For a blog that used to be all about music, it’s been ages since we have posted any of our favorite mp3s. I guess the soul searching that followed the ‘is it promotion/is it theft ?’ mp3blog debates awhile back and changes in our life (and my browsing habits) all conspired to make the focus of the blog shift a little.
Still it feels good to take it old school every so often -and this recent Grace Jones bootleg seems as good a way as any to try and get the groove back.
p.s. If you’re SE1 local, check out Innersounds maestro, Jez’s new residency every Friday at Jack’s, Isabella Street, behind Southwark Tube for the best music this side of the river.
our recent server problems aside it looks like this weekend is going to be another doozy - and one of those where the last thing you really want to do is stay in and watch a movie. luckily the recent batch of trailers i’ve been foraging through in the depths of my summer cold hibernation are all slated for autumn/winter release - its an odd, odd thing to be wrapped in blankets, dressed in fleece leisurewear and have people call you to tell you how glorious the weather is outside while you shiver and dream of a log fire, like watching the world go by from a different continent or something, but i digress.
be kind, rewind - the new michel gondry (trailer here) has me all in a whirl - jack black and mos def remake 80s movie classics after black’s magnetic brain wipes all the cassettes in the video store where they work. frankly, i’d have paid £8 to hear someone explain the premise to me in a cinema so the idea of getting to see that pitch executed by le bateau-des-reves gondry, has me tickled pink.
in the search for bkr(as the cool kids aren’t calling it)’s trailer i also happened across one for former wes anderson cohort, noah boambach’s sophomore effort. margot at the wedding appears to be a similarly fraught examination of family ties as the squid & the whale - and while i’m not as over the moon psyched about it as anderson’s upcoming darjeeling limited, matw (man, even i’m not finding this particularly funny… sorry) has got a solid cast, beautiful cinematography and looks like a worthy contemplatative arthouse feature. what took me most during the trailer however was the lilting diaphenous cover of crosby stills & nash’s our house. in a beautifully cyclical sweep the soundtrack’s version is performed by phantom planet, who’s drummer, jason swartzman appears as one of the three brothers in darljeeling limited, as well as having played max fischer in anderson (& baumbach’s) rushmore.
since we’re all lined up for another dappled, balmy summer weekend it seems only fitting that hickory smoke and torn denim of our house be the soundtrack to that. have a lovely weekend.
despite reaching epic guardian reader dinner party soundtrack proportions i still love jose gonzalez. his soft swedishness and understanding of the subtle formula of a truly pleasing cover version being two things which keep me going back to him like an old flame you’re fond of and who’s arms you can’t shake.
having surfaced earlier this year to re-release the beautiful if ubiquitous ‘veneer’, and later on zero7’s most recent long-play outing he’s back with a new album ‘in our nature’ in september.
since it looks like the weather’ll hold and doubtless getting your hands on a disposable barbeque in central london will be more of a logistal challenge than dancing in the aisles at a prince gig, here’s a new track from jose gonzales for your weekend. best enjoyed with a nice chilled glass of rosé and some gourmet picnic fare…
jose gonzalez - down the line removed at record company’s request
A couple of weeks ago I got all hot and bothered about the utter rubbishness of Live Earth.
Thankfully calmer heads were on hand to provide a counterpoint to all my green-wash negativity. Kevvy-K from hl fav dilated choonz posted his response to my post and it was so good it seemed a shame that only people who obsessively read the hl comments section (that would be me and juliet!!) would get a chance to see it.
So here it is, a little inspiration to take us into the weekend.
Over to you Kev;
“Somewhere along the line we have lost our ability to engage with
any kind of radical action and replaced it with the misplaced sense
that it is enough to spectate.”
Who’s ‘we’ Kimosabi?
Later this Summer (14th to 21st of August), London is going to be
hosting the UK’s biggest ever, grassroots, self-organised response to
the threat of climate change, in the form of the second annual Climate
Camp, from the 14th to the 21st of August… Combining three strands of
workshops and popular education, a practical example of sustainable
living and low-carbon alternatives, and days of kick up the arse of
direct action to disrupt Heathrow as much as possible and draw
attention to the fastest growing source of emissions.. the aviation
industry.
All self-organised by people coming together because they are tired
of the corporate appropriation of the climate change discourse in the
form of bloated, irrelevant spectacles like Live Earth and the pseudo
solutions being feebly peddled by ineffective governments.
I can’t exhort people enough to get themselves down there.. it is
going to be incredibly inspiring, empowering, and effective… pretty
much everything that Live-Earth wasn’t. Don’t waste energy moaning
about the crappiness of Live Earth, come down and do something real and
meaningful about climate change instead.
Finally, in terms of Live-Earth bashing (a favourite hobby of mine)
and as a bit of a self-plug.. there’s a report put out by the
collective I’m part of, Carbon Trade Watch, called “The Carbon Neutral
Myth - Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins” with a chapter on the
hazards of gormless celebrities high-jacking and sound-biting the issue
of climate change. You can download it for free from www.carbontradewatch.org.
I believe that people have internal ages, which don’t really change:
I’ve been something of an old man ever since my mother died. But my
father is an eternal teenager. And yet, my father is seventy now, and
every new thing I learn about him makes me that much more painfully
aware of how much I don’t know, and won’t ever learn about him. That
not only do most of us never, truly, know ourselves - but that neither
do we really learn about the ones we’re closest to.
It’s been a bit of rollercoaster week for me-one way or another-and, being of a mature disposition, my mind naturally turns quickly to escapism. Few things are better at putting a little distance between me and my daily funk than a good (or even not so good) movie. This weekend the stars have aligned and I have a potential all-winner triple bill of transformers, grindhouse and sunshine. It’s that classic scifi/retro-trash/fighting robot sweet spot.
Happy days indeed.
Sunshine looks to be my friday night selection-a bit of moody, thought provoking sci-fi (how often can you put that together in a sentence) from one of my favourite writer/director partnerships. The wonderful scifi gospel has a review of it here.(which I’m going to wait till I’ve watched it to read)
Lack of sunshine is the big concern for those heading down to Lovebox this weekend. Teacakes is there and a few other mates are playing on different stages. Personally I’m a little ambivalent (or boring, depending on you’re point of view) and (being at all times selfless) wonder if it’s all going to be just a muddy reminder of how far sly stone is from former glories.
That said if you’re going have a good one and if you’re not play this real loud, put on a pair wellies then get your dad to sing a couple of sly stone tracks , karaoke-style and it’ll be the next best thing.
a very quick something for your weekend and while i was tempted to rock my second re-uppage of the week i figured i could do better than that, that but tide and time wait for no chick and i’m about to dash off for another timely trip across the sea to the land of good food and justice, a delightful segway which (almost) seamlessly allows me to let you know that yesterday GvsB posted a new Justice remix of Justin Timberlake’s LoveStoned, which you really need all up in your weekend.
the HL however… well, we’ll be kicking back on the boulevards and avenues of paris, a mere stones throw from the final resting place of galloise-smoking, womanising, pastis-sinking, french legend serge gainsbourg.
more from us when we return next week but until then, here’s proof that if you smoke heavily and know about jazz you get the girl.
Solace in cinema is just about my favourite movieblog.
Somehow managing to blend just the right about of geekiness, with a healthy cynicism for most hollywood fare I seem to be interested in most of the things he posts. Being a regular on the site has the distinct advantage of seeing latest trailers and hearing snippets about films I had no idea I was just about to be mildly obsessed with. I say mildly*, that was ‘before cloverfield‘ (or simply ‘the film’ as it will now be known).
So far, we’ve got a shaky videophone version of the trailer and a gradually unfolding set of blogs and youtube clips all designed, it seems, with the sole intention of replacing the ‘reason’ part of my brain with a big inflatable balloon and a desperate, insatiable appetite for the very same kind of vaporous internet hyperbole that gets me like a kid who’s drunk too much squash every two/three months.
It’s all very pattern recognition / I love bees which in itself would be a little bit tiresome if it wasn’t for the fact that the trailer looks so freakin dope. It’s a JJ Abrams production (maker of Lost) so the worry is ‘all premise no payoff’, but right now (well until tomorrow’s obsession) it’s got me more excited than any movie trailer I can remember.
If a The Call of Cthulhu referencing, Blair Witch meets Godzilla, end of the world monster movie doesn’t float your boat, maybe this will. New-(ish) from dj cosmo and jeff buckley collaborator Gary Lucas.
Oddly i’m not posting anything french today. not that i wasn’t tempted you understand (see analog giant for some fantastique new sebastiAn remixes) what i am posting is a good old fashioned something for the weekend and little mo’ philly soul to make you get up and dance.
what’s almost unbelievable about this track is that its not been sampled to death. from its opening finger-clicking, piano hook and butter smooth bassline, it’s one of those near-perfect two minutes of pop music that they just don’t seem to make anymore (right kids?).
the decline of contemporary music cliches aside its the kind of track that makes you wonder why you haven’t heard it before when its sound and message is so ubiquitous and its beat tailor made for a good night out.
Never been a particular fan of camping, so missing Glastonbury this weekend doesn’t feel like any kind of loss, especially when you see pics like this-maybe next year? (or not)-could go into a big rant about how lame and tweely guardian reader-y it has all become, but I think it will probably come across as sour grapes (and quite frankly, it probably is).
Instead I have a super-hl-exclusive from the wonderful, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain who have a new album out soon (which is lovely) and are led (in part) by a good friend of ours Kitty Lux (who is also lovely).
The album, Precious Little, continues their winning formula of mixing clever re-interpretations of well known songs with a few of their own, equally fantastic, original tracks.
So for the next week or so HL is taking a well needed summer break.
Jb and I will be in france, walking through empty corn fields with kids and dogs, eating wonderful food and drinking a bit too much wine.
Nothing like getting away from everything to give you some perspective. It’s so easy to spend so much time dealing with everyday concerns that you never really appreciate all the amazing stuff that goes on the macro scale of your life.
As well as being one of my all time favourite ’sunshine’ tracks, Grace Jones ‘La Vie En Rose’ reminds me of sitting in a bar saying goodbye to a workmate (who’s wedding we’re going to tomorrow) and the way our memories seem to add rose-tinted hue to our lives, when we look back in retrospect.
It’s been 9 months (and almost 200 posts) since we started HL and so
much has happened, personally, in that time, it feels like we’ve been
on somekind of epic journey.
Well now it’s time to look back, enjoy the sun, and appreciate how far we’ve come.
Cause when we do, it gives us hope-hope that if keep moving with this velocity, then we might reach still greater heights.
