“I can only hold penises.”
Gabriel was trying to explain to me why he can hold in a number one, but not a number two, while waiting for the potty. Poor kid is already a diva, and a grandma’s boy, without adding this kind of fuel to the fire…
“Criminy Jim Jim! The sky is black!”
This was Sean’s exclamation upon seeing the night sky…
“If you eat poop, then when you poop do you poop extra poop?
Behold the mind of a five year old. Now, marvel.
Keeps the doctor away. At least, that should be the marketing angle for SIGHUPyear, a new project from Canadian ambient/noise/drone artist, and longtime Intelligent Machinery friend, SIGHUP.
The short version: SIGHUP will endeavor to create one new piece of audio work every day for the year of 2011. You can follow the results at the link below.
If the first four days are any indication, this is going to be a good year.
Cheers.
Some musical discoveries and brief thoughts on each.
Polysics
It’s DEVO meets Chrome meets McLusky, only Japanese. The DEVO influence is uncontested, to the point of being almost an homage, but they’ve taken the poppy elements of popular-era DEVO and infused it with the aggression of earlier DEVO and the aggro brutality of modern noise rock. Super catchy; super noisy; super good.
(Typically the chick doesn’t sing, but this is a great song nonetheless)
Imperative Reaction
I don’t listen to much industrial music anymore, but these guys do dancefloor industrial really, really well. Since most of the bands that I listened to in high school have petered-out or been on a run of releasing really shitty albums, it was nice to discover something relatively new that captures what I enjoyed about the genre in the first place. Also, they get special mention for having the best band name I’ve heard in quite some time.
Ghostland Observatory
Two white guys tackle electro funk with an adeptness that makes Daft Punk look clinical and soulless. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear something like this alongside Zapp & Roger in an early 80s disco. It certainly occupies that space in any playlist I create. This shit makes me dancey.
Built To Spill
Specifically Perfect From Now On. The vocalist tends to annoy me, but everything is set right by two simple words: wah pedal. Seriously, I don’t know why more post rock bands don’t make use of the wah pedal, but these guys exploit that niche in such a way that it has forced me to consider dusting off my wah pedal for old time’s sake.
Duran Duran – All You Need Is Now
Duran Duran just released a new album that’s being touted as the aesthetic follow-up to Rio. Don’t believe the hype. It’s good. It’s a damn sight better than their last album, but it’s no Rio. If I had to force it into their old catalog, I would say that it more readily follows Seven & The Ragged Tiger, at least more logically than Notorious does. They definitely dredge up some of the aesthetics of that era, but very rarely does it come together the way it did in their heyday. They do manage to pull all the elements together on a few tracks, the best of which is “Girl Panic” – and it’s the first track on the album where they bother to remind you that John Taylor is back on bass guitar. His bass work was such a signature of their early material, and so shamefully downplayed on this album.
And, as a bonus, here is a great track from Maryanne Faithfull’s Broken English album. The lyrics shocked even me. And the guitar stuff is awesome.
“Why’d you spit on my snatch? Are we out of love now, or is it just a bad patch?”
Caveat emptor, motherfuckers.
I just did a little scavenging on Flickr and found a handful of Destroy designs that I hadn’t personally encountered, so I snagged them for the sake of your viewing pleasure. The files have been named after the holder of the Flickr account from whom the image was swiped. All photos were available through Creative Commons, except one which I grabbed with a screen capture because, well, fuck him for being so uptight.
