Earth From Space — The Bads
Mellow mellifluous melodies. The Bads are a girl/boy duo from New Zealand; you could call them a guitar-based pop/rock group, or even a “popular beat combo” (as John Peel used to say). But that would just be lazy pigeonholing, so … Continue reading
The Lake — Anna Coddington
Here’s a set of simple, affecting songs, beautifully sung and sympathetically arranged. The overall theme is Love Gone Wrong, the traditional singer-songwriter preoccupation. But Anna Coddington turns it into something that sounds great — “beauty exploding from despair”, to use … Continue reading
Horton Hears a Who!
I had a great time at this big, fun and loud film about a big, fun and loud elephant. The story of Horton and the Whos is one of my 2-year-old son‘s favourite stories, so this was a good choice … Continue reading
Alec Empire and Nitzer Ebb
I was listening to one of the tracks from the new Alec Empire album “The Golden Foretaste of Heaven” the other day. I was loving it but it seemed a bit familiar. The relentless pounding beat; the hypnotic, discordant basslines; … Continue reading
God is Not Great — Christopher Hitchens
Organised religion is a pernicious anachronism that should be abolished, according to Christopher Hitchens. His book is subtitled “How religion poisons everything” in case there was any doubt about his position. Organised religions are pretty much indefensible anyway, but his … Continue reading
Ben Kemp & Uminari / Anna Coddington
Ben Kemp looks like a rugby player, but he has the most delicate falsetto voice and a rather poetic songwriting touch. His band, Uminari, are tight and very cool in a quirky Japanese way, especially the drummer who is so … Continue reading
The Ghost in the Shell
Politics, cyberpunk (pseudo)science, philosophy, big explosions and scantily-clad nubile young women. Sure it’s only a comic, but it still left me as breathless as a frenetic action film. This chunky book looks to be a compilation of several episodes of … Continue reading
Smilebow T-shirt
Rainbows make me smile. Joanne has designed the beautiful “Smilebow” T-shirt, and if enough people vote for it at threadless.com then they just might pick it up and manufacture a print run. Then we’ll be able to wear a Smilebow … Continue reading
I Do (Prète-moi ta Main)
This French comedy, about a man who doesn’t want to get married (don’t read any further if you don’t want to find out what happens) but does anyway, was really quite good. It had a happy ending; it was hilarious, … Continue reading
Perfume
Now this was an excellent adaptation of an unusual novel. Very cinematic and dark and not at all blockbustery. It was about 6 years ago that I read Patrick Suskind’s novel, but I still remember it quite well and the … Continue reading