the record, including the chorus of vowel recitation permeating the Rockist quartet, a group of four songs that bracket the album. Sea From Shore also shares the wry wit and wacky rhythms that seem inherent in bands from the Northeast while adding smoother melodic surfaces and laidback grooves.

Disappointment '99 - School of Language

This Is No Fun - School of Language

36. The Colour of Snow - Polarkreis 18

This album is the fourth from these five friends from Dresden. It shares a similar dramatic, but atmospheric quality to Mew, and electronic elements are fused with gossamer vocals, creating a blinding panorama of translucence and light. There's also a widescreen epic feel to the tracks on this record, ranging from a boundless energy akin to a child on a snow day to melancholic swathes of sound like wind-sculpted drifts. Listening to this record is a bit like staring through the spidery patterns of frost on windowpanes - with one breath it could shift like a kaleidoscope.

Allein Allein - Polarkreis 18

River Loves the Ocean - Polarkreis 18

35. L'anthologie des 3 perchoirs - Duchess Says

I wrote a review of this album way back around the time of its release and I stand by my opinion of this Montreal band. This record is the perfect blend of violent electro and punk that screams through every bone in your body like electric shock therapy. Daisy Chainsaw-like banshee howls punch and pummel their way through distorted beats and ominous synths. It's like a roller derby on a rink of broken glass.

Tenen non neu- Duchess Says

Rabies (Baby's Got The) - Duchess Says

34. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - David Byrne and Brian Eno

It was the duo that many music fans wished would team back up again. David Byrne and Brian Eno hadn't worked together since their classic 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, a mixture of tribal rhythms and experimental electronics. This time Byrne and Eno tackle gospel and create an uplifting journey, shimmering with reverb and redemption. Byrne's vocals are bold and warm as burnished brass and the lyrics are optimistic yet ambivalent and witty enough for the cynical age we live in. At the same time, Eno's characteristic experimental flourishes are still present. Tentative tendrils of hope poke through this record despite a mundane reality the colour of gunmetal and concrete. This album is the equivalent of a baptismal font for a human race that has just gone on too long.

Home - David Byrne and Brian Eno

Everything That Happens - David Byrne and Brian Eno

33. For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver

This particular album is bound to be on many a year-end list. It has been critically acclaimed everywhere you look. Justin Vernon famously wrote this record while spending three months in a remote cabin in Wisconsin. For Emma, Forever Ago is a document of catharsis and healing, and it emanates a profound solitude and gentle desperation. Sung in a raspy falsetto over acoustic guitar, there is an undeniable intimacy and rawness to these songs as though Vernon was slowly chipping away at his pain-clad heart with weary, calloused hands. In the process, he created a universal spark that has now been nourished by thousands of people worldwide, making it a toasty bon hiver indeed.

Skinny Love - Bon Iver

re: Stacks - Bon Iver

For each part of this countdown series, I will also include one album that almost made my list. The honourable mention for this installment is Hot Chip's Made in the Dark. Hot Chip's third album was a colourful patchwork of styles, ranging from dancefloor anthems to vulnerable ballads. Notably, Ready For the Floor, with its goofy music video, was an enormous hit that I keep coming back to.

Shake a Fist - Hot Chip

Numbers 32 through 25 will be coming at you next Friday. And this Sunday is the dreaded CTRNR Christmas Mix.

It's the Comedy and Death of the Senses: IAMX Live in Warsaw

I just received my IAMX Live in Warsaw album this morning in the post. Officially released on November 14, this recording of IAMX for the Polish radio station Trojka is an incredible reminder of how truly incendiary they are live. It features nearly an identical set to the ones I witnessed last year with an absence of Nightlife, but the presence of the stunning Mercy (which was played for the encore of some shows on that 2007 tour, but not for the ones I attended) and Missile. Mastered by Chris Corner himself, this live recording is a brilliant taste of what makes IAMX an unparalleled behemoth on stage.

The show begins with the genius title track of The Alternative - its extended intro hammers away and whips the audience into an anticipatory froth. The cataclysm continues with Bring Me Back a Dog and The Negative Sex, both of which are bigger and more vicious than most live rock songs I've ever experienced. The show then slows down slightly to the swaying hypnosis of President, the ethereal pulse of Mercy, and the undulating depravity of Lulled By Numbers. Next come Kiss and Swallow and Spit It Out, two of IAMX's previously released singles and hugely powerful anthems. Before Spit It Out, Corner plays his seductive game with the crowd as he continues to say, "This is our last song," and the audience keeps screaming "No." Then just as the music strikes up, like a benevolent master, he says, "Well, we'll see." Spit It Out in all its bombastic glory, beautifully rearranged slightly for the live show, is the last song for the show proper. However, after chants of "IAMX," Corner and the band return for the encore.

As in the shows I saw, the unholy, esoteric cabaret of Song of Imaginary Beings kicks it off. Its accordion and plinking keys introduction drips with the beguiling bewitchment to come. Then, the opening bars of Missile elicit a roar of recognition from the crowd and the delicate, vulnerable song moves along to the climax when Corner gives the vocals over to the audience. Almost immediately after Missile concludes, the dark beats come back to another one of my favourite songs from Kiss + Swallow, Your Joy is My Low. It is one last battlecry for the beautiful people in IAMX's kingdom of the wretched.

Outside of Poland, you can only order the album through the Nineteen95 shop. I'm still waiting, as other fans probably are, for a live DVD to be officially created and released to document the intoxicating image that goes with the music. I'm still rattled by the energy that the IAMX band and Chris Corner's intense persona have managed to project through my speakers. I'll happily write an elegy to my senses tomorrow.

The Alternative - IAMX (Live in Warsaw)

Mercy - IAMX (Live in Warsaw)

"I bet that you look good on the dancefloor...but nowhere else": Mikrofisch's Masters of the Universe

Though Masters of the Universe by Mikrofisch released last year, I only just discovered it. I actually only just discovered Mikrofisch, so that could be part of the problem. Apparently, Mikrofisch began in 2001 when Mawe N. Klave and Silvi Wersi met in Cologne. Though they intended to cover The Smiths, they ended up producing original material, and a year later, they released their debut album Gleichstrom/Wechselstrom. After Wersi moved to London, the duo ended up recording Masters of the Universe over a three-year period, and the product is a magnificent anti-hipster shot in the arm. With lyrics like these, making countless music and pop culture references and observations about the trappings of being twenty-something in the 21st century, I'm surprised Klave and Wersi's tongues haven't come clean out the other side of their cheeks.

The album begins with Alien Monsters, a hilarious send-up of alien attack films complete with deadpan vocal delivery and rot-your-teeth twee background. Let's Kiss and Listen to Bis starts with a Peter Hook-like bassline and then '80s synthesizers kick in to augment a sweetness worthy of the twee mentioned. The narrators stalwartly refuse to make love to DFA; instead they want to regress into the '90s of their adolescence, including the Glaswegian pop-punksters. The '80s influence continues as arcade video game aesthetics, drum machines and vocoders cover the track Bad Hair Days with a retro veneer. Shifting into a more down-tempo feel, I Never Get Much Sleep on Weekdays emulates the catatonic state of the fatigued, apathetic twenty-somethings they sing about. The sarcasm and ennui drips off the chorus: "We're the twenty-somethings/We're the part-time punks/We got our records from Ebay and our clothes from H&M/Don't look back in anger/Today will okay/Tomorrow will be much like yesterday." The following track, Morrissey, Jeff Mangus, Stephin Merritt, John Darnielle, is a brilliant existential anthem for indie moper-loners everywhere.

Not only lonely indie songwriters get mentioned. Referencing the '60s model and muse of fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, Peggy Moffitt Look-alikes pops about like a soft drink or a fun fair as it satirizes those hipster girls who come to gigs dressed like thrift store mods. Then, whizzing into life and making a personificative address to the theremin, Drum Machines Will Save Mankind uses fuzzy, lo-fi synths and drum machines to revivify the twee genre - it's a bit like if someone decided to use Darling Buds songs in an Atari game. Then disco is given an 80s 8-bit makeover in Disco Fantasy as Klave and Wersi's vocals drift dreamily over top. They even use the galactic leitmotif that often comes with disco and funk music. The album then shifts into pure power-pop bliss with We Love You, a cutesy song ostensibly sung from the perspective of crazy fans, but which adds a brilliant twist to the narrative. It features a screamy chorus akin to Robots in Disguise or Chicks on Speed.

This is followed by one of my favourite tracks on the album, The Kids Are All Shite, which namechecks Brit indie rock mediocrity in monotone vocal delivery against an intense bassline. It lampoons the MySpace generation perfectly, including their propensity to follow "indie" trends slavishly and to idolize NME bands whose music plays in supermarkets "before the sell-out's even started" and who "all look like Johnny Ramone." One of the best lines is "I bet that you look good on the dancefloor, but nowhere else." The chorus also reminds me melodically of Depeche Mode's New Life. The record takes a slower turn with See You Next Tuesday, a delightful, electro anti-ballad with interplay between male and female vocals. The tempo comes back up for Evil Customer, a perfect track for anyone who's felt stifled by their city or town or chained to a crap retail job - they create a perfect contrast between the pleasant sing-song of a polite front and the deteriorating mental state of the narrator that descends into Tourette's-like hysteria by the end. Just as astute as Evil Customer, (No One Listens To You When You've Got) Flat Hair is one of the better songs I've ever heard about the mind-sickening "reality" of reality TV; the verses are delivered with a cool detachment like that of Black Box Recorder's Sarah Nixey. The record concludes with Focus On It, the harshest song on the album with its dirty, crunchy beats and its play on and with hypnotic trance and house genres.

With the generous use of drum machines and minimal synth sounds, there's something lo-fi and homemade about the record; indeed, it was recorded in various bedrooms and living rooms. At the same time, it is the perfect aural document of the love-hate no-win situation of being an indie music lover in the noughties. Mikrofisch intelligently deconstruct the world they live in while paying unironic tribute to the music they love. You can download the entire album for free here with the band's blessing. This album is a bit like finding a He-Man action figure inside a Kinder egg: a nostalgic but nerdy cool surprise inside a sweet, waxy chocolate shell. The perfect gift for a generation who know too much to care very much.

Let's Kiss and Listen to Bis - Mikrofisch

The Kids Are All Shite - Mikrofisch

Evil Customer - Mikrofisch

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #44

As promised, this week's mix is of songs from 2008. There are hundreds and hundreds of songs I could have picked for this compilation, but I was also trying to keep track of the songs I want to include throughout my countdown of top 2008 albums beginning this Friday (like the music addict that I am, I ended up expanding my list to a top 35 albums rather than a top 25). So, if you don't see particular tracks here, there's a high probability they will show up at a later date. My brain is becoming a little overtaxed as I compile the list of this year's releases, major labels and not-so-major labels, and I still have a fair bit of work listening and deliberating. It's gotten to the point where I've assumed albums released in January were actually from last year. I've become a bit like the Stasi of music.

Having dispensed with that preamble, I will move on to the mix itself. I tried to take into account some singles that I couldn't shake from my head, including the raspy, yelpy perfection of Kings of Leon's Sex On Fire, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' rather excalamatory Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, and Supergrass's White Stripesesque Diamond Hoo Ha Man. A few of the songs on this mix are from some of my top albums of the year, but you'll have to wait to find out which ones they may be (not to mention they could always change anyway). For the most part, I kept to songs from more major artists (of course in my blog bubble world, I start to lose perspective and many of the artists I think are wildly popular and too obvious are apparently...not, and I'm left looking rather ovine). Consider this mix to be a mere appetizer in an eight-course meal and a small reminder of some of the songs released in 2008. This mix is called Mini Quiche.

Girls & Boys - The Subways

Up All Night - The Young Knives

The Beginning of the Twist - The Futureheads

Diamond Hoo Ha Man - Supergrass

Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon

Being Here - The Stills

Paris - Friendly Fires

Kids - MGMT

Paris is Burning - Ladyhawke

You Cross My Path - The Charlatans

Paper Planes - M.I.A.

Olive Eyes - frYars

Little Bit - Lykke Li

Caravan Girl - Goldfrapp

Rockist Part 4 - School of Language

An Eluardian Instance - Of Montreal

Galaxy of the Lost - Lightspeed Champion

Chemtrails - Beck

Shiller - Ratatat

Death Take Your Fiddle - Spiritualized

Magic Doors - Portishead

Brain Tattoos and Doublethink: The Japanese Popstars and Jon Ryman

This post is another double feature to showcase two different electronic records that I'm excited about right now. The first is the debut album from Northern Irish trio The Japanese Popstars (We Just Are due to release in North America in January 2009) and the second is the fifth album from Jon Ryman (Nineteen Eighty-Four which just released this year). The former has gritty, dirty beats akin to Justice, Boys Noize and MSTRKRFT while the latter emulates smoother synthpop similar to The Human League, Depeche Mode and New Order.

Consisting of Declan McLaughlin, Gary Curran and Gareth Donoghue, The Japanese Popstars are exactly what I want to hear on the dancefloor. We Just Are begins aptly with We Just Are (Intro) - a confident declaration that pulses with metallic starbursts around the simple vocal sample. From here, you are taken into a world of fantastically brash and hypnotic electro, where you are under their purview and held in compliance with your will. The first track proper, Sample Whore, built around samples of "ohs" and "ahs," is a perfect blend of the lusty and clinical while Face Melter does just what it says on the tin (I'm still trying to mop up the remainder of my face from the floor). Then Delboys Revenge kicks in with a jackhammer insistence, but a needle-like precision soon backed by lasers that slice through your cranium.

As a refreshing reversal to the assault of Delboys Revenge, B.C.T.T. provides a gentler, poppier side with breathier rhythms and the heart rate comes down for awhile as the delicacy of the track washes over you like cool antiseptic. Dr. Frenchy Bernard continues the gentler arc with springy synths and old-school bleeps, creating a mini electro symphony. Anthepic (We Have Taken Over) begins to bring back harsher, dirtier beats, smudging up the otherwise pristine technicality of the track, and by the point the wispy vocals that declare "Just like you asked us to, we have taken over you" increase into a hynotic maelstrom, you realize that they have indeed taken over. Rising slowly from beneath the previous track, The Smile wends its way insidiously and surreptitiously into the folds of your grey matter.

However, it only serves as an introduction to the epic Rise of Ulysses, a whizzing, buzzsaw return to the grimier earlier tracks of the album. With its demonic chant of "rise!" at various points, it injects a darker pigment into the heart of the record. With rapid metallic beats and clipped cymbals, Total Distorted Mayhem, like Face Melter, is rather self-explanatory. A barely detectable "Come in, just jump in" pulses between rhythms like a shadow of an Id. The next track, F19b (Droppin' Bombs), definitely sounds like bombs dropping in a constant loop, ultimately merging to sound like a siren against gritty, hollow beats. Like most of the tracks on this record, it puts you into a rather pleasurable trance. To tie the album up in a consistent circuit, it ends with We Just Are (Finalizer), once again deliberately declaring their existence. It builds from a low hum into scales of fuzzy tonalities before bursting rather unexpectedly into sunny, jubilant melodies, like pure endorphin being shot into your veins. The Japanese Popstars have also just released a free download of an unreleased track called Electronic Poet, which is equally as brilliant as the album and which I've made available below. If I opened my skull right now, I have a feeling The Japanese Popstars would be tattooed all over the surface of my cerebrum.

Unlike The Japanese Popstars, Jon Ryman's music is on the softer, synthier side of electronic music. I was actually made aware of the Brighton-based artist several months ago via MySpace, but I didn't take a proper listen until now. Ryman has been creating music since the '80s (including under the name Interloper) and has also worked on music for television. This particular album - Ryman's fifth studio album - is loosely based on George Orwell's 1984, the book that has spawned many a song and record. However, rather than seem clichéd, this record breathes new life into the seminal story, especially with its classic analogue feel. Somehow it is hugely fitting that an old novel set in the future, which is now the increasingly distant past, is set to new music in a style that was considered futuristic decades ago. Ryman also pushes Orwell's ideas into the 21st century, demonstrating how visionary Orwell was in predicting that everyone would eventually experience information overload to the point of apathy, a world where everything is propaganda and everything is under surveillance.

The album begins with an introductory message delivered by a voice from a retro computer that promises to play a happy song for you. The first track proper is New Corporate Mass, which ticks away like a hollow machine before pulsing with sparkly waves of synth and a rather robotic Latin hymn sung by a vocoderized human in a world in which the new religion is controlled by the corporations via the government. The album then shifts into Humanized, one of the catchiest tracks on the album. It slinks along to a cabaret feel and features one of my favourite lyrics: "a paper tiger in a cage." Overexposure places the Big Brother-induced paranoia against a relatively deadpan vocal and a backdrop of some of the best New Wave synthpop I've heard lately. Its sentiments display the ever-present (and ever-realistic) problem of minds being inundated with unwinnable wars and loaded terms that mean nothing to keep them from thinking critically. Breaking through this noise, Julia, an ode to the protagonist, Winston's, love interest in the novel, is full of crystalline synthesizers, reflecting a New Wave dancefloor beneath a discoball made of ice and circuitboard. The narrator of the song, who we can assume is Winston, appears to be experiencing a reawakening, shaking off apathy for a moment and attempting deeper thoughts, including rather profound ones like "maybe I'm just circumstance, nothing more." The next track, Autocue, flows along to a beat reminiscent of Tears For Fears' Everybody Wants to Rule the World as what sounds like telephone rings tinkle in the background. It becomes the perfect atmosphere for lyrics telling how the monolithic corporation assumes its own impersonal, singular soul, acting as an individual driven by greed and drained of humanity while running on automatic pilot. Autocue drifts seamlessly into Stars Fall, which returns to vocoder and beautiful, soaring melody.

Breaking this dreamlike mood, Rhythm Machine begins with the same computerized voice from the intro asking you to enter an access code. The song then moves into clinical vocals paired with razor-sharp precise rhythm worthy of Kraftwerk, contrasting with the free-flow of the movement in Julia - this is what dance music is when computers create it on their own. Oneohone, which is named for the dreaded Room 101 of the novel, begins with echoey snatches of voices and random sounds before ominous synths slip in to create an air of nightmare and imprisonment. Beginning with whizzes and static, Omnipresent continues the dark, horrific feel of Oneohone, setting a scene in which fear is palpable. Nowhere Left To Run follows with a rather restrained rhythm framed by further whizzes as a rather resigned vocal sings the song's title over and over. The record concludes with Acid Music, a bouncy, scrambled track that sounds like both a mental collapse and a system failure, poignantly demonstrating our propensity for treating machines like humans and humans like machines: machines get viruses while humans break down. Nineteen Eighty-Four is retro, but never cheesy, which is quite an achievement, and I hope Ryman gets more of the attention he deserves for this record.

Currently, you can order We Just Are from Amazon UK and you can purchase Nineteen Eighty-Four at CD Baby. Oddly enough, both albums, though very different, reinforce some similar notions of technology and humans and how we are both just made of information, whether DNA or binary code.

Face Melter - The Japanese Popstars

Electronic Poet - The Japanese Popstars

Humanized - Jon Ryman

Julia - Jon Ryman

Not Down With Prince

A couple of weeks ago I had a hankering for watching a Prince music video. I didn't really care which one it was as long as it was from the 80s. When I searched for any on YouTube, I barely got any hits and when I clicked on one for When Doves Cry, the video played without sound. I was puzzled, tried a different video, and got the same result: a muted music video. Finally scrolling down to the comments area, I discovered that all Prince videos on YouTube wouldn't have sound because the Artist himself was trying to "reclaim the Internet." This meant he was attacking any and all "illegal" uses of his property, including both his music and videos. For some reason, I hadn't been aware of this controversy at all for the past couple of years.

According to stories from a year ago, Prince hired a British-based company called Web Sheriff to hunt down those who were using his material in a pirately fashion. They've gone after sites like YouTube, Ebay and Pirate Bay on his behalf. It's actually quite fitting that a prince should be attempting to suppress pirates with a sheriff. The problem being that Prince is yet another in the long line of people misunderstanding the Internet and its potential for the future of music and promotion. I know I keep coming back to this issue on this blog, but it's something I feel quite passionate about.

I can fully understand not wanting your copyrighted work to be sold as pirated copies via Ebay (although I've never come across any pirated music except for bootleg concerts) or to be distributed free via torrents, but uploading Prince's music videos or using his songs in YouTube video clips isn't pirating in the same way. YouTube is often the only place people can view what they want on demand - before the giant Mighty Boosh purge a year ago, I was first introduced to the series via YouTube. How else was I to watch a series that is only broadcast on foreign networks and can only be purchased in a different region code? And because of the exposure on YouTube, I ended up becoming a huge fan, buying all three series and the live DVD in Region 2, and then buying a DVD player that could play them. Not to mention BBC iPlayers don't work for anyone outside the UK, which has forced me to find alternate, seemingly "illegal," ways to watch documentaries or series that I can't find any other way. The BBC has been particularly ornery when it comes to watching their content; not only have they had tons of clips removed from YouTube, but they don't allow foreign viewers to watch their clips via YouTube unless they're posted to the BBC Worldwide account. A completely counterproductive tactic. If those at BBC were on the ball, they could see YouTube as a marketing measurement tool. The more people trying to watch a particular show or series from other parts of the world, the more they could potentially market their product there by releasing on an appropriate format.

And when I want to see a music video, I won't be sat in front of the television waiting for a Prince music video to pop up on the music video channel. Hell would be having a toboggan party before I would see a music video from anybody on music television. YouTube has transformed the music video industry in that any artist with any budget can get exposure without television executives, advertisers and programmers getting in the way. The fans who are posting Prince music videos are not personally profitting from them - they are merely providing a service to other Prince fans. The greed is not coming from them, it's from Prince himself. It's a shame that someone who has had such a visionary career in music can't see the future this time. It's also rather ironic because Prince apparently received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 because he was the first artist to release an entire album exclusively on the Internet. Of course this isn't hugely surprising for someone as conflicted as Prince is.

All Prince has succeeded in doing is creating a backlash akin to ones both Madonna and Metallica have experienced. Several videos like the one above are protesting Prince's actions, and Prince fan sites banded together as Prince Fans United to take on the legal take-down requests. Despite this, Prince has continued the crusade, including taking down all fan footage of his cover of Radiohead's Creep at Coachella this year. However, just as Prince has said, you take down one and hundreds more crop up the next day - I managed to watch the Creep cover here (aside from blistering guitar solos, not too much to be excited about). Fighting the proliferation and nature of the Internet is a losing battle, and any victory is a pyrrhic one. As Radiohead has proven, established artists can both continue their success and work within the new framework of technology and music distribution. And with someone like Prince, whose live performances and music videos have been intrinsic to his success, allowing footage of him (which would have been public in the first place) to circulate would only benefit him, especially at this later stage of his career.

I've been a Prince fan since I was a teenager, but this hasn't been the first time I've felt burnt by him. Six years ago, Prince came to Winnipeg, but tickets were well over $100 a piece, so I, being a financially-challenged student, didn't go to the show along with many others who viewed the price tag as exorbitant. I then found out that he performed a much cheaper aftershow at a small venue, but it was too late. The fact I only just found out about this more recent controversy probably says something about how much I've been following Prince these days. Apparently I'm just as out of the loop as Prince is - we're both still caught up in the good old days from 20 years ago.

Sign O' The Times - Prince

Creep (Live at Coachella) - Prince

My Year in Lists

This is a post to let you know about upcoming year-end attractions here at CTRNR. Considering it's nearing the end of the year, all music nerds are furiously compiling their lists - best singles, best albums, best artists. Since this is my first time doing it, I'm both a bit overwhelmed and excited. I'm pretty much like the music nut characters in High Fidelity, so I'm sure it will be fun. I have approximately 130 albums to consider, but I will attempt to be as thorough as possible, or die trying, or try dying, or do some tie dying.

Mark the following events on your calendar:

The November 23 edition of Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love will feature some top songs of 2008.

Beginning November 28, every Friday until the new year will feature five albums in my Top 25 Albums of 2008 Countdown.

And finally, the last three Sundays of the year will feature the annual weekly mix round-up, where you will be able to download all of the year's mixes.

Also, if you feel so inclined, you can vote for your top 10 songs from the shortlist (or not so shortlist) below to have your voice heard for the Festive 50 at the lovely Contrast Podcast. Once you've compiled your list, email it to contrast.podcast@gmail.com by November 24. You may also give one song a negative vote if you are rather crotchety like me.

A.A. Bondy - Witness Blues (Daytrotter Session)
AC/DC - Rock n' Roll Train
Aimee Mann - Freeway
Arms - Kids Aflame
Beck - Gamma Ray
Ben Folds - Hiroshima (B B B Benny Hit His Head)
Ben Folds - The Frown Song
Ben Folds - You Don't Know Me
Billy Bragg - I Keep faith (solo version)
Billy Bragg - Old Clash Fan Fight Song
Bloc Party - Mercury
Bob Mould - The Silence Between Us
Brendan Canning - Hit The Wall
British Sea Power - Atom
British Sea Power - No Lucifer
British Sea Power - Waving Flags
Cat power - New York
Chad VanGaalen - Willow Tree
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
CSS - Rat Is Dead (Rage)
Dark Dark Dark - Junk Bones
David Byrne & Brian Eno - Strange Overtones
Death Cab For Cutie - I will Possess Your Heart
Death Cab For Cutie - You Can Do Better Than Me
Death Cab For Cutie - Your New Twin Size Bed
Delta Spirit - People C’Mon
DeVotchKa - Blessing In Disguise
DeVotchKa - The Clockwise Witness
Double Dagger - Catalogs
Elbow - Grounds for Divorce
Elbow - On a Day Like This
Elvis Costello and The Imposters - Stella Hurt
Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun!
Felice Brothers - Greatest Show on Earth
Fleet Foxes - blue ridge mountains
Fleet Foxes - He Doesn’t Know Why
Fleet Foxes - Mykonos
Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
Flight Of The Conchords - Business Time
Flight Of The Conchords - Ladies Of The World
Fred - Fear
Frightened Rabbit - Fast Blood
Frightened Rabbit - Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms
Frightened Rabbit - Keep Yourself Warm
Frightened Rabbit - My Backwards Walk
Frightened Rabbit - Poke
Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper
Frightened Rabbit - The Twist
Girl Talk - Play Your Part (Pt. 1)
Glasvegas - Daddy’s Gone
Glasvegas - Geraldine
Half Man Half Biscuit - National Shite Day
Half Man Half Biscuit - Totnes Bickering Fair
Hello Saferide - Anna
Hercules & Love Affair - Blind
Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor
Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You Are Naked
Ida Maria - Oh My God
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - The Flame That Burns
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Jenny Lewis - Carpetbaggers
Jukebox the Ghost - Hold it In
Keane - Spiralling
Lykke Li - Little Bit
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
M83 - Kim & Jessie
Manhattan Love Suicides - Jonny Boy
Mates of State - My Only Offer
Melody Gardot - Love Me Like A River Does
MGMT - Electric Feel
MGMT - Kids
MGMT - Time To Pretend
My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
My Morning Jacket - I’m Amazed
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Albert Goes West
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Midnight Man
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - We Call Upon The Author
Northern Portrait - I Give You Two Seconds To Entertain Me
Okkervil River - Lost Coastlines
Okkervil River - On Tour With Zykos
Orphans and Vandals - Mysterious Skin
Panic at the Disco - Nine in the Afternoon
Panic at the Disco - That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)
Paul Weller - Have You Made Up Your Mind
Port O'Brien - I Woke Up Today
Portishead - The Rip
R.E.M. - Hollow Man
R.E.M. - Living Well Is the Best Revenge
R.E.M. - Supernatural Superserious
religious knives - basement watch
Robert Parker Vaughan - Crack Her Smile
Santogold - I'm A Lady
Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes
Santogold - Lights Out
School of Language - Rockist
She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
Shearwater - Rooks
Sigur Ros - All Alright
Sigur Ros - Festival
Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook
Sigur Ros - Inní mér syngur vitleysingur
Thao Nyugen - Bag Of Hammers
The Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight
The Fall - 50 Year Old Man
The Hold Steady - Ask Her For Adderall
The Hold Steady - Constructive Summer
The Hold Steady - Sequestered in Memphis
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
The Just Joans - What D We Do Now
The Raconteurs - Carolina Drama
The Raconteurs - Salute Your Solution
The Roy Hargrove Quintet - Strasbourg/St Denis
The Shortwave Set - No Social
The Stills - Being Here
The Wedding Present - Boo Boo
The Wedding Present - Don't Take Me Home Until I'm Drunk
The Wedding Present - Spiderman On Hollywood
The Weeks - Buttons
The Weepies - Antarctica
The Whigs - Right Hand on My Heart
The Young Knives - Up All Night
They Might Be Giants - Seven Days Of The Week (I Never Go To Work)
TV On The Radio - Golden Age
Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
Vampire Weekend - The Kids Dont Stand A Chance
Vanilla Swingers - I’ll Stay Next To You
Vivian Girls - Where Do You Run To
Weezer - Pork and Beans
Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby - Here Comes My Ship

Have fun compiling your lists as I finish up mine.

My Year in Lists - Los Campesinos!

The List Goes On - The Ordinary Boys

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #43

What constitutes celebrity? I suppose fame is the main element because there are plenty of famous people who didn't do anything noteworthy or particularly unique, but still managed to enter the world's consciousness. It seems that as long as lots of other people have an interest in what you do or wear on a daily basis, you're a celebrity.

I had always been aware of those celebrity tabloid magazines like Star, US, etc. because my mom bought them occasionally, and then I saw them all the time when I started working at a bookstore. It got to the point where I was physically revolted by them and hated the piles of them accumulating in the staff room. I haven't looked at one, let alone opened one, for several years because I'm just completely uninterested and I can't possibly treat it as harmless junk food for the mind anymore. The same goes for entertainment news shows - 99% of the stories they report are NOT news. I have a limited capacity for brain space, so I don't intend to fill it with scraps of useless information about vapid people that have overstayed their fifteen minutes by several years. That goes for all those horrible shows which, predicated on schadenfreude, bring back celebrities that everybody forgot about a long time ago.

Rant over. This mix features celebrities of several types: musicians, politicians, artists, actors/actresses, television presenters, photographers, and even one magician. My favourite track of them all is the tongue-in-cheek Andrew Ridgeley by Black Box Recorder, an ode to the ill-fated half of Wham who is pretty much famous for not being famous. The fact Andrew Ridgeley is then connected to the collapse of the Tories is a rather brilliant layer to the song. Also, just to clarify, I'm including The Smiths' William, It Was Really Nothing on the basis that one rumour dictates it may have been about Billy Mackenzie of The Associates. (TRIVIA: The Cure's Cut Here is about Mackenzie's suicide.) This mix is called Andy Warhol Grossly Underestimated.

Buddy Holly - Weezer

Paul Simon - The Russian Futurists

Bowie Eyes - The Very Sexuals

Prince Harry - Soho Dolls

Down With Prince - Hot Chip

Michael Douglas - Neon Neon

Richard Nixon Died Today - Negativland

Johnny Cash - Sons & Daughters

Elvis - These New Puritans

Man Ray - The Futureheads

When Tom Cruise Cries - The Rakes

Lighten Up, Morrissey - Sparks

Kevin Carter - Manic Street Preachers

Andrew Ridgeley - Black Box Recorder

Molly Ringwald - Strawberry Story

William, It Was Really Nothing - The Smiths

Where's Bill Grundy Now? - Television Personalities

Whatever Happened to Corey Haim? - The Thrills

Andy Warhol - David Bowie

Levi Stubbs' Tears - Billy Bragg

Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz

Dietrich/Fondyke (A Brief History of Movie Music) - Jobriath

Houdini - Kate Bush

2HB - Roxy Music

Babbling Beauty: Allegories' Surreal Auteur

Though the Hamilton band Allegories has apparently been popping up on various blogs and on CBC Radio 3 many months ago, I only just discovered them and their debut album Surreal Auteur, and I'm thoroughly impressed. The band, which consists of Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell, have created a sonic epic that is naturally human in its myriad unnatural sounds. Like their name, Allegories can be so many things at once, whole yet apart. Surreal Auteur's twelve tracks are split into three movements: Grand Ascension (Curtains), Marvellous Man & Mouse and Worthy Conclusion for Zanglust Our Hero. According to Allegories' MySpace, the narrative of the album begins thusly:

The story of Zanglust has persevered through the ages to become a legend of downy softness proportions. His life became an inspiration to over a million ants. Our story begins at the Crustacean Circus, with the most renowned antcrobats of the time. The tragedy opens with Zip and Zap Lust letting their obsession with public fornication accidentally destroy their lives.

How could that not grab my attention? The story continues with equal measures absurdity and whimsy, a mixture that reminds me a bit of The Mighty Boosh. You can read the entire story here. In regards to the music: while there is definite homage paid to the prominent shoegazers and dreampoppers, including My Bloody Valentine, Sigur Ros and Cocteau Twins, the way this album flows seamlessly into itself and its sense of sonic storytelling reminds me of Mew's And the Glass Handed Kites. Because of this seamlessness, I'm not going to discuss each track individually; rather, I will go by each major section.

The album's first section, including Acro(bat)/When I Hold My Breath, Like This; Shaking Like a Leaf; Surf's Out/The Tumult; and Stage Fright, begins with a swell of violins and liquified noise, soon to be joined by gentle, cooing vocals that reverberate like whale communication in the placid depths. The mood gradually shifts into sunny piano and cymbal flourishes like someone pushing and propelling him/herself to the surface. The atmosphere becomes darker as small clicks of feedback occur over a backdrop of low tones and surges before expanding into clarity and majesty once more. About fourteen minutes into the album, a militant dirge starts up, which is intermittently disturbed by dissonant guitar chords and draped with haunting voices before descending into a void.

The second section, which includes Summer Market, Winter Racket; Aww, Ooo, and Others/The Orchid and The Epiphyte/The Burying of the Hatchet (Mike Love's Back); Killed a Carrot; and Peaches, begins with another surge, frosted with bells and laced with dreamy vocals, and the airiness is supported by the earthiness of strummed guitar. The music eddies and swirls until it feels like you're being drawn into whirlpool of otherwise dark, brackish water. And the chorus of voices sound like they are celebrating before distilling themselves into an acapella bridge. Then the music slows down and a low, knocking rhythm pulses beneath the surface like violet veins. As the music comes down again, buzzes and clicks step to the foreground only to be superceded by the serene plinking of strings - this particular portion makes me think of a verdant rainforest, pregnant with moisture and the subtle movement of fauna. The sonic landscape then collapses in on itself in chaotic gasps and unsettling, garbled noise until flatlining into a faint buzz.

The final section, which consists of Grass Toboggan; Zanglust/Tom's a Ladder; Fish Water Desert Trapeze; and Acro(nym), vibrates to life with frenzied hums and calming vocal tones. As the impatient, tapping of snares pushes the rhythm along, the music bursts into bloom in flashes of sonic watercolour. Then, like the tuning in of a radio dial, snatches of voices and squeals of different songs, stitched together by static, converge into a postmodern symphony of sorts. While vocals murmur to themselves, beeps and whizzes creep in over top of broader, cavernous echoes - scrambled signals across a universe as black as a dilated pupil. Just as metal clanks of what sounds like tools edges in, the music abruptly changes tack into a gliding lullaby. Breathy vocals careen about the stratosphere, unfurling themselves like feathery wings. Entering into the final phase of the album, the music hovers low like mist in a valley. Voices of different tones compete with each other in a euphoric cacophony before drifting into pulses and white-hot feedback.

You can stream the entire album here and then buy it here. Many of those who have already reviewed this album have compared it to being in the womb, and I can definitely see their point; there is something distinctly alive about this album. It seethes with natural sounds that are run through a prism that simultaneously divides and conjoins in an imperfect symmetry. There's a method and harmony to the nonsense. Surreal Auteur speaks a primordial language as beautiful as the first strains of people finding their tongues at the Tower of Babel.

Summer Market, Winter Racket - Allegories

Shaking Like a Leaf - Allegories

Lest We Forget Our Nature

Conflict is a major part of human nature - it has been present since there were human beings and it is a fundamental part of our lives. There would be no stories without it - characters must fight against something otherwise there's no point to the story. It is also the way we make decisions and understand things - dialectic can be very beneficial for teasing out complicated problems. However, the one problem humans have never solved is how to stop their natural propensity for conflict from escalating into full-blown violent conflict.

Wars and battles litter history with corpses around the world with the main shift being weaponry. Weapons grew more and more efficient just as the propaganda elements that accompany war grew more and more sophisticated. Most wars today are fought via information - ideology and psychology are the prime weapons of choice. Just take a glance at an American PSYOP manual. If you persuade an enemy to give up before he/she even begins to fight, then you have conquered humans more totally than if you had destroyed their bodies. Humans constantly reassemble themselves into power structures with the goal of having more power over another, thus nations do the same for the exact same reasons on a global scale. I'm cynical enough to think this will never stop. My only hope is that more nations will opt for imperfect diplomacy over the staggering cost of war. It is the equivalency of two people having a heated argument rather than stepping outside and beating each other up.

I'm a believer in education and critical thinking. Young people need to be supplied with challenges that force them to think about a problem from all sides. Wearing a poppy for one week a year is far less important than continually teaching youth about the root and persistence of war. They need to see why it happens and they need to see the fact that it always happens. They also need to know that terms like democracy and freedom are loaded terms ready for people in power to aim and fire. And that patriotism can so easily slip into inhumane scapegoating. It would be nice if inhumane would actually mean what it's supposed to, but I fear that being human is often what is associated with the most inhumane attributes. The semantics of the words humane and inhumane assume that humans are naturally moral, naturally progressive. It's hard to see much truth in that when you look at the big picture of war and power struggle.

People often seem to worry that once veterans of the two World Wars have died, Remembrance Day will seem less tangible, less significant for newer generations. I don't think that will be the reason for younger people's lack of concern for soldiers and war. Frankly, as a child, Remembrance Day didn't ever have a huge impact on me even with veterans present at the school assembly. Until war drops on your doorstep, you'll never fully understand its full import. Most of us are quite complacently insulated from the violent conflicts currently happening - they're in the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia. Yes, we hear story after story in the news about people fighting and dying, but only until we are desensitized enough to see them as merely stories. After all, stories aren't stories without conflict.

Remembrance Day - B-Movie

Poppy Day - Siouxsie and the Banshees

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #42

After a crazy, balmy, 18°C day at the beginning of last week, the week ended with a classic Winnipeg twist: rain, sleet and snow. There's now no doubt that it's winter again. I am also currently typing this post with nine fingers because I sprained one of them whilst helping my parents shovel out our entire townhouse condo complex (a job they take on most years for extra cash). I suppose it was the chipping away at layers of ice beneath the snow that did it. Fortunately, the finger I can't bend right now is one of my middle ones.

Canada, and Winterpeg specifically, gets quite the reputation for being cold, but if anything, it just makes us stronger. I discovered this fact when I was living in Ontario last winter - as others scurried around like the world was ending when the temperature dropped to -28°C, I walked calmly to school. To someone who used to wait for the bus in -50°C (with the wind chill factor), it was business as usual. And while other cities shut down when too much snow falls, we all dig ourselves out and continue. It takes a fair bit to get things to shut down here. Don't get me wrong. I still don't like winter and could do without it for the six months it resides here. And most of the winter, I hibernate next to the fireplace with a hot chocolate and a book. My days of tobogganing, snow fort construction, snowshoeing, skiing and ice skating are long over. Instead, I will make music mixes. This one's called Big Black Scissor Bite. And as an additional note, I edited the Manics' Winterlovers so that the pesky Working Class Hero hidden track isn't attached to it.

Tundra Rap - The Mighty Boosh

What the Snowman Learned About Love - Stars

Out There On the Ice - Cut Copy

Winter's Memory of Summer - The Delays

Iceblink Luck - Cocteau Twins

L'heure d'hiver - Little Nemo

Snow Showers - Trembling Blue Stars

Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) - Arcade Fire

January's Little Joke - Trashcan Sinatras

Snowflake - Mew

White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes

The Throat of Winter - T.Rex

The Fox in the Snow - Belle & Sebastian

Song For the Winter Sun - The Loom

Wait For the Wintertime - Yeasayer

Winter's Coming - Temposhark

Winterlovers - Manic Street Preachers

Under Ice - Kate Bush

Coma - Bella Koshka

Other Cars Go - It Hugs Back

Winter - The Sound

In the Cold I'm Standing - M83

Glosoli - Sigur Ros

More Blistering Identitätkampf: IAMX's New Single

I've been waiting for this for over a year. IAMX has just released a new single today, Think of England, and it's available for free download. It is the first new material since 2006's sophomore album The Alternative. With the introduction of the single, there has come a new colour scheme and style for the MySpace page - gone are the yellow and black, replaced with red and muted grey. The single itself is a shift in mood - gone is the dark cabaret, instead there is a rather insistent, urgent sense of wild escape.

If anything, it is a natural progression. The debut album Kiss + Swallow was generally a slower, seedy affair, oozing sexual deviance and desire. Then The Alternative came with its cabaret image and feel, but with an extra punch of raspy, vicious need that pervaded most tracks, including the incredible title track. Now, the energy has continued to escalate with syncopated rhythm and high-pitched, brain-searing synths, pushing both speed and sonic limits. Additionally, Corner's vocals continue to careen between delicate vulnerability and desperate power, but paired with the intensity of the music, they have become even more frenzied than in previous material. As for the content of Thinking of England, Chris Corner has always been rather vocal about why he left England, and more specifically London, for Berlin. I feel like this song is part of that declaration and that necessary separation from older identities and lifestyles. IAMX continues to be an identity project.

According to IAMX's blog (with its idiosyncratic use of the caps lock), Chris Corner has been in the process of choosing which direction this project should go in and has solicited feedback from his fans (of which there is a rather intense cultish following). As vocal as he has been about moving to Germany, he has been equally outspoken about staying independent and DIY. He has mused over the dilemma of the independent artist:

HOW DO YOU SELL YOURSELF TO SUPPORT YOURSELF WITHOUT WHORING YOURSELF? IT HAUNTS ME. IF ART WAS INDULGED AND FUNDED MORE THEN MONEY WOULD'NT HAVE TO TAINT IT (IN SOME NAIVE UTOPIA) I SEE ONLY A HORRIBLE STEW OF BUSINESS, FAME AND CELEBRITY IN THE COMMERCIAL INDUSTRY. I CANT THINK OF A MORE REVOLTING MIX. WE MUST STICK TO THE PATH. AND YOU MUST STAY WITH US. SOMETIMES IAMX FEELS LIKE A SMALL RELIGION.

And ideas of a new Web site:

I WANT TO CREATE SOMETHING EXCLUSIVE. A LITTLE WORLD FOR THE FANS TO EXPLORE AND BECOME A PART OF. I WANT TO RAISE THE VALUE OF THE ART. TO SURVIVE AS A FLEXIBLE GIVING, INDEPENDENT PROJECT WE MUST OFFER SOMETHING UNIQUE BUT WE ALSO NEED THE INPUT AND SACRIFICE OF THE FANS. BASICALLY FUCK THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND CREATE OUR OWN. WE ALL NEED TO GET ON THIS. FAN AND ARTIST IF WE WANT THE GYPSY TROUP TO CONTINUE. I WANT FEEDBACK. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME. I ALSO WANT TO TELL YOU WHAT I NEED FROM YOU. IN THESE COLD , RISKY TIMES THIS COULD BE THE LONG AWAITED BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP.

Judging by the responses (myself included), there will always be conflicts of opinion, and by opening himself up to the floodgates of input, Corner will have many things to think about and consider. My only hope is that he remains as honest as he can within a framework that represents all he wishes to be. The fact he wants to create such a symbiosis between fan and artist is inspiring - he is definitely a pioneer in this brave new world of major label collapse.

If you're lucky enough to live or be in Europe within the next four months, you'll be able to see IAMX on tour, where more new material will be unveiled. Also, if you are the consummate IAMX fan, get yourself here to pre-order the Live in Warsaw album, which will only be released in Poland on November 14. I eagerly await a third album. Until then I will keep listening to this new anthem to Identitätkampf. All of us IAMX fans will be basking in the pyre of the past and dancing on the grave of the music industry. You are not alone at the frontline.

Think of England - IAMX

i-Polaroids - IAMX

May Richey Be With You

I woke up this morning to the following message in my email:

Hello everyone

We thought you would like to know that we have been making music. We have been in the studio with Mr Steve Albini recording live – to tape – analogue – no digital hiss – no Pro Tools – no safety nets. Quite scary, daunting but invigorating. All the songs we are recording are lyrics left to us by Richey. Finally it feels like the right time to use them (especially after the last 18 months being so amazing with Send Away The Tigers). Musically, in many ways it feels like a follow up to the Holy Bible but there is also an acoustic side – tender, romantic, nihilism, “Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky” esque. It’s a record that celebrates the genius of his words, full of love, anger, intelligence and respect. We have to make this great. Wish us luck. We hope to release the record next April or May. The working titles are “Journal for Plague Lovers” or “I Know I Believe In Nothing But It Is My Nothing”.

Love Nicky, James and Sean.

Of course it is a missive from the Manic Street Preachers, and it made an otherwise depressing day so much brighter. So much so that I had to read it a few times to ensure that it actually said all those things in the same message. For hardcore fans of the Manics, the fact these lyrics are finally going to be released is hugely exciting even if James, Nicky and Sean are making some pretty big promises musically. To follow up the masterpiece that is The Holy Bible, would definitely be a daunting feat, especially with fans like me waiting with bated breath and ready to seize on any possible blasphemy. If it goes wrong, there's a lot at stake - indeed, they must make it great. Although a couple of points demonstrate that they are at the very least heading in the right direction: Steve Albini as producer and recording analogue rather than digital. I really want something raw from the Manics again, and I'm hoping the spirit of Richey will infuse the project with that much missed ingredient. I want them to tear my face off again. I want the frustrated mess. I want the unadulterated, naked fury. I need it.

To tide us all over til next spring, I'm including a couple tracks from The Holy Bible and one of the b-sides from Revol. Lest we forget what is possible from them.

If hospitals cure, then prisons must bring their pain. Do not be ashamed to slaughter. The centre of humanity is cruelty. There is never redemption. - Archives of Pain

Yes - Manic Street Preachers

Of Walking Abortion (Radio 1 Evening Session) - Manic Street Preachers

Too Cold Here - Manic Street Preachers

I May Feel Slightly Sad, But I Won't Cry

Well, it's official. I'm now a year older and heading into the latter half of my 20s, and so the completely irrational panic and mild depression set in. I've had an aversion to birthdays for most of my life - my tenth birthday being one of the more traumatizing ones (see this post as to why). Is there such a thing as having a phobia about birthdays? I don't know if it's even necessarily related to worrying about how much I've achieved up to this point or how much I should have accomplished. This feeling I get tends to happen in the few weeks leading up to the day and on the day itself, but subsides soon after, so I'm thinking it's related to my general sense of preemptive loss - even for happy occasions or events I often anticipate and imagine the feeling I will get at their end before they even occur. It makes for a rather strange predicament, but maybe by listening to the birthday-themed tunes below I can exorcise this melodramatic mood and once again shake the panicked feeling. At least until next year. Besides, with the US elections, the world has enough to worry about today already.

Unhappy Birthday - The Smiths

Birthday Girl - Trembling Blue Stars

Happy Birthday Girl - Sondre Lerche

A Birthday Present - The Veils

Birthday - Sugarcubes

Every Day is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #41

In honour of my birthday on November 4, this weekly mix is kind of a miscellaneous collection of what could be termed "guilty pleasures" from my past and present with a few one hit wonders thrown in. I was also inspired a bit by The Vinyl Villain's Skeletons in My Closet series and 17 Seconds Guilty Pleasures From the Closet. No, it's not cool to like the songs in this mix, but I refuse to hang my head in shame, especially since most of them come from either my childhood or adolescence. They may make others cringe, but many of these songs still tend to make me smile and remind me of some good times, including the rather different mindsets I had as I grew up into who I am now. For a few of these songs, I haven't actually heard them in many years, and in a couple of cases (Treble Charger, Goo Goo Dolls), I feel pretty estranged from the songs - as though they're from some alternate life that I can't relate to at all anymore (the same feeling I get when I look back at old high school notes and tests that I can't remember ever doing). Although in many ways, I suppose Iris was the Chasing Cars of the late 90s, and at the time, I really liked Johnny Reznick's haircut.

This will likely be the first and last time most of these artists will appear on this blog - the truth of it is I don't own any other songs by most of the artists featured in this mix. Glancing over the list now, it appears that I was quite the 80s child and still am. Aside from plenty of one hit wonder 80s tracks (including Baltimora's Tarzan Boy, which made me laugh ever since I first heard it at fourteen and my friend and I used to play it all the time, revelling in its cheesiness), I also have a few late 90s tracks that surfaced through my high school years, including a track off my very first CD purchase - Savage Garden's self-titled debut. I haven't listened to the Savage Garden album in probably about five years, but I decided to put it on while I made this mix, and I really wish I had set all my physics theorems and formulae to these songs - I would still be brilliant at physics. I'm completely gobsmacked at how I can sing along word for word to that album as though in some freakish trance. I warn all young people out there: be careful what you listen to when you're fourteen and fifteen years old. The only recent songs on this mix are the track from Ima Robot and Keane's new single Spiralling, which is an unexpected 80s-inflected pop tune, and there's something compulsive about it for me as much as I would also like to laugh at the same time. (One of my completely useless tangents: to my knowledge, the only artist who has covered the Manic Street Preachers is David Usher - unfortunately, he decided to cover If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next.) This mix is called A Very Happy Unbirthday To Me. Welcome to my nonsensical tea party.

Can You Dig It? - The Mock Turtles

Sugar Sugar - The Archies

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something

Local Boy in the Photograph - Stereophonics

Manic Monday - The Bangles

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper

Karma Chameleon - Culture Club

I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick

Footloose - Kenny Loggins

Faith - George Michael

I Want You - Savage Garden

Spiralling - Keane

Creeps Me Out - Ima Robot

American Psycho - Treble Charger

Jump - Van Halen

Power of Love - Huey Lewis & the News

Tarzan Boy - Baltimora

I Ran (So Far Away) - A Flock of Seagulls

(I Just) Died in Your Arms - Cutting Crew

Never Tear Us Apart - INXS

Black Black Heart - David Usher

Iris - Goo Goo Dolls