Diggin

Music

Well, it’s been a little while since my last update so there is much to talk about. At work, I find I need to have very specific types of music playing to help my ability to type fast and not be too far taken out of my concentration. With this in mind, two types of music continually find their way onto playlists I make and so are often my working music pieces. The first is hip hop and in the past few weeks, I’ve become partially obsessed with finding good, eccentric and esoteric hip hop albums that sound interesting and manage to avoid much of the posing and faux-gangster braggadocio of much of mainstream rap. Peanut Butter Wolf and Madvillain are both amazing for this with the second’s Madvillainy album now placing itself among my all-time favourites in any genre. Also working for me are Prefuse 73, Flying Lotus, Aesop Rock, Cadence Weapon, J Dilla, Cannibal Ox, Edan, El-P and Sage Francis. All are recommended to those who like to avoid getting too much syrupy R ‘n’ B with their hip hop. Having said that, a man whose purveyance of syrupy R ‘n’ B verges on the R Kelly, T.I., has made the incredible, thrilling ‘Swagger Like Us’ with Lil Wayne (whose ‘A Milli’ is also a total masterpiece), Kanye West and the king of brag-rap, Jay-Z. For all my dislike of that kind of hip hop from lesser minds, this is a truly incredible song.

The other portion that’s working for me right now is long-form electronica and textural compositions. Lindstrom’s new album is wonderful while I would thoroughly boost Tim Hecker and Fennesz for some more challenging and dense electronic work. I’ve also fallen head-over-heels for the sweet, weird little songs from Books, a fine group making slight but hugely enjoyable albums of electronic-inflected indie. Just as a post-note on this, you can also add into the genres I dig for writing krautrock. I love me some really repetitive, motorik sound of Neu and Can, the latter providing some far more out-there, almost hippie moments while the former, and superior, is guitar-based pounding symphonies of rhythm and discipline. Neu would probably rank up as my absolute favourite of all for writing.

Other than these, and outside of work, I’ve become a little over-obsessed with a cover of ODB’s ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’ by White Pony and I really love the uber-heavy reggae dub of The Bug. The Hold Steady continue to float every portion of my boat, Jay Reatard (terrible name) has a singles collection which is filled with dirty garage rock and hooky choruses, the new songs from TV on the Radio are awesome and ‘Nonpareil of Favor’, the new track from Of Montreal, is terrific. Also well done to Elbow for winning the Mercury, even if it should have gone to Burial. Seldom Seen Kid is a fine record, even if they should really have won for their first record. At least, unlike many of the last few winners, they looked genuinely happy to have won the award rather than skulking off and remaining ‘cool’ in the moment.

 
Film

Busy weeks again on this front. Tom and I completed our 1980s marathon by finding out that Top Gun sucks, as does Arnie’s Red Heat. However, Total Recall holds up far better than it has any right to do and has ushered in an Arnie marathon which has thus far included Terminator (still superb) and Conan the Barbarian (has its moments). More are planned so stay tuned for that.

Better, and way cooler, than any of this though is Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai. Following Alain Delon’s Jef Costello, a Parisian hitman, through and existential passage of his life following a hit, it’s maybe the finest example I have ever seen of a hitman movie. Melville’s true skill is the economy of his filmmaking, allowing enigma to exist without providing spoonfed explanations for all that occurs and never over-indulging in dialogue. Alain Delon is likely the coolest human and if you witness this movie and don’t have an immediate urge to go and purchase a trenchcoat and hat, along with at least 500 packs of cigarettes, I don’t know your kind. It’s beautifully filmed, sparely written and acted without any theatrics from anyone involved. All remains at a level of cool detachment that, rather than making this overly-cold or uncomfortable, just makes you try harder to understand and engage with the story, the rewards for which are more than satisfactory. Hyperbole perhaps but I think this goes straight in amongst my all-time favourite films and I cannot recommend highly enough that you seek it out and take it in. I will now be searching out the rest of Melville’s work, including Le Cercle Rouge and Le Doulos.

I also got to see Pineapple Express which I absolutely loved. I’m a big lover and apologist for the Apatow-Rogen team and I really found nothing to hate in the mixture. James Franco is outstanding as Saul, bringing all he has to make sure you completely empathise with their plight and laugh hard while doing so. Rogen isn’t as good but I still feel this quasi-paternal nuturing sensation towards his projects due to my loving his work in Freaks and Geeks all that way back. I loved it and honestly, I think most who haven’t just didn’t drink enough before hand. We had a couple of glasses of wine and this film rocked. As an aside, our housemate also saw it but stone sober and still loved it.

I’ve managed to set a new rule with my LoveFilm account, only keeping DVDs for two weeks at a time, after which, if not watched, they go back regardless. I’ve recently taken in Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know which was too quirky for its own good but still quite enjoyable. I watched Pierce Brosnan in The Matador which I was close to loving and I checked out The Saddest Music in the World, Guy Maddin’s least-insane film about a contest set up by Isabella Rossellini in which people are invited to come and play the saddest music in the world at her club and win a prize if there is truly the most sad. It was somewhere between an overly-arty minefield of quirk and a complete, emotionally shattering masterpiece and I don’t know if I ever know which one it is. Next up is Jacques Tati’s M Hulot’s Holiday. From there, it could be another Tati, some Tarkovsky, Point Break, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia or Living in Oblivion.

I this week completed Generation Kill, the mini-series on HBO from David Simon and Ed Burns that I wrote about a little while ago. I really loved it by the end, but purely on a level of filmmaking and acting. This is some distance from being enjoyable TV, so relentlessly depressing is its depiction of top brass in the US military and the parallel realisation that the whole thing is based on a true story. But Simon doesn’t ever judge and he depicts without any really heavy-handed preaching and with a sense that you understand what happened, what’s going on and why the mess is there. Also, Alexander Skarsgaard as Brad Colbert might be my televisual performance of the year.

Tom and I checked out the pilot of Fringe which was only okay and could possibly get interesting but is likely to suffer due to its slightly-less-than-brilliant cast. My  liking of Joshua Jackson unfortunately comes from Dawson’s Creek and before that The Mighty Ducks, both pieces of not-well-aging nostalgia pieces that I’m unlikely to ever watch again. The other pilot we checked out was Alan Ball’s True Blood, the vampire love story thing set in the deep South of the US in which vampires are just another race of people facing the same prejudices as any other. At current, having watched the first two, I want to like it more than I do but Alan Ball, the creator of Six Feet Under and writer of American Beauty, has earned my trust so I’ll give him the first season to make things work before I lay into him.

Other than those, Gossip Girl returned brilliantly and is just the most ridiculously enjoyable show on TV right now. Mad Men is not as soapy and ridiculous but is probably the best show on TV right now in its own right, given that Jon Hamm’s performance remains so shockingly good and they are building out the rest of the cast with aplomb. The reimagined 90210 is okay but could prove an annoyance in the long-run while this month sees the return of Heroes, The Office and then a chunk of other bits and bobs to be getting on with.

 
Books

I read Remainder, the winner of The Believer Book Award, by Tom McCarthy which was really strange but kind of great. It follows a man who suffer a psychological shift following a major physical trauma. He wins a massive amount of money through a settlement and embarks on a project to build his own world which continues to escalate until it becomes truly dangerous. I don’t want to say too much about it because really, the best way to experience this, is coming in with little or no knowledge of it. In short: recommended.

Better than this was The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, a complete masterpiece from Dominican writer Junot Diaz about an overweight geeky kid and his misadventures in life and love while living in a dictatorial country. It taught me a huge amount about the Dominican Republic’s history without ever losing a flow and portraying a cast of fully-drawn character, none of whom were given short shrift. I loved every second of this book and I would advise anyone to seek it out and just sink into its perfect storytelling and sense of language. Nearly perfection.

I’m currently on The Master and the Margharita, a truly classic allegorical novel from Mikail Bulgakov that I’m not even remotely qualified to talk about. Suffice to say, I flipping love it so far but I’ll report back more soon.

 
Other

I’m currently getting addicted to shirts for the first time since a brief period when I was younger than saw me purchase a number of Hawaiian-style shirts but graduating to padded lumberjack pieces in the winter. Not a good time. Uniqlo is proving the best for all this right now as its cheap, the clothes are good quality and its stores in London don’t have the cattle market chav feel of a Topman or H&M. The latter is still worth a look though. My current ones to hit are Urban Outfitters, Uniqlo, H&M, American Apparel and then maybe some vintage shopping again once the corporatising of Camden is completed.

I’m also really enjoying the political race right now. I’ll probably write a piece on it again in the next week or two but the entry of Palin as produced a fascinating new figure that seems to be entirely outshining John McCain. If she’s bringing in women, she’s got to be pushing out those who were worried McCain was too old. More on that soon.

Diggin

Music: Having attended T4 On The Beach the weekend before last on a press pass for my day job, I have been enjoying all manner of poptastic tunes in memory of an awesome day. Yes, I met those McFly lads and although Sam doesn’t need to worry about me running off with Harry (though if I had to run off with a member of McFly he certainly smelled the nicest) I’m loving their new album Radio:ACTIVE. It’s lots of fun, even if we did have to buy the Mail On Sunday to get it. Staying on the poptastic jaunt I’m yet to grow tired of Drake Bell’s music, which has improved remarkably over only two albums – It’s Only Time is the best of them. The live versions of tracks from his upcoming third album are also boding well… so bring it on! (Sorry Sam.) I’m also adoring the soundtrack to the awesome movie The Wackness which is full of 90s hip hop from the Fresh Prince to Biggie and Nas. It’s so summery and reminds me of the great film which I can’t see being overtaken as my favourite indie movie of the summer. Biz Markie’s Just A Friend is playing almost constantly in my head.

Film/TV: The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight. Wow. I gave it a 5 star review, I loved it that much – not a bad performance in the movie, and so much better than I even expected it to be. I also went to see Wall-E with Sam, which had me hooked too… such an adorable romantic movie with breathtaking CGI. Baby Mama was OK, lots of jokes fell flat but it was saved by the fact I love Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and Steve Martin’s small role was hilarious. Sam does not believe me on that, but it’s true. Also The Wackness is coming out on August 29 so in case I don’t write again before then you must see it. It’s fab.

TV-wise Gossip Girl has just finished so I won’t be watching that anymore, at least until the second season starts airing in the States. Sam, Tom and I had a bit of a The Hills season one marathon at the weekend which caused more debate than you can possibly imagine between the boys. Always entertaining. I caught a show called Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide today while waiting for my daily Drake & Josh fix (I know, it’s still going on…) which was fairly amusing and I probably would have enjoyed lots if I was still of school-age. Alas, alack, I am not – no matter how much some of my pop culture tastes would have you believe I am. In relation to this, my favourite moment of T4 on The Beach came when I met Joe Dempsie who played adorable Chris in Skins, and he was lovely and so nice. Can’t wait to see what he does next…

Books: I haven’t been reading anything too exciting lately as I’ve been spending most of my time on the internet… but I did manage to read The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss which has some fascinating ideas about how you could arrange your working life if you just have the balls to do it. Stuff to implement and stuff to ignore, but it makes you think. I also picked up a couple of books featuring photos of hip kids at parties – last nights party and misshapes… curiously fascinating.  Also have been putting some positivity into practice with Gala Darling’s amazing blog iCiNG – read it and smile.

Other: The web browser Flock, the sun (but not the heat), sorting out my office (again), Sam catching me up in age until February, my housemate John being in Edinburgh to take over with Silence In C Minor, my other housemate Tom’s costume for his IMAX showing of The Dark Knight, a few days off. And, as if I couldn’t make this anymore D&J centric – I’m diggin the amazing transformation of Josh Peck. Bravo, Josh, bravo.

Diggin

Music: Some wonderful music flowing through me in the past few weeks (these posts will become weekly soon) and much of it is rediscovered or old stuff-discovered rather than my own blog-surfing ability to find new tuneage. The best rediscovery stands as Bikini Kill, a band that made songs which were incredibly simple to the point of dumbness and committed so much to the conviction of this view that they end up being total genius. ‘Rebel Girl’ is the key text, a song with lyrics that could be written by a fourteen-year-old punk chick but a will to find a way and a brilliant, insistent riff. The album Pussy Whipped is though, for all the lack of sophistication, something of a minor masterpiece.
I’ve also become semi-obsessed with indie or leftfield hip-hop from the past few years, notably beginning to worship J Dilla and Madlib. Madvillain and the self-titled album which came of this experiment is something of a stone-cold masterpiece, as is Dilla’s Donuts, an elegiac sketch record of beats and mini-tunes. Also on the playlist for this is their collaboration, Jaylib, which, as you might guess, I flipping love. Also worth looking at are Why?, Cadence Weapon, Peanut Butter Wolf and Aesop Rock.
There’s been a number of great songs and albums mixing in to my last few weeks but gosh darn it, The Hold Steady’s Stay Positive is yet another brilliant rock and roll record and my hands-down favourite album of the year so far.

Film/TV: Again, much to report. I got to see Rashomon on the big screen last week, a truly wonderful experience, and will be seeing Ikiru also to further enhance my Kurosawa knowledge. I’ve recently re-taken in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a truly nostalgic experience for some but for me, a comedy without good gags and nearly two hours of suffering the stupefying lack of talent exhibited by Steve Martin, the most overrated comic ever. As a side, if you find this funny, you’ll likely love it.
My birthday occurred last week and my wonderful girlfriend treated me to a few Criterion DVDs of some of my favourite movies. I’ve yet to see Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming but its on this week’s list but I also received David Gordon Green’s low-key debut masterpiece George Washington and Dazed and Confused, still my favourite Linklater.
On this week’s agenda are two LoveFilm rentals I’ve left back through utter laziness, Night and the City, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and . Also up this week is Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, In Bruges, Gummo, An Evening with Kevin Smith and finally, some TV on the schedule. I’ll be catching up on Generation Kill this evening (probably writing about it also) and Mad Men returns tonight, a welcome addition to the schedules for a show I fell totally in love with last year. I am of the wide belief that it is indeed the best show on TV right now.

Books: I finally began my journey into Sandman, something I’m likely to chronicle on the site, and I’m quite enjoying the first book. More on that soon. Also I’m on Clockers, Richard Price’s mesmerising account of New York drug trading and the police who deal with the fallout. The book is basically The Wire (on which Price was a co-writer) even down to a couple of scenes being nearly lifted wholesale in the show and the character of Stringer Bell seeing strong echoes from one of the drug dealers in the book.

Other: Other is becoming the Podcast section but I really am loving two new ones to my schedule. Watching Theology is a spin-off and now main show of the Watching the Directors series and is pretty decent. The discussion on Lars and the Real Girl was very interesting indeed and the title may be misleading, this isn’t some sort of religious indoctrination show where everything is about Jesus. Also great is SMODcast, the podcast of Kevin Smith and his regular producer Scott Mosier. It’s very hit and miss but they are always engaging and occasionally very funny indeed, even if the self-indulgence that sometimes mars Smith’s films is given full-flight here.

Diggin

Music: The Hold Steady are taking over my mind yet again after dominating my stereo last year. Stay Positive is less immediate than Boys and Girls in America but that same manifesto of making people understand the live-saving power of great rock ‘n’ roll music. The lyrics are more oblique but they still work and my early prediction is that his is likely to become my number uno albumo over the year.
I’ve been trying to find more good music for writing this week and this seems to have split down two avenues. One is high-quality, beat-driven indie-hip hop, notably J Dilla’s Donuts and The Bake Sale EP by The Cool Kids. The former is sketches of genius from a sadly-missed producer while the latter is just a really great piece of summer driving music.
The other avenue the choices went down is somewhere around the drone/shoe gazing area. My Bloody Valentine EPs have filled the spaces between the neo-classical pieces of Eluvium and the dreaming drones of Stars of the Lid, the true sound of dreaming.

Films: It’s actually been relatively quiet week, mostly because I’m absolutely knackered and can’t seem to pull up enough energy or time to sit and watch a movie.
I do have a number on the list that I will be getting too in the coming, quieter week, including In America and Shock Corridor while Tom and I, on his return from the USA, will take in the Kinski-goes-crazy trip of Woyzeck in a continuation of our Herzog exploration.
The best thing I did manage to see this week was the pretty wonderful Imagine documentary on Annie Liebovitz, Beth and my favourite photographer. Watching her at work was nothing less than awe-inspiring but the scene when she breaks down when talking about her late lover/muse, Susan Sontag, brought me to tears too. A pretty great piece of documentary filmmaking from the ever-improving BBC institution, always better when Yentob just stays out of the way.

Books: I started The Rabbit Omnibus by John Updike, among my favourite short-story authors around, but couldn’t seem to get into it, likely because of a dual issue with the intimidating stature of the author and the busyness of my week. I needed something lighter and Muscle for the Wing by Daniel Woodrell covered that base nicely. A well-told neo-pulp novel concerning a group of interweaving storylines and troubled pasts, it canters along really nicely to a wonderfully bleak ending that seems entirely in keeping with the down ‘n’ dirty action of the rest of the novel. Highly recommended.

Other: I have to say that beer has proved a key component of my past week. I’ll likely need a dry week now to let my body recover but overall, it has cooled and calmed when needed and spurred and driven when I partied on a barge in Battersea. Right now though, the thing I think I love the most, is my bed.

Diggin

Music: I’ve been considering since yesterday the concept of ‘favourite albums’ following the Poptimist column on Pitchfork. It is a very individually definable phenomena and one that can change over time vastly. I’m going to write about it in full very soon. But this has prompted me to think about that exact deal and the two albums that I keep coming back to, Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth and Let It Be by The Replacements, have been getting a good chunk of play this week.
The Dodo’s Visiter album is growing on me and I got hold of Blue Cheer’s Vincebus Eruptum this week, a loud and slow proto-punk masterpiece. I’m still really unsure about My Morning Jacket’s latest which is a little too Prince-pastiche for me in places.
Camille remains on the playlist with her new record and I rediscovered one of my girlfriend’s favourite records this week, Joy Zipper’s American Whip. The album is among the most heartfelt and beautiful in the collection but avoids any sense of soporific lameness by maintaining a posturing cool and recalling the most dreamy parts of JAMC at all times.

Film: Lots of films watched this week. You can read my reviews of Bandit Queen and Alice in the Cities on Screenjabber. I’ll tell you in preview that I enjoyed one much more than the other.

Diggin

Music: I’m really loving two new records this week. First is No Age’s Nouns, the follow-up to their much-hyped EP compliation Weirdo Rippers. It’s streamlined noise-pop mastery at its best and manages to rattle through its songs fast enough that any sense of pretension or posing never materialises. The other is the amazing Music Hole by a capella chanteuse Camille which expands on the rough-hewn fun of Le Fil and creates a tangible world for her to exist in.
I managed to get hold of two great Jim O’Rourke soundscaping albums (Bad Timing and I’m Happy, I’m Singing, And a 1,2,3,4) and they are proving fantastic for working. As a general rule of thumb, krautrock and motorik electronica are efficient soundtracks for writing. I’m still obsessed with Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago which might be my favourite album of the year so far.
I got to see Sebadoh play Bubble & Scrape live as part of the Don’t Look Back series from ATP and that was some experience. The crowd didn’t quite get the concept fully, constantly requesting during the album portion of the show, but the band were affable and in good spirits so they took it well. For the record, it’s a much better album live.
Elsewhere, the new Scarlett Johannson record has a couple of nice moments but is mostly a slightly misguided folly. Death Cab for Cutie’s follows the trajectory of Plans in being good enough but not really closing in on the brilliance of Photo Album, We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes and their masterpiece, Transatlanticism.
Portishead are reassuringly brilliant and Wolf Parade are spiky but not fully satisfying. I haven’t absorbed My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges yet but first listen reveals an album falling somewhere between the church-hall grandiosity of the first two and the slinky brilliance of Z.

Diggin

Music: I’ve had two weeks to let REM’s Accelerate sink in and, my verdict; it’s better than Around The Sun and overall is on a par with New Adventures in Hi-Fi. I love Man Man’s Rabbit Habits which streamlines the Waits-ian clang of their previous work into a more accessible and ultimately more satisfying listen. One of the year’s best albums so far. Add to that list Holy Fuck’s LP which is arty and sexy, mostly instrumental work. I’m digging Alopecia by Why? and I’m somewhat obsessed with Sun Kil Moon’s April and also that band’s (essentially Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters) version of Modest Mouse’s ‘Ocean Breathes Salty’ from Tiny Cities.

Film/TV: I took in Sweeney Todd this week which was pretty good but it had too many songs and too much blood. I’m not squeamish at all (I wrote my dissertation on horror movies), but I just didn’t quite see a need for the brutal scenes. Still, it was entertaining and well played by the excellent cast, most notably Alan Rickman in a return to his purring best. I also watched Killer of Sheep, Charles Burnett’s slice-of-life verite masterpiece from 1977 which I pretty much adored. Last was Wet Hot American Summer, a film which has a shockingly awful title but was very amusing and reasonably heartwarming. It features a couple of great performances from David Hyde Pierce and Janeane Garofalo and a manic turn from Christopher Meloni (Oz, Law & Order: SVU). The Office is back and it was wonderful, this time highlighting the brilliance of Melora Hardin as Michael’s lover Jan. Gavin and Stacey finishes its second season this week and I can’t wait. The rest of the season has been ridiculously great, notably witnessing Bryn and Smithy working out together, topless.

Books/Magazines: I read Me and Orson Welles this week, a story of a young theatre hopeful who gets cast in an Orson Welles directed production of Julius Caesar in the 1940s. It’s being adapted into a movie and I really enjoyed the book, a hearty romp which gets straight into the plot and the interesting characters and never gets bogged down and loses pace. I’m currently almost finished on Things the Grandchildren Should Know, a brilliant autobiography from Mark Oliver Everett (E from Eels) which points the way to the reasons for the darkness in his work and constantly exhibits the sense of self-deprecating humour that makes his music such genius. My magazine reading has been a little light this week due to film watching and book reading.

Other: I’ve fallen for KCRW/IPR’s To The Point podcast with Warren Olney which is a nicely informative and thorough round-up of important political news. Otherwise folks, it’s been a quiet little week.

Diggin

Music: I’ve had a slowish week music-wise due to catching up on film podcasts to prepare me for the switch in focus for the site. The only things I’ve been enjoying musically this week are the eighties synth-symphonies of Neon Neon (a collaboration between the Super Furry’s Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip) whose album Stainless Style is really excellent. I also love the new Young Knives album and the EP from Fleet Foxes. Another mention goes to Earth, Dylan Carlson’s doom-metal act whose new album, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, incorporates some serious groove to the din.

Film/TV: Busy week here as you might expect. Reviews of all three of the films I saw this week will go up very soon but just to preview, I watched Charlie Wilson’s War, Lars and the Real Girl and The Orphanage. The coming week will see me take in a number of others including Days of Heaven, The 400 Blows, Bande A Part, Enchanted, Once (rewatch), Hallam Foe, Killer of Sheep and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. On the TV side, I’m well into the third season of Battlestar now and it is still a pretty excellent show. I’ve also finally got hold of The Wire’s precursor show, The Corner, a detailed investigation of those in and around Baltimore’s drug trade.

Books/Magazines: I finished Imperial Life in the Emerald City this week and am now really looking forward to the Paul Greengrass movie. Cutting investigative reporting at its finest with a dark line of heartsick comedy running through it. I also finished Northline, the new book from Richmond Fontaine singer and primary songwriter Willy Vlautin. I loved it, far more accomplished than his first work, This Motel Life, and filled with lovely, realist observations of life. I did my clippings this week so my magazines’ best articles are all in three folders now. This week’s best include an interview with Gore Vidal by Rachel Cooke in the new UK Esquire, an examination of the relationship of Godard and Truffaut in the New Yorker and The Atlantic’s Britney edition has an investigation of Hollywood’s move back to the spirit of the 1970s.

Other: Oh, the soup. I’m addicted to Waitrose soups! The best of the lot is a crab and asparagus which has hints of black pepper to give the aftertaste a little interest. I’m also still addicted to podcasts but mostly to the one from Filmspotting. I will tell you now that the likelihood for the future of this site will be to emulate the work of those guys. Outside that one, I also love the Truthdig podcast from political journalism doyen Robert Scheer and Slate’s Political Gabfest.

Diggin’

Music: I love the new Black Keys album, Attack and Release, which seems to paint from a more soul-based palate than the previous hard garage-blues of their other releases. Produced by Danger Mouse and working off songs written for an planned Ike Turner collaboration, it’s a magnificent work and their best album to date. From a history of dislike, I have found common ground with Autechre on Quaristice which is a beautiful work of celestial wonder, if perhaps a side too long. I’m also in the process of purchasing vinyl in anticipation of getting a new system with a turntable again so I’ve been working back into the classic part of my collection to figure some shiny discs that need to be replaced by the warm fuzz of spinning black. So far, Talking Heads’ first record, two Smiths (eponymous debut and Queen is Dead) and Otis Redding’s Otis Blue are winging their way to me. Key this time will be Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and both great albums by The Band.

Diggin’

Music: I’ve been taking in a few new records this week, notably the glammed-up wonders of Supergrass on Diamond Hoo Ha. Nick Cave’s Dig Lazurus Dig is pretty groovy, more Doors-y than I’d normally expect but still head-and-shoulders above most of the competition. The Breeders’ Mountain Battles is more of a mood piece but equally great in its own way. My favourite of the week was Mountain Goats’ Heretic Pride which follows the trajectory of Get Lonely in becoming less frenetic on the acoustic guitar and fuller in the songcraft.

Film/TV: I haven’t really seen anything this week barring a review screening of Horton Hears a Who which I actually liked quite a bit. It was defiantly silly and very odd in places. The main take-in for me this week was The Wire’s final two episodes which lived up to the tone of the whole run. It is officially the Greatest Television Show of All Time. The fifth was the weakest season so far but it’s still so far ahead of anything else that it really doesn’t matter. More on that soon.

Books/Comics: The Yiddish Policeman’s Union was magnificent. Michael Chabon’s entire body of work is now winging its way to me because the guy’s writing is just incredible. I cannot wait for the Coens’ adaptation.

Other: It’s been a podcast bonanza this week after I purchased a reconditioned iPod from Apple. My favourite thus far is KCRW’s Left, Right and Center on which Ariana Huffington proves you can talk like Audrey Hepburn and still be a storming authority on modern politics. Real Time with Bill Maher is no less of a left-wing polemic in audio form and I really loved the two Silence in C Minor podcasts. You can download those here. Also recommended is the Slate Political Gabfest and New Yorker: Out Loud.