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.

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…

Playing four notes every beat, at 120ish beats per minute for forty minutes would mean that James Blackshaw played about 20,000 notes tonight, not counting the bass notes. This, combined with the altered tunings on his 12-string guitar made his guitar sound almost like a harp, or even at times a sitar. The effect was mesmerising and melancholy. Despite touring all over the country several times, tonight was his first visit to Brum. I hope he returns.

…by rechargeable batteries. And this guy has lots of use for rechargeable batteries.

I’ve decided that CDs are not the future. I know, I’m a bit behind the times on this one. It has always bugged me that they are often broken when they arrive in the post, and they are a bit small in the cover department, plus I’ve run out of space to store them. My innovative solution is instead to try and buy music on vinyl from now on unless it is stupidly expensive compared to download or CD. The decks are now up and running again, and I’m currently working my way through the four Beatles albums I bought at a car boot for a tenner – in total, not each. Bring on the old school technology.
Related top tip: don’t throw out your VCR, Co-op are flogging videos for 50p from the charity shelf.

Life has now returned to normal after the Moseley Folk Festival. It made a nice change to go to a festival where no camping was nessesary, devoid of mud, rain and aggression. Oh yes, and the music was great. Jethro Tull put on a great show, and I’ve been listening to Focus, Rick Wakeman since on the stereo. Ade Edmonson combined the funniest on-stage banter (he basically /is/ his character from Bottom) with furious mandolin playing. The discovery of the weekend for me was Wolf People, combing Jack Bruce vocals with a updated prog/psych sound. I’m just a sucker for twin-guitar solos.

So, a good weekend in which we managed to do tiling, church, and a three day music festival.

I’ve not blogged for a while, so here’s an update on all the random stuff going on in my head and life – well some of it,  anyway.

Thursday night we went to see Little Sister at the Hare and Hounds.  Apparently they now practice is bursts of a week, because one of them lives in Wales and one in Copenhagen.  This must have had been a good week, because their new stuff was great.  The opener had an Indian feel, after which they continued to work their way around the world’s folk music via Wales and Southern America.  One of the most striking aspects of the four girl group is not just their harmonising, or the range of instruments that they play, but the great big harp that sits on the stage, looming like a Renaissance sculpture while the support acts play.  Unfortunately, the sound often gets lost on pub stages, but the soundcheck had obviously been successful, so Sammy Fox’s glissandi were able to beautifully counterpoint the accordion.

This weekend @katieday is down in Bristol doing something related to interactive gaming that I’ve been struggling to explain to people, so in the meantime I’ve been getting to grips with Reaktor from Native Instruments. This program lets you create synthesizers and audio effects by stringing together blocks. I’ve been meaning to get back into effect design since my final year project at University, a DSP board connected to a MFC C++ program which would let you genetically evolve audio effects. Nowadays, these things are much easier to do, though you can still make something look absolutely horrible…

This fantastic Video installation in Moor Street Station featured a flock of birds in black and white accompanied by a minimalist soundtrack by Ben Frosts. I was reminded of some of the haunting shots from There Will Be Blood with Johnny Greenwood’s  soundscape. The birds formed abastract shapes like fast moving clouds, or the startfield screensaver from Windows 98.

Capsule – Supersonic