Month: November 2015

New Music : November 2015

November is often a strange month for music. It’s not a popular release month, as records released in November are rarely established enough to feature in end of year lists (and in fact some end of year lists have already been published), and as such this list is quite short.

The Rough Trade album of the month was Elaenia by Floating Points. It’s a largely instrumental record which genre-hops a fair bit, but which in some ways reminds me of a vocal-free re-imaging of Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden crossed with something more electronic. It took a couple of listens before I got into it, but now I really like it and it might even make my end of year list.

As might the new Grimes album, which initially sounds like a pop record, but which has a darker underbelly, and contains a vast number of very interesting musical ideas. As does The Miraculous, a record I know nothing about, but which I’ve found myself listening to late at night, when I need something more soothing and less energetic.

Father John Misty’s I Love You, Honeybear is probably one of my favourite records of the year. This month saw the limited release of an acoustic live album featuring seven songs from the album (and one from his previous record). It’s a lot more stripped down musically, but the songs shine through, and it’s interesting to hear them in this slightly different context. It might be hard to find a copy of this record, but I think Rough Trade are including a CD version as a bonus for anyone buying I Love You, Honeybear directly from them.

November also saw the release of Levitation’s “lost” album, Meanwhile Gardens which I bought the lead single for over 20 years ago. I’m not sure what the circumstances are for it being released now, but it’s well worth a listen. As is the new record by The Indelicates, which I’ve only heard twice so far and need to explore further if it’s going to end up meaning as much to me as their previous records.

I also stumbled upon the the debut record by EL VY, featuring Matt Berninger (from The National) on vocals. It sounds a little poppier and more experimental than The National, but would certainly appeal to anyone who can’t wait for their next album (next year, I’m told), and it’s obvious from the first few seconds of the first song who the singer is.

The full list for November is:

Floating Points – Elaenia
Levitation – Meanwhile Gardens
Grimes – Art Angels
EL VY – Return to the Moon
The Indelicates – Elevator Music
Father John Misty – Live at Rough Trade (not on Spotify playlist)
Anna von Hausswolff The Miraculous
Bachar Mar-Khalifé – Ya Balad

Updating Ubuntu

I’ve been using Ubuntu a fair bit over the last few weeks, both at work and at home. I have a number of projects on the go, and I’ve found myself needing to maintain a few different machines (both LTS and current) to run experiments on, and to built live servers and services.

One thing I’m very big on is keeping software up to date, and I thought it was worth sharing the script I use to update my Ubuntu machines (and then to delete anything that is no longer required, like old kernels).

#!/bin/bash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get clean -y
sudo apt-get autoclean -y
sudo apt-get autoremove -y

I create this on each machine (in a file called updateall), move it to /usr/local/bin/ and then make it executable with sudo chmod -X update all. I then run it when I want to update software (or even better, add it as a scheduled job so it runs once a day).

If I end up with many more machines I’ll need to find something more elegant, but for now this will suffice.

Fragments of thought

It’s November, and like a lot of other people I’m attempting to write 50,000 words. At least 40,000 of those are going to be fiction (hopefully more), but I thought it was also worth trying to write down the other things in my head – the things that don’t really belong in a piece of fiction. I have no intention of posting them all here, but I thought a few fragments based on the sort of things I usually write in this blog wouldn’t hurt.

Things I have done this week have involved writing, a small bit of housework, and a few hours in front of the TV (watching Hemlock Grove, a bit of Once Upon a Time and all of Mr. Robot). The latter has some themes that are quite close to what I’m writing, which made me consider stopping what I was working on (I didn’t). I also answered some questions (via email) for a website related to the http://nownownow.com/ movement. I should probably update my /now page to say that answering questions about things like this is generally something I’m willing to do (I love being interviewed).

I’m listening a lot to old Cardiacs records this week. I’ve also found some complete concerts on YouTube which I’m enjoying very much.

My Rough Trade album of the month is Elaenia by Floating Points. I love it, and it sounds a lot better than the description. I like discovering new artists in this way, although I’m a little miffed that the vinyl version won’t arrive until after I’m back at work, and will therefore involve a trip to the post office.

I’m now watching this recording of the Masada String Trio from 1999 – time to catch up on the hundreds of hours of concert footage I’ve downloaded from YouTube over the last few months. The software I use is called youtube-dl (you can get it for Linux or OS X).

One day I’ll get round to writing a blog post about my musical heroes; people I’ll buy/listen to everything they have ever done. Joy Division/New Order, The Cure, British Sea Power, Cardiacs, Red House Painters/SunKil Moon, Jim O’Rourke and John Zorn. Maybe a few others as well, but these will probably have to be the main ones. I suspect this would be a very long piece of writing (10 pages +). I might want to talk about my teenage Felt fixation, and probably throw in a bit of House of Love/Wedding Present related writing as well. I also suspect people will realise exactly how much music I own if I write this post, and also how much some of it is worth (I have New Order and Cardiacs CDs/cassettes that I could sell for above £50 each right now).

Also a post about my vinyl buying experiments, and what you get for your £20 (which varies greatly depending on the artist/record company). Also some of them are a lot less than £20 now which pleases me (I’m waiting for my 1st sub-£10 record purchase in many years to arrive – a re-pressing of Joy Division’s Closer).

I think John Grant wins the “what you get for your £20” competition right now. Double album, CD version included, plus a bonus CD and an insert containing a load of really nice artwork.

Closer arrived, and it’s gorgeous. An exact replica of the 1980 vinyl, with sound from the 2007 remaster. Best of both worlds. Ian Curtis hung himself just after making this record, but listening to it always fills me with hope.

I’m listening to Felt’s The Splendour of Fear. One of the first records I ever bought, and something I love, but would probably never recommend to another human being. Six tracks, four of them instrumentals, clocking in a little over 30 minutes.

I am not sure I’m going to write anything today apart from this. The story I’m writing has hit a brick wall in that I’ve written a whole load of fragments, edited them together into three sections, and now I can see the narrative and chronology starting to form. I’m not sure what else to do though – it’s not clear enough for other people to understand, and so many sections need fleshing out more and rewriting in a more descriptive style. I’ve also got whole chapters that are just dialogue – probably more dialogue than other people write. I think I’ve probably written something that needs to exist in a variety of formats – novel, poem, play, movie, interactive adventure. But I also think it’s not original enough, and that I’ve managed to drag a few things into the chronology that I wasn’t expecting (like the way it’s turned out to be a Grail quest, like everything I write does, it seems).

My process for creating art (of any kind) is largely the same. Improvise fragments, juxtapose the fragments until their context to other fragments gives them meaning, and then take that as a starting point to flesh it out into a finished piece. It’s what I do with music, and writing, and pretty much everything I create. The finished product is just a synthesis of distinct parts that work due to their proximity to other parts. Also known as “there is no perfect chord” (sorry Leonard).

I’m listening to the new Grimes album on Spotify. I’ve read a few reviews of this record, and thought I’d have to actually listen to it as the reviews are really not that helpful (in that no-one can agree whether it’s a good record, whether they like it, what sort of music it’s meant to be). I’ve only listened to it once, but my first impression is that I like it, I’ll listen to it again, and that it’s intelligent pop music that utilises a really varied sonic palate. It’a also on 4AD, who have a habit of never releasing bad records (I may be a little biased as many of my favourite musicians have some sort of link with 4AD). I think the Quietus review does the best job (as it often does), although some of the comments are horrible.

My nownownow.com profile page went live last night. I should get round to writing something about this movement soon, because I think it’s really important.