George Bush sure does like to party, southern-style

George W. Bush enjoys a tune, the day after Hurricane Katrina did it's thang.

Hey, just because tens of thousands of people are currently living under stressful times, that doesn't mean that the President should alter his schedule any. Plus, aren't those people still stuck in New Orleans mostly poor and non-caucasian?

All I Want is a better DVD than this one, Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright
All I Want
[Universal, 2005]

I have to get this bias of mine out of the way right now: I hate singer-songwriters, especially sensitive ones. They piss me off beyond belief. That being said, I do understand the power that they have over most music fans, especially ones who don’t actually listen to anything beyond lyrics.

With All I Want, fans get access to the Wainwright ‘legend’ through interviews with friends and family – some of whom are other contractually-bound musicians like Elton John, Sting, and the Scissor Sisters – home videos from Rufus’s childhood in Montreal, and lots and lots of discussion about sex. Wainwright freely admits to a rabidly licentious sex life, particularly during the period of his life when crystal meth dominated his party life. There’s a lot of talk about Rufus’s music, but we don’t actually get much beyond the occasional album track and 30-second performance clip that serves to tie interviews together.

That last note should prove the direction that this DVD has taken in presenting its subject. All I Want is a biopic and not a performance piece. There is almost the bare minimum of live performances as required on a DVD about a musician. As well, despite the superficially contentious issues that are raised – homosexuality, drug addiction, sexual decadence, and emotionally distant family members – there is absolutely nothing to analyse or dissect, no ‘story-behind-the-story’. With no critical insight, all we are left with is a self-congratulatory group-hug of Universal artists. All I want is a better DVD than this one.

Drive Well, Play Boring

Death Cab For Cutie
Drive Well, Sleep Carefully
[Plexifilm/Sonic Unyon, 2005]

Thanks in part to several well-placed TV gigs and soundtrack appearances, Death Cab have seen their fame rise exponentially since their formation in 1997. Since then, 4 albums and a couple EPs have been released to the rabid consumption of college kids everywhere. As well, the band has followed a pretty relentless international touring schedule. All that work has paid off, as their last full-length Transatlanticism sold well enough to land the band on Atlantic records for their next full-length.

This DVD ably captures the Seattle quartet during their 2004 tour of the States, juxtaposing intimate at-home interviews with live footage. Director Justin Mitchell wisely chose to document the band using a 16-mm Bolex camera, which results in a lush visual artefact of indie music determination. Mitchell’s camerawork is perhaps the strongest point of the disc, and indeed should be essential viewing for anyone wanting to make a documentary interesting.

Fans should note that Death Cab doesn’t really change their songs from show to show, or from album to performance, which doesn’t really lend them to memorable live shows. Not that this point should dissuade anybody from picking up Drive Well, as the DVD does indeed accomplish its purpose. In addition to the doc, 40 minutes of additional performances, interviews, rehearsals, and unreleased songs pad out the extras.

Death Cab prove themselves to be one of the most professional touring bands in music – no drug addictions, no egotrips, no tour-stop girlfriends, no cursing, no fist fights. This positive work ethic does indeed keep the band on track, but will never elevate them from beyond being, well, cute.

Turning Oil into Trees

Last week the U.S. made it clear that it was no longer going to abide by NAFTA. Since the late 1980s, many critics have argued that NAFTA had always been intended as a one-way deal, with the majority of benefits going to American business interests.

The issue at hand is of course Canada’s long-standing complaint concerning the importation duties that United States trade officials imposed on many wood exports. The most recent – which the BC government, who must have a quotient of horror film aficionados on staff ready for every requisite press release, so brilliantly names ‘Lumber IV’, commenced in May of 2002. At the time, it was argued that Canada was illegally subsidizing lumber production. Since then roughly $5 billion in anti-dumping and countervailing tariffs has been collected from the Canadian Forestry Industry.

Canada has made numerous appeals to both the NAFTA legislating body and the World Trade Organization, and so far every single appeal – except, of course, one done by the U.S. in the U.S. – has demonstrated that Canadian lumber is not being dumped at illegal price levels. Each of these legal actions has demonstrated that the States is acting illegally in collecting duties.

So what has changed recently? Well, for starters Canada won another appeal, this time adjudicated by the very cool sounding NAFTA Extraordinary Challenge Committee. U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman’s stated “We are, of course, disappointed with the ECC’s decision, but it will have no impact on the antidumping and countervailing duty orders given the ITC’s November 2004 injury determination. We continue to have concerns about Canadian pricing and forestry practices.”

In my mind, the issue follows a simple supply model. Canada has a lot of space for a lot of trees. Thanks to urban sprawl, industrial growth, and a tenfold higher population, the United States simply cannot compete with Canada on a tree for tree basis. Obviously, any business which has a controlling interest over raw resources will be able to operate more cheaply. Moreover, despite some ecological nightmares that continue to occur in Canadian forestry, the industry up here has more environmental protections in place than do their southern counterparts, largely due to the early realization that the healthy re-growth of forests results in a more profitable industry. The principal issue the U.S. has with Canadian forestry practices is that our Crown land is cheaper than competing tracts of land in the States. This stance ignores the fact that most land in the U.S. is more expensive than in Canada. Again, let me refer you to the tenfold higher population, the smaller country, and the so-called open-market system. Few people live in Northern British Columbia or North-Western Ontario (I don’t meant North Bay, I mean north of Armstrong), and consequently land prices are fairly low in comparison to, say, Washington State.

More importantly than the U.S. reaction – which we should frankly just come to accept as the manner in which they do business – is that of our own government. All of a sudden, the Liberals seem to have a spine in regard to Lumber IV. First they called off trade negotiations for the simple reason that you cannot bargain with people who don’t abide by trade agreements. Furthermore, today Industry Minister David Emerson spoke about efforts to retaliate: “I have a background from my younger days in hockey. When somebody slammed you into the boards with undue force and aggression, you took their number. I think we've got to take their number." So what number is being taken, specifically? Nothing has yet been announced, but Emerson mentioned that Ottawa is seeking to list a number of American exports that will have duties applied “without serious damage to the Canadian economy and, hopefully, with maximum impact in the U.S.”

Sadly, Emerson was quick to rule out the resource with the most pressing potential to the American economy. By imposing exportation duties onto Canadian oil reserves heading for the U.S., as NDP leader Jack Layton had initially proposed, the American population would quickly notice the results at the pumps. This would have a double effect. The duties would cause the average American to begin to think about why the country’s gas prices are so high, and if Canada played the PR game properly, a great deal of pressure could be exerted. Additionally, it would cause many northern U.S. residents to cross the border into Canada to buy gas, much like Canadians were doing in the late 1980s. This would allow gas tourists to see what a nice country it is up here, with all of our pretty trees.

The reasoning behind Canada’s refusal to restrict oil supply to the States is largely provincial, in that the Albertan economy would be “unfairly targeted” (maybe you should tell that sob story to east coasters, oil ranchers…). Realistically speaking however, every country on the planet needs a hell of a lot of oil, and China or India in particular would love to get a piece of Alberta’s black gold. But of course, that means Alberta’s oil industry might have to actually do some work to promote itself, instead of just opening the floodgates to our southern neighbours.

Out of all of this, normal Americans might start to get news reports concerning the vast amounts of oil that are just north of them, and wonder why they can’t get it as cheaply as other nations. As oil supplies continue to restrict towards the end of the decade, Canada’s oil supply could prove to be the biggest bargaining chip that the country has against the We-Set-Our-Own-Rules American government. And anyway, what are they going to do? Invade us to get our oil? Put pressure on Alberta to secede from the country? The U.S. just doesn’t (*cough* Venezuela) ever (*cough* Iraq *cough*) do that sort of thing.





NAFTA ECC ruling on U.S. appeal of previous NAFTA rulings

BC government site concerning the dispute

Montréal, la belle bête

why don't those christians who are crazy learn to read???

I got myself into a little argument the other day. I was sitting outside talking with a friend, and within the confines of our conversation, I said "there's another of those goddamn Hummers" as one passed in front of us. This otherwise intelligent looking young dude comes over to me and asked why I took the "Lord's" name in vain. I responded that I was pissed off that people could pollute the earth with little or no consequence to themselves. That set him off.

"Isn't blasphemy pollution?" he asked.

I agreed that it was, but first of all, I don't believe that there is a god or gods in existence. Second, I asked him why he thought a word had the same power of blasphemy as, say, incest, theft, or murder. Or burning churches or something.

"It's one of the commandments, and we must follow god's law."

I asked if he believed that a god could speak through translation. After all, the "word of God" has come to us from many seperate translations of ancient texts that were lost, recopied, transliterated, mistranslated, or modified to suit the contemporary needs of the translator. Is it not then man's laws that we are talking about? Isn't it vain and overly proud to speak as though one knows "God's" intentions. After all, since this god of the christian tradition is supposed to be beyond human understanding -- hence the need for faith above reason -- then how can a single individual attempt to speak in its stead?

"The word of God is holy," and so he sat down beside us.

Ok, but what is the word of God? I asked. I thought that the word of God is creation, as evidenced by old testament scripture in Genesis. Consequently, to blaspheme is to do damage to creation, as in what the science tells us about the excessive oil consumption demonstrated by the Hummer.

So taking the earth's health in vain is to take the Lord's name in vain, under my reading of Christian doctrine. But hey, I'm no Christian.

"It's pretty clear to me. You can't swear, or it's a sin," he said.

So I asked if it was a greater sin to actually wreck the earth, rather than to utter a few frequencies that under a certain linguistic tradition can mean a reference to god (that my statement actually referred to the christian or any other god is itself questionable, but I don't want to get into semiotics here...). Would a being who had the power to create and destroy all of creation really be worried about a few words???

Scientific evidence tells me that our actions are more important in terms of damaging creation. While I certainly could have used any combination of words to parlay my disgust towards wasteful and ecologically damaging decisions that humans make, I still feel justified in damning the Hummer to a god's fury. After all, we do seem to be messing with the earth's biosphere pretty substantially, and in fact seem to be attempting to usurp the power of god or gods in that respect.

So this pious little Christian said he would pray for my soul, and walked away. In passing I asked if he could pick up a few pop cans that he passed and deposit them in the recycle bin at the end of the street. He ignored me.

Good works, Christian saviour. What would Jesus have done in a similar situation? Jesus would have picked up the fucking cans.

Gotta love superstitions, like how they stop people from actually thinking about things. That's great. Goddamn great, in fact.

Wolf Parade EP

Wolf Parade
EP
(Sub Pop, 2005)

Montreal has seen a fair amount of type in the indie music press, and has quickly come into its own as Canada's musical hotspot (sorry T.O.). Wolf Parade are an M-PQ 4-piece who were given opening slots for Modest Mouse and The Arcade Fire, primarily on the strength of their CBC Radio sessions late last year. This teaser 4-track EP presents two songs from the band's forthcoming full-length, to be released in September, along with two more indie-pop friendly anthems. Opener "Shine A Light" is easily the strongest track, with its upbeat keyboards swirling into each other and a hint of Bowie in the vocal delivery. Keep an eye on these kids.

MP3: Wolf Parade - Shine A Light

The Juan Maclean - Less Than Human

The Juan Maclean
Less Than Human
(DFA/EMI, 2005)

Dance music has come a long way since disco, baby. House music grew over the 1980s to become the dominant form. Certainly, 90s rave culture helped popularize house with mainstream audiences, but DJ-mixCD overkill quickly sapped any creative gestures the genre had achieved to that point. At the same time, those were very fun years for all involved. The faux-electro beats and syncopated house rhythms that permeate Less Than Human indicate that Juan Maclean would agree. Non-cheesy synth stabs and slinky, rolling basslines will keep your ass moving in those tight pants, while subdued live instrumentation and drum programming keeps things interesting for home listening. While not a groundbreaking release, this CD will certainly make fans of Berlin and Detroit techno perk up their ears.

MP3: The Juan MacLean - Shining Skinned Friend

Photophobia 7

Film has traditionally been a tough sell in the city. Until the opening of The Movie Palace on Concession last year, the only venues for rep and avant-garde cinema in the city had been the AGH film series and a few screenings at the (now highly missed) Staircase Café. Adding insult to injury, the major theatre chains in the area have tended to avoid Canadian and foreign films, and even refused to exhibit many of the more interesting higher-profile films coming from America. Cinephiles in Hamilton have been relegated to other theatres in other towns, usually springing for Guelph or Toronto for their fix.

Out of this cinematic void sprung the idea for an outdoor screening festival highlighting short-length work by regional film producers, as well as challenging short work from the rest of the country and elsewhere. With the help of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton Artists Inc., and the Hamilton and Region Arts Council, Chris and Paul Shannon launched Photophobia in 1999. Over the years, Photophobia has grown in both audience numbers and national and international visibility.

This year’s outing is a three day event beginning with an August 8 screening of the fascinating documentary In the Realms of the Unreal at The Movie Palace. This richly textured film examines the phantasmagoric work of legendary outsider artist Henry Darger, a reclusive janitor who over the course of his life produced a fantasy world in painting and text that rivals the works of Blake or Bosch for its hallucinatory shamanism.

The short film and video screenings will be done August 11 at Photophobia’s traditional location, the newly-renovated Irving Zucker Sculpture Garden at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Both the open-air concept and the open-admission (pay what you can) policy should appeal to both die hard Photophobes and casual passers-by equally. Fifteen films were selected among 270 submissions from around the world. Open-air venues for cinema tend to encourage a more relaxed and social atmosphere than the darkly incubating confines of the indoor theatre. As a further and somewhat unconscious endeavour, events like Photophobia serve to demystify the downtown core, which has traditionally been seen as a dangerous and drug-filled place at night. Community events and art-driven activity are among the most reliable factors which could dispel that fear and bring Hamilton residents back to the core from their suburban somnambulism.

This year’s musical element has been expanded to encompass its own night on August 12 at Hamilton Artists Inc. Beginning with a screening of video work at 7 pm, local musicians including Battleship Ethel and Cadillac Bill will then integrate their audio explorations with film and video work presented by a number of south-western Ontario artists who work in collaboration with The Factory, Hamilton’s most prominent video and film collective.

Claire Meldrum, artistic co-ordinator at The Factory and member of the selection committee for this year’s festival, talked about how many of this year’s selections concern themselves with the degree to which humanity has interpollinated itself with technology. “Many of the films express a feeling of disconnection felt by individuals living with the challenges of an increasingly technological society. Some of the artists embrace technology, and others deconstruct or critique, say, the environmental or identity issues that come with living with technology.”

Arguably, film and video work signify the interdependence of humans with technology better than most media forms. Not only is the cinematic process highly dependent on technological developments, which frequently dictate not only aesthetic concerns but thematic ones as well, but the process of consuming media is dependent on the technologies of presentation. Ironically, “people can be more comfortable with new media,” Meldrum admits. “New media is an inherently social phenomenon, and watching is almost “easy”, so you can get away with tougher subjects” than you can in painting or sculpture. “I think the public thinks that it’s about time for new venues for this kind of thing in the city. Media arts are quickly reaching a critical mass in this city. There’s more awareness, more festivals and screenings. And I think that Hamilton has a highly educated and interested audience community which is key to the success of things like [Photophobia].”

Ian Jarvis, one of the Factory’s directors as well as a member of the Photophobia selection committee, agrees, adding that film festivals such as this meet the social needs of local residents. “With Photophobia, we’ve focusing on a diverse selection of films, representing different classes, races, orientations, and ages. All of the films are struggling to come to terms with the alienating aspects of technology. Film and video kind of bridges that gap, using high-tech to get people to meet again” to watch the films.

With declining box-office sales, it seems that the avant-garde community is not alone in trying to get people out of the comfort of their home theatres. “I think more and more people are getting bored with the blockbusters,” Jarvis quips. Fewer and fewer filmgoers are finding satisfaction with the traditional theatrical experience, preferring the couch-and-fridge convenience of home viewing. As well, the formulaic nature of such commercial films tends to downplay any sense of authenticity or connection that an audience may feel toward the film or its subjects. Instead, many commercial films attempt to blind the viewer’s senses and discourage active interpretation with an overpowering sense of awe: big explosions, big melodrama, big dialog. Photophobia is an attempt to encourage a different model for community within film audiences. “We’re trying to shop at home, looking at regional artists and local cultural stuff. And that gives you a personal touch that I feel lacking in most commercial films. I mean, it’s always nicer when someone bakes you cookies than when they bring home a fast-food meal.”

Let the technology of the home-baked Photophobic goods seduce you, beginning at dusk in the open-air of downtown Hamilton.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Sufjan Stevens
Illinois
Asthmatic Kitty, 2005

Multi-instrumentalist Sufjan Stevens has released several albums over the past five years, with each getting better than the last. Much like his last foray into his project to musically document all 50 of the US states – 2003’s Michigan – Stevens’s new CD is a wonder of lush arrangements and complex songwriting. There is a massive outpouring of joy on every track, with positive lyrics and intoxicating melodies that will keep your body moving and your heart singing.

A few minutes into “Come on! Feel the Illinoise”, Sufjan follows a decent keyboard solo with a passionate yet subdued cathartic moment about crying himself to sleep. If you do not feel your pulse with “Chicago” or “Jacksonville”, then maybe it’s time to give up on collecting records. His lyrics – serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Bible studies, and a girl with bone cancer – are infused with a poignancy that, while not entirely poetic, are certainly touching. All this may sound a little too syrupy, but consider the notion that maybe it’s time for indie music to drop the irony it wears on its cuff and join the joyous rebellion against mediocre music fuelled by band egos. Put Illinois on your stereo over breakfast and let the day open before you.

MP3: Sufjan Stevens - Jacksonville

Steve Mazza - Out of Character (inaction figures)

transit gallery, Hamilton ON 07.19 - 08.28

Flying on Fumes: the plan to bring Hamilton into the 1950s

There have been some interesting recent developments in Hamilton's urban development strategy. The city expects a 20% swell in Hamilton’s population by 2030, with most of the new development envisioned to use the land around the airport. In a nod to B-grade sci-fi movies of the early 1950s, the umbrella term for this development is the Aerotropolis. This business technocrat’s nostalgic wet dream will apparently house 150,000 while employing 50,000. Hamilton airport will be the locus for this project, and will serve as the centre of a network of highways that will increase traffic flows between the Buffalo-Niagara region and the GTA.

The impetus for development seems to be the more family-friendly nature of real estate in Hamilton, as well as the city’s central location relative to nearby urban centres. City planners believe that new residents will flock to Hamilton in order to avoid the high cost of living in Toronto and its neighbouring suburbs. This belief is preceded by two other acts of faith: 1. that Hamilton real estate prices will stay low, and 2. that the price of transportation will also stay low.

So what is this about our low real estate costs in Hamilton? It is true that you can purchase a home in Hamilton for about 2/3 what it would cost in Toronto and maybe 4/5 of its cost in Oakville or Mississauga. Yet, these lower costs have everything to do with the fact that Hamilton skilfully avoided the economic boom of the mid to late 1990s that fuelled the real estate markets of those municipalities. Smart development has begun to reverse that trend to some degree. Many analysts have stated that due to extensive condo development, Toronto, for example, has cooled off as a real estate market, and prices for homes in several areas have actually dropped since 2002.

If Hamilton were indeed to become a hotspot for development, doesn’t it follow that housing prices will increase to match the extra money flowing into the city? Furthermore, we should question what increased property values would mean to Hamilton’s many lower-income families. The increase in property values associated with a booming suburban development would likely mean the continued marginalization of the downtown core.

The development requirements associated with sprawl include more infrastructure than just highways – roads and sidewalks, water and sewage, electricity, garbage collection, education, health and law enforcement services, etc. Currently, property taxes remain high downtown despite the relative weakness of the local economy in relation to suburban shopping centres such as the Meadowlands. Subsidies have been maintained to encourage business development in outlying regions of Hamilton. At the same time, the city must realize its operating budget from somewhere, and consequently core residents currently bear a majority of the tax burden.

The second and perhaps more prescient issue to consider in the aerotropolis debate is of course energy consumption. As has been pointed out in much of the local press, the city’s plan for development requires a high degree of cheap and accessible individual transportation. Increasing dependence on automobiles in order to link car corridors to distant jobs while living and shopping in suburban areas, and ultimately make the aerotropolis plan feasible, requires a cheap and increasing supply of fossil fuels. Additionally, the economic locus of the project – the expansion of the airport itself – requires a boom in the airline industry. As for being cheap, anyone can tell you that oil prices are going in only one direction.

What about all this oil talk? Sure, it’s almost de rigour to belittle oil these days, with opinions on oil’s links to war, terror, and economic subservience finding much ink in the press. Many people quickly tire of the discussion. But one thing both sides should be able to agree on is that as a collective, modern countries are exceedingly good at using oil. Better than we have ever been, in fact. We have made the process of extracting and consuming oil so efficient that nearly every human in industrialized countries has access to a decent supply of it whenever they need it (and perhaps more tellingly, even when they don’t). Consequently, we started taking it for granted on the consumer side of things, thus allowing a great deal of waste. Oil producers get rich no matter how much oil is used, and consumers, well, they get to have a socially acceptable substance addiction.

Everyone was winning until that very famous oil crisis of the 1970s, when prices reached a point that rendered cars inaccessible to many North Americans. What was that about anyway? That’s where the concept of peak oil comes into play.

Peak oil refers to the fact that oil production doesn’t "gush" the way that it does in Looney Tunes. Instead, it follows a bell curve, with production starting slowly, quickly accelerating, levelling off, decelerating slowly, then rapidly declining. Naturally, oil is most expensive when you begin or end the process. Peak oil has already occurred in America’s domestic supply: the U.S. was the gold standard for oil production until it peaked at 11 million barrels a day in 1970, and the country has been in rapid decline since, hence its dependence on foreign sources.
Outside of the US Department of Energy, most industry insiders have calculated that the world will reach peak oil production sometime between 2003 (coincidentally enough, that year was the start of the Iraq war) and 2015. From that point onward, there is no way to avoid a vast increase in oil costs.

As a consequence, any process which relies on oil as an energy source is doomed to becoming increasingly and prohibitively expensive. Being the least fuel-efficient form of transportation available to consumers, aeroplanes are simply not the answer to future development. Air travel will likely return to its roots as a hobby for the rich. This is not to suggest that masses of humans will never fly again, just that until we can make flying vehicles using alternative energy sources, reliance on the industry seems to my eyes a logistical nightmare given the world’s declining stocks of oil.

Maybe just for a second I’ll play the devil’s advocate. It is possible to incorporate mass transit into the proposed development plan. Principally, it is now a perfect time for Canada invest in a high-speed rail network in this country. A corridor in southern Ontario would allow commuters to live in Hamilton and work in Windsor, Toronto, or Ottawa without sacrificing the environment to the blight of highways and their resulting air pollution. Canadian companies such as Bombardier could construct the trains and the infrastructure with steel from Hamilton, thus providing some of those proposed 50,000 aerotropolis jobs. Furthermore, to decrease transportation requirements as a whole, it is time to reintegrate work spaces with domestic spaces, which ironically enough is traditionally what city cores have always done. High-density zoning is the key here, so that we do not have to sacrifice our rich local farmlands to treeless suburban driveways and parking lots as suggested by the current aerotropolis plan.

Maybe Aerotropolis really is a nostalgic dream, back to the highway expansions of the 1950s. Let me complete the metaphor. All those little toy spaceships and cars that signify 1950s Americana, well they were made of American metal back then. Their modern counterparts are plastic, manufactured in China, and engineered to be disposable: three characteristics which signal the increased load we have placed upon our oil supplies, and the increased hubris with which urban planners render economic development as a monolithic and unidirectional entity.

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas

Guardian Unlimited published an interesting article in May which you can find here .

Launch a local awareness campaign by screening the film End of Suburbia .

Even old guard oil producers like Chevron are getting serious about peak oil.

off/end the street

she writes in blank spaces

the walk was surreptitious and silent
and I remembered how it was made:
we had always swept past each other
going to work, or in play resting
intangible and ever volatile
we met looking sideways

once in walking we passed a year
our bigness dwarfed the whole street
i realized then that the way you move
gives title to moments of pleasure
i took your hand and pressed it to my days
marking the calendar on my wall in bald faces

on this Monday we were going to your place
it was a tea that had filled a week, promised
and poured with my cup handed
when i smiled you stopped, then
burning drops went over my hand caressing

i sentenced you to life for that transgression

Keith Fullerton Whitman - Multiples

Keith Fullerton Whitman
Multiples
(Kranky, 2005)

Sometimes nothing makes one feel more absolutely modern than a nod to an obscure antiquity. Best known for the post-drum&bass digital cut-ups of his Hrvatski moniker, KFW has saved much of his more challenging work for his namesake releases. Multiples follows some of the drone-based themes of 2002's Playthroughs, and accordingly requires a bit of patience to be properly digested. Track titles such as ‘Stereo Music for Serge Modular Prototype’ belie Whitman’s dogmatically intellectual approach that appeals to the history of electronic music as a thoroughly academic enterprise. By focussing on the compositional particularities of each instrument afforded by digital editing and processing, Whitman brings the textural beauty of his sounds to the fore. Hypnotic and highly evocative.

MP3: Keith Fullerton Whitman - Stereo Music for Yamaha Disklavier Prototype, Electric Guitar and Computer

Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic

Four Tet
Everything Ecstatic
(Domino, 2005)

With turns both electronic and acoustic, Kieran Hebden’s music has garnered the laptop beatmaker an ever-increasing following. His new release Everything Ecstatic does little to disprove to listeners the human touch Hebden brings to electronic music. Singable melodies coming from precious sounding instrumentation is the hallmark of Four Tet’s oeuvre, best evidenced on ‘Smile Around the Face’ by a soul vocal sample sped up to Chipmunk levels. And yet, this album marks a development favouring rhythmic devices over melodic sentiment. Opener ‘Joy’ steals a bassline and kick pattern from 90s-era big beat, while ‘Sun Drums and Soil’ wouldn’t sound out of place on a modern Boredoms record. Bring this one with you to the cottage this summer, and play it during a BBQ so you can distract your friends from the fact that you have surreptitiously and exclusively purchased vegetarian burgers.

MP3: Four Tet - Sun Drums and Soil

Jamie Lidell - Multiply

Jamie Lidell
Multiply
(Warp, 2005)

For a half-decade now, Mr. Lidell has been all over the European genre map, with notable stops in the UK post-rave crooner revival, Berlin techno, and Spanish electro-funk scenes. His beats are usually in line with the roboto-funk digital-crunk common to the Warp Records stable, but past excursions into Soul and Funk gave a hint as to where Lidell planned to take us in 2005.

Multiply is absolutely dripping with the Stax funk sound of the mid to late 1970s. Album opener “You Got Me Up” should easily kick-start your summer party with its rolling, ass-shaking groove. “A Little Bit More” sounds as though Marvin Gaye had dropped by for a session of sexual healing. Motown balladeers will find further engagement with “What Is It This Time”, a track sensual enough even for the most demanding backseat car-grope experience.

Is Jamie Lidell the new Prince? Only the doctor at his VD clinic can tell us for sure...

MP3: Jamie Lidell - Music Will Not Last

regime change

It seems that the new president elect of Iran may have taken part in the 1979 US hostage situation. That is if we are to believe some of the captives who are making the claims. According to the Associated Press, four ex-captives are claiming that upon seeing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the newly-elected president of Iran, on television, they are now convinced of his association with their detainment in 1979.

As a side note, check out how the various news networks are quoting the AP, found in its original form here .

CNN's take

Fox "News"

One such hostage, William Dougherty, said: "You know how [President Bush] said, 'You're either for us or you're for the terrorists.' Well, now the leader of Iran is a terrorist."

Funny. I would have thought that 25 years would dilute the memory a little. More importantly, how could these captives know unless they met Ahmadinejad in a more personable manner than on CNN?

Then there's a statement from one of the other hostages: "...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more like an adviser." So now Ahmadinejad was there in the background, maybe making some popcorn for the boys or something.

Next we'll hear that Ahmadinejad caused the World Trade Centre attacks, and was a key participant in the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Yes, our man Ahmadinejad is a veritable Where's Waldo through recent American history.

I'd like to think that the US is not going to seek regime change everywhere it wishes to impose colonial rule. Calling a foreign leader "evil" and then using his "evilness" to justify an invasion and occupation of the country? Priceless, and a true component of civil democracies.

Then again maybe the whole "we're doing the same thing each time" strategy would have the intended effect of confusing the masses into thinking that such absurd logic as "hey, there's another evil leader" is indeed representative of how international politics is played.

Not only does such simplistic logic undermine any concerted effort at geo-political analysis on the part of the media, but it also ignores any debate about the taking of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

We're learning from the current White House that debate is for pussies. Men of greatness require action. Let hellfire fall from the sky, they say. Evil will be corrected.

So what about those of us who have expanded our notions of good and evil since grade two?

Rock Is.....?

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Toronto Pride 2005

Today was the annual Pride celebration in Toronto. This year was a hell of a lot less hedonistic than in years prior (maybe the 34 degree heat killed off any excess energy that people may have had. One thing that has gone down quite drastically is the extent to which nudity takes over the celebration. In years past, you couldn't look in any direction without seeing a breast or a penis. These days, even in extreme heat, people are keeping their tackle together.

Maybe, just maybe that's a good thing for Toronto Tourism...



















this is what happens when men gather without consequence to female aesthetics...









impressed



not impressed







so what do the elderly think about the liberal changes of late???



You can find the full set of photographs here.