On the Run

"Why do I even try?" she thought as she gulped half a glass of cold kalimotxo, it was her ritual to drink a glass or three after work, usually by a window or in a roof so she could stare at those unfigurable faces and their circus-like nature. As she was lingering on this question she looked down a block through the market tents at a young bum and recognized his unmovable yet chaotic gaze, was it the wrinkles next to his eye? or the angle of his eyebrows? it was as though people burning inside his eyeballs were trying to get out, whatever combination of variables working to make that astonishingly hopeless, slightly resented look was mesmerizing. Not realizing she was being slowly absorbed by it she kept sipping her glass and framing the picture.

The next day, as she arose from the hangover, she strapped up her sword and boots, fetched her parrot-eating lizard and kicked through a couple of rummys lying in the staris of the shabby hostel, escaping from that haunting look she had seen the day before...but she had the choice of being a good-for-nothing pirate, you don't.

Or do you?

Juno Reactor

Shit yeah!

As i'm sure many of you readers already know about, Juno Reactor kicks ass, so this excitement for an old project started in the 90's may seem overflowing, but I live in a goddamn cave people! I choose to find my music by chance in the moment it catches me and usually through not very conventional ways....which has it's pluses and minuses. octopii. This is already starting to sound highly pretentious but i swear i'm not "indie" nor vegan, and I don't like starbucks, my only intention in this parenthesis is to hopefully make you less stupid and robotic so please bear with. Some time ago I decreted that our philosophy and cosmogony reflects itself through very simple and sublte actions, the most noticible ones are our habits, anyway, this is relevant because if you think about humanity and how it behaves as massive entities you will realize it collectively creates a perception of things and at that point you'll have to decide, do you stay within that perception? or do you play around? and I'm not even talking about "listening to different genres" I'm talking about where and how you get your fix. on top of that I personally choose to live in ghost world, the world of the everyday unknown, upublished, unsucssesful because why the hell should you care?

Now to get back to Juno Reactor this is one of those minuses from living in a cave, It took 20 + years and 8 albums untill I found them, however in this immense sea of music I'm just grateful for the fact.

The Mortal Kombat & Cash tour eh? Interesting....

 So basically it's these guys-- >>:

Ben Watkins
Mike McGuire
Stephane Holweck
Jens Waldeback
Taz Alexander
Mabi Thobejane
Michael LaDonga
Simpiwe Marele
Mandala Lande
Greg Ellis
Paul Jackson
Steve Stevens
Sugizo
Squid
Xavier Morell

<<--spearheaded by Ben Watkins playing a steady blend of ethnic and electronic instruments. Some are songs, others atmospheres but to the audiophile they are what captn crunch is to kids...with sugar. It is a prime example of what embracing technology can do, this is music of the future *which is pretty much here*. Musically speaking, it achieves a unity that is so pleasent to hear, how often can you say you heard tribal-drumnbass-blues and liked it? OR how about their specialty, etno-orchestral-techno? yes, these guys are the laser-printed sushi of sushii.

They're so crazy they got a jap chimp and a pregnant dude on tour FULL TIME!

Also they make me wanna eat some buddhas.

They've done countless soundtracks, the most known is probably the Matrix one, other lesser known like Texhnolyze and some video games are in the mix aswell.

0101 out of 5

Discography:

Transmissions

1993

Luciana

Inter-Modo

1994

Beyond The Infinite

Blue Room Released

1995

Labyrinth Metropolis 2004

Bible Of Dreams

Blue Room Released

1997

Shango Tour 2001 Tokyo Selected Data 2006 Gods & Monsters Metropolis 2008

Any day of the week.

Here was a man in the middle of the intersection, cars honking, still zooming by, yelling from their cars and he just stood, standing his ground, watching something other than the disgruntled megalopolis. He watched how that dark haired, pierced face girl walked rythmically throwing her left foot first, her hair ends bouncing at her shoulders. Suddenly, it dawned on him, the reason why, non other than, the reason why. As he pondered about this just enough time to see that goddess turning, he crossed the avenue, and walked by side tent market clusters and restaurants, until he arrived at the cafe, it made sense.
-"house special" he ordered, and now, of all times this is how he found out. He felt that feeling of obviousness when discovering a life-long truth, that humbling stupidity. He gazed at his cup, a mirror. Lit a cigarrete. His first boiling blood love had been his mother, there was no going around that, of course he was infatuated, the most perfect love is felt around mothers but love is only reassuring oneself, a mirror, so in fact whe he stopped seeing himself in his mother there was no option, the perfect love had to end, the first love had to end, a brutal end, for she became the antithesis to everything he stood for. It wasn't brutal because of the words exchanged, even the things that one regrets the minute they come out....they are all besides the point. It was distressing because he had never considered it, visceral because there was nothing he could do, and at the same time, it was all so subtle, that he hadn't realized it 'til now. How difficult is it to get over a person? or a circumstance? his inability to love was caused by this first love broken, but not just broken, broken forever.
-"What an epiphany" he thought, "this discovery is pretty heavy" and so he smiled to himself, feeling as if he had worked all day for his food, as if he had changed but in fact he was still sad, still unable to love and as he sit there in the café watching people walk incessently about their business, drive incessently about their business, a vague feeling of despair began to set in his body. Nothing had happened that day.

Morning Jolt!

Gentlemen by The Afghan Whigs

I came across the Afghan whigs while I was searching for interviews with Jeff Powell [from Artisthousemusic.org] Jeff Powell is a recording engineer and producer based in Memphis, TN. He has worked on sessions for artists from Stevie Ray Vaughn to the Twilight Singers, and has produced more than half a dozen Grammy-nominated or –winning albums for artists like Travis Tritt, BB King and Luther Allison. 

as it turns out Jeff worked as their recording and mixing engineer over at Ardent Studios for the album Gentlemen 

 Gentlemen (1993) is a tricky album, the first time I heard it I didn't think much, in fact I thought it lacked that "sound" any great band has...however, this was because to me it sounded very typical 90's (I will be the first to admit I don't know what that means, I have no fucking clue what to attribute it to but I hear something that is there for Blind Melon, 4 Non Blondes, Cranberries, Blur etc. perhaps a certain reverb used or a mixing technique popular back then, or just the cultural time stamp. If you DO know and are NOT just writting bullshit in a blog please mail me)

Anyway, just a couple of days ago Gentlemen came up in my playlist again and this time the overflowing voice, deep-set basslines and an incredible guitar sound punched me straight in the pucker. Gentlemen is a sentimental Album and, while nothing new is written, the lyrics and the lively execution give it and hold its substance. Apart from the music itself I thought the album sounded a little too compressed but perhaps that's what they were going for.
the line up for the recording is Greg Dulli  (vocals, rhythm guitar), Rick McCollum (lead guitar), John Curley (bass), and Steve Earle (drums). 

3.8 joints out of 5

Yoko Kanno & The Seatbelts

I don't think I have ever found a more versatile collection of soundtrack albums as the Cowboy Bebop OST collection. For those of you not familiar with it, it's an anime directed by Shinichirō Watanabe and written by Keiko Nobumoto. Both whom worked correspondigly as director and writter for Macross Plus (a most badass 4 chapter world of highly sophisticated mecha fighter pilots and a self concious artificial intelligence) Cowboy Bebop  however was a little more on the silly side, as opossed to Macross's dramas. The music however is a display of highly dynamic musicians and recording artist that ends up being a compilation of incredibly well produced songs.

Starting with the original 1998 album Cowboy Bebop, my personal favorite of the series, composer and keyboardist for "The Seatbealts" -Yoko Kanno, paired up with recording engineer Rudy van Gelder (Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane etc.) to make this very jazzy and very blusy record. The result is an assortment of different styles and sounds, traveling from experimental reggea to bebop to just one harmonica blowing some soul (and as Harmonicist myself I can tell you the playing and the sound Gelder gets from them is pure reed porn)

1		Tank !
2		Rush
3		Spokey Dokey
4		Bad Dog No Biscuits
5		Cat Blues
6		Cosmos
7		Space Lion
8		Waltz For Zizi
9		Piano Black
10		Pot City
11		Too Good Too Bad
12		Car 24
13		The Egg And I
14		Felt Tip Pen
15		Rain Featuring – Steve Conte
16		Digging My Potato
17		Memory

.Musicians:

• Bass – Hitoshi Watanabe, Maki Kitada
• Drums – Yasuo Sano
• Flute – Hideyo Takakuwa, Kazuhiro Iwasa, Mika Hayashi
• Guitar – Tsuneo Imahori
• Keyboards, Composed By – Yoko Kanno
• Mastered By – Scott Hull (2)
• Percussion – Ikuo Kakehashi, Mataro Misawa
• Recorded By – Rudy Van Gelder
• Recorded By, Synthesizer – Masashi Yabuhara
• Saxophone – Masato Honda, Osamu Koike, Shigeo Fuchino, Takuo Yamamoto
• Trombone – Junko Yamashiro, Masanori Hirohara, Yoichi Murata
• Trumpet – Kouji Nishimura*, Toshio Araki, Yusuke Hayashi
• Tuba – Kiyoshi Sato
• Voice – Tim Jensen

 

 On to more experimental albums like Vitaminless or Knockin on Heaven's door Future Blues which have more sequences, more play within the mix, more synthesizers. Future Blues has some gems of itself, with more vocals the album is more on the rock side, though it has again, a mix of funk, soul, and even chamber music.

All in all, the entire collection has at least 1 gem per CD and has become a clear standard for me of what a good production can do with skilled musicians and a recording master. I give it 4 out of 5 joints

4 out of 5

DOWNLOAD TORRENT

Or Buy if you can!

Title, Blog's name

Excited as I am about my new blog I just googled it's name only to find grave news, as it turns out the fucking N-stink dudes have a song named "gone", now I shouldn't really have to do this but I will just to be absolutely clear, I like the name Gone! and it was taken from the cure, Galore album (I know it came out in Wild mood swings I just like the G version better). The second thing I learned is that it takes time to get into the search engines.....

Sweden, a study of correlation.

Most of us don't think about Sweden too often, in fact the only time I think about Sweden is when I remember how incredibly fuckable the girls are (and who are we kidding, the swedish are so good looking that even I sneak in a boy or two from time to time) but lately sweden's been reminding me of her existence consistently. It started around september last year with the best selling trilogy from Stieg Larsson Millenium,  a fantastic neo-noir story that is full of grotesque imagery, erotica and cyber espionage.

When I began reading through it a Sweden I had never imagined started gaining life, no longer was it a peaceful, progressive country but quite the opposite. Quickly, Larsson began to show a misogynist, corrupt and inept system of government and the consequences of its attributes.
Being the cynic I am Millenium wasn't enough to depress me entirely so, naturally, I began picking clues Larsson left along the books and came upon the movie LIlja 4-ever, a fictional movie alluding to the sex trafficking and specifically the trade of russian girls in Sweden. 

 

Wholesomely depressing

This movie was incredible, the reality of circumstances in Russia can be felt if ever lived in a third world country and the portrayal of the sadistic human side is just demoralizing. I became a full fledge atheist after watching this movie.
But swedes aren't only about sex trafficking and dark metal, they also dig their vampires! and in what feels like a revival trend of vampirism (and loads of cheapstake iq lowering vampire romances AKA: twilight) they have kept their own, just yesterday I watched the original adaptation of the novel Let the right one in for screen and was surprised to find a very well directed, much refreshing love story between a vampire and a wannabe-serial-killer.

 

Show all
Now if some conclusion can be gathered from these works (and many i didn't mention, such as Lars von Trier's Antichrist)  it would be that swedes  are like dark chocolate truffles. A delightful combination of dark psyche and very fuckable bodies.

Les Caméléons

Les Cameleons are a solid 80's style ska band formed in 1991, predecesor to Mano Negra and the likes. They've got quite a heavy sound altogether and the singer reminds at times of Mala Vita (though MV are much more recent). The guitars are plenty gritty, the metals skillful and colorful, and when the drums come in the snare marks your bloodflow. If you are a Ska lover you will appreciate the liveliness of these cats, they are meant to skank the shit out of a bad day!

Line up

Quentin : Trombone

Jeff : Trombone

Vévé : Bass

Sam : Trompette

Jean-Jean : Vocals

Anthony : Drums

Fred : Guitar

Vincent : Vocals, Guitar

Discography
http://musique.ados.fr/Les-Cameleons/discographie.html

Birth of "Gone!"

Gone!  is born in the inevitable parameters of many of these blogs,wanting to share. Throught identification we reinforce ourselves, our image, our ethos. But even better, Gone! aims to explore, amongst others, the sonic, visual and written medicines that cure this frentic decay, the very visceral feeling of going against time. Sometimes this can mean a collection of songs, or perhaps a prose about this illusory world. In any case I am happy to announce the birth of something i hope brings me more money than sitting drinking my life unwitnessed.