Entries tagged with review

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because I need distraction after being kicked in the teeth

Six-Word Reviews of 1,302 SXSW MP3s
via jwz:

"You know, when I listened to all of the 2007 and 2008 SXSW torrents, I thought that was kind of hardcore.

I was wrong.

Paul Ford is hardcore. He listened to all of the 2008 songs, all the way through, and wrote six word reviews of each."

Brilliant reviews, even. Fun, sparkling, delightful reviews like "This guitarist has too many feelings." rated with a well thought out yet amusingly arbitrary rating system gently broken into sections by band name anecdotes, clever charts, perceptive bon mots, and the occasional entertaining short-yet-rewarding paragraph about a particular song/artist/title/genre, like, "ANTHEM: This song by Born in the Flood is inexcusable. Consider: (1) It is called “Anthem,” and it is an anthem. (2) It sounds like Bono and the Edge riding around on Sparklehorses. (3) I can’t understand the lyrics but there’s a crown mentioned. It was heretofore considered impossible for any singer to overcome these cognitive challenges in order to create a distinct and memorable song. And yet this man does exactly that. Or to put it another way: When you were 23 and living alone without many friends and definitely no girlfriends, did you ever jerk off and cry at the same time? This is your song."

In a word, the article was glorious. Even better, thankfully, oh so thankfully, Paul Ford has done it again. Click. Read. Enjoy.

ps. Dan's review, four out of five stars, "It’s difficult, living as an automaton."

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file under: only in october

Video: Inside the LEGO factory.
One of the benefits of having David move in is better access to his obsessive movie collection. One of the downsides of this is some of what's in his obsessive movie collection. (Which he put on the shelf in alphabetical order.) (Before you think I am ragging too much, I would like to point out that I have enough of my own OCD that I had to rearrange his DVD collection because he put it on the bookshelf wrong. I don't care if it's alphabetical, though I'll smirk a bit and wave my hands around and mock him as any good girl should, but, no matter what order, They Should Be Stacked, it saves space. Argh, bargle, why oh why do I even care? Etcetera. Yes, it's silly, but you're not the one living with me, so whatever. Keep reading.)

Anyway. To begin our dirty exploration into his amazing collection of occasionally questionable cinema, we sat down last night and watched Neil Marshall's Werewolf movie, Dog Soldiers with Remi, Karen's very nice secondary, who's been staying with us the last little while, and let me tell you now, it was Not Good. Initial Sex Scene Where Everyone Is Eaten! Gratuitous Dog Killing To Prove Bad-Assery! (Equilibrium, anyone?) Completely Obvious Betrayals Hinged Upon Even More Obvious Plot Twists!

It was, however, completely and utterly everything you might want out of a Werewolves VS. Soldier-boys movie. Neil Marshall brings a fan-boy's love of the genre in a similar, though not quite as amazing, way his Doomsday did for Mad Max.* (I'm still not going to watch Descent anytime soon, though). The monsters were not CG, the improbable foreshadowing remained improbable, (there was no explanatory SCIENCE!!), everyone bonds through bantering which Does Not Suck, and there was satisfactory slavering, a fun death by tree-branch, lots of splattering blood, and an incredible moment of Cow From Above. There were moments where it dragged, mostly near the end where they ran out of people to slaughter, (but remember it's spelled with laughter), and the remaining characters had to get all sensitive yet manly, but even so, it seemed pretty perfect for Hallowe'en. A solid four cheesy pumpkins out of five.

*if you haven't seen Doomsday, you sincerely need to get right on that.

Current Music: socalled - ich bin a border by mayn vayb

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socalled music

I have a new musical obsession.

Socalled.

Brainchild of musician, photographer, magician and writer, Josh Dolgin, they're a Jewish-culture Montreal Jazz-Klezmer Hip-Hop group with shimmering 1920's piano and Romanian/Latin-American percussion.

Seriously.

Their latest single, You are Never Alone, begins with a soft clip, reminiscent of The Avalanches, and drops down into a catchy riff which positively throbs with promise, clearing the way for a theatrical bout of MC story-telling. It all works exceptionally well with the video, a fantastical transformation of Mr. Dolgin into a complicated, high-tech re-imagining of an antique theatre. (You might remember their rough video with (these are the) good old days too).

"Truly these are the good old days where man, woman, and child can all log on the internet and text message each other across their own house, where there is any form of contraceptive from solid, liquid, to gas, we have reached the point of civilization like the Incans reached when they had gold roads and the Egyptians reached when they had, like, magical buildings and secret things, so what you do is you kiss whoever you kiss, grab whoever you grab, because these are truly the good old days and it does not get any better than this. When it does you wake up and then you're dead."

I've had their latest album, Ghettoblaster, on infinite repeat since I found a copy. I can't not. From the clever intro, the sound of someone slotting a cassette into a car tape-deck, to the bonus hidden remix track, it's eclectic, relevant, wickedly smart, funny, and perishingly sexy. It groans and grins, powerfully melodic, full of cultural anthropology, swinging horn solos, splashes of Yiddish rap, layers of juicy, highly literate rhythms, and a willowy, elegantly stretched sense of timing. Even unexpected clips of musicians talking in the studio are beautiful, adding a charming depth of personality and character to moments that might have been weak without them. As a hint, their wikipedia entry states some of their almost inexplicable, modern style as "...drums & bass and other types of folk music."

It's only when you start to really listen do you realize how gracefully strange their punchy melding of cultures really is, how tightly they wove what should have been a vocal sprawl. Every song is really its own mysterious and wonderfully imaginative mood, an entire exploration into genre. Each time I pay attention, another thread of creativity manifests. Banjo, for example, it has banjo? I missed that it's practically glittering with banjo? Yes, apparently, I think, rewinding and playing again. How rare.

BUY THE ALBUM: it's not even $10.
(find them on MySpace)
(the socalled video blog)