- Okay so I was actually able to find a hard copy of the new How To Destroy Angelsat a major, corporate outlet. I know what you’re thinking: “what’s a hard copy??” I was there to pay bills, not to record shop. So it was a nice treat; because — and I might be in the minority here — I do like owning a CD much better than just having it on my computer. Granted, this will get thrown onto my computer at some point… I just have yet to do that cause I’ve been blasting it through the stereo for the past few days.
So how is it, right? Fucking awesome. I’m loving this album. And it’s scary because like I’ve said in the past… I think I like this stuff more than I ever did NIN. And I consider myself a Nine Inch Nails fan, too. Mariqueen Maandig, as she’s credited in the liner notes, does a miraculous job breathing more life into into an ever expanding body of Trent Reznor production. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t enjoy this as much if it was a purely Reznor sung collection of music. Not that he doesn’t sing. He does, only a little. It makes his vocal appearances all the more exciting, and even haunting, when he’s not around all the time. To say this album is simply a showcase of Maandig’s etheral, spot-on vocals would be beyond misleading of me though. Indeed Atticus Ross and Reznor alike really bring their A games to the table here: using their illustrious pasts apart, their work together on David Fincher soundtracks, and something new and simple as a very like-minded production team. I guess when you go back and really listen to the soundtracks they’ve done — particularly The Social Network — it is pretty simple music, really. On the surface at least. Those more ambient leanings appear on “Welcome Oblivion“; they just sit behind some really catchy, borderline basic, Electro/Industrial beats that sound like they’ve ripped directly from a late 90′s MPC. Catching a theme here? This record manages to combine simplicity with a more organic brand of Electronic music, which oddly creates a forward-thinking sound. “A house on fire/burning all the past away.” Haunting, progressive, simple, organic… like the future. This is future music.
- Stained glass water-tower. Brooklyn. By Tom Fruin.
- “Iran shipping Chinese weapons to Yemen” sounds like a Tom Clancy novel’s starting point… but:
“As the article makes clear, the Iranians, via the Revolutionary Guard Corps, are accelerating the volume and sophistication of weapons supplies transferred to extent and potential proxies in the region. In the case of Yemen, that’s the Houthi rebellion. In all cases, Iran’s support is to Shi’a or Shi’a offshoot groups fighting Sunni government or groups. The qualitative escalation is symbolized by the presence of Chinese-manufactured manpads—the QW-1M. These weapons come from a Chinese state-owned company already sanctioned by the U.S. government for illegal arms dealing.
What are Iranian and Chinese officials thinking (and let me note that in neither case can we assume a monolithic government decision system)?”
- I’m giving an album AllMusic gave a fairly glowing review of recently. The album is called “Cover Art”; the debut from a new Jazz-based group of musicians called The NEXT Collective. What’s interesting — considering the amount of talent and experience that comes with the group — is that this is an album of covers. But it really does not feel that way, considering it is instrumental music: jams that go on without much structure beyond, “alright, just keep in the key Drake initially had…” It’s an interesting way to do a debut, and it’ll test your opinion on how artistic covers can or cannot be. If you didn’t know it, you’d think this is a collection of 10 original and very organic songs, recorded with very few takes. This is the cover:
- That blog I spoke of last week is now up and running (though the visuals may still change). The first piece is mine. Which means you’ll know my real name. Oooohhhh… I’m definitely trying to flex some creative muscles I haven’t used in some time; I’m sure it could be better. But it was a blast to get back into more creative writing. There’s definitely a thesis, I hope it’s as clear to everyone else as it is to me. Hopefully this will turn into a good little music blog for people to RSS and follow on Tumblr, cause it’s a great mixture of people writing for it.
“A pair of psychology professors have discovered that a hockey player’s month of birth influences how scouts and coaches judge his talent, and this subconscious selection bias often puts the wrong players on the roster. The study, published online in the journal PLOS ONE, found NHL teams have long underestimated the talent and potential of players born in the second half of the year and tend to overlook them in favor of relatively older players. That is exactly the opposite of what they ought to do, said James Deaner of Grand Valley State University. For any given spot in the draft, players born in the first three months of the year are more likely to be successful than those born in the second half of the same year. “If teams really wanted to win, they should have drafted more of the relatively younger players,” Deaner said.”
“But with The Dark Knight Returns being given the full conversion treatment, this criticism of the film can no longer be the result of compression failure. The problems of the film do not come from lack of loyalty to the source. Far from it – this movie shows us, once more, that overzealous reliance on the original work is not necessarily a boon. A lot of what made The Dark Knight Returns such a good comics was, well, comics-related stuff. The movie tries to re-use some of these elements which remain inert in a medium not suited for them – there are long parts in the novel in which Batman’s actions are interjected with a point/counterpoint-style TV show, Miller and Johnson’s art scatter these discussions (along with dozens of other occurrences) all over the page, they become a representation of fragmented culture (as opposed to the more unified and direct media age that gave birth to Batman and his ilk) and watching them, we realize that Batman no longer operates in a world he was not meant to inhabit (and why the story must end the way it does).”
This is what a lot of people fail to comprehend: there are certain storytelling tropes that are completely unique to sequential art. These tropes may very well explain why (some) comics have turned out to be about the things they’re about; these tropes lend themselves very well to certain high-concepts, visual action, and narrative succession. No matter how faithfully you adapt a comic to a film, or television show, or web series… it still will never be the same thing as reading the comic. Because sequential art — though it’s been around since the Dawn of Man — is one of the most unique storytelling mediums we have, for many reasons I won’t get into here.
“This may sound incredible, but in recent years, research on using signals from the brain to operate machines has taken great strides. Scientists have developed brain-machine interfaces that allow paralyzed humans to move a computer cursor or even use a robotic arm to pick up a piece of chocolate or touch a loved one for the first time in years. Nicolelis has set his sights even higher: He wants to get paralyzed people up and walking around. If he succeeds it could be a tremendous advance. Right now he’s still developing this technology in monkeys. There’s a long way to go.
But Nicolelis was brimming with confidence in January when I visited his lab at Duke University to see how his work is progressing. “We’re getting close to making wheelchairs obsolete,” he said.“
- I’m going to be working on music all day today. In fact, I’ll probably hop to it after writing this. I’m staring at three pages from my creativity book — one ripped out — trying to discover the natural succession of songs as they should unfold in relation to what the album is about. What it means to me. This is easily my most personal album I’ve ever done, as it vaguely (it doesn’t beat you over the head or anything) tells the story of the hardest years of my life. So far. But in a meta-way, this time… this experience, is kind of what birthed the idea and the sounds that would become my current musical persona to begin with. It likely wouldn’t exist in this way without this experience. So it’s all a little bizarre. About halfway through I’m remixing the very first track I did officially under the pseudo-name, in an effort to recreate the frustration of what was happening boiling over and me finally going down to the basement and making this droning, Electronic beat. So… I’m excited.
That’s Doldrums new album, “Lesser Evil”, released yesterday on Arbutus Records. Canadian (Toronto) -based Electronic music that isn’t trying to make you dance (though you probably could), but that doesn’t get weird for the sake of it. There’s a hint of that new wave of Canadian electronics in here, the sounds we heard from Purity Ring and Grimes in 2012; those textures are supplemented with the more analog sounds of a group like, say, Black Moth Super Rainbow. The vocals are surprisingly un-effected out (generally speaking), and there are nods of good old-fashioned storytelling inside some of these songs; but it is not afraid to use a voice as a pure and simple instrument in and of itself as well. On top of that you’ve got these rhythmic, hypnotic back-beats that have clearly been recorded live, with a kit, in a large room with padded walls. Definitely worth checking out.
- I really hope Warren Ellis will be getting some amount of dough from Iron Man 3, if the movie is directly lifting his nanotechnology, biological modification, Extremis from his run on the character.
Speaking of Uncle Warren, he’s apparently been inspired by newspaper comic strips, and has been releasing single panel comics on his website of late… as part of a world he calls “Scatterlands”. Here’s the latest:
- I was baffled yesterday when chatting with an ex-classmate on Facebook. Quick background: I went to school with this guy to get a particular type of license, a company who needs people with this particular license is moving it’s HQ to our neck of the woods. They asked me if there was anyone else I graduated with who might be interested in the job. So I contacted the guy about the job and dropped his name with HR. “You ever find anything else about that job?” he asked, to which I replied giving information about when and where, benefits, perks, etc. “Yeah but what’s the pay?” he asked, to which I told him what the pay was. “Yeah my current job pays more.” Well… I understand that. But perhaps you should do what you enjoy doing? This is a fascinating field, and you care that much about an extra 5 Grand (or however much more; cause it can’t be much based on the nature of each of these jobs) a year? Enough to not start a career in something you’re passionate about? This is the problem — one of far too many — with our society.
- The new Black Lantern Music release is pretty brilliant. Called “ill Papa Giraffe“. It’s jazz sampled, classic boom-bap style BIG beats with clever, socially conscious wordplay delivered with precision and skill. It’s free… but if you like it, throw the guys a few bucks.
“The penis bones of otters living in English and Welsh waterways are getting lighter each year, in a worrying decline of the species’ overall reproductive health, according to a report.
Biologists could not conclusively connect the damage to the presence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in rivers — responsible for a drastic drop in otter populations in the 70s — and so are pointing the finger of blame at endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), also harmful to humans.”
“To clarify that thought a little more, I will explain the three tenants of the sub-conscious mind as designed by Sigmund Freud. According to Dr. Freud the mind was broken up into three conceptual parts: the id, ego, and super-ego. The id is the part of the mind that is geared toward instinctual and chaotic thoughts and impulses. The ego is the organized, realistic part of your mind that is at the forefront of the conscious mind. The super-ego is your mind’s perception of what you and society perceive as right, acting as your conscience effectively.
Though how does Freud’s diagram for the human psyche relate to Batman particularly? Couldn’t those same concepts be applied to all heroes? In part, yes, but Batman personifies those concepts most strongly because he is not one man, but three.“
- To get personal shit out of the way (even though I know very few people who may be reading this care; and those who are probably have been linked here by google searching “george tooker”): That job I interviewed for last week? I got it! I’m getting closer and closer to a final product with this album I’m working on. It should be pretty neat. My wife is pregnant, so soon I’ll be able to share all this art and music and information with a mini-me. Also, my life will obviously get insane… so, I may have to shut this thing down. Okay, enough of that.
- Some of my buds from across the pond, specifically Daniel the curator, will be starting a music blog very soon that I’ll occasionally be writing on. I’ll definitely be linking to it once it’s up and running, I think he’s shooting for a Tumblr-based site.
- New Game of Thrones trailer:
- Jonathan Hickman has been teasing a new creator owned project that comes out sometime in March with Image Comics. This is the latest teaser:
- I saw Beasts of Southern Wild last night and I really, really enjoyed it. Surreal, haunting, powerful, peaceful, humanistic, with a very something-bigger-than-you vibe to boot. The occasional glimpse at the extinct ancient beast “Aurochs“, who have risen from their frozen states, melted out of the ice caps, is perhaps the best visual metaphor in film this year. The acting is top-notch with the occasional good. The directing and cinematography are beautiful, from the fireworks celebration early on to the parting shot of the characters strolling carelessly as the power of the rising ocean bears down on them. There needs to be more movies like this.
- I don’t why — considering I’m a Minnesotan — I just recently heard of the Sioux Falls group Phantom Balance. Good Lord, they’ll tear your face off. This is the kind of thing that can only be conjured up in the midst of frozen lakes, crops, and wind chills of negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit:
- Holy shit, a week off? A week?? Well I hope get that job I was interviewed for… hope it was worth it. Let’s get at this.
- It’s nice to read direct quotes from Mark Hamill this morning, rather than speculation derived from an article that’s mostly speculating. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, he has some really, really wonderful things to say in terms of the direction he hopes the movies take, including a more balanced approach between practical and CGI effects, not such a heavy-handed tone, and that he and all the old actors/characters would not be the focal point. I’m still disappointed that neither of my picks got the directing job (Rian Johnson and Duncan Jones), but damn Ben Affleck I bet would make a really cool hanger shootout with laser guns… just imagine that last shootout scene at Fenway in The Town, but with smugglers and new government agents…
- Sadistik’s new album is good. Perhaps not his magnum opus, but it’s good. And I mean that in a good way, I think eventually he can do something even better than this. And with the rise of Macklemore, it’s nice to hear a Seattle rapper who actually reflects the city. Not that “Flowers For My Father” is all depressing. The song (and a handful of other tracks) that details the first-hand account of Sadistik and Kristoff Krane knocking on the late Eyedea’s door and no one answering is actually very positive. In defense of the rest of the tones though, what do you expect from a guy who saw that amount of death firsthand since the release of his last proper album? I actually find it hard to believe that the production on this was handled by multiple people, there’s a consistency to it throughout (both in quality and feel).
Also, hearing a new Cage verse make me want new Cage album. And RIP Eyedea.
- Yesterday marked the 3rd anniversary of someone very close to me. Something I never thought I would say at the age I’m at now. But when I think back to that day, and being in that room with those other people I shared that moment with, I remember it as being a really beautiful thing. I couldn’t stop shaking after it happened, and I was probably in some form of shock, but that wasn’t fear or terror or horror doing that; it was the sheer power of what I — we — had seen before our very eyes. Something rare and otherworldly and unexplainable. Something breathtaking and beyond all of us. I’ll never forget it, it feels like it was yesterday.
“Chips based on the ARM architecture run a majority of the world’s smartphones, including the iPhone and most Google Android phones, and now, a wide range of hardware makers are building ARM chips for the computer servers that drive web services and the sweeping software applications used inside big businesses. The idea is to significantly reduce the power and money needed to operate a computer data center, and clearly some big-name buyers are interested.”
- So I’m a regular reader of comics. At any given time I’ve got anywhere from 5-10 books on my pull list at the shop. But for some reason I have never read any Avengers stuff (I don’t read too much superhero stuff besides some classics and/or products of great writers). I was simultaneously trepidations and excited to jump into the deep end when I heard Jonathan Hickman (a writer who’s creator-owned work I follow) would be writing not one, but two, Avengers books. And though I firmly stand on the side of the “New Avengers/Illuminati”, I did catch up on the regular “Avengers” title last night. I read a lot of slightly negative things about the 2nd and 3rd issues of the book, which I don’t really understand because the quality is almost exactly the same as the first. But a lot of readers of comics — and your fanboys who don’t read comics — don’t have the best taste. Anyways I’m hoping these “Creators”, these spectacularly complex and borderline sympathetic villains, are revisited later on during Hickman’s run… perhaps reigniting the evolution of Mars and thus far surpassing Earth?
- An article on Wired is garnering quite a bit of views: Inside The Battle of Hoth. It basically takes a satirically serious look at the strategies employed by both the Empire and the Rebellion during the big first set-piece of Empire. But after reading this article, you’ll realize how inept and incoherent a military strategy the Empire employed in their best chance at wiping out 90% of the Rebellion with one stroke.
- NPR wrote a piece just in time for “Dilla Day”, about the legacy of the late James Yancey.
Why J Dilla May Be Jazz’s Latest Great Innovator.
“Dilla’s reach stretches way beyond hip-hop: For one, he’s recently cast a long shadow over contemporary jazz. He never belonged to jazz’s inner circle, but since his death in 2006 from a rare blood disease, his legacy has helped pull the genre back into kissing contact with modern popular music.
The jazz world today finds itself swamped with young talent eager for reinvestment in the discourse of contemporary culture. The shift has roots that run in a lot of directions. It’s a reaction to the neo-traditional revivalism that capped the last century, and to jazz’s withered commercial infrastructure in the wake of the 1990s CD bubble. Add to that the simple fact that millennial jazz musicians grew up listening mostly to hip-hop, R&B and rock.”
- Women In Video Games (Damsels In Distress…), put in similar situations over and over andoverandoveroverover.
- Relatedly, The Hawkeye Initiative is pretty brilliant in calling out mainstream superhero shit for their years and years of blatant misogyny and sexism.
- Wow… so you know how sometimes you hear the argument, “Wind power? Wind?? Why on Earth would use hundreds year old technology to power anything in the 21st century?”. Well I just read on Phys.org that new information from Australia states — obviously in certain regions — wind is cheaper and generates as much or more energy as traditional forms. The study found that down under wind cost $80 per MWh (that’s “Megawatt Hour” or one million watts/hour), whereas it costs $116 for the same amount from a new gas plant, and $143 for the same amount of energy from a new coal plant. Coal is much higher, however, because of the government’s carbon tax… but the article notes that even without any sort of carbon tax, Coal comes down to the Gas plant numbers (still not close to Wind’s $80/MWh). Apparently this can be mostly attributed to the cost of renewables (mostly wind and solar) dropping hard in the past few years and the cost of traditional forms of energy continuing to increase. The article also notes that, “large solar photovoltaic installations will be cheaper than coal or gas by 2020, and solar thermal and biomass systems will be at least competitive by 2030.”
- I generally don’t like to talk about my life on here — me smart, doing this 2nd — but a little update on the current batch of tunes:
I have 22 songs, about 70% of which are “done” but not done-done. Before you think “wait… that’s like an hour and 20 minutes worth of music”, most of the songs are between 2 and 2.5 minutes. The first song, and two others (so far), are between 1 and 2 minutes. And the last song will probably clock in at about 5 or 6. Why am I doing this? It was sort of sparked by listening to Kareem Riggins’ excellent piece of work last Fall, “Alone Together“. The album is 34 tracks, only 8 of which break the 2 minute mark. When I heard this album straight through for the first time it had been a few months since I’d wrapped an album I called “Hills Run Red“; a western concept album that had 3 tracks: the first two were 16.5 and the last was 20 mins. So when I was getting to about track 23 on “Alone Together” I thought… “dang, maybe I should do something like this?” At the very least it would provide a new challenge for me, and if people think a song sucks at least it’ll be over soon. Ha. And it isn’t like I’m self-imposing rules, saying “all songs need to be 2:15 long”, hence the minute long tracks and the much longer track. I just was quite inspired by “Alone Together” (and, before I knew it, El-P’s “megggamixxx3″), how the song comes together, shows you what it’s got, and moves on. Also, for as proud as I am of some of the arrangements and instrumentation on “Hills“, I was going to go back to a more sample based album anyhow, and you have to be really good (much, much better than me) at sampling to make 5 minute tracks and have them stay fresh and never get dull. So yeah. Also, I would say a good 80% of the samples (for the song foundation; I’m not counting using Dinah Washington or someone like that for vocals, which I’m doing a lot on this) are classical samples. Mostly, from these two records:
But there’s still synths, too. And I have a concept, but I’m not sure yet the level of how obvious it’ll be. I dunno, I’M EXCITED. I guess so, Rambles McGee.
Not sure if it’s the band’s best album, but for me personally one of my favorites. RED brings the equal parts progressive Metal (before it existed) and experimental/free Jazz together, which is both stunning and shocking but surprisingly smooth on the ear holes. Course, a whole bucket full of ingredients are sprinkled in — it wouldn’t be King Crimson without that bucket — but to a lesser extent than the Jazz/Metal elements (mainly Electronica; there’s definitely synths on RED, but they’re only adding color, not driving the approach).
- Rolling Stone has the new BRONX record streaming in full. It’s just called “IV”. It’s definitely a blast to listen to, and you’ll want to jump around… but the pure, unadulterated rage of their first few albums isn’t quite there. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on your perspective I suppose. Plus, you’ve gotta look at where they’re coming from: they’re a bit older, some of them probably have kids, etc. But running through it, you do get the feeling that there will not be a track titled “Shitty Future”. Still great to hear a new Bronx record though.
- I’m more than a bit disappointed that Duncan Jones got the Warcraft directing gig and not some other, more prized, pop cultural property [cough... EP SEVEN... cough, cough]. Still though, I am very happy for the guy. He’s got chops, and it’s nice to see a bit more of a subtle filmmaker get a big gig rather than an over the top, every camera trick in the bag, in your face style filmmaker. And who knows, maybe he’ll create a really cool, other-worldly but oddly real adaptation of the world WoW exists in?
- I am firmly on the side of New Avengers over Hickman’s regular Avengers title. A bunch of people spoke of how boring the second issue was because it was a bunch of guys sitting around a table talking. That may be true, but when the “bunch of guys” are the some of the best minds on the planet and they’re discussing how to approach a problem even they can only vaguely begin to comprehend — and it’s written really, really well — that sounds mighty interesting to me.
- Speaking of, I should probably do some comic reviews one of these days.
- Newest Game Of Thrones video blog thingy (from Iceland):
