THE BEST HOUSE TUNE EVER IS ...

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... 'What Else Is There?' by Royksopp (Thin White Duke Remix)

A title that is the very definition of negative capability, and a tune that defies verbal summary, this is, as Byron would've had it, the thing.

Shite cover though.

A SMALL POINT

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Cambridge vice-chancellor Alison Richards said last week that British universities are not 'engines for promoting social justice'.

Surely that's precisely what they are?

VIS A VIS

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'It's my opinion that a manager must have the right to manage and that clubs should not impose upon any manager any player that he does not want.'


'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.'

THIS IS THE WEEK THAT WAS

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The Week That Was record is fantastic.

I've always been a big Field Music fan, however I've often found the relentless melodic modulations very frustrating, particularly over the course of an entire album, and the sonic palette has always seemed a little weak and one-dimensional: the adventurousness of the music itself not really done justice by a relatively trad instrumental line-up.

The School of Language album seemed to replicate these shortcomings (augmented them, even), but TW2 seems to have channelled all the restless cerebrality of the first two Field Music albums into something a lot more compact, focused, and ultimately engaging.

There is a wonderful colourful variety of tone here: marimba and archaic synth intertwining beautifully on the gamelan-esque 'It's All Gone Quiet', brutalist machinistic drumming meeting a spiky string arrangement head-on in 'The Airport Line', female b-vox supplying nice pentatonic interludes, 'Sound and Vision'-style, on album high-point 'Come Home'.

Production-wise, TW2 is also a big improvement on the retro mustiness that often left Field Music offerings sounding slightly wet. Everything is just a little bit punchier, drums and acoustic guitars in particular, with each instrument granted a crystal-cut hi-fi autonomy, which in turn emphasises the eclectic daring of the arrangements.

Length must also be a factor. The Field Music b-sides collection Write Your Own History still seems like their best record, partly because it's only half an hour or so long. TW2 is similarly brief, a fact that compounds the sense of ideas reigned-in and fused with a very welcome new-found immediacy.




Why not 'That Was the Week That Was' though? Can't help feeling they pussied-out on that one.

Mackem bastards.

LYRIC! - 'BONAPARTE SAID'

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Bonaparte said:
'I got lost on the way to my bed
I got stuck back in the day with the dead
Bait for all the people I hate'

Bonaparte said:
'I must lose some of these skills in my head
I must chisel me a beast made of lead
Prize my demands from the vice'

I crossed plains for you, plains for you
Marched to the Dnieper
And ravaged the people
But blew too soon

You say the night is coming on
I deem the mountains passable
Midas and you are happy
In the house of fire

You say the world is spinning on
Change if you can you idealogue
Tie the rhymer to the budgerigar
And sing old hymns

Bonaparte said:
'I'm obscure as the eaves of the shed
I've got pieces of eight instead of pence
Guys tripping drunks in the night'

Bonaparte said:
'I will stick to my beliefs til I'm dead
And I reject with my feet what you suggest
Boy, you don't know the sound from the noise'

I crushed Ukraine for you, Ukraine for you
Sped to the Dnieper
To salvage my people
Fired guns to soothe you

You say the night is coming on
I deem the mountains passable
Midas and you are happy
In the house of fire

I thought the world would gather round
I put a devil in the ground
Love is just another hand-me-down
For you, my friend

GOOD PIECE

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in the Guardian today by David Cox

Especially like the tag: 'too many films today are literally meaningless'.