It’s been a while since I last posted on this blog, probably because I got a bit scared of how many people see it since I linked it to Facebook. Maybe I’ll remove the link. But anyway…

I went to see Avatar on my own last night, carving my way through the jungle of popcorn to find the only single seat which wasn’t at the front – just as well, because that really would have been like a flight simulator.

Avatar was somewhere between nature documentary and theme park. Just before the film, the Toy Story characters were holding up huge signs adverting their latest installment. Avatar was similarly well signposted – at no point did you not know exactly what was going to happen next. My school friend James once said he could always predict the next note in a classical piece; he would have had even less trouble with Avatar’s plot.

As a sci-fi film, I would say District 9 was probably the better of the two competing for Best Picture in the Oscars – and it cost under 10% of the budget to make. Yes, it had amazing special effects, great characters, and a gripping plot (that wasn’t lifted from Pocohontas), and only cost $30 million to make (Avatar was a whopping $350 million).

Having said all that, I still came out of Avatar thinking Wow.

Sufjan Stevens is something of a musical genius. He has made some very nice music, and some rather crazy music too. Falling into the latter category is his mostly electronic 2001 instrumental album Enjoy Your Rabbit where each track is dedicated to a year from the Chinese Zodiac. Bizarrely, this entire album was then arranged and recorded by the Osso chamber orchestra. I’ve just bought the pair to listen to this month, and it promises to be interesting. From the emusic review…

Osso is a New York-based string quartet here playing contemporary classical approximations of Stevens’ electronics. This means what you get is a violin imitating a synthesizer mimicking an animal meant to represent people born in particular years. Yes, that’s an utterly ridiculous conceit, one that’s quintessentially Stevens and makes for esoteric, yet entertaining results.

…you’re sure of a big surprise. Well, not tonight actually – a few weeks ago. But Chris has just uploaded a nice looking video he made of Jane Packman’s latest project:

The Woods from Jane Packman on Vimeo.

I’m a bit of a Google fan, so I installed their latest operating system in a VM. I downloaded the torrent (Virgin Media seem to be blocking your web access for even a legal bittorrent download), and with a few mouse clicks it was up and running. Here’s a screenshot…

There’s not much to say about it really – it looks like the Chrome browser, and that’s pretty much the whole OS. It should boot in seven seconds and will only run on special hardware, slightly larger than a netbook.

Just very much enjoyed watching this video recorded by Birmingham’s own Chris Keenan. These guys are amazing.

TG Collective, somewhere in a forest in Devon! from Stoney Lane on Vimeo.

…or in English, moving is tiring. We’re moving to Bristol soon, and have to simultaneously redecorate the dining room, arrange builders to fix things, let the house, rent somewhere else, buy a car and then, finally, move. At least we’re not arranging a wedding too. Tonight I’ve been washing walls with sugarsoap, a vicious degreaser which is meant to make paint go on well. I feel like I’m just wiping dust all over the walls, though.

I packed a scarf and a very warm hoodie for my holiday in the Pyranese. You never know what it will be like, and it was freezing for our honemoon, also at this time of year. Well, anyway, I could have saved valuable space (for say, a big box of wine), because as I sit out her on the sunny roof terrace of the cottage (www.casa-campana.com), I am wearing shorts and T-shirt. I don’t think I even managed that for the whole English “summer”.   

One of the highlights of the Iceland Airwaves festival was seeing Hjaltalin in a Pentecostal church. Fortunately Katie had the presence of mind to start videoing just before the end…

On the last night we saw them again backing the brightly dressed Mr Pall Oskar. It was fun seeing a band including french horn and bassoon playing disco. Skip to 2:00 in the video…

Iceland is an incredible place. It has mountains, volcanoes, hot springs, Sigur Ros, gysers, and waterfalls. One of these is not a geological feature, but a rock band. Out of a tiny population of 320,000, half of which lives in the capital Reykjavik, they manage to produce a massive amount of amazing music. I wish people knew them for this more than their dodgy banks (apparently they now have a greater per-capita national debt than Germany after the First World War). One of the consequences of the economic collapse meant that even battered Sterling is worth something in Islandic Kroner, so I came home from the Iceland Airwaves music festival with a shopping bag full of CDs and vinyl. For those of you who may be interested, below is what I came back with with some links…

Mugison – Mugiboogie
Skúli Sverrisson – Sería
Rökkurró – Það kólnar í kvöld… (It gets colder tonight)
Eberg – Antidote
hjaltalín – sleepdrunk seasons
Lights On The Highway - Lights On The Highway
Hjálmar – IV
Hafdis Huld – Synchronised Swimmers
múm – Sing Along To Songs You Dont Know

And here are a couple of videos, from Eberg and Hafdis Huld. The Hafdis Huld video appears to have had lots of views for some reason, so maybe some people do appreciate Icelandic music after all.

I’ve been getting a bit into Native Instruments Reaktor recently as a way to design crazy looping tools and other live shenanigans. If I’ve just dipped my little toe into the water, Tim Exile’s busy swimming solo across the Atlantic…