the indistinct judgement

This video, like the album it summarises, is a complex and carefully crafted thing. The medley format can barely do the sprawling DJ mix justice, but this is about as close as you could come. Across the album, the moments where the rhythm loosens and then tightens back up again payoff every time. It’s a trick — one of the central techniques of any dance DJ set, really — but it’s particularly subtle in the Solar Life Raft mix. Rupture seems to enjoy these barely noticeable drifts as much as he likes the rude slam from one genre to another. In either mode, he’s a DJ worth following.

“The common thread in Gladwell’s writing is a kind of populism, which seeks to undermine the ideals of talent, intelligence and analytical prowess in favor of luck, opportunity, experience and intuition.”

&

“cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies”

Etc.

Review reminds me of this well-worded Guardian review of Superfreakonomics. Contrarianism in overdrive.

I seem to have a thing for songs with lyrics that just keep tumbling on and on.

I have always enjoyed Jollie Holland’s “Mexican Blue,” a long ribbon twirling around someone loved and remembered and recalled and lost and mourned and celebrated. There are the usual threads of Holland’s bitter and wry persona, but this is the least “conflicted” she has sounded on record.

I’d also make a similar case for Gillian Welch’s “I Dream A Highway”. A fifteen minute meander that always feels like it could go for at least another fifteen. I was shocked and happy that she chose to play it when I saw her live. Its fifteen minutes somehow felt like five.

On Grand Salvo’s most recent record, Soil Creatures, he does a similar thing on two songs at either end of the LP. One of them, “Sea,” is posted above — and the other, “Needles,” can be heard on YouTube.

Where Holland feels selective of the images she’s recalling, these Salvo songs (salvos?) feel close to stream-of-consciousness observations. Paddy Mann seems to be staring out a window, half-awake, singing to himself. (And, yes, the string players.)

Both of these Grand Salvo songs have a resignation to them, as if the tale they are turning was inevitable. When I hear them, I imagine a wheel, tumbling down a hill; a spool of cotton, trailing off out of sight. I like that they fade out, as if the song goes on forever. How long is a piece of string? How long can one person strum?

“The Freedom Revolution,” Berlin 2009.

And some quickly scribbled words about it, sent off before the Crikey deadline.

Further cranky words and photos to follow.

I think the German word for this is “Idiotisch”.

Uh oh.

The “Wir waren so frei…” exhibition at Berlin’s Museum für Film und Fernsehen stands out as the best exhibition of photos and videos of the events in 89/90. The photo exhibition has been ubiquitous form for remembering 1989. Every gallery and museum in town seems to have curated one. The uniqueness of the “Wir waren…” exhibit is that is largely pulled together from amateur photos. Here’s Mum in West Berlin. Here’s my sister in November 1989. Etc. It reminds us that the events of 89/90 were diffuse, far-reaching and registered in banal ways. It wasn’t all Joe Cocker concerts and hugs at the Wall, you know.

The website is also an excellent piece of work. It features every photo and video from the exhibition. And more.

Dawn at Görlitzer Park. Also published at my other blog.

My (long!) review of Ned Collette + Wirewalker’s excellent new album, Over the Stones, Under the Stars. Poetic, searching, critical rock music. A rarity!

It’s fairly easy to imagine the scenario in which this video was conjured up. It involved a few long-neck bottles of beer, a view of the skyline and the long-term unemployment of a few “freelance creatives” in Berlin.