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.