The Limits Of Science

In a sleek black box small enough to fit in one hand with a gleaming white light of power I bought myself a portable device capable of storing two terabytes of information the likes of which it seemed vastly unlikely would ever exist when I was born let alone be owned by somebody who was in no big way into gadgetry or hi-tech equipment. Such is the speed of the advancement of technology, but what are its limits, what can it offer us as a species and does it ever distract from us as biological creatures with simple flaws. I remember seeing our first family PC showing a video on screen of David Bowie singing ‘Changes’, I was simply blown away, before this computers had meant long painful minutes dragging into long painful hours listening to noises never since heard as simple games were loaded in low resolution with very few colours, now there was a video moving in full colour glory – things had changed indeed Mr. Bowie. I remember my first dealings with the internet as television programs used to hold up large strips of card with indecipherable addresses which lead you on a map that we could never understand to pieces of information that we would have never had access to before. Moving to the present day we expect a whole catalogue of moving images and relentless amounts of information to be available to us at all times, wirelessly appearing in our homes or even to the palms of our hands without delay or interruption, it would seem quite unthinkable to deal with some situations in any other way other than relying on this vast and relatively new technology from limiting our time spent in the supermarket to organising planning and booking events in our personal time to providing us with a vast array of entertainment and information from the pointless to the day to day of recipes and solutions to simple day to day problems. We can type anything in a small box and expect to get a myriad of opinions and solutions and the companies and organisations that provide these services have become household names and  their names have become verbs themselves so engrained they have become in our everyday thoughts and actions. I have a love hate relationship with technology, the part of me that pines for global catastrophe and a return to the simple life odiously views it as unnecessary and a distraction from purer pursuits of the human kind but me as a modern man craves the uses and applications of technology and the ways it makes things available to us with ease and accessibility. I am a greedy reader and an even greedier still for listening and the Internet is where I find discuss and explore the very latest releases with relative ease, filtered through different online conduits I can have data given to me that would take far longer and be for more cumbersome to achieve in a physical format and much that would never be produced if not for the ease that this medium was presented. At work I know that no recipe is sacred that learning new ideas and ingredient combinations is at the touch of a button there are no secrets when sharing is so easy. The Internet has revolutionised the music industry and while some may think it has killed it I am still firmly in the camp that believes that greater exposure is the greatest thing an artist can wish for. Social media sites save my friendships from the ravages of my unsociable hours and I can still feel the warmth and share the insults with my wide and disparate group of friends across the world and people from my past do not fade into the obscure. As you can tell I love to chronicle my thoughts and through the storage facilities that these sites offer we will have a cache of knowledge of how we grow as people that will be greater than Samuel Peeps could have ever wished for, children will be able to view the youths of their parents and understand them more as they start to create their own store of life knowledge and though you may think that it is mainly pointless information that is passed across these sites it is in essence the pointless and the everyday that makes us who we are.

My problem with how technology infiltrating our lives is the obvious frustration this causes when it chooses not to work and I use the word ‘chooses’ quite pointedly as I believe that artificial intelligence is alive and well and is humming away in front of you as you read. The reason I bought the shiny new hard-drive was to backup my music collection (Which is without a doubt my most treasured and irreplaceable possession) when my computer decided that half way through a mundane activity that it had been carrying out faultlessly for some time that it would stall and stubbornly refuse to turn back on again no matter how many times I turned it off and on again. Then I am left in the wasteland of my lack of knowledge, in my youth these machines would only be owned by those who had an in-depth knowledge of how they work and how to operate them but now they are everywhere and I know nothing. When there is a problem with a sauce I am making or a pastry is too flaky I don’t panic, I understand the problems and can identify the solutions but with computers I am baffled and irritated by the notion that I should be expected to understand any of these commands and prompts that come across the screen for the privilege of owning what has become such an everyday machine. What right do they have to get words like command and prompt into their linguistics, I command you damn box I prompt and tell you what to do and never should it be the other way round. When the machine is working it is my portal to untold knowledge and experience but when it is not it is like poking a belligerent teenager and trying to convince it to do their homework. I expect imperfection and variation when I request tasks to be carried out by humans, we are in our very nature fragile and fallible, we have moods that affect our performance and changeable conditions that alter our abilities but a machine should be constant and unchanging. I feel that technology rushes so fast to be new it sometimes skips over the part where it must remember who it will be used by and how consistently it can perform the tasks that it is touting it can complete.

I should probably make some aside comment about the state of European politics and the imminent fall of the Euro zone but in all honesty my understanding and tolerance of such issues is quite pitiful and my main interest in the possible ensuing catastrophe would be the possibility of me getting a decent value on my currency exchange and getting myself a nice cheap European holiday, who cares if a continent needs to be dropped into economic insecurity to get that.

Reaching towards the end of the year and music releases slow down to a gentle trickle and we can begin the process of contemplation as the shelves fill with compilations. It has been a great pleasure to closely watch the music of this year unfold and hope you will stick by me through 2012 as we see where the music will take us. There have been some gaping holes in my reviewing which is time related and as I have said before sometimes an album doesn’t kick you in the guts straight away they are more appreciated after a while apart and we hear things on second listen we missed before so I will review a few albums from earlier in the year that somehow failed to make it to the page. Ohhh and a quick alternative media entertainment recommendation would be to go and see ‘The Rum Diary’, Johhny Depp back playing a Hunter.S.Thompson creation in magnificent drunk style, well worth a look see.

‘C’mon’ by Low undisputed masters of a genre they have no desire to be categorised in, these Slow-core legends have a style all of their own that can deliver raw power and natural emotion effortlessly. There is a dark majesty to the band’s music and a haunting echo that is created from the church in which they do much of their recording – there is no new ground here for the band but when you have a style so personal and innovative that delivers all the emotional resonance you want I don’t feel new ground is needed. The songs are not as heavy as on ‘The Great Destroyer’ we don’t have images of drug addled failures with no chance of salvation there is a melancholy hope woven into the reverberated sound. There is a renewed confidence in the guitar line and a strong sense of a band really coming in to their comfort zone with a big sound which is well worth a long listen.

‘Mirror Traffic’ by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks without the pretence of a ill informed reunion that is becoming the vogue Stephen Malkmus is back on our radios all be it comically censored and on BB6 Music most shows are touting new single ‘Senator’ as something quite special, this song is not really representative of the album in whole but is the most visceral and angry malkmus has sounded for some time. Malkmus doesn’t seem to age and his impish need to keep writing songs seems to shine through in these songs with his very own style of angry, and quirky shinning through twee and impish, it was the building blocks of the indie era having something to say but not taking yourself too seriously because at the end of the day it was all about turning out lots of great music. Not retreating into a middle aged love of long solos and guitar wankery this is an album of upbeat and happy songs that draw you back in to the great sound of his voice which can be quite addictive while playing along with the tight formula of a great band. Catchy, quirky, edgy and loveable.

‘Go Tell Fire To The Mountain’ by Wu Lyf another album recorded in a church but did they really need it to give the album there own sound which they create with every fibre of their beings. Much hyped and courted by the press and A&R the band poked at convention and went as far as being downright rude knowing that nothing could distract from the raw power of the music. Tight and distinct musically the band are a growing explosion of sound that swells and bites in all the right places. The set apart piece of this band are the animalistic vocals of Ellery James Roberts half man half wolf this powerhouse snarls up the lyrics and growls them over the mic with power and control, like Captain Beefheart entering a smoking competition with Tom Waits this is a great and intriguing counterpoint to the considered instrumentation. The organ work in a church is made to sound at least dark if not satanic by this writhing vocal display. They have shunned notoriety spoke out against hyperbole and then delivered an album that starts with the drama of the apocalypse and builds from there. You might find it fractious and difficult but believe me when I say it’s good and maybe it’s important.

‘The Rip Tide’ by Beirut  The warm familiar yet strange and obtuse sounds of Beirut return to envelop us in a soft blanket of lovely sound. There has been no change in the style of Zachary Condon’s music though the genre and movement he originally surfed the crest of has long since crashed and transformed into something much difference. No longer is this a quirky style of music or moreover quirky is now completely acceptable and this blend of the new and traditional is far more commonplace than when ‘Gulag Orkestar’ first hit the indie scene but the band still has much to offer with their duality of happy and sad pinning yet optimistic there is a strong sense of character to the voices presented and a warmth even in the coldest moments. There seems to be a strong sense of history in all the band’s music and although it treads no new ground it is still a fuzzy joy to listen too.

So I leave you to the cold and the dark nights and hope that you are all finding somewhere warm to hold up and be warmed in the bosom of great songs and great company. As festivities begin I will retreat further into my work as I watch the fun that others are having while I sweat and toil but that is my burden and with a new Kate Bush record and more from The Black Keys I’m sure there will be enough auditory salvation to have me smiling through the cold. Have fun and I will speak soon.

The Long Season That Suits Us Best

So the nights draw in and the wind starts to bite at our bones in a way that draws us indoors and has us pulling on our jumpers and coats, even when the sun is bright there is a chill to the air which will be passed off as just “fresh” by all those who are still desperate to stay outdoors. Soon I will drive to and from work in the dark and although I will gain an extra hour sleep on a Sunday it will be followed by mornings scraping ice from windshields with jumper sleeves pulled over my knuckles as makeshift gloves. The long dark grey will fall over our glorious England and once again we will remember who we really are. I love this time of year and the gloomy weather and temperature that goes with it, I love my jumpers – from the oversized baggy ones that may have never seen the inside of a washing machine to the preppy smart ones which are that bit too tight. I love my coats, from the ¾ length black I got as a present when I passed my ‘A’ levels, to my large green army jacket that has seen me through nights asleep on the beach, I pine for them over the summer because as much as we may try to disguise it this is what suits us. Rolling up the legs of our jeans on a surprise hot day or the people queuing to buy beer on Brighton beach dripping from the sea in their underpants shows how blissfully unprepared we are for summer, the pasty arms and chicken drumstick legs of the English are not meant for tropical climbs.

As a chef the start of a new season is always an exciting time when new ingredients become available and the colours of your plates changes and you bring out the cooking techniques that have hibernated over the summer and you slow braise and casserole meats and serve up hearty hot bowls with billowing steam billowing over your dishes drawing people in on undulating tides of smell. Everything shall be topped with a drizzle of truffle oil and once again we will resist the Spanish urges of summer cooking and dig into our grandma’s English recipe store for the true heart of British cuisine. Though it may be a real pleasure to sit in a beer garden eating Tapas enjoying a long glass of Alcoholic ginger beer spiced with Rum on a seemingly endless afternoon during an Indian summer it is not truly me or indeed us, we have taken it from other countries Australian Ginger with Jamaican Rum on an afternoon that seems so out of place we even name it as a time from another place. Glorious Englishness is alive most at this time, in the spring we show our wilful optimism in the summer we show our quirky idiocentricity, the Winter is for our stiff upper lip and stoicism but the Autumn is where we are ourselves, wistfully melancholic in the hinterland between two extremes where we make do and mend and remind ourselves of our true nature as we kick piled leaves and hide our heads in hats.

Heir Commander Cameron gave a speech extolling the virtues of our nations great and malevolent past, quickly I passed this ideal around my International friends mainly my friends The Celtic Tigers in Ireland (who’s Colony is well overdue an inspection) it was an act of amusement that might be derived from our pompousness and presumption of making light of a situation that in reality had our elder brothers pointing guns at each other. But while I might see this type of political positioning as puerile and disingenuous I also see the method behind the Magner’s in his intent to remember the alliance and cohesion that has been achieved in most or at least some of those post colonial countries and use the avenues of our history as a good tool to explain or exemplify our current existence. Some of our youth are unaware that the English empire once governed over India and without this knowledge of history how can we expect them to understand the integration of Bradford the rise of Islam and the evolution of the chicken tikka masala. Without the facts of the thirteen states and the Canadian domination how can the “close relationship” make sense and the subtitles of Comedic differences of opinion on the uses of sarcasm be truly appreciated. From the sublime to the ridiculousness and far too often veering into the disturbing stories from our nations past how can we expect to understand the present and move to the future?

And then we ‘Occupy’ our own country in a means of protesting against the ownership and government which controls us, I mean I have lost all my faith in the process of protest it seems to be mindless looting or some sit down yoghurt weaving process that only seems to irritate the most mundane among us. I yearn for a time of change and for blows to be struck against the heart of the capitalist consumer culture but I don’t believe putting a few tents in front of a church is going to make a blind bit of difference it only goes to make people look desperate and think and hope that next time they can store their energies up for something a little bit more spectacular. Wearing the Guy Fawkes masks popularised in the film ‘V for Vendetta’ gives some pretty violent backdrop to what is in essence a sit down process – we need explosions, we need gunpowder, we need a light lighting under peoples arses that can’t be ignored. Two blogs in a row and I’ll say it again Viva La Revolution.

And then Music shows us both the quirky nature of Britishness and a connection to a by-gone age of brilliance and simultaneously shows the capitalist desire for cold hard cash as ‘The Stone Roses’ announce a reunion and some hometown shows that are sure to pad their bank balances to quite a comfortable level. As a nation we have undoubtedly created some of the greatest musical groups of all time and pushed our style and influence all over the globe an empire of music that there is really only good things to say about. Our home music scene is fiercely competitive and local in nature that has created alternative scenes and musical feuds within the confines of our small island nation, The Stone Roses where at the crest of a wave for a seemingly short amount of time but there influence was huge and there are many bands and indeed entire scenes that owe their existence to these Manc chancers. For me the band marked the end of my days obsessed with the music of The Beatles and an opening of my ears to a wider array of sounds and musical possibilities, I bought their eponymous classic on a market stall in the centre of my mining town homeland and remember rushing out of the urban hub so I could sit in a park and get enveloped in a new sort of sound, not only were there great songs here it opened my ears to new sorts of music and broadened my horizons. I fondly remember ‘The After Dark Club’ in Reading and there weekly Indie night where I would grip my plastic cup of rum and coke between my teeth so I could raise both hands in the air in riotous appreciation of the first few bars of ‘I Am The Resurrection’ so booze soaked and brain addled it is a band I will always be pleased to hear. That doesn’t make me suspect them of being untimely musical whores who will play to an enormous crowd of diehard fans who will be easy to please and make a massive pay day out of it, I guess that the proof of the pudding will lie in any new music and if they can manage to muster the same level of exciting newness in there sound – I wait with baited breath.

Music has been flooding over me in the last month great soothing tides of brilliant albums which makes it difficult to decide what to mention and not to seem like I have become a gleaming goon who thinks everything is fantastic but I will attempt as always to be subjective and let you in to what has been keeping a grin on my tired face over October.

‘The Year Of Hibernation’ by Youth Lagoon  is an instantly engaging album that has enough familiarity coupled with a ghostly newness that makes it an at times haunting and yet reassuring sound that is quite an accomplishment for a 22 year old musician all alone in his quiet Idaho suburb. The rise of the bedroom producer has re-sparked an interest in the Lo-Fi production that started with a raw grunge sound that now encompasses some intensely professional offerings that make up a large segment of the accomplished indie scene. The melodies at use in this album are beautifully crafted and used to poetic effect to rise through the song to change their timbre from spooky chants and whispered memories to chest beating anthems in recognition of who we are. It is easy to draw comparison with the work of bands like The xx who have given new focus behind the simple sound but young Trevor Powers seems to have accomplished this without any of the posturing and faux coolness that make The xx almost intolerable and incomprehensible to me, he shares more with the vast sounds of Sigur Ros and as far as to the pounding yet placid heart of Mogwai. The Year of Hibernation as the name suggests does not seem to be a desperate attempt to become part of the IT crowd, to be a trend setter or push any scene forward it is an album that can be deeply personal to anyone who has the pleasure of listening to it and can perfectly soundtrack that descent into the wonderful maudlin feeling of autumn. I can’t fault this record for its sounds or its ambition without the need to be pushed into a limelight that only helps to shadow the music, you can take The xx and James Blake and shove them up NME’s arse because this level of brilliance is what studio’s and bedroom producers are going to have to rise to. A treat of an album and quite obviously strongly recommended.

Recommended to me by a good friend who has loved this artist for as long as I can remember but has never managed until now to batter down my resistance is the latest release by a Cardinal’s free release ‘Ashes & Fire’ by Ryan Adams It’s been a long road for this Alt/Rock troubadour and he has seen scenes rise and fall as he produced music through it all and has always been an under rated champion of true love of musicianship in all its forms but with this his 13^th release he seems comfortable at home and back on top form. Set to quit music with the end of his band The Cardinals and an illness that damages his balance and hearing he was driven back to the music of deeply personal and engaging music by pure love of the art and by a competitive spirit as he listened to releases by artists such as Laura Marling who are taking the genre of Alt/Country and modern folk to new extremes. So Adams comes back with ferocity and knowledge of production that spans over a decade and creates a great future for his music that resonates with the strength of his back catalogue.  The southern twang in his voice gives a history to this man singing the blues and he pulls on rich use of instrumentation that give the songs an inviting warmth and hospitality to them. There is a great deal of sadness peppered through the album that casts the singer as a ghost in his own life viewing events with a detached sense of reality that can give at times feelings of hope and helplessness, its powerfully emotive while still being musically engaging and will have you pounding the door of your car as you sing along with the soaring impassioned vocal. It is never going to have a raw edge with such polished production but that too leaves no room for error and a great sounding board for a great singer and lyricist.

Stepping up the pace for the need to drive quickly and feel that pumping in your chest is the second studio album ‘Audio, Video, Disco’ by Justice having mainly heard the first album at ear splitting volumes from speakers meant for rooms far larger than the ones they have found homes I pressed play on this the French duo’s second offering with trepidation of torn ear holes to follow and was richly surprised and delighted. The band themselves have dubbed this as a mellower album of ‘Daytime music’ but in reality it sets them apart as innovative musicians with a lot more to offer than we may have first thought. The album is a pastiche of everything from 70’s glam to Big Stadium rock without forgetting to nod a head to the creators of a scene closer to home. Few artists can span War of the Worlds, Ac/Dc, and Led Zeppelin while still mastering your hero’s style with Daft Punk robot precision. It might not be the powerful bombast of the first album but it is humorous and well paced outing and a stroll around the odd scenes that have influenced the artist. Most music is retrospective and draws heavily on influences and it is one of the great gifts of dance music that you do not have to be shy of tipping your hat or blatantly taking segments of music from other producers to create something of your own. When this is done with reverence and humour it can make music that can’t fail to put a smile on your face.

That’s all for now but I would like to just spend a sentence to dedicate this post and my thoughts to my friend Loncey John Ngahooro who died this month and left a lot of people thinking back to happy days with him in places past and far away. He was a true gentle giant and I will always remember him with the sun on his back and a smile on his face. Keep your ears and hearts open people because it’s all just a fleeting chance.