Saturday, October 28, 2006

sega: a retrospective

A magic event this afternoon. As part of the current GameCity mini-festival thingy, a smogasbord of computer game/art events, myself and lawes got to see richard jacques. He's a composer who works for sega writing music for games, and this afternoon he played some stuff - both recent and old - on piano in a church. brilliant.

i think the sonic medley was my favourite moment for pure nostalgia and the added 8-bit backing tracks, while some of the more recent stuff was firmly into the category of 'orchestral film score' in terms of narrative intent and lush execution. the only dodgy moments were a couple of lyrical works which were very much in the J-pop miliue; fine if you like that kind of thing (i've most often heard them played over the end credits of manga films), but i'm sticking to 8-bit sounds from here in.

check out richardjacques.co.uk for more info, i'm particularly impressed with the fact that his score for headhunter was played by the los angeles philharmonic at hollywood bowl last year. nice.

Friday, October 13, 2006

on a shingle spit [2]


on a shingle spit [2]
Originally uploaded by monkeyinfez.

on a shingle spit, i stare at the dereliction left behind.

from a visit to orford ness over summer.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

go paxman

... it's not a final report ... it's the first step in the research process ... they're just research notes ...

are they bolloxs. luckily paxman is on the case, take that Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely. has he ever done research before? do you write notes in the form of a report then pass them to newsnight? i don't think so. no way out general, you're just a cock working for a bunch of cocks and defending utter cock.

go paxman!

the content of the "notes" is about the war in afghanistan, the failure of strategy, the whys and wherefores of al qaeda ideology taking hold in the region... in short pretty much what everyone has worked out but the government and mod still deny.

watch it on bbc

Sunday, October 01, 2006

rolling through another week

Last week I saw three artistic events:

- Dan Hays, Impressions of Colorado [painting]
- Martine Hamilton Knight, Nottingham Revealed [photography]
- Three Strange Angels, Steve Reich at 70 tour [percussion]

They were, in reverse order, absolutely mind-blowingly amazing; bland as a sales brochure but with twice the pomp and ceremony; intellectually and technically interesting, but overall a little disappointing. More on these later.

Meanwhile I can hear the Sunday night boy-racers on the bypass, my brain is complaining of sleepyness, my thoughts turn to autumn once again after another warm week but rainy Sunday and I don't have much to say or at least not much inclination to write, except to reiterate – don't go and look at Nottingham Revealed, probably worth skipping the book of same title too. Do go and watch the Three Strange Angels, or any other Reich-related stuff, or just go and listen to some of his music, because it is wonderful, really wonderful.