Sylvian dreams, myPad, and more

This week I want to catch up on some pop listening, some (relatively) different listening, and the curious tale of Benjamin Sniddlegrass....

Music

I downloaded two poppy albums, mainly for my 10-year-old, but also sparked by curiosity.  One was Hurts' 'Happiness', of which I had read several reviews consistently mentioning 1980s synth pop and such-like, which was enough to get me interested.  The album's opening actually 30 seconds actually even sounds like it is going to turn Depeche Mode-y, but after that it was all too bland and sub-Westlifey for me, much too nice and inoffensive to make an impact. Disappointing.

On the other hand, Brandon Flowers' 'Flamingo' is far more promising, even if I was positively predisposed as a mild Killers enthusiast.  To be honest, I don't think I would have known the difference if I were told it was actually a Killers album, and around half the songs are pretty bland, but 'Magdalena' is just magnificent, especially the 'whoaooaa's at the start (see live clip below), and 'Jilted lovers and broken hearts' is another really good song, as is the duet with Jenny Lewis ('Hard enough').  Interestingly, single 'Crossfire' has yet to make any standout impact yet, but all in all a very good album. 



Finally, on a very different set of notes, some random impulse drove me to download a David Sylvain compilation 'Everything and nothing'.  I always loved his voice, and 20 yeyars ago was listening to a lot of Japan, his first band, and 'Ghosts' always sends shivers up my spine.  Since Japan, I had the impression he went very inaccessible and obscure, dabbling in eastern music and lurking in the lands of the odd, but like I said something (perhaps an uncontrollable reaction againt Hurts) drove me to him, and I have been intrigued and overall very impressed with what I have found.  His voice is as good as ever (although I am not sure if his hair is as wonderful as it was in the Japan days), and I will include 'Orpheus' below:



and end with 'Forbidden colours', which I did know from his post-Japan days:



In a way, the line from 'Ghosts' to there is not that long, and I suspect I will be listening to him a lot longer than I, or anyone, will listen to Hurts.

My other favourite recent music-related stories of the last while were:
1. The guy who slowed down some crap by Justin Beiber (whoever the hell he is) 800% and found it sounded like Sigur Ros (hear it here), only to be followed by the guy who speeded up something by Sigur Ros proportionately and found it did not sound like Sigur Ros!
2. The Facebook campaign to have John Cage's 4' 33'' (that length of silence) downloaded enough to make it Christmas number one!  What a simply brilliant idea - dead air on radio for Christmas.  There is an amazing clip of a passionate performance of that track by an orchestra here.

Books

I read 'The fall' by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro pretty quickly - fast and far pulpier than 'The strain', the first in its triology; it was enjoyable and readable but not as impressive as the first.  I have since been working on 'Zeitoun' by Dave Eggars (the incredible true story of a muslim man who rescued several neighbours and others in post-Katrina New Orleans only to be locked up by nervous National Guardsmen as a suspected terrorist), and have just downloaded 'Obama's wars' by Bob Woodward.  I got a bit tired of Woodward's Bush war books, but this is the first Obama administration book I have got and I am looking forward to it.

Movies

Actually, not much to report, except that I did enjoy 'Green Zone' on DVD (except the daft coincidence with someone catching up with the chasing protagonists at the precisely right time and place to make a climactic impact at the very end, which annoyed me a bit).  The main movie-related thing I enjoyed was the follow-up to Mark Kermode's (legendary and brilliant film critic on Simon Mayo's show on BBC radio 5 Live) review podcast where he invented, in a characteristic rant at 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief', a movie called 'Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins' (the theme being 'Harry Potter and the X of Y' clones).  Following this throw-away comment, several highly creative and perhaps slightly mad people have now done trailers which can be found on Youtube!  Three very different versions (again, I stress, for a non-existent movie) appear below, of which my favourite is the one which mixes LOTR, modern-warfare imagery and (of course) 'March of the Penguins' - brilliant!

Technology

Last but not least, biggest story of the last fortnight was the purchase of an iPad (64 gB, wifi+3G), which I have been contemplating for some time but had delayed until iPhone 4.0 fever has subsided a little.  Main conclusion so far is that it is much much better than I had expected, and I expect I will make more use and uses of it than I had expected (which I am glad about, of course, for that bloody price).  It really is much more than a very larege iPhone, and after using it the iPhone really feels tiny and cramped.  It is so easy to web-browse, of course, but many familiar apps have been really beautifully redesigned for the larger screen (my favourite is Calendar, for some reason, and books look as lovely as pixels can make them in Kindle), although the e-mail in portrait annoys me.  I have downloaded a few games apps (shooters) and they are really quite playable (NOVA, for example), and while some iPhone apps look crap blown up, Brushes, Scrabble and others make the stretch quite comfortably.  Initially, the thing seemed a little too precious to haul around casually, but I have bought the official slip cover and that really works for me and makes it fully portable.

Overall, a very very nice piece of gadget heaven, and more on the subject to follow....