When they remixed You’ve Got the Love by Florence and the Machine some time ago, the XX showed that as well being awfully good at mumbling away over a dreary r and b bassline they have quite the knack for remixes. By the far the best part of the song was this, when they twisted and twiddled with brief snatches of vocals and somehow transformed Florence’s hideous wail into something quite infectious.
NY is Killing me, the first cut from Jamie XX’s (his last name is not really XX, this is just a subtle mind trick to let you know he is in the XX) collaboration with ageing miser Gil Scott-Heron is a similar affair. The bouncing bass is quite nice, Gil’s voice sounds as dark as ever, like a pissed-off, hedonistic cookie monster, but again the whole track is overshadowed by the delicious, woozy clips of vocals dispersed in between.
There has been much controversy regarding the publication of a new edition of Huckleberry Finn in which THE N WORD is replaced by the word “slave” in an attempt to make the novel accessible to young children without imposing irreversible psychological damage on their fragile little minds. This is of course an excellent decision. It’s not like racist terminology is integral to one of the most important anti-racism novels of all time.
I have compiled a list of some other novels that would be improved by removing their explicit content:
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
McCarthy’s harrowing account of a father and son travelling across post-apocalyptic America is grim, depressing, and really quite scary at times. To make it more accessible to schoolchildren it should take place at the beginning of the world instead of the end. As the two protagonists travel across the baron wasteland, new life is born. Flowers sprout from the ground fertilized by saliva dribbling from the mouths of newborn lambs, and the people kept in a cellar to be eaten by cannibals are replaced with food for a grand feast to celebrate the birth of civilization.
1984- George Orwell
Orwell’s dystopian vision of the future could frighten children, and detracts from the fact that CCTV is there to protect us. Whilst hiding from the eyes of the law Winston Smith is accosted by a mugger, but without CCTV footage the police are powerless to bring justice upon the perpetrator. Winston learns a valuable lesson and vows to always stay within the view of a surveillance camera.
Lord of the Rings - J.R.R Tolkein
Rings are small, circular, non-living objects and thus incapable of ruling anything. Even if they weren’t having a whole kingdom ruled by one entity wouldn’t be fair at all. Instead of filling children’s heads with these fanciful lies the book should be re-written so that Mordor is a democratic society, with one parliament to rule them all, one parliament to bind them etc.
American Psycho
A perfectly harmless tale of the successes of a hardworking businessman spoiled by anecdotes of him butchering people in his spare time. Keep the strong work-ethic themes, but leave what he gets up to at home as his business.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Books shouldn’t encourage young people to take drugs. In a revised version of the novel Hunter S Thompson and his attorney travel to Las Vegas in search of the American dream - and they find it in each other. It turns out there is no dream greater than building the unbreakable bonds of friendship.
Basil, one of the lead barkers in the pitbull-fronted grindcore band Caninus passed away last week. He was perhaps one of the most influential dogs in metal. RIP.
Vondelpark are a band from Surrey. They are a very irritating band as they don’t have a myspace or a website or anything. Bands have these things for a reason Vondelpark, so trying to be so quirky. Extensive googling brought up a weird interview, this picture of one of them jumping around like a berk, and the following video:
Fortunately it is a video for a very pleasant song. Some nice dreary two-step pop with a lovely fuzzy bassline. They might even have some other pleasant songs if you have the googling skills to find them. All is forgiven Vondelpark.
Civil Civic are a band that consists of two men (and a “box of drum noises”) who make music together whilst living hundreds of miles apart. Guitar player Aaron Cupples lives in London, and bassist Ben Green lives in Barcelona, and the two halves make their individual parts of the music at their homes and send the results back and forth to one another until they can put together a complete song. You might think the vast physical barrier between the two men would result in a lack of cohesion between the different parts of their songs, but the contrast between the different aspects of their music is what makes it so special. Take the opener from their first EP “Less Unless”, a song that begins as thumping, instrumental, lo-fi pop and is ruptured after a minute or so by piercing screams and swathes of abrasive, distorted synths.
The band liken their sound to “The Cure getting beaten shitless by Big Black… with no vocals” but personally I don’t think this metaphor goes far enough. Their debut EP sounds like more a vicious brawl between all of indie’s greats, with DEVO throttling Sonic Youth in a headlock while My Bloody Valentine give the Jesus and Mary Chains a limp kick in the shins.
Next year, the band tell me they are “planning on getting an album recorded and then doing some festival dates, but that’s asuming we get enough material together to start recording and that some festivals want to book us. Big if’s at this stage, but we paid a gypsy 500 euro last night and she said it’s all going to go swimmingly.” For now you can read more about them on the band’s blog, or download their EP “1” here.
Lyrically, I can’t think of any better records over the past decade than BARR’s Summary. This is the closest thing the record has to a pop song I suppose, and i’m pretty sure i’ve heard this a thousand times now.
eyes closed eyes open eyes closed eyes open eyes closed eyes open eyes closed eyes open eyes closed eyes open
The first flavour of James Blake’s upcoming album, Limit to your Love, was a little disappointing for some. It was a nice enough example of his new direction, and showed off some rather impressive vocal talent he’d kept hidden away all this time, but aside from the low-end bass rumbling along beneath the track it felt like he’d abandoned the avantgarde-electroniccy-postdubsteppy-whateveryouwanttocallit sounds he cultivated in his first few EPs.
A new track To Care (Like You) is up on youtube to hear (it seems to have been leaked from the album by some lovely, lovely bastard) and shows such fears were unneccesary. Multiple layers of vocals are twisted and manipulated to delicious, woozy effect, smelded together and spread atop a skittering beat. This is probably my favourite thing he’s produced thus far. Utterly devastating. It’s hard to believe he’s been put on the BBC’s silly hype list thing alongside this monstrosity.
