Tuesday 24 April 2012

A weekend with the Juggalo's

So I came across this video on Urban75, for those who arent aware of the 'Insane Clown Posse' they're some kind of rap rock group from the states who basically spout stuff that means nothing and wear facepaint. As you can probably tell, I'm not a fan, its simply not my cup of tea, however this little video about their fans and their festival I did find quite interesting. The festivals basically consists of painting your face, drinking warm booze, doing drugs and playing with explosives. My favourite has to be the guy who claims he can cook 'Yeah I can make like fucking steak and cheese and fucking hotdogs, and fucking fries and fucking shit', but his Piece D'resistance must be the logic of 'Getting a skinny bitch, so I can fatten her up, and then we can lose weight together, to bond.' I've never heard a more sound logic than that, and I know some right mentallers, I seriously hope they give that guy a cookery show of his own!! Anyway, they feel unified, good on them!!


American Juggalo from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

The video is by Sean Dunne who you can find on facebook here
The website for this video can be found here

Monday 23 April 2012

Bong-Ra: Electronic Explorations mix

So for those of you who like your electronic music downright filthy, if you haven't listened to Bong-Ra, then put simply you haven't lived.

The Electronic Explorations podcasts are run by a dude called Rob Booth, and they showcase different talent in the genre. This is the second Bong-Ra mix I've heard for electronic explorations, and its a full on faceripper. I love it.




You can look up electronic explorations right here, I love them!

Review: Die Antwoord - 'Ten$ion'

If you've not come across Die Antwoord before, you could be in for a shock. They're a pisstake rap group with a dark sinister twist from south africa, and I love them (especially Yo-Landi Fasser), their style is really a mix of zef, rap and rave. Ten$ion is Die Antwoords second album, previously having release $o$ as their debut. Ten$ion moves uses the rave background tracks a lot more than $o$ does, and I think its a stronger album for it. The first tune I think worth mentioning on Ten$ion has to be 'I fink u freeky' (yeah, dont be expecting clever and profound lyrics from Die Antwoord, its not happening), which I think has a awesome 90's feel backing track on it, prime for punching the air along to.



The next track, and probably my favourite on this album has to be 'Baby's on fire', its got some keyboard synths that when played a bit too loud will give you tinnitus for a while, and again some simplistic lyrics, but as ever with Die Antwoord, shout the words along in time, and you'll love it.


If Die Antwoord play London anytime soon, I will definately be going to see them.

From Prague with love.

Just got back from Prague, and have to say I had a lovely few days of it. I'm not going to rabble on, but just wanted to mention some of my highlights, and post a few pictures.

Pros: The architecture is stunning, the beer is good, it seems like a very creative city, transport is cheap, and after a little bit of convincing my close friend convinced me to go to a blacklight theatre (which surprisingly I enjoyed). I also thoroughly enjoyed the modern art museum (Kampa Museum) and musing through tit tat shops looking for small communist trophies to add to my collection.

Cons: The tourists will get on your nerves, especially the groups of young british males on stag do's (to be fair though I didn't see too many), the obviousness in which they try to take the piss with money in the more touristy areas, the czechs seem a little grumpy at first (although the people running the bar in our hotel were great). I will mention that I think you could end up in some quite dodgy areas if you wander off the beaten track, in the park by the main train station there were a couple of people IV'ing openly, but in the interests of balance I can also say I've seen that in London, Barcelona and Krakow, but its quite obvious that they have issues with drug abuse and poverty in the Czech republic.

In short, I'd recomend it to anyone for a short break, there's plenty to see and plenty to do, just be aware that the food isn't brilliant.

Slideshow of my pics from the 5 days below.


Reviews: Clark - 'Iradelphic', The destroyers - 'Hole in the universe'

So just to be clear, I havent had massive chances to listen to both of these albums, but certainly heard enough to form some kind of opinion of them.

Ill start with Iradelphic by Clark. I'd been kept waiting in suspense for this album for a while now, and I knew it was going to have a slightly more mature finished sound to it, but wasn't sure if that was going to be a good thing or not.

At first I have to say I wasn't that stoked, but the album is certainly a grower, and I think it will be one that I listen to for a long time, instead of just loving it hard for a short period of time, and then forgetting all about it.

Most of the tunes are well programmed instrumentals, using a massive variety of diverse sounds. I have to be honest, it doesn't feel like much happens until the 3 pining tracks (numbers 9,10,11) which as far as I'm concerned are absolutely brilliant.

What I would say about this album, is dont listen to it expect it to make you jump up and down with excitement, it wont at first, but the more you listen to more you notice, if you're a fan of electronica, you could certainly do a lot worse than adding this into your collection, but its not a 'dance' album.





Secondly I'm going to move onto The Destroyers (the opposite end of the musical spectrum). After discovering The Destroyers 2 years ago at Shambala, I've loved them and their unique blend of folksy klezmer mashup brought together by something like twelve instramentalists and one nutty irish singer who tells you obscure tales of woe over the music.

I really loved their first album, it was an interesting mix of ideas and certainly caught my imagination, the new album 'Hole in the universe' stays faithful to the style they developed in the first ('Out of Babel'), but adds new elements to it, a first for them is the inclusion of some electric guitar sounds and a female opera singer.

My favourite track on the album is probably 'Red Tape' which talks about some of the difficulties of getting things done in todays political climate, but start to finish this album is a jump up klezmer smash up, and certainly will be bring me musical joy for a while now. If you haven't The Destroyers, go seem them live, they'll be brilliant fun even if the music isn't to your taste. Is the music is to your taste, buy the albums, they're brilliant!