February 22, 2008
jonathan meades : magnetic north. tv rarely produces anything as stimulating as a jonathan meades documentary. any of them. last night’s giddy ride in search of ‘north’ ranged from inebriation as essential climate coping mechanism to the secularisation of religion embodied by reformation church-stripping via dogging as metaphor for heaven and hell. wonderful. but then anything that debunks the myth of ’south’ is good by me.
one gripe though - in the programme southwold was quoted as the first english seaside resort. tut-tut, mr meades. that accolade does belongs to somewhere beginning with an ’s’, but it’s definitely in the north of england.
November 21, 2007
nothing. because it is no music day.
October 4, 2007
well as adrian is away on holiday it’s just been me in the studio this week. i’ve been busy! here’s the albums that have got me through a testing week:
shine eyed mister zen by kelly joe phelps is an album i’ve had for a few years and it makes a comeback in times of stress and need. this is seriously heart-felt acoustic blues, its not feelgood music, it’s pure and simple with nothing but kelly joe’s rasping yet soft voice and beautiful acoustic picking. it reminds me of camping at the end of summers at deserted beaches, when the air is starting to chill and the nights begin to draw in, playing guitar with friends.
sufjan stevens album come on feel the illinoise is the second of sufjan’s 50 states project album’s, where each album relates to one of america’s states. whether he seriously intends to do this is debated but if he does and all the albums are as good as this it’d be worth owning them all. sufjan’s style of folk is original and beautiful, and very emotional, referencing the places and people of illinois. his lyrics often relate to his faith and you’ll best know his songs for being used in the FiveUS pre-programme stings on TV.
elephant eyelash by why? is a strange album. i’d call it folk hip-hop. why? began life as a solo project but has since become a full band. they are part of the anticon collective of artist who have produced some very original work, taking hip-hop to a more poetic level with elements of electronica, folk and minimalist music. why? features some of the more pop tinged elements of this genre and is really fun.
September 21, 2007
bit of a bowie vibe in the studio at the moment…
lou reed’s transformer is chaotic, pastoral, dumb, smart, sexy and innocent all at once. but it’s always near the top of those ‘best album in the whole world ever’ lists so you don’t really need us to recommend it. the bowie link - he produced it and ’spider’ mick ronson did the arrangements. there was no stopping these guys in 1973.
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aphex twin’s mixes for cash is something james brought in. and boy is it good. we particularly like his take on philip glass’s heroes symphony, based on bowie’s album of the same name and featuring some wonderfully stretch-out histrionic vocals.
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and finally an album by the man himself. i seem to remember this got a bit of a slagging back in ‘96 and as a result earned bowie an ‘embarrassing grandad trying to hang out with the kids’ reputation. can’t see why, it now sounds twice as good as most of the drum n bass stuff that was its contemporary. he’s the man.
August 10, 2007
meant to blog this earlier in the week. today is the last chance to ‘listen again’ to last friday’s most groovy and sometimes out-there concert by medeski, schofield, martin & wood on radio 3. funky hammond n guitar ruffness with abstract tendencies. yum. listen here.
July 31, 2007
at last week’s suncourt film festival screening we were given a sampler from a new local record label set up by ollie banks who was performing that night. it’s comprised of three tracks - by ollie, joseph ellis and rowan oliver. and it’s all beautiful. ollie’s guitar and singing sound fantastic, the joseph ellis track is a lovely whymsical piece of folk-pop and rowan’s composition is an engaging blend of folky and contemporary sounds that reveals something new on each listen.
it’s often a mistake to make comparisons with well known artists, so we’ll just say that this cd fits in really nicely with some of the stuff we’re currently playing in the studio - matt deighton, neil finn, ben harper, the lilac time etc.
folkwood have a web presence linking to the artist’s myspace pages at: www.folkwood.co.uk
there’s more live music (from matt crossley) and film (zidane) tonight at the suncourt. and it’s the second rain-free sunny day in a row…
June 15, 2007
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design anarchy by kalle lasn.
lasn is one of the founders of
adbusters magazine and this book is a call to arms to the designers of the world whom he accuses of having an implicit role in the mess of consumerism, low self esteem and unhealthy living to which the western world has succumbed. the issue is that too few of us designers have ever stood up to a client and said ‘no - that’s wrong’. we just take the money and draw them nice pictures and write them clever words. of course, saying ‘no’ demands that the designer in question holds the moral and political viewpoint that the practices and goods they’re being asked to promote/sell are wrong. so the question is will lasn’s message be lost on the designers who bought into consumer culture and capitalism long ago and see nothing wrong with it, or are there are lots of cynics out there who turn off their conscience while at work? the second sounds infinitely more worrying to me.
you can read excerpts of the book here.
to be honest it’s slightly weird experience to read this book for two reasons. firstly it’s a rather thick, expensively produced book with extravagant use of space to say it’s by someone who is railing against consumerism and waste of resources. unless it’s deliberately ironic (but at what cost?). and secondly (if this doesn’t sound too pious) i’m not sure it’s really aimed at the likes of electric angel. maybe the glossy approach is to give it some ‘weight’ and be taken seriously/desired by the boys at the big advertising agencies.
it’s caused me to stop and think about what we do here at electric angel and realise how lucky we are to work with people who are doing some good in the world. many are charities, many in education, all are working towards helping people in their lives or environment. many are genuine heroes. i tried to think of a situation where we had been presented with a moral dilemma as to whether to do a job or not and could only recall one instance. of course we often direct potential commercial clients elsewhere because we have made a decision about the sort of work we are here to do - and to do that well we need to specialise.
so, lasn’s book has made us think and i suspect you’ll see some slightly more direct self-directed work from us before long as we process his message. but it’s also made us feel ok about what we do so at the risk of sounding a bit gushy we’d like to say thank you to everyone who engages our services and gives us the opportunity to work with them. it’s a privilege we genuinely value.
June 11, 2007
pandora - the music genome project. you tell this website what music you like and it plays some of that and some stuff it thinks you might like. with each track you can give it a thumbs up or thumbs down which influences what else it chooses for you. it’ll stream all day long and you can set up different ‘radio stations’ based on your likes and flick between them. genius.
today we’re listening to stuff that sounds a bit like ben folds, the super furry animals and tortoise. although not all at once of course.
June 5, 2007
second lives. ‘a revelatory journey through the electronic looking glass of alternative life online, where 35 million people around the globe abandon reality for a virtual life.’ radio 4’s book of the week.
May 17, 2007
helen from creative york was in the studio with us yesterday as part of the ‘creative surgery’ drop-ins creative coast is offering. we took the opportunity to play her some home-grown scarborough music, namely ‘finding our way back home’, the debut lp from adverse effect. adverse effect is one of kista’s projects - check out his myspace page and listen to the very fine ‘talk with god’ featuring tableek (Maspyke, New York). it’s received some deservedly good reviews.
