New music thoughts

I’ve recently discovered a fuckton of great music. I’ve not really had time to absorb all of the new stuff yet, but I’m going to write few-sentence-long first impressions of a few new albums I’ve listened to.

Ladytron – Velocifero. This album really grabbed me from the get-go. It has more of an aural punch than Witching Hour did, and is a little more staccato. I think that this was a great direction for them to move in—it complements their style really well. I love the Bulgarian vocalist. She provides a stark counterpoint to the English girl’s also-excellent but more sugary style.

Lanterna – Highways & Lanterna – Sands. These seem to be ambient music with a little more to them. There is a sense of travel, of moving through landscapes, of seeing the horizon move, of seeing the sun rise and set and travel overhead. You can feel the warmth of the light and the cool of the shadows in this music.

Yeasayer – All Hours Cymbals. This is a really cool album. I love Sunrise. The album has a very world music feel to it. I can almost imagine them in a small caravan traveling across a desert, or in a Moroccan-style coastal town.

Electric President – Sleep Well. I love this guy’s work, all of it. This album has a creepy feeling to it. It talks about dreams and nightmares, and the subject matter is very well reflected in the sonic aspect. They do excellent musical builds and bridges

Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. I love Sigur Rós, and seeing them live was a great experience. This album… it’s definitely beautiful. It’s more stripped down and concise than their earlier work. I don’t yet know whether I like it as much as their earlier stuff, although I have faith that I will.

Ellen Allien – Sool. This is a fucking interesting album. It’s extremely minimalist and much more inaccessible than Thrills. I enjoy what it does. It feels like music made by machinery.

A quote from BBC Radio NewsPod

When food prices rise, people in the world’s richest countries complain, but people in the poorest starve.

The segment itself looks at the way that food price rises really cut at the edge of societies, and on efforts from the international community to combat the worst of the effects. For some people, it means the choice between food and school for their children, and when the obvious choice is made (dead kids can’t go to school) it ends up prolonging the cycle of poverty. 

The NewsPod podcast is a favorite of mine. It’s a daily half-hour look at the best of BBC radio news, a nice summary of goings-on around the world. The BBC is one of the best reporting bodies in the world. Its articles are generally well-informed and impartial. I much prefer it to CNN, or any of the US-based commercial news networks, which tend to be more hysteria-prone than the BBC, and often promote stories that grab popular attention rather than ones that are actually important. Paris Hilton, I’m looking at you and your pointless existence; Anna Nicole Smith, I’m looking at your pointless existence and your overblown death.

Anyway, it’s worth listening to. Here’s a link to the iTunes listing for the podcast; subscribe if you want good news.

Fred Phelps is stupid, but you already knew that

Fred Phelps, consummate idiot. Part of me wants to laugh at him—he’s so deluded that he’s almost comical, and he takes himself so seriously I can’t help but find it funny. I almost think that dignifying his whacky commentary by being outraged is giving him more attention that he deserves. I’m sure he’s just another repressed queer in denial, like Haggard and Craig.

Work is going to be odd the next few days

There will be an anime convention. O.o

I will report on any oddness.