It’s easy to see how newcomers to Jamie Lidell’s soulful radio-friendly pop would be a might bit confused when confronted with his first album Muddlin’ Gear, released on Spymania in 2000. A downright weird collection of frantic sample chip-choppery laced with trademark electronica pops and glitches, Muddlin’ Gear wasn’t so much the showcase of Lidell’s impressive vocal range and talent for good foot-tappin’ tunes but more for showing his finesse and maturity in high-end electronic composition. Multiply, Lidell’s Warp debut five years later, was a more conventional approach in songwriting through which the quirky and sometimes irksome electronic tendencies of his debut album could be heard. His latest release simply titled Jim is a further distillation of Lidell’s vocal influences and every bit as tuneful as Multiply.

The nigh-on complete lack of electronic wizardry makes Jim a sweet and tender affair which somehow seems to transcend motown pastiche and find it’s own niche as a genuinely enthusiastic and unabashedly upbeat record for the summer. Nothing beats putting it on first thing on a sunny Saturday morning with the windows open, it’s absolutely guaranteed to bring a smile to anyone who hears it. This perhaps isn’t a fair comparison but I do wonder sometimes whether in Lidell’s pursuit of breezy pop perfection that he has in some ways created an album reminiscent of anything made by surfin’ strumpet Jack Johnson, albums which can only be listened to during hazy, lazy days. There’s nothing appealing about listening to Jack Johnson during a typical British winter, hearing one of his songs played in a supermarket when it’s cold and raining outside is frankly one of the most depressing experiences you can have.

At the moment Jim has remained on rotation since I snapped it up but the real test will be towards the end of the year, judging by Lidell’s past efforts I’m confident however that it’ll prove to be an excellent pick-me-up rather than a maddening example of some guy crooning about how good his life always is at one particular point in the year.

Rated: 5 out of 7

In addition to whatever current releases I decide to throw down the bob notes on I’ll also be doing retrospective reviews of other stuff that I’ve been getting along with just fine thank you very much. First up is the third album from Isis, the art metal outfit fronted by Hydra Head Records founder Aaron Turner.

Isis – Panopticon

I have a habit of perhaps over-indulging in certain bands if they push all the right buttons at the time of discovery. I’m sure everyone has felt this one way or another about certain music, you know those songs that really speak to you? How like, the music becomes in tune with your soul? Well hippy rubbish aside there are times when it certainly can be frustrating hearing about the latest “scene” band comprised of jumped-up seventeen-year-olds dressed in tight jeans and thinking that there are infinitely better bands out there worthy of attention – bands who are genuinely ahead of the curve, driven by a desire to push the limits of whatever musical constraints have been placed on them as a result of an easy pigeon-hole label.

It’s a wonderful feeling discovering such a band, the pure joy that comes from incessant listening all the while thinking how much these guys got it so right. Isis manage to tick so many boxes of particular elements which I enjoy in music it’s staggering; labyrinthine song structure, sludgy and heavy guitars, sparse use of electronic effects, instrumental focus with infrequent vocals, emphasis on tonality and harmony, deft production with immaculate attention to detail and spacing of the sound stage, unconventional lyrical themes, the emotive use of build-up and release in the song structure, lack of guitar solos…

This pretty much reads like an overall description of Isis’ entire body of work from their album Celestial onwards but it’s Panopticon that somehow takes the top spot. This is the album where the many facets of Isis shine through so brightly that the end product serves as a testament to how affective music can be when all the component parts are so expertly and thoughtfully considered.

Panopticon is expressly concerned with state control through surveillance and through this utilises one of Isis’ key themes of the control tower. Isis have a small palette of themes which are touched upon throughout their workand read like an alternative zodiac; the ocean, the mosquito, the woman, the control tower are perhaps the most prominent of all their themes. The vocals are often buried beneath layers of fuzzy guitars and are either plainly sung with no affectation or delivered in Aaron Turner’s trademark mixture of guttural barks and growls. The post-rock influenced guitars themselves favour long, repetitive note cycles in the same vein as Mogwai but are predominantly much heavier, often using a drop B tuning. Drums and bass offer little in the way of impressive technical flourishes, merely acting as an anchor for the gradual changes in timbre enacted by the other members of the band. Scant use of keyboards here and there embellish already bewitching soft guitar passages, in particular on the opening to “Wills Dissolve”, with stunningly beautiful results. All these things give Panopticon an air of great mystery and reverence, something dark and heavy pulses beneath it’s gorgeous and beguiling exterior.

The opening track “So Did We” kicks off with the band in full flow, guitars on maximum distortion, Turner’s vocals rough and insistent – but this burst of energy subsides just as quickly and soon transforms into a subdued exercise in shifting time signatures and modal guitar play, the track builds over some time before Turner steps up to the microphone once more. Isis have never been one for typical AABA song structures and it’s not unexpected to have a track feature a few lines of cryptic verse sung seemingly from the next room before embarking on a six minute crescendo with a brutal instrumental climax at the end of a piece that stretched for almost ten minutes. Over the course of the album tracks flow into one another, the complete disregard for conventional song structure gives Panopticon this symphonic edge where themes are introduced early on and explored over the course of an hour.

The first few movements of the album “So Did We”, “Backlit” and “In Fiction” follow the wonderful template that Isis have set and then the sparkling electronic effects at the start of “Wills Dissolve” signal a turning point. The mood becomes more introspective and all the more affecting and this continues for the remainder of the record. When the one-note guitar pattern takes over halfway through “Syndic Calls” the focus seems to change to the listener. The first half exposing the themes of the Panopticon and control tower and switch in the second half seems to try and gauge the listener’s reactions to these themes. The album has changed so subtly but it’s an incredibly emotional moment when this happens, the rambling guitar passages are now moments of reflection and bursts of heaviness seem placed as a reward for the listener as opposed to being a tool to emphasise the earlier vocal interjections.

“Altered Course”, Panopticon’‘s only instrumental track continues in this fashion starting with bold, distorted guitars and shifts gradually into a more full-on sound. However the piece maintains this idea of introspection, the surveillance cameras from the central theme are now trained on the listener, and it changes into a heart-breakingly gorgeous piece involving a mantra of soft keyboards, unflinching tom and snare drumming and reverb-soaked ambient washes of guitars. The track dissolves over about five minutes and you’re left with waves of understated pads and guitar effects. The closer “Grinning Mouths” recapitulates the central themes and brings the album to a breathless finish, bringing vocals back into the mix and double-time chugging guitars.

This album is such a bold statement in music, not just in heavy metal circles. Isis absolutely rock when the mood takes them, they’re a band capable of formidable heaviness. The other side to Isis is one of hushed beauty and entrancing musicianship, a side which in my opinion you won’t see a finer example than on Panopticon.

Rated: 7 out of 7

What a crazy past few months. My other project at www.silenceincminor.co.uk is coming along nicely and while we gear up for our run of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe I thought I’d somehow resurrect the beast that is Rate This Day. The content of the site will change slightly and from here on in to plain ol’ music reviews. It’s always been about music for me and the decision was made after I realised that when not reviewing car parks, food or time, the majority of my serious articles were music reviews.

So from here on in it’s all about the tunes and the rock shows here at Rate This Day and to kick things off here’s a review of the new(ish) album from my favourite band, along with a lengthy introduction on the subject of DRM, piracy and my own rabid opinions on the state of modern music.

Rant This Day

I’ve been getting used to the three-year rhythm of Autechre releases. It works out as months of anticipation in the run-up to the inevitable album announcement at the end of the year with the March/April release window seguing nicely into a live tour that’s usually started before the release of the album, each time the UK shows generally falling around the same time frame as the album release itself. My experience this time round was no different until it was announced over the Warp (or it might have been Bleep, I can’t remember) mailing list that the album was to be made available for download on Bleep.com over a full month before the physical release, available as either high quality DRM-free mp3 or FLAC. At the same time a gorgeous special edition that featured a second disc was now available to pre-order.

I’ll be the first to admit as the fervent, long-standing Autechre fan, I jumped at the chance to hear the album in it’s entirety so early on. I diligently purchased the mp3 version at £7 and pre-ordered the £30 special edition having already purchased a £15 ticket for their London show at a car park in Hearn Street a few weeks previous. All in all I’ve spent £52 on the album experience, not just the album itself. I think this is perhaps important to bear in mind because by now Autechre for me have come to embody the perfect music experience when it comes to new music.

I have absolutely no problem in paying that sort of money for a whole experience and I really think there’s something here that says a great deal about the current situation of physical release versus… I don’t know, ethereal release? If the package is good enough, people will pay. The issue I find today is that with current CD prices it’s often the consumer that’s penalised for buying bad music. Downloading music free of charge is such a sticky issue because at the moment there isn’t a viable economic model for it. It’s a burgeoning industry that seems content to make up the rules and regulations as it goes along, slapping Machiavellian DRM on their product and denying consumers their right to enjoy their music in whatever way they see fit. You can’t blame the industry though for these knee-jerk responses to projected lost revenue. They see a down-turn in sales and want to stop the lil’ punks getting their stuff for free, so why not cripple them whatever way they can? Of course they’re going to do it, they’re in the business to make money one way or the other.

A recent controversy surrounding SecuROM technology, a piracy-prevention tool for PC games, has highlighted this. SecuROM works on a similar principle to Steam (a digital content distribution platform for PC games) in regards to anti-piracy measures. Steam works on the basis that you need a connection to the internet to validate the license key that’s bundled with the physical release or you can sign up, purchase and download the game all in the same program. Steam does need to be connected for you to play regardless of whether it’s an off-line single-player or a smack-talking session of twitchy gun play with foul-mouthed children in Counter Strike. Most people seem fine with this although it hasn’t always been plain sailing, the release of Half Life 2 was dogged with problems in product activation, all down to Steam (if memory serves). Recently however the news that Mass Effect for PC and notably Spore, the highly-anticipated new game from Will Wright, the genius behind Sim City, will feature SecuROM technology was met with higher than usual amounts of rage and bitterness from your friendly neighbourhood forum bods. The venom stemmed from the unspeakable notion that companies would somehow want to protect their IP and therefore not lose money. SecuROM requires that the game is activated over the Internet and subsequently checks in to a server somewhere every 10 days to maintain the validation. This is apparently to get round the idea that PC games are purchased and then immediately pirated, a constant polling of the SecuROM component would theoretically invalidate any copy of the game that fails this check. You can apparently still play the game offline but at some point you’d better make sure you get the sucker checked in otherwise the game is locked out. When pressed about the “10 days check-in” it was clarified that it is not a case of checking once on installation and then once ten days after that but checking every ten days. Oh noes!

The response to this news has been swift and characteristically bilious. But really, what would you do as a company? What long-term and mutually beneficial measure should they take that ensures everything is fine in the end and we can get back to picking flowers in the Sunshine Forest to sell at the Appledown Market and be home in time for milk and cookies? It’s never simple on either side and it’s a war that’s only being fought between the record labels cursed with accountants who see a hole in sales which they try to fill and cave-dwelling lesser human beings that don’t see the point in paying for anything (one particular comment that stuck with me was in response to Alan Moore’s disassociation from the V for Vendetta movie on artistic grounds as the creator. Some brazen idiot had the gall to say that Alan Moore shouldn’t complain about bad adaptations because as soon as writers, musicians, artists in general release a piece of work to the public domain it then becomes the property of the public, all creators of such work lose their rights upon release, but that’s a whole different article subject there). On the outskirts, but not necessarily in the minority, are the others who build up a record collection and still download music almost as a way to see if the CD is worth buying in the first place. Downloading and streaming content is very much a viable medium for broadcasting media, US television networks are starting to cotton on to this with such examples as Jon Stewart’s full eight-year run on The Daily Show being made available to watch online, all for free. There is a middle ground with this sort of thing and it’s up to the industry to find it, not the consumer. Ad-supported yet free TV downloads are on the horizon (I hope) and this could extend to films as well. Google seem to have done well with maintaining a “free is free” business model so it can happen. I’m certainly not advocating that we shouldn’t pay for anything at all and that everything should be free because there’s no such thing as true ownership in the hippy sense, that’s not how the world works. Musicians are still people who need to make money at the end of the day. That doesn’t mean that they’re cynically out to make money alone but that they simply need money to continue to pursue their art. It’s their job, their 9 to 5 and frankly I’m fine with paying for Bjork’s latest if it means she can continue being absolutely amazing in every respect, I’m not fine with paying an exorbitant amount for a CD only to find that it’s actually worse than the sound of dogs being nailed to a blackboard.

So it goes without saying that a review of an Autechre record that starts with a diatribe about downloading music has to mention cerebral guitar moppets Radiohead and their “pay what you like” stunt for In Rainbows (an album I don’t particularly rate by the way). I’m not sure what this episode highlighted other than “you get what you pay for”, people complained of snagging poor-quality mp3s when they decided to download the album for free. Now this wasn’t implied on the site but maybe they did hit on something here. A tier-based system of downloading music might be a possible solution. Albums could be downloaded for free if they’re encoded around 64 to 96kbps and the price gets comfortably higher according to quality. Bleep.com currently employ a similar approach that amounts to paying £6.99 for 320kbps variable lame encoded mp3 and £8.99 for FLAC. Other artists have followed suit with their own ideas, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame released something about free music about ghosts, or whatever. Each individual case where a band or artist supposedly pontificate about the current state of play of the music industry is greeted by wavelets of press but on the whole things don’t really seem to be changing as much as they would perhaps like. It seems like each time it happens it’s just a proposed solution that doesn’t really seem to take off or indeed revolutionise the way we think about acquiring and owning music, everyone’s waiting for their turn to say: “What about this? Why don’t we try it this way?”. I can’t help the feeling that this will continue for some time until someone cracks it, although I’m fairly certain as mentioned before that it will have to be the industry that gets the flash of divine inspiration on this one rather than Bono deciding in a year’s time to make the entire U2 back catalogue available for free to download provided you produce evidence that you’ve sold your carbon dioxide-emitting car and donated the funds to various third-world charities; just another possible idea.

To bring it back to the point in regards to Autechre it seems that this too is yet another response to the threat of piracy to the musician. However for the less cynical it could in fact be simply a reward for the true fans. The announcement was made using the newsletter and in my experience this has often been the source of juicy Warp-related goodness several days or sometimes weeks before the announcement makes it to Warp’s front page. Was it genuinely for the fans eager to be the early adopters? Knowing this was it a somewhat cynical attempt to gouge these eager fans into parting with their hard-earned several weeks early? It’s difficult to tell but all things considered it’s a worthy addition to the collection of stories surrounding the downloading issue kick-started by Thom Yorke and the Radio Heads.

Autechre – Quaristice

Quaristice is Autechre’s ninth studio album and as such it’s quite a departure. Gone are the grandiose suites of six to eight minute sounds of a Nord synthesiser and 808 drum machine engaging in mathematical warfare and instead we have a collection of bits and pieces. It’s a collection of off-cuts and out-takes that was supposedly constructed from beats and textures that were lying dormant in the duo’s live equipment used in the previous tour around the release of 2005′s Untilted. It’s a formidable record that feels initially quite disparate and with twenty tracks to it’s name it’s easy to see why.

The album commences innocuously enough with soft pads and stuttering ambience before plunging headlong into the not exactly atypical beat-orientated “The PLC”. This contrast between thoughtful yet slightly washy ambience and plunging rhythmic thunder is essentially the album to a tee but it’s the overall pacing and how easily it flits between the two that makes Quaristice so engaging. It’s been quite some time since the pair have dabbled with beat-less soundscapes (in my my mind the best example of this was “VLetrmx21″ from Garbage EP) and the short vignettes peppered throughout the album serve as interesting way points. The heavily edited rhythmic pieces never quite outstay their welcome with the average track length in the two to four minute range, considerably shorter than their average track length.

Listening to Quaristice is an exercise in music consideration and appreciation. It never seems that tracks are around long enough to warrant a response that goes beyond cocking one’s head to one side and musing thoughtfully on the past few minutes, maybe even stroking a beard or making a “hmm” noise while frowning slightly. The pace is considerable but never breathless, stand-out tracks are much more noticeable as a result. Pieces like “IO”, “rale” and “WNSN” are glorious examples of funked-up booty-shaking electronica that really jumped out but there are plenty more gems buried low in the mix once you’ve given the thing a few listens.

That’s always been the issue with Autechre albums. Initially they’re imposing beasts but over time their reveal their inner beauty and impressive construction. Quaristice is no different, I’ve been listening to it on and off since the release and I’m happy to say that it’s one of their finest albums. It’s quite a bold achievement for them as at times you do have to wonder how many times they can keep putting out records using the same formula. I managed to get hold of the special edition which features a bonus disc of longer cuts of a handful of the more prominent rhythmic tracks from the main disc. This disc is fairly interesting but serves no other real purpose other than to emphasise to the listener that they really were pulling this stuff out of the machines in real time. Hear that? That’s some sucking dolby hiss from some arcane piece of technology, it’s real dammit! Real!

It all adds up to an altogether different Autechre album which is mostly enjoyable as a collection of intriguing moments. Possibly cursed by it’s own breadth and scope Quaristice is less an album in the classic Autechre vein but more a rare insight into the duo’s working habits. Three years on from Untilted and with another three to go before the next one (at a guess) I must admit I’m finding it increasingly difficult to reconcile that this is a full-on Autechre release. Fun, yes. But below the surface it seems almost a lazy record, an officially sanctioned bootleg for the fans. Whether it justifies a fully-fledged release is difficult to say as for me the whole experience was never simply about the CD. I managed to catch the live show on the Tuesday after the album was released, this took place at a seemingly run-down car park in Hearn Street. The show was fantastic and consisted of an hour of thudding electro and hip-hop inspired dance floor devastations, all in almost complete darkness. Autechre’s live sets in recent years have consisted almost entirely of unique material with only a smattering of recognisable moments from the latest record. This is a testament to the band’s keen ear for the application of sound. They approach music in different ways according to the final domain, in this case a live environment calls for more repetition, punchier rhythms and less emphasis on abstract glitch noises.

Quaristice serves as this document for all their live shows over the past few years, punctuated by quiet contemplative moments. I have an inkling that if I had missed their live show and let the gorgeous photo-etched steel special edition slip through my fingers that the single-disc version would have been a bit more of a disappointment.

Rated: 5 out of 7

A new feature to RTD is in the works that allows for lots of smaller reviews in swift succession. Tentatively titled either “Rant This Day” or “Berate This Day” the new feature will allow my esteemed colleagues and I to dish out something the site is lacking at the moment, the dreaded “C” word; namely ‘content’. More details to follow…

Pandas

Pandas. What a marvellous bundle of black and white furry fun they are. The Giant Panda (or ‘Daxiongmao’ to use the Chinese word) has been my favourite animal ever since I saw Chi Chi on the BBC News at the age of 3. The shrieks of joy and delight that emitted from my mouth were enough to make my parents make the very unwise decision of buying me a toy panda (Paddy). Nineteen years later and the collection of stuffed pandas has grown some what to 104, and the collection has expanded to include panda related books, videos, ornaments and novelty panda items. I’ve seen my pandas get married, have panda cubs and also in a world first, discovered the ‘long lost Uncle’ in my toy Panda Kingdom. Yes, the long lost Uncle of my original panda (Paddy) got in touch (via letters in handwriting bearing close resemblance to my Fathers) and travelled across the world in order to make it home for Christmas. Now that’s dedication.
When I was about 11, my Panda research informed me that sadly the Giant Panda was an endangered species and there were only about 1000 left in the wild. Angered and saddened by this information I made the decision there and then that I would adopt every single panda in the world. In my logic this was a do-able task, after all there were only a small amount left in the wild and I wanted to do my dammed hardest to help my furry friends. But in doing this I uncovered something about the Giant Panda. There is a darker side to the lovely, cuddly panda we all know – pandas are not all they appear to be.
I adopted my first panda – Zhu Xiong through the WWF. About a week later the adoption pack arrived which included a certificate, newsletter and photos of my newly acquired Panda. I was joyful, I was happy, I had taken my first step to achieving my dream of adopting every panda in the world. Or so I thought.
The time had come for me to adopt my second panda, and so I went through a different charity to adopt. The same process ensued and about a week after my Father had set up his direct debit – my second adoption pack had arrived. The day that pack arrived was a dark day, it was the day I realized I had been scammed by Pandas. In my hands I held a picture of my adopted panda, except my so called new panda was the same panda that I had adopted previously. I was outraged!! I had been ripped off!Somewhere in the mountains of China, Zhu Xiong would be there, wearing a smoking jacket, chugging away on a cigar living off my (well my Fathers) money. That panda was probably spending my money on nights out with other pandas living the high life – toasting the poor innocent fool that i was with vintage champagne paid for by me.
But alas, whilst I have had my fingers burnt by pandas, I cannot help but love them. No other animal appears in the news in such bizarre stories. My particular favourite was when scientists had decided to show pandas videos of other pandas having sex – ‘panda porn’ – in order to help them to mate. I also recently read that pandas were going to be trained by fighter dogs so they would stand a better chance of survival in the wild. My favourite panda fact is that when marking off their territory, male pandas lie on their backs and do a sort of backwards handstand in order to urinate up a tree (apparently the higher the pee goes determines whose territory it is).
So yes, pandas may be con-artists, they may take money from innocent children, but the entertainment factor they provide for me overrules all of that. I suppose you could call the panda ‘a lovable rogue’.

Cute factor: 7 out of 7
Ability to con small children: 7 out of 7
Overall ability to make those ripped off want to give them a big hug anyway: 7 out of 7

Bang! Bang! Kapow! Peow! Bang! Bang! Bang! Pew! Peow! Pow! Bang! Crash! Bang! Kerblam!Bang! Bang! Boooooom! Bang! Carrot! Baby! Bang! Bang! Bang! Paul Giamatti! Bang! Stab! Stab! Stab! Clive Owen! Bang! Bang! Bang! Crash! Screeeeech! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Monica Bellucci! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Relentless! Bang! Bang! Bang! Kerpow! Director! Michael Davis! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Conspiracy! Bang! Bang! Bang! Intrigue! Crash! Boom! KaPOW! Bang! Bang! Bang! Guns! Bang! Bang! Bang! Lots of guns! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! *click* click* click* click*

*reloads laptop*

Bang! Bang! Car chases! Bang! Bang! Stunts! Kerpow! Bang! Bang! Bang! Ridiculously violent! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Rated: 6 out of 7

As soon as I finished reading The Road, Cormac McCarthy’s bleak analysis of a father/son relationship in the most hostile of all possible environments, I immdediately set to going through all his other work. No Country For Old Men was a brilliant tale of the hardships that come from living in a world going to hell and as is typical of McCarthy stunningly well-written to boot. A writer capable of such astute selections of language, his books are harsh, brutal yet ultimately rewarding. A film adaptation of any of his work needs to be not only faithful to the source but reverent. Halfway through the book I found out that a movie based on No Country For Old Men was coming out soon and that it was under the auspices of the Coen brothers, this made a lot of sense at the time. The premise, our protagonist stumbling upon a case of money from a botched drug deal and coping with the fallout from keeping it, feels very much like an ideal target for the Coens. As it stands No Country For Old Men is one of the finest films I have ever seen and a nigh-on perfect adaptation.

Handled with such love and care the film unfolds at a beautiful pace marked with moments of shocking violence. McCarthy’s ability to shock the reader with sudden bursts of violence is mirrored horrifically in the movie, lengthy dialogue-less sections of heart-stopping suspense are punctuated with loud and almost sickening moments of extreme brutality. Brilliantly staged encounters like these act as way points for the emerging bleak narrative, that the world is not a great place; that time leaves everyone behind eventually and over the years mankind’s virtues are falling by the wayside. This viewpoint is one seen from the character Sheriff Ed Tom Bell’s angle and is wonderfully captured by Tommy Lee Jones. The entire cast for that matter deliver exceptional performances and especially Javier Bardem who is just plain terrifying as the rogue psychopath Anton Chigurh.

I really have nothing bad to say about this film. A piece of work like this, so heartrending in it’s near-perfection, should not be missed or ignored. From the first moments in beautifully shot open country to the powerful and haunting climax there really is not a bad second wasted. Not just a fantastic adaptation worthy of McCarthy’s fans’ attention but a truly great movie and one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

Rated: 7 out of 7

Yeah, it serves two but I didn’t care. I dared to dream and in doing so I tasted a bowl of near perfection. It was bloody lovely I must say and when you consider that all you have to do is just open several packets in a certain order and dole out the contents in one place, this seemingly boring plate of food really comes into it’s own. So it’s easy to use, fine. But what do you get for your money?

A good helping of grated Parmesan, some dressing and a generous handful of croûtons to go with a sumptuous selection of green stuff which I can only assume is a concoction of various types of lettuce. I thought I would have to continue to raid my cupboard or refrigerator in search of other bits and pieces to quell my hunger, such was the filling factor of just a bowl of salad. But I was wrong! I couldn’t have asked for more of this wonderful stuff, it’s just a shame that in eating it I managed to cover my face in dressing due to my stubbornness in not wanting to use a knife to cut the mouthfuls down to size, so happy was I in simply forcing an entire lettuce in my mouth.

After all that I’ve got a weird after-taste. This may be the beer from earlier but then again it may not. This salad has left me full, healthy and slightly confused about what the hell has happened over the past few hours.

Rated: 5 out of 7

Happy New Year, everyone! As a special 2008 treat follow the jump to read a dazed yet heart-felt review of the almighty live experience that is Take That…

I’ve been to quite a few gigs over the years. Not wanting to sound like a 15-year-old who spends too much time reading NME and going to any gig that might have some tenuous connection to ‘New Rave’, a so-called genre of music I so bitterly and vehemently loathe, I’d like to think I’ve seen some fairly interesting and seminal bands. Particular highlights have been Orbital’s final show at Brixton Academy in 2004, Mogwai destroying the Albert Hall in 2006, Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello standing on a bass drum in the mosh pit being supported by yours truly and my good friend Luis and more recently an absolutely life-altering show at Camden’s Roundhouse with Sonic Youth performing their masterpiece ‘Daydream Nation’ in it’s entirety. This isn’t the section where I try and show off my tastes and experiences in music, it’s only to show what direction I’m coming from when approaching the rather deliciously tricky subject of Take That. The direction could only really be described (quite accurately by a friend) as the opposite direction from vicious eclecticism.

Take That are awesome and I’m not in the least bit ashamed to admit that. I’ll put my hand up and proudly say that I am a recent convert to the chapel of Barlow, Owen, Orange and Donald. Their comeback was one that barely registered on my musical radar (what a horrible phrase) but it was only when I saw their live DVD of the Ultimate Tour that it became apparent that these guys are very good at what they do. No, I mean really good. Every part of the production was incredible and so overwhelmingly professional it was a joy to behold. Over the course of the DVD I gradually warmed to them, this bunch of middle-aged guys busting out all these old dance moves and singing songs that I remember from years of Top of the Pops as a kid. Feeling a little sheepish and strangely exhilarated at having just watched a Take That show I couldn’t help thinking about what it would be like to actually be there… I mean, the experience and atmosphere must be absolutely incredible. This was a band that had suicide hotlines set up immediately after they broke up back in 1996. Try as you might it’s simply not possible in the slightest to ignore the impact Take That made on the music business. The general consensus seems to be that the Mancunian boys really were the best and perhaps will never be bettered. Forget Westlife with their string of same cover song after same cover song and Boyzone with their vile syrup-laced balladry featuring the infernal man, Keating.

After ten years the reunion couldn’t have come at a better time. With pop music suffering a chronic identity crisis it was time to get some much-needed fun injected back into it’s wracked and wretched form. All fireworks and celebration then, a blaze of smiles and now-older girls almost unbelieving at this, a most improbable and incredible revelation. They had returned!

Woohoo! *smiley face*

Months of waiting after purchasing tickets for the Beautiful World Tour (at 9am on the day of release, thanks Beth!) and my overall love and deep respect for this band grows. It’s abundantly clear that Take That have brought the shine back to pop music and made it downright likeable again. This continues until eventually November 30th rolls around, hot crikey it was worth the wait. So as a nice break from all this wonderfully entertaining hyperbole here’s a little collection of snaps from the evening…

The gang’s all here, pointing to a plastic flag that cost £2. Nice.

The gates to entrance H. Judging from the way the stressed-looking guy in charge kept pacing up and down, I believe he thought the ‘H’ was for Hades or something. Never have I seen a man so terrified about an impending flood of people, he’s clearly a man to have never worked the festival circuit…

A useful shot of Beth showing how close we kinda were to the stage (somehow).

Not even capacity and yet it’s still a boatload of people. A load of screaming people.

A stern Gary Barlow serenades a captive (screaming) audience with ‘Reach Out’.

Not sure what this one was, might have been Howard singing ‘Beautiful World’

The antics continue on the secondary stage. Afore-mentioned antics include a fabulous disco ball, a rotating light rig and a face-meltingly brilliant rendition of ‘Could It Be Magic’.

Part-way through an impossibly filthy version of Sam Unsted’s personal favourite ‘Give Good Feeling’.

Lots of people putting hands up in the air during the giddy heights of ‘Never Forget’.

The exquisite closing song ‘Pray’ brings the house down and any doubts I had over the £50 ticket cost along with it.

Beth Immediate Post-Show Reaction Shot. I think she enjoyed it somehow.

Anyway.

The show itself was incredible, unbelievable, spectacular and just about any other glowing adjective you can think of. I danced a bit here and there, fine, no problem. In hindsight however I felt that maybe I could have got in the zone a bit more. You know how sometimes you’re at a gig and things just start to make sense through the beer-haze and before you know it you’re jumping around with little or no self-control? That didn’t really happen this time. I was too distracted by everything. There’s so much going on in any given moment that after a while makes for quite a numbing and sobering experience. I don’t mean this is in a derogatory sense, it’s simply an experience the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

The set list was primarily derived from their current album, Beautiful World, and I’ll admit I do prefer the new songs. Tracks like Shine and Reach Out lend themselves well to glorious over-the-top performances and also help cement the band’s revitalised career, they seem to have progressed over their ten-year absence with a considerable amount of care and maturity. All in all a Take That show is a highly recommended experience, I loved almost every second of it even though for most of it I had no idea what was going on.

Rated: 6 out of 7

What?!! What were you people thinking?! Leon for goodness’ sake?!  For the love of all that’s good and pure in the world, have you heard him sing? Absolutely terrible, I mean really awful everyone. I hope you’ve learnt your lesson.

Wow. The X Factor used to be good back in the day, a source of trashy and eminently watchable TV from way back when. The most recent series of X Factor has been reduced to nothing more than a series of oneupmanship bouts centred solely around the judges. So uncomfortable now is the experience, it ceases to be about the contestants at all. This is a damn shame as it’s allowed genuinely talented acts like The Rhyd and Niki to fall by the wayside.

It has to be said, Leon can’t sing. He’s a pale imitation of snot-nosed family-charmer Ray from last year. This man is absolutely nothing on anyone who has gone before,  it mystifies me how the British voting public were so blind (and deaf) to this guy. Awful.

Rated: 0 out of 7