You've got the love

Amazing remix of an amazing cover here by the XX.

The London fourpiece have done a great job of emixing this tune and they has completely made it their own

check 2.18.

the 300... Twits...

A great showcase for twitter yesterday as Lance Armstrong took around 300 fans for a bike ride after advertising his intention to go for a cycle on the micro-blogging site.
Armstrong was in Scotland to see U2 prior to competeing in the Tour of Ireland next week. You can read more here, from the Guardian Unlimited.

This is a timely reminder that I must get back on my bike! So I will.

hello again...

Been very busy of late. Working, drinking, running, cycling, eating, etc.

Some nice reminiscents in my life at the moment. Mainly in the form of the new rancid album Let the Dominoes Fall and Spinerette, Brody Dalles new band. I have also been getting involved in some great CDs from Nathan Fake, James Holden and Herve. More about that later tho.

The Rancid Album is not exactly a mind expanding experience having some of the most cliched punk lyrics you will ever hear and being a pretty 'standard' Rancid album. Still there are some great tunes if thats what your into. After a first listen the tracks that stood out were Disconnected, Skull city and up to no good. But will have to give it a couple more listens before I get my head round it fully. Anyway watch this video for a cool maknig of the album from NexuizBOTMirio cool interviews with the band and a bit of a history there.
Still its rancid and it has got me back listening to the classic Rancid that still makes me love life.

Spinerette got pointed out to me by Flavourpill which is a cool trend watching site based in the States and London chk it out http://flavorpill.com/

They are Brody Dalles, previously Tim Armstrongs missus and Distillers front woman, new project. You can listen to the whole of their new ep at http://spinnerettemusic.com/listen or watch the video here. My opinion is that she still looks fucking hot and you can judge the tunes yourself

Enjoy

I have been lazy

Because I have been working! honestly! More posts to come in the next couple of days tho.  Got some amazing albums to chat about and some movies tooooooooo! 

by the way Tigerstyle kick assssss... 

FabricLive 44 The Commix

Well I have to say I havent been listening to much DnB recently, a bit of calibre here and there, some Evol Intent or Klute splashed about but thats it really. Been lrestricted because my Archos is fucked and have been listening to a lot more electro/breaks/reggae and ska recently so it was nice to raise the tempo again and get back to a sound that I had been ignoring.

The Cambridge boys have done a great job here, the thing about it is the style that they have crafted. An effortless meandering journey of beats that keep you listening for the whole album and it is a real challenge to the view that many people have that you have to be off your face to listen to DnB. The Musicianship on this mix really goes to show how much thought has gone into the music.

I love the first mix because its slowly just constatly building then in comes Refugie Crew Sometime Sad Day which is a classic tune reminisciant of what DnB started out as far removed from the likes of Clipz or Andy C. Then after this the album takes a darker tone with dBridge slowing down the hi hats and keeping a moody bass line. From here on we see a whole spectrum of DnB soulful, liquid, deep, jungle inspired, almost glitchy in parts its a testament to the variety of influences Commix have.

The selection of producers really show you what commix are about - logistics, Alex Perez, Spectrasoul, calibre, breakage - all of them are quality thinking producers who have their own individual sounds. Mostly we see a rolling sullen drum and bass that experiments as much as it kills the basslines.

Its got some tunes on here that Ive not heard for ages and offers a good selection of trance inducing soulful DnB to dancefloor killers which creates a great listening experience.

Highlights

Refugie Crew - Sometime Sad Day

Calibre - Cant get over you

Breakage - Old School Ting

Photek - Yendi

Definately one for a long and lonely dark journey home in the car.

Drive Safe

7/10

10,000 BC

Well this is a film that i was a) reluctant to bother watching in the cinema, b) reluctant to rent and c) fell into watching when i had absolutely nothing to do last week. I am afraid to say it was almost a complete waste of time, sorry did i say almost. It was a total waste of time. OK so some of the graphics were impressive, but cmon if you want a visually stunning film you can watch Sin City or any number of quality sci fi's or war films and your bound to get great cinematography.

The real problem with this was the failure of the film to really feel like a flowing story. You start with a load of Mammoth hunters in an icy terrain/Tundra one of whom is going to become the next great leader, so far so good. Then the horse demons come, obviously at this point I'm expecting a 13th Warrior style movie with a battle between the hunters and the people who came on horses to raid the village possibly from a more advanced Viking race or something given the Arctic conditions.

Instead what we get is a legend/prophecy which takes us across Africa uniting all of the Tribes with the hunters to claim back the people who were taken in the numerous raids by what turns out to be Slave Traders. Now, i don't know for sure but unless I'm mistaken I'm pretty sure horse riding slave traders would not really have come across sabre tooth tigers or giant dinosaur birds and i don't know if they would travel across the whole of Africa just rounding people up but leaving a load of others then trotting past them to go to the next much much further away tribe.

We end up in Egypt, where else!?!?!, where the dastardly Egyptians are using said incarcerated slaves to build the pyramids to great effect. Que typical slaves/mob turns on rulers action scene (think really bad version of Stargate which curiously Roland Emmerich also demonstrated maybe he was running out of idea with this one) and we get what the prophecy obviously predicted.

The one saving grace of the movie is the stunning Camilla Belle but even just looking at her doesn't quite get you through the pain as she is barely in the film. Poor Script pretty terribly acted and just a load of bollox really.

2/10

Mix from They Said OK!!!!!

Hey got alerted to this mix on twitter its a banger, Laser Laser is a quality Daft Punk style tune and there is some quality fidgit in there as well... This guy is playing some brilliant stuff keep your eyes peeled and ears cupped

track listing and link to the download below:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/5545767712bc2b41

01- Gooseflesh - Blow up
02- Lies in Disguise - Meet your replacement
03- Heartsrevolution - Ultraviolence (Les Petits Pilous remix)
04- Diplo (feat. Rye Rye) - Wassup Wassup (Crookers remix)
05- Dani Deahl - (feat. Whiskey Pete) - Poppin bottles (Dani Deahl mix)
06- Neo Tokyo - Laser Laser
07- Yuksek - Take a ride
08- Crookers - What up Y'all
09- Elize Doolittle - Rollerblades (Party Sausage remix)
10- Heartsrevolution - Switchblade (Designer Drugs remix)
11- The Ropes - Water and headphones (Mr. Vega remix)
12- Shinichi Osawa - Push (La Mode remix)
13- Beni - My love sees you
14- Flosstradamus (feat. Caroline Polachek) - Big bills

Into The Wild

In Bruges

If you have seen the poster or the advert then you probably have a good idea of what this film is about, a couple of gangsters get sent to Bruges one loves it one absolutely hates it and much mayhem and mischief follows. A veritable mixed kebab of comedy and crime. The crime often instilling a couple of laughs in the viewer as well.

Great bit of casting in this film. Colin Farrel does a great job as Ray the bored, broody, visceral and troubled 'Ray' who hates Bruges and all the 'fairytale' connotations that go with the Medieval city. As the central character to the story its essential that there is a decent connection with this character and the acting and script deliver spectacularly. His position as a bored child looking to cause trouble is brilliantly opposed by Brendan Gleesons 'Ken'. Ken is your typical dad on holiday wanting to go to all the churches and 'places of interest'. His father figure is continuously interrupted by the fact he is a gangster and this adds lots of comedy moments like when he decides to bosh a load of cocaine, which has just been stolen from Ray after his date tries to rob him! The significance of the relationship is essential in the discussions that they have about death and highlights the naivety of Ray and his fear of death brilliantly against Ken's older wiser mentality.

The relationship between the two main characters is, apart from the hilarious dialogue, the thing that holds the film together so well. If it wasn't for this relationship and the bond you experience through it the film would feel like a load of midget jokes and swearing and not much else (fuck is used on average 1.18 times a minute!!!). Ralph Feinnes also does a great Ben Kingsley impression as their crazy but brutally loyal boss 'Harry'.

There are also some brilliant scenes involving jimmy (the racist, prostitute loving, ketamine fuelled Midget) and Chloe (Rays love interest) and a very linguistically astute Arms Dealer. The hilarious dialogue keeps the film going along brilliantly and is interrupted by some great action scenes and a couple of brutal deaths. Here are a couple of the best pieces of dialogue from the film:

Ken: [Ray walks into the bar high on cocaine] How'd your date go?
Ray: My date involved two instances of extreme violence, one instance of her hand on my cock and my finger up her thing which lasted all too briefly - and then I was away - , one instance of me stealing five grams of very high-quality cocaine and one instance of me blinding a poofy little skinhead: so all in all... my evening pretty much balanced out, fine.

Ray: A lot of midgets tend to kill themselves. A disproportionate amount, actually. Hervé Villechaize off of Fantasy Island. I think somebody from the Time Bandits did. I suppose they must get really sad about like... being really little and that... people looking at them, laughing at them, calling them names. You know, "short arse". There's another famous midget. I miss him but I can't remember. It's not the R2D2 man; no, he's still going. I hope your midget doesn't kill himself. Your dream sequence will be fucked.
Chlo: He doesn't like being called a midget. He prefers dwarf.
Ray: This is exactly my point! People going around calling you a midget when you want to be called a dwarf. Of course you're going to blow your head off.

Overall a good watch and a great mix of serious and silly conversation and testing questions about life and retribution. I recommend it.

7/10

Overthrow - So Much Power So Little Time

Overthrow – So Much Power So Little Time

www.myspace.com/overthrowrock

Their first EP, Withdrawal of Reason, had some great songs on it but wasn’t the best recording this album has better songs and a much higher sound quality. The band play a mix of reggae, ska and rock and you can hear influences from the Police and RX Bandits throughout, sounds good so far…

The opening track ‘Take Me Away’ has some great overtones of RX Bandits and brilliant sing-a-long moments culminating in a really good crescendo before the final chorus. The lyrics focus on a fear of facing up to reality and the song is littered with excellent lines like “So I guess I’ll return to bed might help my head, because facing reality is what I dread”. It’s a great opening track with a good pace to it and sets the tone for the album brilliantly.

The second track ‘Ode to the Innocent’ takes a much more political stance and is a critique of the use of military force in countries that really need aid and support rather than an occupying military force. It’s a noble cause and the song does it justice, intricate guitar parts and a strong ska influence make it a really well developed song with some excellent drum fills really packing it out and a massive chance to rock out at the end of the song. Again there are brilliant sing-a-long moments with brilliant harmonies which seem to be a recurring theme on the EP.

‘Dear Miss Ryan’ is the pinnacle of all the Reggae influences on the EP, great bass line, kick ass lead guitar and loads of space to showcase the vocals. The subtle changes in tempo really get you into the song and add tonnes of emotion. The guitar solo is reminiscent of Sublime and the recording of the vocals show a great improvement in the quality of the recordings.

The other tracks on the album showcase more of the same; complex rhythms rising and falling to pull you up and down throughout the album, excellent melodies to get you singing along, infections riffs which stay with you for days, lyrics which make you think and carry poetic notions – my favourite from ‘Talk of the Town’ “I will not settle for the black and white over the option of full spectral light”, bass lines and grooves to get you dancing, excellent build-ups to grab you before rock out. This is an EP packed with talent and oozing quality. Check out Roll of the Dice on the MySpace it’s a brilliant last track. www.myspace.com/overthrowrock

Overthrow are a four piece Ska Punk band from Guildford, Surrey, and are playing loads of gigs across the south of England go check em out.

You can buy So Much Power So Little Time from their site for just £3!!!!!! They also have some delicious looking T-shirts for sale. http://www.overthrowmerch.bigcartel.com/

9/10

Fresh Kicks

Just got a new pair of shoes through in the mail today. Having been completely devoted to Nike trainers for the last 2 years I decided it was time to give some others a try.

These are Adidas Forum Lo's and they were on sale on the Size website for only 30 quid! All leather in Black Pink and White. The contrast in them is what drew me in at first because I had seen the LA lakers version in the store but wasn't sure even though Purple is a sick colour. These are much nicer though and the insteps fatness looks killer.

The trainers were 25 years old last year and they were re-released to celebrate. FRESH!

Diplo - Decent Work For Decent Pay

Diplo has released a load of stuff since his first album Florida in 2004. This album is a selection of some of that work and includes remixes of M.I.A, Bloc Party, Black Lips and Caude Von Stroke, a massive range of artists most of them getting the bailie funk treatment from Diplo. There's a new Diplo tune on there as well.

The first 5 tracks are all pretty kick ass and the Kano tune 'Reload it' is a testament to Diplo's producing skills and really shows of Kanos MCing skillz and yeh "that 16 was mean and he knows it". This is the only grime/hiphop tune on the album and the majority of the others sound like Diplo tunes: they all have that brazilian flex.

The remix of 'Put that pussy on me' by Spank Rock has loads of big beat sounds, reminisciant of the one and only Fat Boyslim which is definately a good thing. The Solta O Frango mix is quite similar but with much more bailie funk influence. Its a awesome party tune even if i have fuck all idea what is being said it got me dancing. The 'Heater' mix is a classic club tune as well and takes me back to Uni and being out in Bristol.

There are a few tunes on here that i really dont like. 'smash a kangaroo' is one it just lacks the melodies that make some of the other tunes on the album real joys to listen to and it lacks development, it sounds pretty boring to be honest. Some of the other tunes which I'm not a fan of are the remixes of 'Where is home' by Bloc Party and 'lets make love...' by CSS. It obviously doesnt help that i dont like these songs in the first place. In fact the vocals are the things that have put me off the tunes. REgardless the tunes are not my cup of tea.

The album finishes with one of my anthems from second year at uni 'young folks' by Peter Bjorn & John. Diplo did a great job on this remix and it builds up beautifully towards the end of the tune. Some times it has a real timbaland feel to it! Which, surprisingly, doesn't ruin the song.

Overall the album is a great snapshot of Diplo's work and does have some classic club tunes. Its pretty hard to get away from tunes like Paper Planes, Solta O Frango and The Whistler and these remixes of them are all top notch. Just a shame he included some of the other tunes which are just dull, they could have their place in sets though and its just up to DJs to make their own mind up if they want to use them.

7/10

ear me now

By far and away one of the most important things for long journeys are Mp3 players and laptops. The most important acompanyment for which are of course headphones.

I recently bought a pair of Bose in-ear headphones (rrp £77.31) and they have not let me down. In the past I have used Sharp, Sennheiser and Sony headphones but they all either broke, were too tinny or just sounded crap.

The choice to buy these was based mainly around my mates giving great feedback on the over-the-head versions but they were a bit out of my price range! These however are a great alternative to splashing loads of cash. Shure make a pair that i have been told can rival the Bose headphones but I haven't had a chance to get my hands on any.

The bass in outstanding, normally a problem with the in-ear headphones, and they come with a variety of 3 rubber ear pieces to suit any ear. After about two hours they do get a tad uncomfortable and i definitely wouldn't use them full whack for that long just coz the bass is that good on them. Obviously this could be a problem as they don't have any noise canceling technology so you might be tempted to let the bass-lines pummel you ear drums to drown out the train or tube.

The sound on live tracks is incredible and when listening to electronica you can really hear all the tiny additions that the producers have made to the tunes that you just wouldn't pick up on a normal pair of headphones. Listening to Bjork on these the other day was a real treat.

Been using them for about 4 months now they havent shown any sign of damage or wire damage which is a good. These are the best headphones i have owned by a long way I would suggest them to anyone. The Headphones also come with a free two year warranty!

9/10

Tropic Thunder

So as I'm unemployed i have the luxury of watching a lot of TV and spending a fair bit of time on the Internet. As a result I was aware that Stephen Fry was to appear on the 1st episode of Friday Night with Jonathon Woss since his colossus cock up, I'm following Fry on Twitter.

I've always been a fan of Stephen Fry, initially for his roles in Blackadder but also because he is a G on QI and basically a national treasure, and decided to catch up with the Wossy show on Monday to see what went down (thank you iPLayer!!!). The other guests were Lee Evans who can make funny faces but in my opinion kinda sucks as a comedian and Tom Cruise who is NOT a comedian, or so i thought. One of the first things that Fry was to say was the incredible performance from Cruise in 'Tropic Thunder' as Les Grossman.

Hmmmmm I had my doubts about 'Tropic Thunder' as 'just another Ben Stiller movie' (nice but stupid person gets into hillarious scrapes and comes good in the end) and definitely had my doubts about the clip that they showed on Wossy's show of Grossman (cruise) dancing to Flowrider which out of context looked about as funny as a piece of A4 paper.

Later in the Day another interview with someone from Valkyrie, Kevin McNally this time on possibly the most ludicrous thing i have ever witnessed - the Alan Titchmarsh Show (pensioners swooning is all i expect at this point) don't ask why i was watching. Obviously because Titchmarsh really dreamt of Cruise coming on his show most of the incredibly short interview was about Cruise, obviously witnessing these messages from god that i should plan my evening around staying in and watching Tom Cruise or people talking about Tom Cruise I decided i would give 'Tropic Thunder' a go.

Less Grossman is possibly the best character in the entire film and Cruise delivers it perfectly. His Don't Fuck With Me attitude and the torrent of swearing that he releases is a great excuse to laugh out loud and is a very chalky chalk to the nice but stupid cheese of Tugg Speedman (Stiller). Stillers does have one scene which made me crack up tho involving a primate but don't want to spoil it for you.

The movie is littered with stars and they all do a fairly good job. Robert Downy Jr is brilliant as Kirk Lazarus but I would have liked to see his character and Alpa Chino (Brandon T Jackson) kick off a bit more at some point.

Cruise and McConaguhey carry the story from outside the jungle nicely and have a couple of funny interactions.

In the jungle the interaction between Cody (Danny McBride from Pineapple Express) and Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) is definitely worth a watch, in all of McBrides films he carries of his roles excellently, and the performance from Jay Burrel is great.

Jack Black however didn't really get going till right at the end of the film and I guess his part was just a bit shoddy. He did what he could with what he was given.

Overall, I was actually surprised to find it a film which made me laugh a lot. I really was expecting 'just another Ben Stiller movie' but then again whenever i do expect that I thank god its not 'just another Adam Sandler movie'. Stillers production is definitely worth a watch and although there are lots of similarities in his character to Zoolander it still works. The other cast members do him proud and its definitely worth a watch.

6/10