The account of a fledgling Glasgow band and their adventures in the kitchen and the studio. Usually updated weekly. All mp3s are released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus license.
So as we all once again attempt the delicate balancing act of not freezing to death whilst also trying to avoid a repeat of the enormous gas bill we built up last year (or maybe that's just me?), here's some stuff I made. Hopefully it'll warm you more than it did me. I'd hug you too if I could, if only because the heat from your body might thaw my icicle bones...
The Ice Maiden Because Craig was talking about sculpture before I headed home for Christmas, and then my brother asked me if I was going to build a snowman. That's all it took...
Tile Massacre SHMUP So the assemblee competition is currently taking place over at TIGSource, and I'm taking part. For the first part I made a bunch of sound effects, and for the second part I'm making this shoot em up thing where you first have to create the level you're going to play through. You can follow my progress here. Here's hoping I actually get it finished before the deadline...
Cold Edit A seasonal edit of a track we did (before we started the blog?) which I called Music Box and Craig probably called something else. The ending's maybe a bit familiar.
Finally, I apologise for the blog's missing background. It's hosted on my own site (if anyone knows a better solution I'm all ears), which just got knocked down from too much traffic (I'll have to wait to see the logs before I can work out why). It'll be back up come the new year.
While I was writing my 2009 albums post, I realised that a lot of the music that really stuck with me wasn't on any album at all (well, these obviously are, but barring Fever Ray I wasn't remotely interested in getting the respective albums). Since my PhD I've been fascinated by music video (for those interested Carol Vernallis' Experiencing Music Video is an incredible book btw - it goes into all sorts detail on how music videos work, and is incredibly inspiring). For me music has always been as much a visual medium as an aural one, and I tend to see music video as the highest form of the medium. I can't stand it when bands/artists don't understand this, and hearing 'it's all about the music'(subtext: it's all about sounding and looking like some shit band who split up before you were born, conforming to some bizarre notion of authenticity. Authenticity kills art) makes me want to torch your house - I hear that as a statement of total artistic and intellectual cowardice.
Anyway, here's a wee list of the videos that moved me this year, together with an attempt to try and explain why.
Beyonce: Single Ladies
As per usual, Beyonce marries some pretty nasty lyrics to some stunning music (see also Ring the Alarm - Bomb Squad gone R&B with whiny lyrics about how her man doesn't want her. It should have been so much more...). The sheer minimalism of the music is fantastic - it's literally a beat and her voice, with the odd splash of synth - and it's the kind of thing you only seem to ever hear in R&B.
There's something deeply strange (and new?) about the video - it feels to me like the point where music video abandons any interest in manufacturing sex appeal and instead pushes through to something else. Beyonce's movements don't really have any relation to the usual motions you'd see in a video like this (all exaggerated strutting (look how independent I am) and pouting come ons). Instead they're more like visual music, an entirely abstract visual language, separated from all the usual signifiers.
I'm not sure I've really explained myself here, but there is clearly something happening in this video. Here's hoping someone follows it up.
Lady GaGa: Paparazzi
Her only good song (I thought Pokerface might be going somewhere until it got to that horrible chorus). Having said that, she's currently light years ahead of anyone else when it comes to pop music's (vital) visual side. This video is a perfect demonstration of that - everything is hyper hyper stylised and executed with such authority. If Beyonce's video felt like the establishment of a new visual language, this feels like a restatement of pop music's best qualities - the longing that's key to so much great pop music, coupled with a complete dedication to the visual.
Shakira: She-Wolf
I think this came after Single Ladies, but it kind of feels like Single Ladies was the logical successor to it. There's a similar focus on distinctly odd movements and body shapes, but Shakira definitely plays up the sex. It's also nowhere near as assured as Beyonce's video - the bit at the end where she's dancing on a rooftop feels awkward and clumsy, like the real world's intruding into pop's fantasy, like Shakira's an actual person as opposed to a Pop Star (okay, so this sounds kind of cool...). Anyway, when I rewrite the world's history according to my own whim, there's going to be a line from She-Wolf to Single Ladies to... something incredible, that marries Lady GaGa's visual flair with the language glimpsed in Single Ladies, with a serious critical understanding of the world we live in (because let's face it, we haven't had that in years and years in the charts, and we desperately need it).
Also, any song that gets to number 1 with lyrics that include a word like lycanthropy is an instant win.
Florence & the Machine: Dog Days
Easily the weakest video here, and compared to the others the visuals are largely uninspired and don't really take any risks. Presumably it was done on a smaller budget than the other videos, but a lack of money isn't any excuse for a lack of imagination. It's a great optimistic pop song, but you've got to wonder what she means - surely if anything, the dog days are only just beginning?
Fever Ray: When I Grow Up
See my albums post. Everything about this video is perfect - the lighting, the setting, the shaman girl, the man watching her. It all just works so well together. It's as if Tarkovsky was reborn in an American(?) suburb and took to making music videos instead of films.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Zero
Not sure this belongs here, but Karen O's dancing in the video is fantastic. It's the way it feels like she's trying to be cool, but her idea of cool is a scene from Fame. There's a wonderful sense of unselfconscious joy to it, it makes me happy...
There's maybe a trend here that they're all female artists (slightly excepting the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and all my albums were made by female artists/bands with female singers. But then, women have always made the best art.
Um, I hope this doesn't come across as me just perving over female pop stars...
We're both going to do a post about our favourite music this year. Here's mine:
This year my tastes seem to have been slightly more indie and mainstream than they have been for a while. I'm not entirely sure why, but it might be (partly) down to me not reading The Wire so much (I still think it's the best music mag out there, but the writing hasn't really grabbed me for a while, not the way it used to). I did like Loops, though it could have done with a few more interesting writers - I found some of the essays (bloody Nick Cave gets everywhere...) a bit tedious.
Fever Ray: Fever Ray
Easily the album that really grabbed me by the throat this year. I'd largely missed The Knife (barring this stunning video), but the above video completely knocked me for six. The lighting, the colours, the suburban shaman girl... It's the album in miniature, the way it takes this everyday setting and turns it into something other, something far stranger and more unexpected and unpredictable. It's music that makes the ordinary strange, with lyrics about dishwasher tablets and foresters in high heels. And like the best music (/art), the more you listen to (/obsess about) it, the more it shapes your perception of the world, the more it shows the everyday banality of life in this culture to be nothing more than an illusion.
The world is far stranger than it appears.
Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna Technically this was released in 2008, but I'm rarely up to date with my listening habits and only got it this year. Anyway, I'm deeply in love with this album and its giddy, ecstatic joy. That bit towards the end of First Communion where it just opens up and races to the finish was the biggest rush of the year for me.
Ideally this is the kind of band I'd like us to be - excited, ecstatic and omnivorous in terms of sound and genre. Sadly I think we tend to be too heavy handed and wed to our guitars though. The only song that comes close to the ideal is Sunshine Starlight (still needs a better name), which is fairly atypical compared to our other stuff.
Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career This is as indie as I get before I have to throw up. There's all sorts of things wrong with this album - the fact it could have been recorded 50 years ago and it would have fit in perfectly, the way it's drenched in so much reverb it sounds like it's covered in honey and syrup and treacle all at the same time, the utter lack of ambition... But French Navy is a stunning, jaw-dropping pop song, which pretty much makes up for it. I'm not exactly happy about it (really this is not the kind of music I should be listening to in 2009) but I have had this album on a lot this year, so I couldn't ignore it here.
Los Campesinos!: We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed This is Kieron Gillen's fault (serves me right for going to youtube to see what he was talking about). See my Camera Obscura comments. While indie though, Los Campesinos! definitely have some ambition and manage to create some interesting sounds despite themselves. And there's a fantastic bitterness strung through their songs - it's great to hear a band like this who recognise this world is a pretty horrible place to live. Bizarrely inconsistent lyrics (quality-wise) - "I've got a fist on fire", really? and:
"I taught myself the only way to vaguely get along in love is to like the other slightly less than you get in return. I keep feeling like I'm being undercut."
...in the same song. Anyway, I think it's their odd combination of bitterness and optimistic(?) music that got me. This is another one that's had a lot of plays despite myself.
Subtle: For Hero: For Fool Way behind the times with this one. Forget Camera Obscura, this (this and Gang Gang Dance) is what music should sound like in 2009 (I'm aware of how depressing it is that neither album was released this year). Doseone is really the only lyricist worth listening to these days. Here's his take on reality shows:
"winner of the only and annual "serious serious gut's competition"... (Sponsored in part by the pain reliever people and heads of music television)
Yes, you and ten other tough guys slit smiles across your then perfectly sturdy stomachs and spread your large intestines boldly out across a coated white poker table.... the starter pistol barked and each contestant commenced to carefully comb their own eager entrails from behind a one-way wall of mirrored eyewear everyone a hopeful breathing heavy sifting through their mortal coil with their finger tips, for the most intimidating lengths of well sculpted and primetime stomach links.
Every so often... in the name of health an executioner capped usher struts about the gut covered table misting everyone's exposed and heaving organs with a modified and fancy water pistol.
As always this years celebrity judges are only of the most incredible persuasion charles bronsons angry and gay only daughter, icecube back from when he was hard and a framed 8x10 of joe namath's kneecaps.
And because you won they stitched up your open abdomen first.
gave you a nice rambo knife, some choice cigarettes and cut you loose in the ozarks.
The question being not if, but when you will kill for your next meal..."
...and the music somehow keeps up with that, a swirling flux of sound that darts off in odd directions and never repeats except in the most unexpected fashion. Also it has the line "desperate times call for step-by-step schematics of the human dive", which to me suggests an entire world. I'm pretty sure I'm going to steal it at some point in the future.
We mostly just re-recorded a couple of Craig's guitar parts, and I softened the attack on the toms and turned the bass up a bit.
Since this was our last meet up before Christmas we made a Nut Roast (which promptly fell apart and became a Nut Mess). Other than its inability to pull itself together, this was easily the best nut roast I've ever had. It was really good.
More... Tumbling Nut Mess with Spiced Parsnip and Apple puree
Nut Mess:
1 carrot - peeled and ribboned using a potato peeler
half a white onion chopped
1 clove garlic
125g mixed chopped nuts
Some parsley and garlic - chopped
Seasoning
half a tablespoon of lemon juice
1 egg, beaten
Puree:
1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
1 granny smith (tart) apple, peeled and chopped
~100ml veg stock
half a tsp each of ground cumin, cinnamon and cayenne pepper
2 tsp runny honey
seasoning
Sweat onion and garlic in oil for a few minutes, add the carrot, cook for a further few minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, give it a good stir and place in a greased loaf tin and put in a 180C oven for 30-45 minutes.
Gently sweat parsnip in oil for a few minutes, then add the apple, cook for a few minutes more, then add the rest of the ingredients apart from the honey. Cooked for ~15 minutes till everything is soft, puree in a blender then return to the pan, place on a low heat and stir in the honey.
To serve, divide the puree between 2 plates, then pile the nut roast on top. Serve with roast tatties and green veg (brussel's sprouts!)
Finally I'll follow up my previous post with a picture of the game I made for Ludum Dare: I'm really pleased with how it turned out, the visuals especially. You can get it here.
(also, despite this being our last meeting of the year(?), there will be some more posts (from both of us!) shortly)
Re-recorded bass part (still not sure it's right).
Softened kick drum attack.
Changed 'face' to 'lips'.
The lyrics are still creepy, but they are going to change (Craig: "they're creepy, but bad creepy..." Which was kind of the point - they're meant to make you uncomfortable. The male gaze is not a positive force in the world. More importantly though, they're also pretty clunky, so; change is coming). Other than that I think this one's pretty much finished.
For food we made a parsnip sage and walnut risotto. It was nice. We followed it with a remarkable happy accident of a cake, which will be known from now on as Burnt Cake. I had done a batch of fairy cakes, but completely forgot to take them out the oven until at least an hour after I should have done. Bizarrely they actually tasted pretty good. Slightly dry, but otherwise completely un-complain-about-able, and with a nice kind of crust. I think I'm going to do it again, this time with some kind of spice(s), whenceforth they will be known as Spiced Burnt Cakes. It's going to be great...
Add the sage, walnuts and rice, together with enough stock to cover the rice. Cook for about 20 mins, adding more stock as needed.
Eat it.
Burnt Cakes
175g self-raising flour
150g caster sugar
150g margarine
3 eggs
1tsp vanilla
Put everything in a bowl, mix until blended.
Divide into 12 fairy cake cases.
Bake for at least 1 hour (probably more) at 160C. They should be brown (not black) when you take them out the oven.
Owen Hatherley recently did another tour of Glasgow, written up here. I love this kind of thing. Also, it got me to take a wander across to the People's Palace, which was most worth it (as you can kind of see from my pictures).
Honestly, do you really have to put cameras everywhere?
This weekend's Ludum Dare by the way, and I'll be taking part. You can follow my progress (or lack of it) here. I already inspired a motivational poster, which is more than I managed in the past two competitions.
Not from my people's palace trip, but this house is actually getting built! I would love to live in something like that. I don't care about all the stairs...
This building is insane. It was a carpet factory! (hmm, I do believe I have exceeded my exclamation quota for the week) It's as if it belongs to an alternate universe where factories were designed as, um, palaces (a quick google suggests most people think this is actually the People's Palace, not the building across from it. You can see why...).
This week we started tidying up the first track for the EP, and it's the first proper song we did together. We re-did one of Craig's guitar parts, lengthened the 2nd verse, and I did some vocals. Get it here:
The lyrics were pretty much the first thing that came out of my mouth and will definitely get revised. It's about the male gaze though, which is why they're kind of creepy.
Food-wise, we had some Chole using this recipe, with some couscous (accidentally made with gravy instead of stock, which is why it looks so solid). It was pretty nice, all told. The chole had a nice heat to it, so I must have used just the right amount of cayenne.
After we had some cake - a Chocolate Clementine Cake of my own invention. I'll stick the recipe below the More... link.
75g orange chocolate (I used Green & Blacks' Mayan Gold), chopped into small chunks
25g? cocoa
50g? margarine
100g? icing sugar
Finely grated rind of 1/2 a clementine
175g icing sugar
Juice of 3? clementines
Some more orange chocolate for grating
Put the margarine, caster sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, grated rind of 1 clementine and chocolate chunks into a bowl, mix until well blended.
Put half the mix into a greased 9" cake tin.
Mix the cocoa into the remaining mixture, put in another greased 9" tin.
Put both tins in the oven at 180C, bake for 25mins or until well risen and a skewer comes out clean.
After both cakes have cooled, make the butter icing for the middle. Cream the 50g(? - I think - judge the amounts yourself) of margarine, then add the 100g(?) of icing sugar and grated clementine rind, mix together.
Spread the butter icing on top of the vanilla cake, taking care to leave space at the edges for the icing to spread, then put the chocolate cake on top.
Make the water icing by mixing the 175g icing sugar with however much clementine juice you need to get the right consistency (fairly thick, not too runny). Spread across the top of the chocolate cake.
Finish by grating some of the remaining chocolate over the top of the cake.
Finally, I made a new game, here's a screenshot: It's called The Future Will Only Be Dystopian If Capitalism Remains Undefeated, and you can get it here. It's pretty clunky and confusing, but I'm at least happy with the visuals.
Because Craig was talking about sculpture before I headed home for Christmas, and then my brother asked me if I was going to build a snowman. That's all it took...
So the assemblee competition is currently taking place over at TIGSource, and I'm taking part. For the first part I made a bunch of sound effects, and for the second part I'm making this shoot em up thing where you first have to create the level you're going to play through. You can follow my progress here. Here's hoping I actually get it finished before the deadline...
