Portishead - Third

I have to say it at once: Portishead fulfill and surpass all expectations, and I can’t describe Third as anything but another masterpiece. But it is different. Definitely Portishead, but at the same time fundamentally different, and something entirely new.

The opening track, “Silence”, has a sound like you’d expect Portishead to sound like after maturing for a decade – maybe a bit more lo-fi, but with the familiar structure of lazy drum patterns along with familiar sounds. But then it is abruptly cut off, as if to make statement that the past ends there.

Going back, I’d say that Dummy was comfortably melancholic, while the self titled follow-up turned a few shades darker with its outcry of frustration. So, how would I define the sound of Third in emotion? Nagging anxiety, unnerving tension, restlessness and that feeling of wanting to crawl out of your own skin. The album never lets really lets you relax – if it isn’t stressing, monotonous beats or discordant semi-industrial sounds it’s sudden changes and interruptions.

“Hunter”, the second track, just lets you get into a comforting mood before an electronic arpeggio abruptly wakes you like a doorbell in the night. “Plastic” stops, starts and twists this way and that. “We Carry On” has a beat like that of some tribal ritual, and along with something like electronic imitations of primitive instruments the beat goes on and on and keeps you waiting for a break that never really comes. The whispering “Small” is broken off by determined, dissonant chords. And then we have the single track “Machine Gun”, like a martial theme out suitable for some dystopian sci-fi, a minimalistic construction of industrial beats carrying Beth’s light voice and, somewhere far in the background, a mellow flute struggling to be heard.

Minimalism is, by the way, a good description of the whole album. There is a lot going on, but the soundscape is open, even vast. It goes with the anxiety-feeling I described, and there’s something quite cold and raw about it. And along all this there is, of course, Beth’s wonderful voice – this time free from the vocal effects so common in the past.

Third is a work of musical art, far from light entertainment. It demands attention, left in the background it will turn into an distraction and lure you in – or force you to turn it off. It is Portishead, and it is something you have never heard before. And it is absolutely brilliant.

Official portishead site | Wikipedia entry
Portishead - Third at amazon.com: Download | CD | Vinyl
Portishead - Third at amazon.co.uk: CD | Vinyl

CommentsTags: album, Music, Portishead, review, Third

May 2, 2008 at 11:34 pm · Filed under Entertainment & Culture, Music

Renaissance

I watched Renaissance last night, which for those who don’t know it is an animation feature co-produced by British, French and Luxembourgian interests. Set in Paris in the year 2054, it plays as a sci-fi noir thriller about a jaded police captain, Barthélémy Karas (viced by Daniel Craig in the English version), on a mission to find the kidnapped Ilona Tasuiev, a researcher for the ubiquitous health and beauty corporation Avalon. With the aid of Ilona’s sister Bislane, he gets further into a mystery with roots reaching back to 2006.

The story might be a bit thin, and not very original, but it’s a solid one and does its job of keeping the film together. The theme is simple but comes with a twist that adds a bit of depth at the end to make it more a little worthwhile.

Now, what really makes Renaissance stand out is the visuals. Its graphic novel style is brilliantly executed. I think it’s as close to bringing the black ink style alive as anyone has come. There’s a minimal use of grays for lighting effects, but otherwise the appearance is very graphic. The result is very vivid, so much that I first thought the characters were live actors animated with some sort of rotoscoping technique, but it appears they are digitally created, with motion capture recorded movements. Even facial expressions work well, and that’s something that often makes the illusion fail. In short, it’s a film that would be worth seeing only for the style. If I get an opportunity to see it in a theater, I would gladly pay the admission just to see how it works that way.

While it was animated for English voices, I was recommended to watch the French version with English subs, and it worked well. Maybe because it is set in Paris, but maybe there’s something else to seeing animation in a language you don’t understand. I’ll watch the English version later.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. If I should rate it, I’d say its an 8/10. There are aspects that aren’t perfect, but the overall experience is great. Maybe it isn’t something for anyone, but that’s true for all films.

And here’s a bit of links and shopping information:
Imdb entry
Official US DVD site
Rennaissance DVD at amazon.com
Rennaissance DVD at amazon.co.uk

CommentsTags: animation, movies, Renaissance, review, sci-fi

September 30, 2007 at 8:49 pm · Filed under Entertainment & Culture, Movies & TV

Cresyn LMX-E630 - great value earphones

I finally got a good reason to buy a pair of new phones, and after seeing a couple of reviews pointing them out as a good value choice I decided to try the rather obscure Cresyn brand.

Lets start by trying to work out the price. I paid 245 Swedish Kronor, which is about $35 US or €27* at today’s exchange rate. The reason I mention that first is that these Cresyn phones don’t sound a bit like it – if I hadn’t known the price, I’d probably guessed it to be at least twice as much. They have that quality of… well, having been designed to really play music well, rather than just make it sound good.

One of my main problems with phones is that I listen to a very wide variety of music, ranging from mellow, acoustic stuff to the upper extremes of metal and hardcore, and I have had trouble to find something that can cope with it all. But these phones handle it all admirably well. Acoustic guitars and crisp voices come out clear but still with warmth, and at the harder end the phones keep the definition even during the most extreme blasts of sound, making the experience no more painful than the bands intended. Simply amazing, especially considering the cost I mentioned.

Another thing I’ve noticed with earphones is that they often need to be cranked up to a certain volume before they sound good, but in a silent room these Cresyns provided a good sound with the volume on my player set to 1. I’m pretty sure most eardrums are grateful of the fact that you only need enough volume to cancel out the background sound. Something that also helps in that area is the design. I suppose they are pretty standard as far as in-ear phones come, with three sizes of silicone rubber tips to ensure that they fit most ear canals, but it works well.

The cord is of the asymmetrical kind that hangs over the wearer’s neck, and the length from the short (left) phone is about 0.5 meters, plus a one meter long extension cord. This is for the black/metal version I got (also available with red “stems”) There’s also a white/silver necklace version that is held together by removable clips so it can be used as a regular cord as well. I also think the clean design looks quite nice, the straight stems might look uncomfortable but they are well out of the way thanks to the shape of the driver housings. Besides the ear tips and extension cord the package also includes a pouch made of neoprene-like material. Not really useful, but more useful than the molded plastic cases that often come with earphones since it’s large enough to also hold your average size flash memory-based music player.

To sum this up, I’ll say that Cresyn LMX-E630 delivers excellent sound at a bargain price. With an exception for bass-hungry club music freaks its rich but balanced sound will probably appeal to most kinds of listeners looking for something in a reasonable price range. After only four years since the launch of the brand Cresyn is still quite obscure, but if they keep the quality at this level they might have a bright future.

*Markets are quite different, so for comparison with some popular products the price is about twice that of a pair of Koss The Plug at the webshop where I bought my phones, and a third less than the iPod in-ear phones at Apple’s Swedish online store.

Comments (2)Tags: Cresyn, ear phones, gadgets, Music, review

November 26, 2006 at 2:38 am · Filed under Computing & techiness

Richard Morgan - Broken Angels

I was quite impressed with Morgan’s debut Altered Carbon – once I got around to reading it – and it didn’t take me long to pick up the follow-up, Broken Angels. And I must say that this second novel about the cynical anti-hero Takeshi Kovacs is about as good as the first. I tried to restrain myself, but I ended up finishing it in three nights anyway. Broken Angels is only loosely connected to Altered Carbon and could be read separately, but I don’t think anyone interested in the genre should miss out on the first.

In Broken Angels we find Kovacs employed in an elite mercenary force fighting in a bloody corporate out on a colony planet. While recovering after a failed strike he is approached by Jan Schneider, a pilot looking for someone to handle the tactical arrangements for an archaeological expedition. Kovacs decides to go along, and after busting the archaeologue Tanya Wardani out of prison camp and getting some corporate backing he assembles a colorful group of soldiers and sets out to explore what could be the most significant Martian artifact uncovered so far.

The Martian connection was mentioned briefly in Altered Carbon – and while you would think that Martians would be quite passé as a sci-fi subject in this century, Morgan still manages to create an interesting “vanished civilization”-scenario. I think it adds some balance to the novel, because no matter how fascinating the complex psyche and ultra-violent rampage of Kovacs might be, it would probably become rather dull quickly without that substance and purpose.

With a strong and complex protagonist, a very well conceived setting and a good yarn, it all adds up to an excellent, “unputdownable” sci-fi thriller. With the two great novels I’ve read so far, Morgan has earned himself a place in my “got to read everything ASAP”-list.

CommentsTags: Altered Carbon, Books, Broken Angels, review, Richard Morgan, sci-fi

August 26, 2006 at 4:46 am · Filed under Books, Entertainment & Culture

China Miéville - Perdido Street Station

Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is an independent scientist in New Crobuzon – a multi-million headed metropolis powered by steam and ruled by corruption – engaged in more or less eccentric research. His lover Lin is an artist of the insectoid kephri race, a taboo relationship kept secret. The both get extraordinary commissions – Lin is hired to capture the hideous likeness of a crime kingpin who has found a taste for her work. Isaac gets a visit from a Garuda, a race of “bird-men”, who has traveled far looking for someone able to restore his ability to fly. Isaac approaches the task with great enthusiasm, and acquires a multitude of flying things for his studies. Among those is a large, sluggish-seeming grub that turns out to be anything but once it emerges from it’s cocoon…

Summarizing the setting of Perdido Street Station is not an easy task. In a perfect world the term fantasy would be sufficient, but since fantasy has come to mean “a story about a youngster from a backwater community who gets involved in something that takes him on a journey where he meets races he only knows from stories (at least one each of “beautiful and wise” and “savage and hideous”) and ultimately saves the whole fairytale/medieval-inspired world from Evil”, I guess it will need a bit more explanation. The setting of New Crobuzon is fascinating. Imagine London from two centuries ago, grown to the size it is today. Then take the technology of the same time, with a bit of thaumaturgy added to put it somewhere beyond regular steampunk, and use the related sciences for a few lengthy discourses. Then top it off with with a good deal of the dystopian corruption, crime and perversions more commonly found in cyberpunk sci-fi, and you’ll have at least a rough estimate of what it looks like.

But there is more to Perdido Street Station than just the rich and imaginative setting. It is a love song to the great melting-pot cities, a foray into the dynamics of cultures co-existing as well as the powers that try to exploit them, a tribute to the free spirit, a story of love and loss, and – when the shit hits the fan – a damned intense horror-thriller.

It is one of the most refreshing works of fantastic fiction I’ve read in a long time, and for a verdict I’ll simply say that I agree with any superlative-filled review excerpts and award nominations you’ll see if you decide to check out Perdido Street Station yourself. Personally I have decided to catch up with China Miéville’s work by getting the follow up, The Scar,at once, and the rest will probably follow soon as well.

Wikipedia entry (China Miéville) | amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

CommentsTags: Books, China Miéville, fantasy, Perdido Street Station, review

August 21, 2006 at 1:15 am · Filed under Books, Entertainment & Culture

9 CDs – 3 hard, 3 mellow and 3 psychedelic

I thought I’d make a little roundup with few mini-reviews of some favorite albums from various regions of my (what I’ve been told) broad music taste. While they come in groups of three, they are not any top lists or anything, just a few albums I thought about at the same time. The mentions got longer than I expected, and at first I thought about splitting it up in a series of posts, but then I thought the mix could be interesting for anyone who drops in searching for something and gets suggestions for something completely different as well. Anyhow, lets start in the the more intense end of the selection, with…

Three hard albums

Vader - Litany
The name Vader might not automatically lead the thoughts to premium grade death metal, but that is exactly what this Polish band has been delivering for two decades – and Litany is a great example. The band’s style is hard but still quite technical – not in the show-off sense, though, it’s just that their performance is so tight. It’s like the whole soundscape has been welded together. Litany weighs in at a modest 26 minutes, but it’s 26 minutes of death metal greatness. If you ask me to name the greatest death metal track ever, it would be “Wings” from this album.

Official site | amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

The Crown - Deathrace King
Another favorite from 2000 is by Swedish The Crown (originally Corwn of Thorns, disbanded in 2004). Not sure if this generally is considered one of their best, but I think Deathrace King takes you on a damned entertaining ride through the areas of thrashy death metal. The sound is a bit more fast-paced than simply crushingly hard, much thanks to Janne Saarenpää’s intense drumming, and while they hail from the region they stay well clear of the typical melodic Swedish West Coast sound. Favorites on the track list are the two final tracks, “Total Satan” and “Killing Star (Superbia Luxuria XXX)”.

Official site | amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

Ministry - Rio Grande Blood
While it is a step away from the two titles listed above, Rio Grande Blood is probably the most metal-influenced album ever produced by Ministry – most likely thanks to Prong guitarist Tommy Victor’s intense riffing. The album is also a continuation of the massive kick in the nuts of the Bush administration, and most everything generally right-winged American, that the previous album was. Tracks I particularly enjoy are the intense outbursts of the title track and the following “Señor Peligro”, “Palestina” and the menacing, doom metal-tanged “Khyber Pass”.

Official site | amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

Three mellow albums

So, after the three albums above I thought I’d leap right over to the other end of the musical spectrum, and it struck me that the next three albums have several things in common: they are all more or less acoustic, and by female artists from Nordic countries. Despite an Italian-sounding name we start in Iceland:

Emiliana Torrini - Fisherman’s Woman
Her international debut Love in the Time of Science (1999) had a relaxed electronic sound, perhaps best mentioned along with Portishead and Björk, but with the following album being released some five years later changes can be expected – and Fisherman’s Woman brings a subdued sound focused on acoustic guitar and that sweet voice, with light background arrangements. It is simple and beautiful – great “soundtrack to thoughts” album, but also full of tracks that have me clicking in the playlist every few minutes so I can listen to them again and again.

Official site | amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

Sophie Zelmani - Sing and Dance
Next is a Swedish singer/songwriter that I started listening to quite recently, and I could have chosen any album for this mention, so I went with what was playing at the moment. She’s another one of those artists that, if they have to be labeled, are best described as acoustic singer/songwriter music. Maybe a bit towards acoustic rock, but still undefinable I think I have developed a bit of an addiction to that kind of music in recent years.

Official site| amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

Ane Brun - A Temporary Dive
While the two women mentioned above have very sweet voices, Ane Brun takes has the one that has enthralled me the most. I saw the video for “My Lover Will Go” late one night, and it didn’t take me many minutes before I decided to go online and order the CD. And it, or one of her other albums, has been on my playlist ever since. The songs are creative and original, but still have a familiar feel the first time you hear them, and the moods range from playful to melancholic, and it is simply beautiful.

Official site| amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

Three psychedelic albums

If the three albums above contain music that is great to think too, the next three are more of the kind that that gets the mind going, in one way of the other. The musical styles vary a bit, but they all share the traits of having plenty psychedelic and surrealistic elements.

My Dying Bride - 34,788%… Complete
34,788%… Complete is problaby My Dying Bride’s most under-estimated album, but I suppose that is what you get if you as a doom metal band lose the violins, turn down the distortion on the guitars and dump a load of electronics on your sound. Personally I enjoyed the the mix of guitars-based passages, psychedelic moments and ambient, dreamy interludes about as much the previous and following albums. “The Whore, the Cook and the Mother”, the twelve minute opening track, is one that can make me feel completely different when I close my eyes and listen intently to it.

Official site| amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

The Tear Garden - To Be an Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide
Featuring Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots and cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy, this project has all it takes to produce great, weird stuff, and it ends up in the form of psychedelic synthpop (according to the wikipedia entry, and I guess that’s a description as good as any, personally I’ve thought of it as “gothic pop”). The sound is rather subdued, often with rather minimalistic and spacious arrangements. And while it probably is pretentious and “emo” to think so, I think To Be an Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide is a great title for an album (and one that speaks for the contents as well).

Official site| amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

The Mars Volta - De-loused in the Comatorium
Along with Ministry probably the most well-known band in this post, but I think The Mars Volta still are worth mentioning. De-loused in the Comatorium is a concept album, describing events experienced during main character Cerpin Taxt’s week-long coma (which he fell into after attempting suicide by morphine overdose). It’s the band’s debut album, and it is probably the best starting point for new listeners as their intricate progressive/experimental rock gets looser, more jam-session styled on the following album (a trend which, I’ve heard, continues on the upcoming release Amputechture)

Official site| amazon.com | amazon.co.uk

I guess that’s it for now. Turned out to be a rather massive post, but it was a fun way of going through a bunch of CDs. Maybe I’ll do another one with books, movies or more music some time in the future.

CommentsTags: Ane Brun, cd, Emiliana Torrini, Ministry, Music, My Dying Bride, review, Sophie Zelmani, The Crown, The Mars Volta, The Tear Garden, Vader

August 8, 2006 at 3:12 am · Filed under Entertainment & Culture, Music

Strapping Young Lad - The New Black

As I mentioned in an aside a while ago I didn’t get around to listening to Strapping Young Lad (I’ll use SYL from now) until very recently, even though I’ve known about them for a decade or so and thought about checking them out every time I heard them being played somewhere. Now I realize that it wasn’t a day too late. It’s pure extreme metal genius. Lots of bands play fast and heavy, but I can’t think of many bands that manage to play so much at such speed – the intricacy and depth really amazes me.

While the early albums were popularly labeled “industrial/death metal”, the two previous releases have been moving towards something I think of as “progressively crazy-assed metal” (I don’t think death metal is appropriate as anything but a speed indicator), and that is a continuing trend with The New Black.

So is it any good? You bet it is! It’s a big, steaming pile of pure brilliance. Alright, after the first spin I was a bit disappointed – or rather surprised – that there is a bit more lighter bits than before. But it didn’t take long until that became a part of the whole because, you know, when Mr. Hoglan steps it up behind those drums you can really feel your gut move. The man is a freaking machine. And the six-string insanity provided by Jed and Devin doesn’t make those downhill rides any smoother. Speaking of Devy, the vocal efforts are broader and include much more actual singing (which shouldn’t be a shocking experience to anyone who has heard any Devin Townsend Band albums).

I won’t start to dissect the tracks of the album, because I simply don’t know how to choose any details to mention, so I’ll wrap it all up by concluding that The New Black is a hyperdense slab of geniality that takes the trademark SYL lunacy and blends it with flavors of metal ranging from old style Black Sabbath-ish heaviness to System of a Down-like stylings and a few bits in black metal minor. Oh, and some big band jazz as well.

What to do next:
Listen to “You Suck” and watch the video for “Wrong Side” at SYL’s MySpace, check out the official website or buy the album at amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

CommentsTags: cd, metal, Music, review, Strapping Young Lad

July 12, 2006 at 1:05 pm · Filed under Entertainment & Culture, Music

Stanislaw Lem - Eden

Stanislaw Lem’s 1959 Eden is time-proof enough to be labeled a sci-fi classic – the details that are outdated are easily overlooked in the shadow of the more philosophical big picture. And even though some descriptions of the inner workings of technology is what haven’t really stood up to time, the applications still feel valid. That said, Eden isn’t a technical sci-fi work, but one about an encounter with an alien world.

After a miscalculation a spaceship crashes onto the planet Eden, and while figuring out how to repair it its six crewmen (who we get to know only by their roles: the Captain, the Engineer, the Chemist, the Doctor, the Cyberneticist and the Physicist) set out to discover the surroundings. Step by step it leads to an encounter with an alien culture that is, well, very alien. They discover an automated factory that appears to be stuck in a loop, encounter strange vehicles and the creatures that they call “Doublers”. As more discoveries about these Doublers are made, questions arise regarding the health of their society.

Written in a way that is elaborate but still not excessively wordy – perhaps “dense” is the correct term – Eden feels like more of a heavy read than its 260 pages hint about. Much of it is dialog, whenever they encounter something new the involved characters debate their finding, but even if they reach an agreement Lem leaves many loose ends for the reader to speculate about. And I think that is the strongest point of Eden, the way in which Lem both creates an alien world, and skillfully uses it to ask questions and stimulate thoughts about how we would perceive something so utterly alien (with a few reflections about how someone utterly alien would perceive our world as well).

All in all, Stanislaw Lem’s Eden is a good novel that is well worth to be remembered – a classic, but still a bit from something I’d mention as “one of the great…”.

Related links:
Stanislaw Lem, Official site and Wikipedia entry
Eden at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

CommentsTags: Books, Eden, review, sci-fi, Stanislaw Lem

July 2, 2006 at 12:55 pm · Filed under Books, Entertainment & Culture

Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon is quite a ride, steaming through a landscape full of well-applied clichés and with enough innovation to make the trip interesting. One cyber-fiction cliché that is missing, though, is that of the young outsider who suddenly finds himself too deep in something – instead we have Takeshi Kovacs, a man who has, so to speak, spent most of his life diving head-first into shit creek. The environment he moves in is one littered with drugs, violence and prostitution – a world where money speaks and those who don’t have any are bent over for those who do. Classic cyberpunk corruption, in short.

Kovacs has been, by way of what we could call “an offer he can’t refuse”, contracted to investigate the death Laurens Bancroft – one of those who have money. The police have written off the case as suicide, but Bancroft himself insists, contrary to the evidence, that he was murdered. Ah, yes – in the the future crafted by Morgan real death only happens if the “cortical stack” in which the mind is digitized is damaged, and men like Bancroft evade even that risk by remote storage. Still, there is a gap since Bancroft’s last back-up, and Kovacs sets out to find seek truth in a web of corruption and vendetta.

In all honesty, Altered Carbon is pretty much raw pulp, but it is well written pulp that, as Peter F. Hamilton blurbs, “hits the floor running and then starts to accelerate”. The first person narrative – you can’t write a detective tale any other way, can you? – is the kind that manages to be graphically vivid while keeping the pace up as an intriguing yarn with plenty of twists is unraveled.

I loved Altered Carbon, and I doubt anyone who is appealed by the concept of cyberpunk and gritty noir blended will be disappointed. I am certainly going to grab the sequels as soon as possible.

Related links:
Altered Carbon at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Official Homepage
Richard Morgan at Wikipedia

CommentsTags: Altered Carbon, Books, review, Richard Morgan, sci-fi

June 28, 2006 at 12:47 pm · Filed under Books, Entertainment & Culture

Tricia Sullivan - Lethe

As mentioned in my post about Maul I also picked up Tricia Sullivan’s 1995 debut novel Lethe at the same time.

Set in 2166, some 80 years after the devastating events known as the Gene Wars, Lethe presents the reader with a quite damaged world. Due to the the harsh climate remaining pure humans are forced to live in protected reservations under the control of the League of New Alchemists – an organization controlled by a small group of disembodied, networked brains known as the Heads.

Jenae Kim is doing research for the League together with the dolphins, with whom she can communicate telepathically after changing to an aquatic form known as Altermode. This research leads Jenae to stumble on a piece of significant information – knowledge which forces Jenae to flee outside the reach the heads.

Meanwhile, Daire Morales passes through an unexplored gateway at the mystercial celestial object dubbed Underkohling. What he finds is an Edenic world, populated by a small colony of human children and adolescents.

While it doesn’t make me want to throw superlatives around me, I must say Lethe is a solid, quite skillfully executed work. The characters are well defined and come through vividly. The story is intriguing and well laid out – using the term fast-paced would be an exaggeration, but it flows on well, with enough surprises to keep the interest up – and the future it is set in is well thought out. To put a label on it, I’d call it a dystopy (though with a glimmer of hope) half-way to hard sci-fi. In short, not much to complain about.

Availability suggests that it is out of print by now, but here are direct links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk for those who want to track down a copy in the Amazon Marketplace.

CommentsTags: Books, Lethe, review, sci-fi, Tricia Sullivan

June 20, 2006 at 6:47 am · Filed under Books, Entertainment & Culture