Emeralds - Just To Feel Anything

I've been meaning to write about Emeralds new LP Just to Feel Anything since I mentioned it in a previous post. I've had notes scribbled down for over a month now. Anyway my computer is playing up or is it blogger? Doing a post at the moment is quite frustrating. Anyway Emeralds are a group I thought were really going to push through some kind of sound barrier into something new, not just update the Kosmiche stylee. I think maybe they previously came close or did bring something new to the Kosmiche table. Perhaps it's my recent Back To The Future phase ie. re/listening to UK hardcore/Darkside/Jungle etc. that has put some things into perspective. In the early 90s the future was really actually happening.  This new Emeralds LP seems to be their most retro and least forward thrusting to date. I think they've added beats. Did any of the other LPs have beats? In my notes I have written (and this is from a while ago):

Nostalgia for Top Gun,
Nostalgia for Dire Straits,
Nostalgia for Harmonia,
Nostalgia for Arcade games,
Nostalgia for Pink Floyd,
Nostalgia for Cluster,
Nostalgia for Bruton Music's BRK series of library LPs.

Nostalgia for the future might be what I'm trying to project onto them. I mean this is nostalgia for the future but an older future. Not a future so much rooted in the UK early 90s so much as a 70s/80s vision of the future. If nobody is going into a new future can I value one vision of future over another? Who's being more cynical me or Emeralds?

Anyway having said all that it's another top record from Emeralds albeit one that's a little more guitar centric. Atmospheric, sad, uplifting and beautiful as usual. Nice. Is that enough?

Brostep/The Zone Formerly Known As Dubstep

Here's the missing Knife Party song that I was shown due to my interest in Skrillex. I can't really remember what the rest of the post was about! Maybe how slow I am to catch on to such homegrown greatness. Hey I like Severed Heads! Anyway this is brostep right?

I was off the continuum for a while by the time Dubstep came along and hey I didn't dislike it like I did with 2-Step & Grime. Some Dubstep I thought was grouse. Then I was slightly confused by Burial's LP. Was it even Dubstep? How can something be the pinnacle of said genre if its barely even a dubstep record? 'Was Burial's debut all that?' I thought it sounded like you know Pole/Basic Channel/Chain Reaction kind of gear with a bit of Maxinquaye chucked in. Don't get me wrong I love all that stuff, a lot in fact. But how could Burial's version be a whole new thing?  It's not a bad record per se but was it groundbreaking? Or did I miss something?

Deleted Scenes

That post I did on brostep, nowtro, EDM, Knife Party and Bassnectar has disappeared. Warning don't drink and blog.

Genius

Conrad Schnitzler, electronic guru, picks
 up no genius on Australia telly!

In the Australian Big Brother on the telly at the moment they keep calling a bloke in the house the genius of the house. So this guy got a high mark in an IQ test once but don't you actually have to have done something to warrant being a genius ie. not just sittin' around a house in your undies getting on the nation's tits. I should really look into what the real definition of genius is and if you're not one yourself can you tell who is one? Is anyone in pop culture a genius? Who decides? Can I say Arthur Lee is a genius? Francis Ford Coppola? What about Sean Penn? Miles Davis anyone?  Vince Gilligan? Conrad Schnitzler? Ed Kuepper? These people to me have extraordinary intellectual and imaginative faculties pertaining particularly to being creative and inventive. The guys who invent stuff in technology seem more seriously genius, you know like Steve Jobs? Mark Zuckerberg? The guy from London who invented the Internet?  Mike Goldman? (er.. a little BB humour there) But why should they be?  Should there be a board to decide who is and who isn't a genius. It all sounds a bit subjective to me. Should we do away with the concept of it all together? I mean if someone sittin' in a house for 3 months on national tv gets to be a genius don't I get to be one? After all I did write this blog post.

Friday Night

Wow 

Never seen this vid!

Warning - Does not contain the full intro, which is the best bit of the song along with the middle bit and the end. Good hair into bad hair! The original vid is better.

Eric B & Rakim & Coldcut

Information Overload

You know when I started this blog it was just a hoot to be writing about music again after a very early retirement. I had an existential crisis about the point of being a critic, when you yourself haven't got out there and created art. Who was I to judge? I was just another opinionated Australian and who needed another one of those? Being a published music critic at age 18 and getting paid for it ended after 4 reviews. Anyway as I got  further into this blogging caper I really started to think I've got to add something useful or unique to the discourse. There are many blogs that offer information on similar topics and I didn't want to add to the glut. So the whole notion of striving to be concise had to be reviewed in my mind. Being concise is good as I believe people do prattle on a little too long and  tediously about topics that don't necessarily warrant their word count.. I've also realised particularly with the Glaring Omissions series that adding my own personal history of my admiration of particular artists and how they came into my life is unique to me and therefore not just adding to the information overload unnecessarily. I don't need to repeat information that can be found in hundreds of different places on the interweb. Is this just me rationalising a reason to continue blogging? Rationalising Andy Warhol's Fifteen minutes of fame? Perhaps some bloggers need to have a little think and figure out why they're doing what they're doing. Is this just navel gazing though for its own sake? I mean people are compelled to blog and who am I to begrudge them?

Another aspect of my blog at the start was keeping an Eye on the critics/journalists involved in discourse of particular dis/interest to me. I felt that hey they can criticise the shit out of someone or something but they were for some reason immune to being pulled up on something or criticised themselves. So they were allowed to say what they wanted but then would get all catty when a taste of their own medicine came their way. Some of the ugliest insults have come my way because of this. All I have to say is toughen up Princesses (ie. critics). I have to admit the only insults/sledges I have received have come from websites with advertising. So certain editors feel the need to throw insults your way to protect their brand. Heaven forbid an advertiser should realise the site they are sponsoring is not really that great or perhaps shite. Some of these sites are not about music at all, they're about business and money. I think I was a little naive when I started blogging thinking music websites, theory based blogs, miscellaneous blogs and music blogs were all part of the anarchic cultural discussion together. How wrong I was! I must admit I don't really trust websites with advertising anymore. Is money gettin in the way of real intellectual opinion?

Down with the kids, me!

It turns out I'm actually down with the kids. That is my fave song of 2012 is by Skrillex who is my (nearly 2 year old)  niece's favourite artist. This one goes out to Harry!

Wu-Tang Clan/Trace & Nico

*The whole point of mentioning Ol' Dirty Bastard the other day was the Wu-Tang Clan connection with a track off the Torque record. The song in question Damn Son by Trace & Nico contains a sample from Raekwon's Only Built For Cuban Linx LP....er which I forgot to mention. I thought yeah I know that sample but it took me a while to pinpoint it. I thought it was ODB but it wasn't then I put on Only Built For Cuban Linx and there it was. A funny bit to sample really. Whatever works I suppose. Here's the two tracks in question!

 

 

 

How could I resist?

Wu Gambinos

Fave track off that record!

 

friday night

 

EPIC

 

He really comes across as an arsehole doesn't he? Which if memory serves he was in interviews at the time. You know the usual misogyny and homophobia. That never stopped me likin Public Enemy, ODB or Snoop though. It's this video I find hard to watch. Great song, it can't be denied.