Sunday CD Project

This week, due to popular demand (from @lucytrew), I will be starting to do marks out of five for albums. This will be highly unscientific, as I'm not really a fan of grading art, but we'll see how it goes.

Sufjan Stevens – The Age Of Adz

This one took a couple of weeks to be delivered, so I actually forgot it was coming. The excitement I felt when I opened the parcel and pulled this out was sadly, though, quickly overtaken by mild confusion and disappointment.

All of Sufjan's earlier material, some of which I have previously reviewed is a blend of prog and folk in almost equal measure, and that sound is what defines Sufjan as an artist. This album, however, is electronic. Sometimes start to use little electronic sounds as they can afford cool hardware that they couldn't before; Sufjan hasn't done that. The vocals are similar to previous material (but with layers of added effects), and there's still a fair amount of brass, strings and woodwind, but nearly all that would have been piano, guitar or drums in previous albums has been replaced by synths. Lots and lots of synths.

The first of two redeeming songs (for me) were the penultimate track I Want To Be Well, which is slightly tarnished by uncharacteristic F-word repeated multiple times. The second is the closing track, Impossible Soul, a progressive 25-minute wig-out. Although in keeping with the electronic stuff, the parts of this song (songs within songs, if you will) were considerably better than in the rest of the album, and I liked it. Unfortunately, this track is also tarnished somewhat, this time by a Jason Derulo-esque autotuned-beyond-belief section.

I imagine there was an element of tongue-in-cheek-ness to Sufjan doing what sounds like a remix album of songs we'd never heard, but I can't help thinking it was a step a little two far outside the box. If you want some Sufjan Stevens to listen to, get Illinoise or Michigan or Seven Swans. Or feel free to totally ignore me, I'm not an authority on anything.

My rating: 2.8/5 (sorry Sufjan)

j.r.

Sunday CD Project 13/03/11

Sorry about last week. The postal service at uni is rubbish. This is last week's CD. This week's hasn't arrived yet, so it will be next week's. Anyway, here we go:

Imogen Heap - iMEGAPHONE

This is the Imogen Heap album no-one's heard about. It's not only before 2005's Goodnight And Go, but is actually the precursor to the critically acclaimed 2002 Frou Frou album Details. iMEGAPHONE isn't the same Imogen Heap we know now: it's still clearly her voice, albeit a less-refined younger version, but the music itself is far more exposed than her later albums, especially Ellipse. I don't mean this in a bad way, though! This openness gives the album a dark, moody, raw edge to her pop sound, as if Imogen wasn't sure wasn't sure which direction to take the record.

As a 20-year-old writer, a lack of definite direction is understandable, and although it leads to to some tracks perhaps not fitting in with their neighbours, it doesn't make any of the tracks less good, and leads to some pretty angsty lyrics. A prime example of this is in 'Oh Me, Oh My' when she screams "Oh God, are you out there?!" at the top of her lungs, before contrasting it (in true Imogen Heap fashion) with the lyrics ". . . if so, where are you hiding? I'm having trouble finding you." Nice. There's a cool gospelly track called 'Candlelight' later on as well, which is probably my favourite on the album.

There you are then. If you're wanting Immy c.2008, stick with Ellipse, but if you want to hear some new-old stuff, check iMEGAPHONE out.

j.r.

p.s. Also, hurrah! for anagrammatic album titles!

What a way to plant a church.

I'm reading Pete Greig's Red Moon Rising at the moment. I'm finding it really hard to find time to actually get to it in amongst all my uni stuff, but every single time I do, there is something that challenges me. Today it was the story of a 22-year-old Kenyan guy who had grown up as a street kid who came to know Jesus, and decided to plant a church. This is how he did it:

He gathered a dozen friend in a room and they prayed non-stop for forty days. The two who didn't have jobs had to cover most of the night shifts by themselves, as well as ferrying the others to their prayer slots in a beaten-up old car. But they did it. They just assumed that this was the way you should plant a church.

They just assumed that this was the way you should plant a church. That blows my mind. All the prayer meetings I've ever been to have been planned out, and tried and tested, and don't get me wrong, they've been fantastic. But the thought that this sort of prayer wasn't some radical idea, but simply the logical 'only way of doing it' is just mind-boggling.

I'll leave you with that.

j.r.

Eyes wide open

"Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."

And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes that he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw hills full

of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

- 2 Kings 6:16-17, NIV (emphasis added by me)

I always forget about that aspect of God's glory. The huge, powerful, awesome aspect that stays hidden from sight 99% of the time.

He is in control.

Sunday CD Project 27/02/11

My, my! It's that time of the week again! I didn't actually buy a CD this week, due to a lot of expensive outgoings (house deposits etc), but fear not, keen reader! Due to that wonderful backlog a few weeks ago, I still have one last CD to review! Here we go:

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - Advance Base Battery Life

Two things about this record:

Firstly, it's not actually and album; it's actually a compilation of various demos and b-sides from the last few years. It still flows amazingly well as an album, which is why I was surprised when I discovered this by reading the liner notes.

Secondly, as the name of the band might suggest, it is not recommended listening for Valentine's Day. Ahem.

There are some more poppy tunes (Lesley Gore On The T.A.M.I. Show), some faux-anthems (The Only Way To Cry - the unexpected highlight of the record for me), and even a tongue-in-cheek hip-hop track (Hot Boyz).

It's nothing ground-breaking, but if you like your slightly moody, lo-fi stuff, definitely worth a listen. On the whole, a very sound record.

In non-Sunday CD Project, but still music-related news, if you ever get the chance to see Ben Folds live in concert, take it! I took a trip up to London last weekend, and honestly, it was one of the best shows I've been to in a long while*. His support act, Kate Miller Heidke is worth checking out as well. Her live album is better than her studio one (she actually has several studio albums, but only one is available in the UK), and it's on Spotify, so go check it out.

j.r.

*That statement is somewhat difficult to categorise, as 65daysofstatic and Ben Folds concerts have a very different vibe, but I hope you get the idea.

The Predictions of Robert Zemeckis

[This post contains plot spoilers for the Back To The Future films; if you haven't seen them, why not? Go and watch them, then come back]

Last night I watched Back To The Future II (and III). Those of you who have seen it will remember that Marty and Doc Brown travel forward to 2015. Seeing as we're not far from that year, I thought I'd look at a few of the things that Zemeckis predicted we'd have, and whether he was right or not.

Welcome to geek central, by the way!

Okay, so let's start with the obvious:

Fashion: Mostly wrong. However, self-tying laces might not be so far off: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38884033/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

Flying cars and hoverboards: No. I wish, but no.

Inflation: At one point, Old Biff takes a taxi to follow the DeLorean out to the sticks. It costs him $170. If the USA is anything like the UK, that prediction wasn't far off really. Well, maybe a little, but frankly, it doesn't sound all that insane, does it?

Video games: This is the one that really spooked me. In the '80s nostalgia bar, two boys manage to power up an old arcade point-and-shoot game. Answering their musings as to how it works, Marty steps in and shows them, getting a perfect round. At this point, the boys turn to him and say "You mean you have to use your hands? That's like a babies' game!" and walk off in disgust. 8-10 years ago, when I first saw the film, I thought 'hah, that's funny, but totally wrong.' Now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the XBOX 360 Kinect. Think about that.

Flat-screen TV: Okay, so they probably filmed it using a projector or green-screen or something, but they had them. The future McFly family aren't that well-off, but still have at least two home cinema systems, which is a bit daft, and Marty Junior split it into 6 channels simultaneously, which is more daft, but not far off.

Communications: Future Marty gets fired from his job, and receives multiple faxes to that effect. Apparently there's a fax machine in every room of the house. The kids have TV and phone built (with caller ID, I might add) into their visors/glasses, but they still use fax. It seems no-one saw the internet coming, nor catching on in the way it did.

Just a few little observations for you to ponder. Leave a comment if you think of anything I missed.

J.R.

Sunday CD Project

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

My policy with new albums is that the first listen has to be uninterrupted end-to-end on decent speakers and as little background noise as possible (I'm a bit pretentious like that). This week's CD arrived on Tuesday, but I didn't get a chance to listen to it in this fashion until Wednesday afternoon. Since then its play count on iTunes is in the region of 7 for the main album, and 11 for the 23-minute ambient faux-symphonic piece on disc 2.

From those numbers, don't expect an unbiased review. Honestly, this is my favourite album of the year so far. Another review I read dubbed it a complete change of direction for Mogwai, but I have to disagree with that a little. For sure, there are more up-tempo tracks than the Scottish post-rockers are prone to (San Pedro and Mexican Grand Prix are prime examples), and the aforementioned 23-minute Music For A Forgotten Future (The Singing Mountain) is uncharacteristically drum-free - not that I'm complaining.

However, it's definitely still Mogwai. The long riffs are still there, the ambient delay noises are still there, and the occasional vocal samples, albeit now with a touch of auto-tune – used properly I might add – give a clear sense of familiarity for those who were expecting a safe bit of Mogwai.

I'm not sure if it's their best album yet, but it's certainly up there, and I'd say one of the most accessible, so if you've never given them a listen, I'd put HWNDBYW up as a good starter.

J.R.