Sunday 31 December 2017

Best of 2017


LPS/TAPES
Tantalising Mews/Cateared Chocolatiers - Moon Wiring Club
Dust - Laurel Halo
Take Me Apart - Kelela
AZD - Actress
The Ghost Of Hope - The Residents
Cassettera - Ekoplekz
When It's Time To Let Go - Lo Five
The Saddle Of The Increate - Sun Araw
async - Ryuichi Sakamoto
Dulce Compañia - DJ Python
Maredidt - Myrkur
Lack - Pan Daijing
Reassemblage - Visible Cloaks
Colón Man - Equiknoxx
Rock Bottom - Rangers
Ambient Black Magic - Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement
Mnestic Pressure - Lee Gamble
Bioprodukt - Ekoplekz
Insert Genre Here/Epson's Bladder Salts - Ashtray Navigations
New Age Sewage - Robedoor



I've been trying to put this list together for over three weeks now. This morning I just thought 'Bugger it I won't do a list.' Then later this afternoon I thought I'll just write a small paragraph about a handful of records I didn't mind but didn't necessarily love to death and leave it at that. Listening to Moon Wiring Club's latest epic 2CD & LP combo I thought 'Well...they need a place to go don't they because they're fucking outstanding as usual.' So now I've put this together but I'm still not a hundred percent convinced about it.

Should it just be a top 3, a top 6 or maybe a top 8 list?....

Anyway many of my usual favourites did not make the list. I didn't hate the records by Ariel PinkThe Focus Group, Gas or Omar Souleyman but I didn't love them either like I usually do or wanted to. I mean that Ariel Pink LP is a bit lightweight innit? Yet It's also pretty good but it's just not in the same league as The Doldrums, Worn Copy or Pom Pom is it? It was still my most played LP of the year though. The best film score was from Oneotrix Point Never for the crime movie Good TimeToi Toi Toi and Migos just missed out, Chino Amobi was (oh so) interesting (not), Tyler The Creator, SZA & Thundercat were alright, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith was way overrated and that Zomby record just did my head in. Then there was my usual hip-hop entrants (Future, Young Thug, RJ, Beatking) whose LPs just didn't leave lasting impressions on my mind. I'd have been happy to make a top fifty list if there were fifty excellent albums released this year. I listened to a lot of stuff including black metal, even shoegaze and drum'n'bass plus a whole lot more rap but it just wasn't innovative, exceptional or consummate enough for me to write about.


REISSUES/ARCHIVES/COMPILATIONS
Selected Classics - The Mover
Frontal Sickness - The Mover
Final Sickness  - The Mover
Afternooners - Patrick Cowley
U-Men - U-Men
Voyage Cerebral - Didier Boquet
Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale - Heldon
Interface - Heldon
Stand By - Heldon
Fetus - Franco Battiato
Pollution - Franco Battiato
Sulle Corde Di Aries - Franco Battiato
Miracle Steps: Music From The 4th World 1983-2017 - Various
Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat Of Cameroon 1976-1984 - Various


TELLY
The Deuce
Sure The Deuce isn't as good as The Wire but it's fine entertainment.
The Crown
Sure The Crown isn't anywhere near as cool as The Deuce but season two was ten dramatic mini-movie masterpieces in a row. I can't explain it, just watch it. Who would have thought twenty hours (two seasons) of television about the bloody Queen could have been this amazing?
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Sure they didn't really need to do another season but it still had me laughing out loud a lot.
Twin Peaks - Episode 8
Sure I kinda preferred it when BOB was just a mystery. When BOB just was. Anyway this is a pretty cool episode that was all about early, experimental, cult & avant-garde cinema and much more. Exquisite. The other 17 episodes weren't a patch on this.
Black Mirror: Hang The DJ Episode
That was romance.
Line Of Duty
Best cop show since                    or perhaps ever. Season 4 was probably the finest so far with incredible performances from Thandie Newton and my current favourite actor Adrian Dunbar as Superintendent Ted Hastings. Gotta wait 'til 2019 for the next episode, sheesh!


Friday 22 December 2017

Tuesday 12 December 2017

Best 80s Albums

tactics

Yesterday on twitter somebody asked what was the best LP released between 1980 & 1989. I thought I won't do my obvious pick. So I did a little year by year list that didn't include Talking Heads, The Fall, The Birthday Party, Prince, The Church, The Triffids, The Smiths, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine or The Pixies.

My pick in the end was My Houdini from Tactics but it could have been any of these or like a hundred others. Ever since I started this blog I've been meaning to write an article in praise of My Houdini. Maybe the time has come to finally put pen to paper about this undervalued post-punk/new wave classic.


1980- Out Of The Tunnel - MX-80 Sound



1981- My Houdini - Tactics




1982- Ice Cream For Crow - Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band



1983- Head Over Heels - Cocteau Twins



1984 - Let It Be - The Replacements



1985- At Home With You - X (The Australian band not the inferior one)


1986Three Virgins - Axemen




1987Children Of God - Swans




1988Sixty Nine - AR Kane




1989Max Q - Max Q

Monday 20 November 2017

Problem Child - ACDC



Rick Rubin summed up AC/DC here. Amongst other things he wrote:

A great band like Metallica could play an AC/DC song note for note, and they still wouldn't capture the tension and release that drive the music. There's nothing like it.

The essence of Malcolm Young.

RIP Malcolm Young




Malcolm Young.
The Centre,
The Core,
The Engine,
The Backbone.
The Heart & Soul,
A riff machine.







The essence of AC/DC is the rhythmic guitars and the minimalist groove.



Malcolm was the fucking essence of AC/DC!

Tuesday 14 November 2017

2017 Gloom/Doom-Core















The atmosphere on these tracks is just so....now. Is World War III really going to be about a couple of drama queenz having a bitch fight in the sand pit about who's old, short or fat? Ye olde cartoons were smarter than that. Kim & Don are are the dim wit kids in grade one you felt sorry for. This here is the soundtrack for the schoolboy/world leader dust up which was made in 91/92 with a vision to 2017. I'm worried Marc Acardipane is some sort of Nostradamus type figure. I mean like Nostradamus (as in a psychically freaky fortune teller for the ages) and not just into him as Simon Reynolds mentioned at the beginning of the year on my blog. These aren't even Marc's most pulverising beats, It's all about the blackest gloomiest synths and sound generators. Some of these beats are almost quite fun. Music for the surviving cockroaches, ants and mutant sea creatures to joyfully bug out to while the ghost of humanity looms in the post-apocalyptic air.

*All of these tracks have been remastered and reissued in digital form in 2017. Frontal Sickness, Final Sickness and a compilation called Selected Classics have been part of Acardipane's reissue campaign by Planet Phuture. So far it's been all about The Mover and Mescalinum United, I wonder if any of his other aliases will be getting the remastered treatment?

Sunday 12 November 2017

Obscure Darkside Mix - DevNull



You can always depend on Pete DevNull to come with something fucking cool around Halloween for lovers of the darkside of the hardcore continuum and this year is no exception. This fabulous mix, that was posted a few days ago, is some of the most shadowy old school jungle you'll ever hear. According to Blog To The Old School some of these tunes are mega rare white labels and unreleased trax from back in the day. I reckon I only recognise 3 or 4 of the platters in this set. You know the score!

If you love the darkside I suggest you go through the BTTO archive of mixes. One year (2012?) Pete did an epic 3 hour set for Halloween which is one of my favorite all time dj mixes. There's a bunch of fantastic darkside sets from DevNull that should keep you going out of your brain for some time.

Tuesday 31 October 2017

Umberto Lenzi Movies For Halloween



Watch Eyeball in tribute to the late great Umberto Lenzi. Ocular violence is probably my biggest fear so this gets to me despite how funny the whole movie is. It's very disturbing to me.



Lenzi did like 7 or 8 Gialli and Spasmo is his most triumphantly mental. Just go with it and forget about a cohesive narrative for the duration. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. There's actually a better version on youtube Posted by Giallo Realm which won't embed here. So maybe search for that one. Happy Halloween.

Monday 30 October 2017

Halloween




Friday The 13th goes to an early 80s disco, 1982 to be precise. Love that synth bass.



Remember when Howard Shore was awesome? Particularly when he was scoring for Cronenberg.



Ambient to noisy electronic delirium and back again.



Francois De Roubaix was a French film composer. I think his mind was quite free of constraints when it came to making music. You can hear it all here in just 3 minutes. He covers a lot of ground but it doesn't sound forced or shoehorned, it's just wonderful. As far as I can tell only two tunes from the soundtrack to the 1971 Belgian film Daughters of Darkness were ever issued. Les Dunes d'Ostende was on one side of a 7" released by French label Barclay.

Keeping with the horror theme, De Roubaix died in his mid 30s in an accident whilst diving off The Canary Islands in 1975. He is pictured on the cover of one of his compilations in scuba diving gear which I thought was rather macabre.



HORROR MOVIE PODCAST - FACULTY OF HORROR
If you can get past how impressed this duo are about their scholastic achievements and are a horror movie fan this could be a podcast for you. The hosts Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West take an analytical look at one or two films per episode which are thematically linked. They've covered ye olde classics like Night Of The Hunter, Witchfinder General, Black Christmas, The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Shivers, Halloween etc. Plenty of 80s and 90s movies like The Shining, Sleepaway Camp, Friday The 13th, Fright Night, Gremlins, Lost Boys, The Crucible, The Crow & The Cube have been featured. Films of the new Millennium are not shied away from either, like they are in many other casts of pod. Wolf Creek, The Loved Ones, Elle, The Descent, Trick'rTreat, Calvaire, Martyrs, The Babadook, Cabin In The Woods & Drag Me To Hell have all been picked apart by the faculty. Alexandra West wrote the book Films Of New French Extremity and has a new book due soon about 90s teen horror.



I've never seen this movie but it's apparently a cross between Carnival Of Souls and Messiah Of Evil. Which sounds like it would be right up my street. The full version on youtube is unwatchable but it was issued by Arrow on dvd & blu-ray last year though. Looking forward to tracking it down. 

Sunday 29 October 2017

Movies Part III

The first 4 were good but this...

MOVIES I COULDN'T SIT THROUGH (ie. Wasted time & money renting these. Why do I torture myself trying to watch all this shit. Well I kinda don't anymore, only sometimes. Thank God)

Drive (2011)
Tediously dim plus am I the only person who thinks Ryan Gosling is dull as fuck?

Scott Pilgrim V The World (2010) 
Who cares?

American Hustle (2013)
What a load of shite.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008) 
OMG! Worst idea for a film ever.

Cabin In The Woods (2012) 
"It's so way out and meta, man."

Phone Booth (2002) 
Does anyone actually like the actor in this phone box?
  
This Is 40 (2012) 
The worst characters in a film ever played by the most unconvincing actors I've come across.

February (2015) 
No atmosphere or tension. 23 minutes in I couldn't have cared less what happened to these characters to continue watching.

King Kong (2005) 
Sleepy time.

Berberian Sound Studio (2012) 
Fuck off with your pretentious fake giallo homage!

The Wicker Man (2006) 
Nicholas Cage or Keanu Reeves: Who's worse?

Oh Brother Where Art Though (2000) 
"So quirky & unusual, man. Oh and I just love the soundtrack. Country music's so interesting."

I'm Not There (2007) 
I'm so not there. Never will be.

Horrible Bosses (2011)
Horrible movie.

Bad Teacher (2011) 
Bad Movie.

Friday The 13th Part 5 (1985) 
I got maybe a third of the way in when I realised this was so bad...it was just bad.

The Road (2009) 
I love sleep.

27 Dresses (2008) 
Got about 9 minutes into this.

Studio 54 (1998)
eww

The Thin Red Line (1998)
So much sleep to get here.

Waterworld (1995) 
The great snooze-fest continues. Maybe this isn't that bad but I just can't make it through without at least 3 naps.

Gods & Monsters (1998) 
Bad acting and a bad script = Oscars.

Noah (2014) 
WTF? Can you believe this guy had actually directed several good films before this one?

Hilary & Jackie (1998)
omfg..... 
Banger Sisters (2002) 
So Fake.

Jacob's Ladder (1990) 
I think I was supposed to be intrigued. I was intrigued by what another sleep would be like.

Mars Attacks (1996) 
Looking at the inside of my eyelids was infinitely more interesting than looking at this picture.

Demons (1985) 
Some film buffs recommend this. Why? I got maybe 12 minutes in and had to call it. "But Dario Argento co-wrote and produced it."  Big woop.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982) 
Didn't care enough about the characters to see what happened to them in the end, well I hope they all died and there was no final girl.

In The Realm Of The Senses (1976) 
"Incredibly deep and meaningful Asian porn" with the worst soundtrack ever.

5 CLASSICS STARRING JULIE CHRISTIE
Don't Look Now
Demon Seed
McCabe & Mrs Miller
Petulia
Billy Liar

NEVER SEEN
American Graffiti
Empire Strikes Back
Anything directed by Rob Zombie

MOVIES I SURPRISINGLY DIDN'T HATE
Knock Knock (2015)
Director Eli Roth comes across a such a tool but this could have been a major cult classic if they had cast a good leading man but hey, they got Keanu Reeves and he cannot act. The two leading ladies are fantastic though. Really good story, I thought. Wasted opportunity.

The Revenant (2015)
A bear V past his prime Leo, who would have thought entertainment would ensue?

Drag Me To Hell (2009)
Sam Raimi had made maybe one good movie since Evil Dead so I definitely was not expecting this to be good or even ok or even a bit less than ok.

The Black Swan (2010)
Expected this to be a very boring chick flick. Are you allowed to say that now, boring?

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
McConaughey hadn't been cool for like 20 years then...

Bad Neighbours (2014) 
Gotta love Rose Byrne. She's the best comic actress of our time.

The Notebook (2004)
Thought this was gonna be the worst pile o shite ever but I didn't hate it. Hey it's got fucking Gena Rowlands, the greatest living actress.

Killer Joe (2011)
Elderly directors usually don't make films you wanna watch. All film directors should be shot by the time they reach 50. Most of today's young directors should be rounded up and massacred immediately!

The King's Speech (2010)
The fucking royal family can go fuck themselves. Why isn't Australia a republic? Anyway this was alright with all the actoring and stuff.

The Passion Of The Christ (2004)
It had been over 30 years since Mel was involved with a good movie. So for this to be a classic is rather astounding. Yeah I know he's an arsehole but he might be a genius. Does that make him a genius arsehole?

Death Proof (2007)
Tarantino is the most overrated, unimaginative and derivative film maker of our time yet he thinks he so fucking great. My god he finds himself oh so interesting and clever. He started out with three good films and it's been all downhill ever since. Nobody recommended this one but I like.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
I think I saw this late one night on telly. Maybe I was wasted but I thought it was a good cheesy slasher.

Dressed To Kill (1980)
Never liked a De Palma movie in my life but this was a good laugh.

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Young Thug


I totally slept on this one from Mr Thug in 2017. He still has greatness within him. I mean, I quite like the new album he's done with Future Super Slimey and now I'm going back to Beautiful Thugger Girls, which is sounding better by the minute. Not that I ever gave that album much of a chance. While he's not as astonishingly surprising, as he was say four or five years ago, he's still remarkably unique. Young Thug is probably for me the best thing vocally in the 2010s. Someone asked a question a while ago, at maybe Dissensus, on who is the most innovative musician of the the 2010s and I had a few ideas but this guy is surely the most idiosyncratic vocal talent of the last five or six years.

An amazing thing is that nobody's come up with a literary way to describe what it is (as far as I know), which is good. I'm actually trying not to come up with an easily describable term for what he does because then he will just become describable by that little phrase that someone comes up with. I do half wish I could put it all into words but it's a struggle. I find writing about music, sonics and their evocative nature comes a lot easier. There was someone who once wrote about Bob Dylan and all his vocal changes over the years, maybe they could do it. I kinda can't see an old Rolling Stone/Creem type of writer being seduced by Young Thug but you never know though. One thing is that Young Thug's vocal science is all organic as opposed to fucked with in the studio or by a computer/phone/autotune. Does this make him some sort of roots artist? Sure his voice has also been fucked with by technology too but he could survive without it. Thug has invented a whole new language/syntax in vocals and singing. At this moment he is just mercurial....

Friday 20 October 2017

Super Slimey - Future & Young Thug


This actually has me excited about music in 2017. I hope it lives up to at least half of it's potential. I love this years records from The Residents, Laurel Halo and Rangers. Only two other LPs have had me in as much excited anticipation as this recently announced collaboration between Future & Young Thug though. They were the 2017 releases from Ekoplekz and Ariel Pink and I just haven't ended up in the blissful places that I thought they might take me (yet). So hopefully this combination of the worlds two best rappers will come through with the goods. It's a gutsy move from Future though, as Young Thug usually upstages all in his path. Thugger lifts his game on collaborations (ie. Rich Gang & Black Portland)! On an initial listen it sounds really fucking good. Way better than Beautiful Thugger Girls and perhaps as good as HNDRXX.




Mike Will Made This....

Tuesday 17 October 2017

Rabbit Hole Part 2 Featuring Michael Hutchence, Flame Fortune, Troy Davies etc.



Now Flame Fortune is a forgotten footnote in Aussie Pop Music history. I always thought writing a book or at least a long form article on her life would be an interesting prospect. She was from LA and the above tune was produced by Michael Hutchence. Sex Symbol was recorded with an amazing Australian supergroup that included members of INXS, The Models, The Divinyls, Australian Crawl and The Angels. You would have thought 'How could this not be a hit with that kind of hit making pedigree behind her in the studio?' She appeared on the cover of Countdown magazine sometime in 1985 (I had that issue) when this single was released. Strangely enough the dude in the video is Troy Davies, the subject of the previous post. So it turns out he was everywhere in my pop cultural 80s but I just wasn't aware of who he was. It's kinda funny how not raunchy she is in this video compared to say Madonna or Vanity and later sex pots Britney, Beyonce & Nicky. I guess it's closer to new wave-y like maybe Berlin than those recent absurdly sexually athletic stars who are quite often not sexy at all.

So it turns out that Fortune was supposedly only 14 or 15 in the Sex Symbol video which was directed by Richard Lowenstein (Of Dogs In Space and Autoluminescent fame). This is definitely not true. She wasn't actually born in 1971 and was born in either 1969 or most likely in 1962 (as some articles state). I have a recollection that her and Michael Hutchence had a fling, maybe that was just a rumour.

Anyway to a 14 year old me, I thought she was pretty weird because she had this whole God/Sex dichotomy thing going on. I wasn't really aware that this was a staple personality trait in pop ala Little Richard, Al Green, Prince etc., at that stage of my life. The single flopped and as far as I can tell there was no follow up album. Fortune soon disappeared from the pop universe without becoming the star she thought she should have been. Six years later she was allegedly  murdered back in LA. Some information claims she may have committed suicide. It's all a bit sketchy. I can find little more information than this about her tragic life.



*Someone with time and money to do the research into this mysterious story will now have a fantastic Rolling Stone or weekend supplement article to write. Or if someone wants to make me an offer feel free to leave your details.

Rabbit Hole Featuring Michael Hutchence, Richard Lowenstein, Troy Davies etc.



There was a documentary on Michael Hutchence last night on telly. It led me down this strange rabbit hole of half remembered videos and collaborations. I have a vague memory that perhaps Speed Kills was in conjunction with Cold Chisel's Don Walker for some kind of soundtrack which appears to be the 1982 Australian flick Freedom. What about that fabulous hair?





This video appearance from Hutchence in Eccohomo's Motorcycle Baby was a late night staple of late 80s Aussie music tv. At the time I just assumed it was another Hutchence collaboration with Ollie Olsen. I think I was half right, but it's a Troy Davies project. He's the dude in the beanie and the woman on the back of Michael's motorbike. He was an actor, artist, Sharpie, drag queen, man, woman, some kind of performance artist and much more.



Admittedly I knew fuck all about Troy Davies until tonight but I think he makes an appearance in this film clip as well as being part of the film crew. He was a friend and a colleague of film and video clip director Richard Lowenstein. Talking To A Stranger is a 1982 Aussie post-punk classic from Hunters and Collectors. The Avalanches would remix this as Stalking To A Stranger 30 years later.



This sheds some light on Peter/Vanessa/Troy Davies.



More light shedding. Apparently there's a documentary on Davies, Ecco Homo, directed by Richard Lowenstein and Lynn-Maree Milburn. This was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2015. Having moved away from Melbourne in 2013 I totally missed that. So while all this stuff is news to me tonight all you Melbourne hipsters probably know all about it, whatever. More info.

Monday 16 October 2017

More On Movies


7 MELBOURNE FILMS
Dogs In Space (1986)
I resided in Richmond, where this picture was filmed, for many years. People still make pilgrimages to the Dogs In Space house. I drove past it once...er...it's just a house.

Malcolm (1986)
A whole lotta Melbourne in this one. Collingwood, Flemington, Kew, Thornbury, South Melbourne & The Central Business District. The titular character Malcolm works for Melbourne trams. I first saw this at that cinema in Balwyn when I was a kid visiting Melbourne.

Romper Stomper 1992)
All I can remember is Richmond Train station and scenes in Footscray but there's probably a few other locations.

Death In Brunswick (1991)
The old Bombay Rock Club in Sydney Road and that theatre in Coburg are the two locations I can recall. I lived in East Brunswick for almost a decade in the 90s before it got taken over by hipsters in the new millenium. The Lomond used to have lesbian country bands, The East Brunswick Hotel was v dodgy. There was a good video shop on the cnr. of Albert & Lygon. Maybe Mark Hartley worked there...is that right?

Chopper (2000)
Locations include Pentridge in Coburg which had closed down by then and Bojangles car park in St. Kilda which I'm sure didn't exist by that stage.

Patrick (1978)
Shot in East Melbourne, Brighton, Prahran, South Yarra and probably more. I used to know which number tram was in the film but I've forgotten.

Ghosts Of The Civil Dead (1988)
This was made in Melbourne but it was set in the middle of nowhere, adding to the eerie vibe. It's not for Melbourne-y location trainspotters really.

MOVIES I KNOW I'VE SEEN BUT CAN'T REMEMBER A SINGLE THING ABOUT THEM
Jaws (Well it had a shark)
The Babadook (Dunno what it had. I assume a babadook, whatever that is)
Subway
Friday The 13th
Serial Mom
The Parallax View (Well it had a Warren Beatty)
Shampoo (A Beatty, a Christie and a Hawn)
Donnie Brasco

FILMS I'VE NEVER SEEN
The Titanic (Do I need to see it? I hear it's not bad)
Beverly Hills Cop (As above)

GOOD OR BAD? I DUNNO
Eyes Wide Shut
Moulin Rouge
The King Of Marvin Gardens (Sometimes Jack Nicholson just gets on me tits!)
Death Wish
My Bloody Valentine
Barton Fink
In The Mouth Of Madness
Traffic
Death Bed
Spring Breakers

7 FROM THE 70s FROM ELLIOT GOULD. Surely he's THE ACTOR of the 1970s.
The Silent Partner (Perhaps the most underrated movie of the 70s)
California Split (Obv.)
The Long Goodbye (Obv.)
Little Murders (This has to be the weirdest film Gould ever did)
Busting (Gould stars alongside alleged non murderer Robert Blake)
Getting Straight (Best Gould Performance?)
The Lady Vanishes (Great chemistry between Gould and Cybil Shepherd)

RECENTLY WATCHED 
Night School (1981)
Pretty good. Sort of a Giallo made in America.

Death Wish (1974)
Did I need to be 14 to enjoy this or maybe another human entirely? Worth it for the wtf scene where someone spray paints a bare arse. A historic moment in cinema to be sure.

Popcorn (1991)
Good ideas and production values but not quite executed to its full potential. A definite curio though for people interested in the Slasher continuum.

Get Out (2017)
??? ZZZZZZ

IT (2017)
Pretty good. The kids in the cinema seemed to like it, it's a kids film innit?

Gerald's Game (2017)
Such a naff ending it ruined the rest of the film which was probably only a 5 out of 10 anyway. Don't waste your time on this one.

I THOUGHT THEY WERE DEAD, BUT THEY'RE NOT
Peter Fonda
Tippi Hedren
Gena Rowlands
Kirk Douglas (Surely that is not correct)

Wednesday 11 October 2017

Gabba

I was thinking the other day 'We've been waiting for some kind of gabber recommencement since 2016 flipped into 2017 but nothing's happened.' I guess the scene has probably continued on in the same way that drum'n'bass still exists. What I really mean is that gabber/doomcore/gloomcore godfather and legend Marc Arcardipane hasn't resurfaced as far as I can tell (not that I've really looked). In the 90s Arardipane had this logo on many of his releases See You In 2017. 

Here are some dudes (below) with the historical knowledge of gabber giving it a retro-gabba crack (Via Energy Flash).



I wish this lecture (above) was real and was going to continue on for another 45 minutes. The track by DJ Balli & Giacomo Bella ChickenFIAT that was posted at Energy Flash is fun but hardly revelatory, hey what is these days?



God I love that thick squally synth sound! Rotterdam Terror Corps were mentioned in that above trailer.



Hardcore



70s rock (Queen samples, traces of Sabbath riffage in the synth) influences in 90s Hardcore!





Cold Rush. Atmos-Fear was recorded several years earlier than the other above tunes. This is Marc Arcardipane & Marc Arcardipane ie. he is The Mover & The Rave Creator. This is the true soundtrack for 2017.

It's 2017?
Where are you Marc?

Wednesday 4 October 2017

Nadir


I took a screen shot of this from maybe pitchfork a month or two back because I thought it was hilarious and depressing. I'd rather hear The Venetians cover Noiseworks. It's really hard to come up with a combo that is worse. Suggestions most welcome.

Monday 25 September 2017

I Love/Hate Movies

Here's some movie lists I've put together after listening to a lot of movie podcasts and looking at my favourite films list on my blog profile. That's an off the cuff list written in like half an hour. Many films are not included because I haven't re-watched a lot of those old favourites (listed below). My brain also doesn't feel the need to have rigid rankings for things anymore. I would have once had strict well thought out lists for the top twenty movies of all time, the top ten films set in Melbourne, top seven Scorsese movies, top five worst actors etc. I could probably add to my favourite films list a few more Italian, Polish, South Korean, Japanese, Czech, French and German films, horror movies, film-noir, documentaries and a few more from Robert Altman,  John Cassavetes, John Huston, Woody Allen and a bunch of directors I've never heard of......

*Disclaimer

*These lists are by no means comprehensive, just what I came up with one night when I couldn't sleep. I didn't get out me Leonard Maltin or do any research, otherwise this post would then have taken up the entire internet.

**I didn't have a vcr until 1986 or 87 (my mid teens) plus had boringly strict catholic parents so I missed a whole lotta horror/trash/comedy/action stuff from the 80s. I was not an 80s teenage video shop nerd. I didn't love Joe Dante, John Hughes or teen tits and arse sex comedies. I've never seen a Charles Bronson movie, Troll 2 or Labyrinth. I've actually never seen Porky's from beginning to end but I do remember seeing Recruits. I have no interest in kids or teen films now. I think a lot of people's love for those genres comes from nostalgia ie. seeing them at the right age. By the time The Goonies came out I was too old for it but people just a couple of years younger than me cherish it. I went straight from Temple Of Doom, Back To The Future and Aliens to being obsessed with David Lynch, Wim Wenders and Peter Greenaway. I now find that hilarious and so pretentious.

I'd love to be into just one genre like Westerns, Krimi, Nunsploitation, Gialli, Turkish Rip-offs, Czech New Wave, Made For TV Horror, Rape Revenge, Hospital Horror or Blaxploitation. Being middle aged I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a middlebrow dilettante though. If I find a film I like, I haven't found a tribe - I've found a movie I dig. The films I like/dislike don't define me (Insert quote from Groucho Marx "I don't want to belong to any club...."). I've lost interest in sci-fi. My patience for slow films has dwindled. I've forgotten a lot of (pre 60s) old hollywood classics, musicals, comedies, monster movies, British films etc. that I once saw on telly and liked. I've also forgotten a lot of the names of avant-garde, arty and foreign films that I liked and would have seen at the Melbourne Cinematheque, arthouse/cult-y theatres and The Melbourne International Film Festival. Remember The Carlton Moviehouse, The Valhalla, The Lumiere, The Panorama (that was in Brunswick St. for like 10 minutes during 1993), The Astor, that one that was in Swanston Street?.... I've probably forgotten a few others too.

MOVIES I ONCE LIKED BUT CAN'T IMAGINE LIKING NOW (But you never know though)
Trust
Dazed & Confused
Chasing Amy
Reality Bites
American Beauty
There Will Be Blood
Stalker
Donnie Darko
Badlands
New York, New York
Leaving Las Vegas
Spirits (of The Air Gremlins Of The Clouds)
Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
Betty Blue
Hiding Out
Buffalo 66
Faster Pussycat Kill Kill (Probably couldn't sit through this without being wasted man)
The Trip
Suspiria
Rolling Thunder
Wings Of Desire
Kiss Of The Spider Woman
Sex & Zen
Dead Man
Jean De Florrette
Manon De Sources
The Lover
Down by Law
Thelma & Louise
Unbearable Lightness Of Being
Better Off Dead (Actually watched this the other day too, pretty naff and oh so quirky. Maybe kids would like it, probably not. I mean this was great for an 80s fourteen year old me. Now all I see is that John Cusack's really fucking annoying)
Simple Men
Two Hands
Bad Lieutenant (Watched this the other day. Keitel was wavering between utter shite and really convincing as a depraved cop. Then came the whining/wailing scenes towards the end. That tipped an already ordinary and obvious film into total nonsense for me. Being young and impressionable makes you like strange things. Bad Lieutenant has put me off watching any of the other films in this particular list because I've proved myself correct twice)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Hot Fuzz
The Holy Mountain (I'm sure if I smoked a holy mountain of weed I'd like it)
Shine
Surviving Desire
Magnolia
Fellini films
Bergman films

MOVIES I ONCE LOVED BUT HAVEN'T SEEN FOR OVER 15 YEARS (So who knows? But I reckon I might still like 'em. Middlebrow alert!)
My Life As A Dog
Brazil
Sex, Lies & Videotape
Bad Boy Bubby
Love Serenade
Naked
Bliss
La Haine
Millers Crossing
Midnight Express
Angel Heart
3 Women
Stop Making Sense
The Elephant Man
Hana-Bi
End Of The Century
A Better Tomorrow
Paris Texas
Scanners
Deathdream
The Man Who Fell To Earth
The Living End
Pure Shit
Stone
Hardboiled
The Filth & The Fury
Drugstore Cowboy
Delicatessen
Tokyo Drifter (Watched this after I put up this blog post. Classic)
Fresh
To Die For
Proof
Rain
Targets
Race With The Devil
Marathon Man
The Getaway
Performance
Re-Animator
If
Stroszeck
Night Of The Creeps
Lenny
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
The Temple Of Doom
Woyzeck
The Ice Storm
Eating Raoul
Shock Corridor
Deep End (A 70s British film with a Polish director and Can on the soundtrack. How could you go wrong?)
Melvin and Howard
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf
Three Colours Trilogy
Breaking The Waves
Mulholland Drive
Last Temptation Of Christ
Secretary
Day Of The Dead
Akira
Pink Flamingoes
Branded To Kill
Le Samourai
Shaft
Truck Turner
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The Comfort Of Strangers
Nil By Mouth
Fun
Gas Food Lodging
Sexy Beast
The Fourth Man (Nobody ever talks about this film. It was directed by Paul Verhoeven in 1983 before he moved to Hollywood. It's his best film, I reckon.....although I only saw it once, maybe 28 years ago. John Hinde presented it on ABC TV)
Going Down
Death In Brunswick
Romper Stomper
Bachelor Party
Lantana
The Boys
Chunking Express
Do The Right Thing
Repo Man
Predator
Family Plot
Trees Lounge
Colors
My Beautiful Laundrette
Meantime
Living In Oblivion
The Age Of Innocence
Roadside Prophets
Route 66
Those 80s and early 90s Jon Jost films I saw, maybe at the Melbourne Cinematheque.

MOVIES I ONCE LOVED BUT NOW HATE
Clerks
Wild At Heart
Raising Arizona
2001: A Space Odyssey (Maybe this just doesn't work on blu-ray/telly ie. not in a cinema. I originally saw it in the early 90s on a 70mm print in the best cinema in Melbourne and it blew me young little mind)

MOVIES I'M INDIFFERENT TO (AKA Meh...What's all the fuss?)
Kill Bill I & II
Heat
The Proposition
DIG
Vertigo
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
Lord Of The Ring Trilogy
The Departed
Scarface
Blade Runner
The Breakfast Club
The Big Lebowski
E.T.
The Graduate
Cinema Paradiso
The Princess Bride
Rocky
Marnie
Robocop
The Hateful Eight

MOVIES I NEVER LIKED (yeah I know)
Harold & Maude
The Life Aquatic
Last Tango In Paris
Angel Baby
Top Gun
Star Wars
Pretty Woman
Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert (One of my heroes, Philip Brophy, wrote a monograph on how much he hates this movie. What a legend!)
The Last Waltz
Shawshank Redemption
Schindler's List
Boondock Saints
Forest Gump
Fight Club
Silence Of The Lambs
The Green Mile
Gladiator
Japanese Story
Gangs Of New York
Memento
Snatch
Dead Poets Society
Chinatown
MASH
Easy Rider
Citizen Kane
Broken Flowers
Lost In Translation
The Castle
Pump Up The Volume
24 Hour Party People
Wonderland
Swingers
Before Sunrise
Inglorious Bastards
....and a million more

MOVIES I USED TO HATE BUT NOW QUITE LIKE
The Shining
The Godfather
Groundhog Day
Taxi Driver
Crocodile Dundee
Dirty Dancing
The Tenant
Psycho
A Clockwork Orange (Well half of it)
Rio Bravo
Zabriskie Point

LOVED IT, HATED IT, LOVED IT AGAIN
Dogs In Space

MOVIE DIRECTORS I CAN'T STAND
Todd Haynes
Wes Anderson
Terrence Malick
Michael Winterbottom

NEVER SEEN
Tootsie
It's A Wonderful Life
Razorback

THREE CLASSIC 70s FILMS I ONLY DISCOVERED IN 2017
Chilly Scenes Of Winter
Puzzle Of A Downfall Child
(Thanks to Bill Ackerman & Mike White for alerting me to those above two)
The Dion Brothers
(Discovered this on a very dodgy print at either youtube or a pirate-y site while I was having a Stacy Keach fest. Hey its got Margot Kidder as well. This film's also known as The Gravy Train. Funnily enough it's written by Terrence Malick. He also wrote the script to Pocket Money which I really like too. He seems a bit looser and just plain better when he's doin the script sans the directing gig)

Friday 22 September 2017

93 Darkside/Jungle



This one goes into the category of 'Heard it but never knew what the fuck it was and jeez it's a hardcore bewdy!' More dark 93 bizniz, this time on a funky jungle tip.



This is from the same EP. Melodic rhythms, bleepedelia and trippy kindness, you know what I mean. Lovely but it also gets a bit dark (I always wondered where the Omni Trio acolytes were).



Not so lovely, this one. Fantastic euphoric gloom.  Get on a bad trip and send your brain down the gurgler. This one will make you see spiders on the wall,


Thursday 21 September 2017

The Hip Hop In 2017

A REALLY DEEP ANALYSIS OF RAP FROM A FAN LOSING INTEREST

I finally got the urge to play some rap for the first time this year. I had five albums waiting in the wings - Thugger, Migos, RJ and two from Future. After an initial listen to Thugger Girls I thought 'Hmmm.....I dunno....I think listening to Future's 2014 mixtape Monster sounds like a much better idea'. It was a great idea because it seems even better than it did three years ago. Monster was the first place Fuck Up Some Commas appeared and contains the two below classics.





I guess it's pretty easy to get overlooked if you're from LA as Kendrick is so ubiquitous, has anybody got any room for another LA rapper? Last year however there were two excellent LA albums Schoolboy Q's Blank Face and Still Brazy from YG. This year we've got RJ's proper debut album. He has made guest appearances on DJ Mustard's Ketchup (2013) & 10 Summers: The Mixtape (2015). RJ's done a handful of mixtapes but his best album so far is the collaboration he recorded with Choice Rich off Mackin. The new record MrLA, on initial listens, doesn't seem as effortless as that collab with Choice but it's better than anything that K Lamar has done since Good Kid...

Two hours plus of Future was a hell of a lot to take in. His two albums are the best of this bunch though. HNDRXX seems much stronger than than the self-titled effort....

Culture from Migos seemed ok, much better than Beautiful Thugger Girls anyway....

I dunno I guess I have to give all these albums more of a listen. Then there's Drake, Young MA, DJ Quik & Problem, Kehlani etc..... can I be bothered though?

Maybe if I still had an hour and half commute daily or drove a car I'd be more in the mood to be digging this stuff.

Thursday 14 September 2017

93 'ardcore/Darkside.....



I'd heard Megadrive's Takin Control EP which contained the tune Demon from '92. I thought I'd come across Mega 2 before but perhaps I haven't. Classic hardcore into darkness/92 into 93 bizniz.



God I thought A1 was good but hold your little horses check out A2. That mental liquid bass frequency drop at 0.53 is astounding then the keyboard/bass/whatever the fuck it is riff comes in at 1.20 like it's straight from an Iration Steppas track. Mind and ears blown. Rewind!



The cheap and cheerful, made in 10 minutes style doesn't always work for everybody but fuck this works. What a ruff diamond. So Tight is pretty odd. The vocal science here is psychedelic and creepy. At the 3.36 mark it's crazy/weird time as the hoovers enter and the beats go off the charts. Never even heard of this until tonight = v happy.



This like So Tight is from The Man With No Name's '93 Follow The Leader EP. I guess there are a bunch of darkside tunes similar to this like Boogie Times Tribe's The Dark Stranger. You know, with a repeated sample of film dialogue, dark synthy strings and atmospheric lulls. It's a great formula joined here with some choice choppage and mentastic smears. The Painted Man sounds like a really scary horror monster of a thing but according to youtube it's a sample from Peter Pan (?)!



I've just figured out how I ended up back in 'ardcore/darkside zones. On the weekend we went to the pictures and saw IT which was pretty good. Anyway I couldn't get that bit of dialogue from the 90s tv mini series of IT out of my head and had to come home and play it. I didn't always like Neuromancer's Pennywise but the song has featured in several of my favourite darkside dj mixes. Over the years that demented "They all float down here" refrain has wormed its way into my brain (whoops....this one is from '92).

Tuesday 12 September 2017

93 Darkside



Wow. Loving this. I don't think I've heard it before. Maybe it's in an old mix but I've never ID'd it before. I tried to listen to some current music today (rap and even some 2017 drum'n'bass) but I ended up here in 1993 darkside zones soon after. There's a good reason for that, which is that this music is so much better than anything from the here and now. This was the future and there was more future to be heard the next day....blah blah. I'm still discovering stuff from this era so it's not all a sad nostalgia trip. Uncovering unheard gold from '93 is still exhilarating.

Many rate Skanna's Night Stalker EP as one of the classics of 93 darkside. I'm not about to disagree with that!



Now I know my ears have never come across this one because that steppy bass drop at 3.38 is totally unfuckingforgettable. These records are now going for absurd prices on discogs. I missed the boat collecting these. I should have started six or seven years back when I got back into 'ardcore/darkside/jungle. The prices weren't so obscene then, I mean they were still high but...

Monday 11 September 2017

ZANOV - Green Ray



Green Ray is another recently discovered killer space jam from France, sure it was on my radar but I'd never bothered to check it out. I'm starting to think maybe the French released even more cosmic synth LPs than the Germans did. I don't love them all, some are just good like Oliver Roy's Pochette Surprise and Cristal by Phillipe Guerre but I guess those two incorporate romantic classical aspects into their progressive electronic sound. Zanov's Green Ray (1976) is all pulsating drones and swirling analogue synthesisers. Strap yourself in for close up encounters with space weather then set the controls for an ominous metagalactic chase through the asteroid belt.

Monday 4 September 2017

RIP Walter Becker













Six years ago I finally succumbed to the genius of The Dan. I could have posted their entire first 4 LPs and Aja. So much pleasure, so many levels. Thank you Mr Becker.

Didier Bocquet - Eclipse



Another space synth jam that was unknown to me until I discovered it on the youtubes. It's another bewdy, this time from 70s France. Eclipse's tone is one of robotic gloom and dark solitude which becomes unforgivingly frosty. This might be the best of the recent interstellar discoveries on the blog which have included Anna Sjalv Tredje's Tussilago Fanfara and the previous post Hingus from Sven Grunberg. Get in your obsolete spacecraft to traverse the infinite void and disappear into Didier Bocquet's intense deep space trance.

Didier puts on his space hair before the voyage.

Saturday 2 September 2017

Sven Grünberg - Hingus



Been on a cosmic synth bender listening to a bunch of stuff Ive never checked out before despite these acts being on the peripheries of my cosmic radar like Clearlight, Automat, Dominique Guiot and Czeslaw Niemen (Thanks Hardly Baked). In the midst of this retro-futuristic space rabbit hole I came across Hingus, a 1981 LP from Estonia. I'd never heard of it before but this is a little classic of the aforementioned genre. It's great to know there's still a few things out there left to surprise and delight us all. Check out this epic space jam from Sven Grunberg.



This is the final track of the album which had me in intergalactic astonishment. Wow man.

Tuesday 29 August 2017

Lanark Artefax



Gotta say I was very sceptical about this recently released tune. Thought it was a 90s IDM throwback....which it is really. By the end of the track though, a pleasantness creeps into the stark beats which had me transfixed.

I heard somewhere a while back that there was an IDM revival happening. Did it ever really go away? Anyway these guys must be a part of that. Whether or not they can get beyond Tri Repetae or LP5 I guess only time will tell.

Monday 21 August 2017

Suburban Lawns



Their one great moment. If only all their stuff was this good.

The nostalgia for ye olde sharity blogs continues. I found the debut Suburban Lawns LP 10 years ago on a blog I used to frequent often but can't remember the name of now, I'm sure you can probably track down an mp3 or maybe it's been reissued since then.

Singer Su Tissue is an enigma with quite a fanboy following on the interweb. The discussions usually entail whether she is autistic or just an art school hipster and speculation as to what she is doing doing now. Her online presence is nil so this all adds to the mystery.

Saturday 19 August 2017

Ariel Pink - Feels Like Heaven



This washed away all the dark and negative vibes in my life today. Like when you loved a pop song when you were little. It's all about the 3 and a half minutes of bliss. Then you can play it again. The verses are a bit Morrissey-esque doncha think?

Friday 4 August 2017

Upper Astral - Crystal Cave - Back To Atlantis

 

Here's some more Upper Astral. This is the A-side and fucking amazement, even my dog loves it! and he hates most new age usually because it has rain or thunder in it. Weirdly, this track occasionally dips into a little bit of darkness. So it's not all euphoric vistas that we think of as new age today. These were the early days of new age though. Skybirds and Journey To The Edge Of The Universe are the other two Upper Astral tapes that I would highly recommend. I'm sure I first heard those due to the Crystal Vibrations blog. New Age was never a bad word in my world though, I was introduced to this stuff when I was in my teens. There used to be a new age shop in every second Melbourne suburb in the early 90s as I recall. It was usually a creepy vibe in those shops. I hated all the other shit apart from the music though. Now I think I wish I'd bought some of the art, really? no not really. Maybe there are still some of these shops out there? I wouldn't know, I live in the middle of nowhere these days.

Thursday 27 July 2017

Anna Själv Tredje - Tussilago Fanfara


Discovered this vintage cosmic synth LP from Swedish duo Anna Sjalv Tredje the other day. Here it is in full on youtube. Tussilago Fanfara was released in 1977 on Silence, the legendary Swedish label. Berlin school electronics for the most part. The second track is tres spooky with its sinister whispers, foreboding washes of sound and black night tones of gloom. The final tune changes it up a bit with a Cluster/Ashra style jam. An underrated gem.

sleeve!

new age



This is the only part of Channel For The Light on the youtubes and the best bit isn't on it!

I've discovered a few new age related things on the interwebs since that post where I mentioned the Crystal Vibrations blog. Hidden Valley has been keeping the scented candle burning for old new age tapes on the blogosphere since CV became inactive in 2012. This dude is obsessed with the legendary Californian label Valley Of The Sun. Many of that label's classic catalogue of 80s tapes have been posted there, a couple of which i've not heard.

For those who need more there's a whole bunch of new agey stuff at the Sounds Of The Dawn blog too.





Upper Astral had an incredible run of tapes from 1981-1983.

Monday 17 July 2017

Twin Peaks: The Songs So Far...



So nearly every episode of the new season of Twin Peaks has featured a song played live in the Bang Bang bar for the final credits sequence. Chromatics paid ethereal homage to Julee Cruise at the end of the first or second episode. The only other time I've heard this group was on the Drive soundtrack a couple of years ago. The tune in that film was pretty ordinary but Shadow's got a perfect vibe for Twin Peaks. When that synth swells up it gets very very lovely.



I've skipped ahead to episode 4 because the band at the end of episode 3 were fucking awful - the music and their hair! Anyway at the end of the 4th episode were Au Revoir Simone with Lark, which I really enjoyed. Is this the worst band name in the history? This group's been around for like 15 years. Can't quite put my finger on what is magic about this tune, just a beautiful classic melody I suppose. The keyboard player on the right is the star of the band with her Addicted To Love schtick.



I would never bother listening to Sharon Van Etten but Lynch made me sit through this slowcore country folk tune and I gotta say it was the best thing about episode six. That might not be saying much though as this instalment was the fucking pits and made me stop watching the new season for a month. I was later advised to keep checking out the new episodes which I eventually did.



A second appearance for this badly named synth trio. Like if 80s indie pop was informed by Stereolab and Broadcast. Backwards not possible pop.  Another lovely tune.



This is the lady who sang a Spanish a cappella version of Crying in Mulholland Drive which was amazing. This is a good vocal performance too if not quite as mind-blowing. Moby, who once sampled the original Twin Peaks soundtrack on his smash hit Go, is playing guitar with Rebekah Del Rio here at the end of tonight's episode.

*I've left out a couple of performances ie. NIN, Hudson Mowhawke etc. as they were underwhelming.

Wednesday 12 July 2017

Great LP Covers II - Scientist





These first 3 got my vote as I actually own the albums but the bottom 3, which I've just discovered at discogs, are also the fabulous. There are some other great Scientist records like the Dub Landing series but those covers are not so great.



This put me in mind of an old comic from Britain Tiger & Scorcher. My older brother used to read it in the 70s. I remember it had motor racing, stunt men, wrestling, soccer and maybe it had boxing too. Cricket? Dunno...if only they'd invent a machine where I could instantly research such things.


This one might actually be the best of the lot. I wish I was at that contest! Just quietly I reckon Scientist would have won.

*Great LP Covers Part I