Last month or so Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, and David Lynch (the crazy, meditation guy who also happens to write and direct surreal movies) released an interestingly moody music project called “Dark Night of the Soul“. . .well sorta. As the story goes Danger Mouse’s contract with EMI kept him from releasing the album for sale LEGALLY but doesn’t forbid releasing a blank CD-R and Lynch’s companion art book full of his subjective photography (supposedly, which visually tells the story behind the music) and hinting that he doesn’t mind if people share the mp3s that are currently available on the net thanks to NPR. Limited to about 5000 copies at $50 a piece, the photography book sold out fast but they now have a nice unnumbered hardback edition over at Amazon for a tad cheaper.
While a few of the tracks are over-produced in my opinion (gotta know when to pull back so it doesn’t sound like an earful of fuzz) and others are just annoying (the Black Francis and Iggy Pop tracks come to mind), there are several standout tracks like “Star Eyes (I Can’t Catch It)” which is a dreamy and moving journey and my personal favorite on the album (David Lynch is credited as the vocalist, even). Saying that, it’s hard to be overly critical when it comes to free music (a little over 45 minutes worth total). So, go figure out how to download from NPR’s site and enjoy!
Now, about the album title, is it a reference to the writings from Saint John of the Cross or to Bill Murray quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald in “Groundhog Day?”
The Icelandic group Amiina has just released their new three track EP titled “Re Minore.” You can check out their myspace page to listen to one of the track from it as well as their previous material. It’s a limited pressing so I’m hoping to snag a copy before they run out. They are engaged in a small tour over in Europe but let’s hope they come to the States when they have a proper full length album to promote.
I first learned about Amiina back in 2007 or so and fell in love with their soft and dreamy melodies. I’ve always wanted to do a cover version of “Seoul” as I love their use of tuned saws. I might actually make Adam help me with a cover. Yeah, he’ll do it!
I wish I knew about these gals when they were touring out here! I kick myself for not discovering them sooner. I love their use of little bells and chimes!
It took me several years to find this movie based solely on my fuzzy memories of walking into Delta Video and seeing the oversized VHS box on the shelf. The box had a close up of an unclenching hand with ants tearing out of it and some other apocalyptic imagery. We never rented it as we only rented new releases. However, the (then) disturbing box cover came back into my mind a when I joined an old “forgotten movies” site called Cinemageddon last year. I set out to try and find this piece of. . .classic cinema and CG did not disappoint. Unfortunately, this movie is very boring. It even starts off with some sort of nature film about how ants are awesome in so many ways. On a side note, there is actually an early episode of MST3K where they watch this movie. Not even they could make it enjoyable. This movie just about put me to sleep and I’ve watched The Revenge of Doctor X and Death Bed!
The soundtrack and visual effects are pretty cool but you just don’t hear or see enough of either.
‘Whoooo….barbungggg… ah oh yeah this is… ahh..ahhh…’
Honestly, this is better than Shakespeare.
So we’re talking about collecting samples. It’s a truly weird idea to think that almost anything online can be sampled, but due to copyright, there is so much to clear. But I’m thinking the more languages collected over a period of time, the more word variations we can find.
Archiving is probably a result of my obsessive behaviours - but I know Alex can knock me dead with what he’s got stashed up. So I make up for showing off with my mixer, instead. But I digress…. or DO I?…… Yes. I do.
What I’m trying to say is that I’m a sucker for wanting to collect as much as I can of these randoms vocals - leading onto the idea of mashing up as many as possible, perhaps into conversation. Surely it can’t be too hard.
So I should talk to Steve one day - ask him if he wants to be in an amateur/pro-semi electro collective bedroom producers’ dance track?
The first three minutes of this clip are possibly some of the funniest dialog ever recorded in a movie. I SAID PERIOD!
Last year I set out on a quest to rediscover a 1980s movie I vaguely recalled watching on tv many years ago. I would relay what I remembered to various parties in that it involved a boy whom no one believed knew of an impending invasion by a Martian force buried beneath the sand installing little transistors installed on the back of peoples’ necks. I went on to madly describe the events of the boy having a lucky penny that he used to somehow power a Martian ray gun and in the end it was all a dream, or was it? Much like the boy, no one knew what I the hell I was talking about. Then a co-worker, who was quite the bad movie connoisseur, enlightened me that the movie in question was Invaders from Mars by director Tobe Hooper (known for directing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist). He also happened to own the DVD, which was long out of print (at least at the time).
As the story went, Hooper was contracted to direct three movies for Cannon Films under the command of Golan-Globus (god bless them). One was to be a sequel to Massacre and the other two were Hooper’s choosing (least I think he had a choice). One was a screen adaption of Colin Wilson’s novel The Space Vampires titled Lifeforce. Though it was a box office flop and panned by critics, I thought the movie was pretty kickass as it was directed by Hooper, written by Dan O’Bannon (Alien), special effected by John Dykstra (ILM), and scored by Henry Mancini. Not only that but it had Mathilda May in the buff throughout most of the movie (not really a notable actress but she was pretty hot) and Patrick Stewart being killed. Well that movie cost more to make than it brought in and consequently caused the budget of the last movie, Invaders from Mars, to be significantly reduced.
So, a friend and I watched the 1986 remake of Invaders from Mars. It was frightening in how bad the actual movie was but how damn good the creature props were in comparison. So what does all this exposition mean? Well I didn’t know the movie was a remake but once I learned, I threw the original 1953 offering on my Netflix list where it set for a few months. Well I forgot about it until it finally arrived last weekend. I called over Brian to watch it with me as I said we were going to watch a bad 50s sci-fi movie to steal samples from. This movie is chalked full of samples though the above is by far my most favorite scene.
Svein and Torbjørn (that’d be the two Norwegians behind Röyksopp) come at us with a new single from their upcoming Third album (appropriately titled) Junior. To me, the track has a very “Eple” feel about it thanks in part to the keyboard sample but now that Röyksopp has a voice, they add syrupy vocals to evolve their sound into something new and yet familiar. The video itself is a very cute fan-made animated piece with a “web avatar-like” couple taking a drive through a sunny Wile E. Coyote-ish desert.
Interestingly enough, when I shared this with my friend Jarrett of JX2 he reminded me that Nice and Smooth originally lifted that same sample from Parliament’s ambiguously titled track “Do That Stuff” back in ‘89 for their “Funky For You” (hello, I hate jello). All in all, I’d say Röyksopp flipped it for the better with some pitch-shifted notes (the excellent site Who Sampled can give you links to the originals).
I can’t say that I particularly enjoyed the two remixes off the single release as they just didn’t capture the fun of the original but I did, in fact, pre-order the Junior LP out on March 23rd.
CODA (Sydney, Australia). A cool mix of orchestral and synthetic sounds - having seen them a few times now in Brisbane, I’m always astounded by their performances. Enlightening and technically brilliant to watch.
When someone forces you into vengeance, you know they had it coming. The preposed sequel “Unnecessary Vengeance” just didn’t work on so many levels.
While Forced flashbacks had a facial hairless variant (quite rare), in this scene the Stetson-loving, kapelophilic Norris (why do they always pick on his hat?) kicks ass while the wheelchair-bound crime lord takes a break from watching cartoons to cheer on his man servant.
I’m now certain that I should loosen the bolts on my toilet just in case Chuck breaks into my home and shoves my face into a bowl of my own unflushed urine. Such precautions are needed.
Perhaps the best part of the movie was stripclub scene with girls dancing to the track “The Go-Go Girls” which sounds an awful lot like Rick James’ “Super Freak.”
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I suppose when this movie was being filmed (also in 1981) the film’s composer William Goldstein had just heard the song as it was climbing the charts. I’m sure Rick would have given the scene four thumbs up.
