Nov 18, 2007

Reviving my shrivelling grandma and getting out of my depth with Mahler

Jay Z in graph form

Just because I've been adjusting to a new job for the first time in nine years, that's no excuse to leave my blog shrivelled on the edge of the pavement like an old forgotten grandma.

Still, there's nothing better to distract you from your blogless disappointment than some nice charts. Above is a bar chart interpretation of Jay Z's 99 Problems, and you can see plenty more here. If anyone can tell me the collective noun for charts, tell me using a graph.

Because blogging is the way I speak, I've kept silent about lots of music. Not least Sun Electric's Lost & Found (1998 - 2000). The tracks were rediscovered on an old CD-R, as the title suggests, and it's a welcome reminder of a band that have been dormant for donkey's.

Sun Electric always lacked the crunch of their techno peers Orbital, and perhaps the production talent of some-time Orb dabbler Thomas Fehlmann lent their music too much whimsy.

When it's not trying to be Brian Eno's Nerve Net on a little too much horse tranquilizer, Lost & Found works wonderfully, not least in the flapping rhythm of Echelon which sounds as though the whole thing was recorded inside a pipe.

A hop over to the Leaf Label now, and Murcof have thrown a curve-ball with their new album Cosmos.

Their glitchy precision has been buried in favour of ambience sweeping from Mahler-inspired moodiness to Wagner-inspired pomposity. (All the other reviews have mentioned György Ligeti, but I don't know who he is and I'm bloody useless at classical comparisons).

It's either quiet, or it's the ambient equivalent of a guitar solo. It's certainly not worth buying it on its own, which is good because apparently it'll be fully realised as an audio-visual project.

In fact, stuff all this lot. Screw it. If you're looking for something on which to spend your hardcore pimp wage, plump for Luke Vibert's Chicago, Detroit, Redruth. Playful acid rave has never been so listenable, and it's the first album I've owned dedicated to a Cornish town.

mpSunday: Pole's Stefan Betke remastered the newly found gems on Sun Electric's Lost & Found. Pole are seriously underrated, so here's a free track. Grab it while you can, because as soon as I post another mpSunday, this mp3 will be kicked to the kerb like gran. POW! This mpSunday is no longer available - click here for the latest mpSunday

1 comment:

ANS said...

Thanks for the comment! Those graphs will have me laughing for days....and probably posting them too...and trying to make my own!