The Fat Roland electronic music logo quiz

Here's a quiz! Look at these logos and musical motifs. Name the electronic music artist associated with them.

Answers in the comments. Why not post your score so other people can admire and/or laugh at you?

Good luck!

That last one's a screenshot of an animated GIF, dontcha know.

Answers in the comments below this post, so careful with your scrolling.

My problem with The Wolf of Wall Street

[SPOILERS]

There's a film called Wolfy Wolf Street where Leonardo DiCaprio plays a he-wolf living on a street with other he-wolves while a load of she-wolves shave their fur off and howl at his request.

Leo-Wolf is a bad wolf who buys a yacht and a helicopter and bad stock cubes that are a bit like catnip for cats except it's not cats, it's wolves. The film lasts sixteen days and it's directed by a martian called Scorcese.

Martian-Scorcese is a man-martian and Leo-Wolf is a man-wolf and his sidekick is a Jonah-Wolf who's a wolf not a whale and he's a man-wolf too. There are lots of other men-wolves too numerous to remember because the martian man filled the film with as many men-wolves as he could fit in his imagination which is a lot because he's a martian.

When Leo-Wolf feels sad or tired or weird on bad stock cubes, he's nasty to his she-wolf mate. It's as if she's not a she-wolf but a barometer to reflect the mood of Leo-Wolf: a wolf-reflection. There's a British she-wolf and she's there to make an incest joke and plot get-out point. And there's another she-wolf and she wears pink and it's important to know she's a single mother and she cries and she owes her success to the he-wolves.

I don't think the martian likes she-wolves very much.

Leo-Wolf is based on a real wolf called Naughty Belfox or something and he's a nasty fox which is why the wolves in the film are being nasty too. The eighty-hour film is set inside Leo-Wolf's eyes and they're really big eyes because there are buildings and oceans and stuff.

The martian asks 'what does the fox say' and makes Leo-Wolf act it out, so it's not the martian's fault he doesn't like she-wolves. He's only really interested in telling the story of Leo-Wolf's character who's a nasty fox.

Except the martian chooses to show full she-wolf nudity and no full he-wolf nudity. That's a directorial decision and you can't palm it off on blaming the main character.

Except the martian decides that [SPOILER] the bit where Leo-Wolf stops using the bad stock cubes is skipped over completely. Which is odd because the film is fifty years long so the martian certainly had time to do that. Almost as if the martian *isn't* as interested in story as you might think but instead just wants to show lots of he-wolves howling and being horrible to she-wolves forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

I liked that other film. The film about the woman in space going round and round and trying not to drive the space-bus under 40mph in case George Clooney explodes. The film was 51% her-astronaut and 49% him-astronaut and they kept showing pictures of the earth as if to say "look, that is what the earth is made up of too".

That's MY earth, I thought when I saw the earth and thought about the earth.

Maybe they should make more films like that.

Best electronic music of January 2014

I know what's going to happen. I'm publishing this on the last Monday morning of the month, and in about two hours, Thom Yorke will suddenly release a track with Venetian Snares (or something) and it'll be number one by Sunday,

Daaaamn you, Yorkie.

Let's give this a go anyway. It's not quite the end of January 2014, and I'm resigned to missing great stuff out in error, but here is the pick of the best electronic dance music this month.

Also, I'm aware by numbering these in preference, I'm comparing single tracks with albums. Which is a bit like comparing a Dairylea slice with a juggernaut full of chalk, but, er, um, shut up.

The best electronic music of January 2014:

1 - MODERAT - LAST TIME (JON HOPKINS REMIX) (MONKEYTOWN)

Hopkins, who is no stranger to the number one spot on this website, goes slo-mo acid with devastating effect as this track morphs into an epic designed to hypnotise. Tip of the fedora too to Moderat, that Modeselektor and Apparat collaboration that bowled me over with last year's Bad Kingdom (video still pictured above)  Listen.

2 - MOUSE ON MARS - BAKERMAN IS BREAKING BAD (MONKEYTOWN)

Monkeytown acid again! A silly acid bath of a track, by which I mean 'acid bath' in a good way, not in a murderous way. It's dirty and trippy and it's good to have the mice back. Listen.

3 - ACTRESS - GHETTOVILLE (NINJA TUNE) (album)

If this really is Actress' last album, it's a bit of a party pooper. Shuffling and claustrophobic loop variations. He saves the more comfortable upbeat motifs for later. Glorious in its miserablism. Listen.

4 - KAUMWALD - HANTASIVE (OPAL TAPES)

Dark field recordings filtered through the anus of hell, droned into your veins like a syringe of diseased noise. An essential 12" if you like obscure techno. Listen.

5 - SHACKLETON - FREEZING OPENING THAWING (WOE TO THE SCEPTIC HEART)

Detailed, almost mathematical, percussion on this EP from dubstep label pioneer Shackleton. He allows the simple repetition plenty of space to tap little holes into your brain. Listen.

6 - LEE BANNON - ALTERNATE / ENDINGS (NINJA TUNE) (album)

Dense drum 'n' bass album scattered with a warehouse rave sensibility. I suspect this one will grow on me throughout the year. Listen.

7 - BIBIO - THE GREEN (WARP RECORDS)

Bibio's pastoral leanings faded on me a bit over the past few years, but this EP is loaded with beautiful melody. Listen.

8 - FALTYDL - DANGER (NINJA TUNE)

Check that LTJ Bukem sample on the A-side. On the flip side, King Brute is rough and gravelly: it sounds like a purring cat's inside your speakers and it has KNIVES. Listen.

9 - D/R/U/G/S - ECHORAVE

You can't go wrong with a bit of melodic dancefloor techno, and D/R/U/G/S does it better than most on this EP of collected muzoid scraps. Listen.

10 - VARIOUS - BANGFACE: NEO-RACE ARMAGEDDON (BANGFACE) (album)

Bangface scares me. It makes me long for Coldplay and cardigans and Watercolour Challenge. Actually, that's a lie. This is a December release but I've included it here because it is day-glo and stoopid and ace. Nice one, chop one, snorted. Listen.

Jungle: say hi to the camera

I love these videos by Jungle, the groovesome duo appeared who earlier in 2013. The structure is simple: dance around a bit, say hi to the camera at the end.

Of course, if I tried the same, I'd knock the walls down and the last thing you'd see before the electricity shorted out is my dusty hand waving limply from under a mountain of devastated concrete.

So, y'know, if Jungle want to hire me as a dancer, they know where I am.

This is what happens when I change my Facebook profile picture

I decided to change my Facebook profile picture into a tribute to the Great Soprendo, former television magician and one-time husband to Victoria Wood.

Here is the profile picture.

It quickly attracted this comment from a Facebook friend:

"Looks like a cream egg wrapper?"

So I googled for creme eges. It kind of does. So I did this:

I thought that would be enough, but oh boy, my Facebook friends are tenacious.

This reply came back:

"Love it. Could you make it egg shaped?"

Yeah. No problem at all. Erm...

Good to see I'm putting my Photoshop skills to good use, huh? *sigh*

If you want to follow me elsewhere on the worldinternetweb, Facebook isn't the best place as I'll only accept your request if we have friends in common. So there. And also, you'll get subjected to this kind of crap.

But you can:

- stalk me on Twitter;

- wipe my This Is My Jam on your toast (expect lovely electronic music goodness every few days);

- spot me on Spotify (expect lovely electronic music goodness updated very sporadically);

- viddy me on Vimeo (expect lovely electronic music goodness made by my own hands);

- or shuffle through some other blogs by friends on this David Hartley blog post (no lovely electronic music goodness as far as I can see).

Harder Better Faster Fats: Blogging a.k.a. spurting your eyes, blood-style

Last week, I revealed my unease about 2013. I said I'd blog my way through that unease, because if blogging isn’t about opening a vein and spurting liquid innards into the surprised face of the reader, then what is it for?

Before we get stuck into this week’s execrable navel-gazing, here’s a track you should listen to.



I neglected this blog last year partly because of my entirely worthy work with Electronic Sound and Now Then Manchester (you should read both). The latter published an interview I did with The Orb. Lawks! Meanwhile, this site shrivelled

A METAPHOR.

Here’s a metaphor.

Imagine a hugely promising contestant on The Voice. Week after week, the contestant soars and thrills to the delight of the judges.

In one fateful week, the contestant comes on naked, covered in peanut butter, and riding miniature unicycle circles on top of Tom Jones’ sturdy hair. No-one would enjoy it. Not even me. Everyone would say, “I liked it when Fats was clothed and singing.”

Last year, my blog stopped singing and instead it donned the peanut bu-- wait, is this metaphor working? Should I put my clothes on? Sit STILL, Tom.

THE MEANING OF IT ALL.

Although my non-blogging work continues to be fun and exciting, I missed blogging here.

I don’t know whether it’s the instant validation of comments and stats, whether it’s the therapeutic nature of structured writing, or whether it's because have a massive ego and if it was the 1700s, I’d be building follies instead. I just know that I like writing in this format.

Listen to that track. Caribou’s Sun is a track frozen in my memory as playing over Deaf Institute speakers into my drunken brain after the Manchester Blog Awards in 2010. A focus amid the haze.

Blogging feels like that focus. Amid the chaotic, diagonal leglessness of life, it's that little, repeated thing that keeps me grounded.

"Sun, sun, sun," I slurred while dribbling into my beer.

RELAUNCH.

My first move this year was to relaunch this blog for a ‘world wide Buzzfeedernet’ (broadsheets, you can have that phrase). Shorter paragraphs, more

white

space, and a posting schedule that saves

Friday for fluffier, more visual stuff.

It's going alright. Fat Roland on Electronica was tied to a pre-EDM outlook. Netloafer has loosened things up. It's already earned a plug from MC Hammer on his Twitter feed (hello to my new readers: sorry it's not that hip hop).

This was a rather whimsical blog post. My fiction writing is tighter than that, honest.

Which, incidentally, will be the subject of the next instalment of Harder Better Faster Fats.

(Pictured: Caribou)

Story: Post, a commissioned piece for 330 Words and H@ndles

My partner in writingtons Tom Mason is staging a social media-themed play called H@ndles at the Lowry on January 31st.

As a lead-up to the event, he has commissioned a series of stories for his excellent fiction blog 330 Words. Mine was published yesterday and it's called Post.

The journalist from the local paper had Aubrey pinned into the corner; his yellow jowls threatened to drip onto his dog-eared notepad. He asked Aubrey questions with a wet mouth and Aubrey, paint-roller in hand, fixated on the journalist’s flapping, glistening lips.

Each 330 Words story has a related photo. I took this story's picture in Urbis before it became a footie museum.

Have a read of the short short story here: Fat Roland: Post.

Four Tet's ten-minute beat challenge

If your laptop is loaded with Ableton or Garageband, the musician’s concept of being “in the studio” is a nonsense. The studio follows you around like a randy dog, constantly rubbing its icon in your face every time you log on.

Which is why Kieran Hebden, known better as Four Tet, seems to be in a corner of his living room in this ten-minute beat challenge (video below). I’m half expecting a hoover to appear screen-right at any moment.

In this challenge, he has to create a passable beat against the clock. He needles his way through fragments of Thriller on a record player he seems to have stolen off a child, then slices and filters the results to create Four Tet’s knife-sharp house music motif.

Here’s the video. I’ll spew out some thoughts beneath.

O

THOUGHTS ON FOUR TET'S BEAT CHALLENGE.

1. Although he finds some super sweet sounds, he’s right when he says that lead motif is too much. It’s still better than anything I could do. Obviously. Because he’s mother-flumping Four Tet.

2. I use Ableton too, and it’s good to see he uses similar techniques to me: finding the groove; letting things clash until something clicks; tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.

3. He has a mouse from the 1920s.

4. With such clipped samples, it’s a reminder to all music makers that less is more.

5. Spooling through vinyl like that is an honourable way to make music, as this brilliant documentary on the Amen break will show.

6. Why would you hoover a wooden floor? Stupid Fats.

Now go forth, laptop musicistas, and make beautiful music.