Topical news

Now, I've tried to keep religion out of music so far, but this story in the Guardian recently got my blood boiling. How dare a religious group enact a complete ban on music and go so far as to threaten death to anyone who plays music as being "un-Islamic"?

Music binds and connects us all on a much more fundamental and basic level than religion ever will; stop denying this to people and let it flourish wherever there is an ear to hear it.

Full story at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/mali-militants-declare-war-music

New Scandinavian electronica at Queen of Hoxton

Another review from me in the form of Incidentally Nordic 3, featuring some very nice ladies from Sweden and Norway who make electronic music.

Full review:
http://www.egigs.co.uk/index.php?a=14251

Frost:
http://frostnorway.com/

Good Burger - Good Blog!

I just rediscovered this great, catchy track from Brookes Brothers called Good Burger, available on their self-titled album (which comes full of some excellent drum and bass tracks). It also provides me an excellent seague into promoting another blog I have started up covering burgers reviews, which can be found at the following address:

http://thoroughlyniceburgers.blogspot.co.uk/

Hope to see you there and enjoying pictures and reviews of incredibly tasty hamburgers.

Lanthanum - hip hop grooves and summer sounds

Edge of Soul - Soul Edge on Playstation

"Transcending history and the world, a tale of soul and swords eternally retold"

Another week and another Namco title from the Playstation era - this time it's Soul Edge and the theme Edge of Soul from the Introduction FMV sequence, as above. It works brilliantly in setting the scene of 1on1 battles between characters from different places and goes some way to introducing the cast and explaining their backgrounds. 

Musically however, I found that the track and the way the video was cut was a great way of pumping you up before a match. It's a high BPM rock number with lots of Japanese influences and even a half decent vocal performance thrown in as well. I was never a really good fighting game player, but this title was done with such flair and style that I couldn't ignore it. The customisable weapons, the sidestepping (which Tekken at the time didn't have), the guard mechanics - it was all much deeper to me than the experience I had with Tekken and the speed of some of the rounds reminded me of Battle Area Toshinden. It's no surprise that this game spawned quite so many sequels, although this original has a lot more substance to it I feel.

Given the size of the Playstation disc, there was plenty of space to add additional content on the disc. In fact, the original game only takes up about 30Mb on MAME, so the Playstation version had loads of extra modes, training scenarios, different skins, weapons and even a story mode called Edge Master Mode. The music was also remixed and new versions put in along side the arcade soundtrack, so there is just loads of content there to enjoy. There are plenty of period Japanese-style pieces as well as big-band jazz and electronic numbers and literally something for everyone.

Two for Tuesday - Ether 2012 show reports

I've been a little bit busy of late, with a hectic schedule at work with events at the other side of the country, a strained relationship and other bits and pieces. Life is just never easy, I guess.

Anyway, I've not been so busy that I haven't been able to do some gig blogging and I now have managed to single handedly cover two more events at Ether Festival 2012 for Efestivals, who now have my photos and reviews of Swedish group Iamamiwhoami, who played a big stage show last week, and UK electronic duo Mount Kimbie and their intimate gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall lobby. Clearly the better lighting of the Iamamiwhoami gig resulted in some better photos, but never mind; both were excellent gigs and nice additions to the lineup of acts that have been playing this year.

Iamamiwhoami Review and Photos:

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/ether/2012/photos-review-iamamiwhoami.shtml
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/ether/2012/photos-iamamiwhoami-ether2012-cs.shtml

Mount Kimbie Review and photos 

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/ether/2012/photos-review-mountkimbie.shtml
http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/ether/2012/photos-mountkimbie-ether2012-cs.shtml

Let's Go Away / Rolling Start - Daytona USA

There's something about Daytona USA that means that it remains on the arcade floor (and there's still a single player cabinet left in Namco's arcade in London's South Bank) - maybe it's the fact that you have to sit down to drive it or that the controls feel clunky and solid or that if you're lucky you can find an 8-way cabinet for playing against loads of your friends. This was made during the heyday of Sega's Model 2 arcade system, which were riding high in the popularity stakes whilst the Mega Drive made inroads in the home market. It's fair to say that they knew what they were doing when they put this out on the market.

Apparat Band at Ether

Hot on the heels of Oxjam, I've just had a review of Apparat's band added to EFestivals as part of the Ether season. It feels weird to review without my best mate doing camera work but as the cameraman I asked to help out is so flakey and unreliable, I have also taken to doing photographs.

Full review and photos available at;

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/ether/2012/photos-review-apparat.shtml

Calcium - it'll leave deposits on ya!

Lovely new track from me and some great responses from people on Soundcloud so far. Basically a kind of experiment with rain sounds, reverb and delay in an attempt to create soundscapes. Hope you enjoy and if you like it, let me know by leaving me some feeedback.

Find me on Soundcloud as ever:
http://www.soundcloud.com/southerntrax

Hot Chip & Friends @ Oxjam

Last week, I had the chance to watch Hot Chip and friends consisting of The 2 Bears, Four Tet and Simian Mobile Disco play the Oxfam store in Dalston, East London in order to raise money for the charity by playing an exclusive gig. It was a lot of fun and I got a lot of CDs out of the shop as well.

I did an interview with Hot Chip as well, which was great fun messing around shooting the breeze with Alexis and Owen. It was also the first time I used my iPod to record the interview for later transcribing - in this case, I used Roland's AirRecorder app, although it produced a really quiet recording to work with. Next time I'll angle the iPod properly ;).

In the meantime, the full review with further photos is available at:

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/oxjam/2012-october/review-hotchip.shtml

The interview can be found here:
http://www.egigs.co.uk/index.php?a=14211

Human Traffic - Record Shop Scene

A blast from the past for me and a classic scene from the 90s film Human Traffic; a story of four friends in Cardiff living crap lives who live for the weekend, featuring drinks, drugs, pubs and clubs. Acting as a blueprint for clubbing and also preserving the story of people clubbing in the early 90s, this film is easy on the eyes, funny throughout and  full of great moments, making it instantly quotable. It also features a very young Danny Dyer, Rick Grimes and John Simm (amongst others), who turn up regularly in BBC TV shows and films these days. Given the subject material, Human Traffic carries some amazing records as soundtrack including CJ Bolland, Aphrodite, Ferry Corsten, Fatboy Slim and Death in Vegas.

This scene sees Koop, the smooth talking record shop owner, dealing with his customers (who would turn up at the club later on) with style. The guy who asks if he's got any Jungle in is actually the director of the film, Justin Kerrigan, which makes him one of the best independant directors the UK has see. The T-shirt and use of Stakker alone makes this scenes - enjoy!

More info:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188674/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Traffic