Also in The Guardian, Charlie Brooker who is usually so spot on, gets caught up in the angry, self regarding world of Richard Dawkins who is on TV this week extolling the virtues of his own ideas Charles Darwin.

Darwin’s theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it’s been under attack since day one. That’s just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we’d still be debating Newton with idiots too.

And that’s the problem right there. I don’t know why anyone would be looking to the Bible for any view on an issue of science, and by the same token why we should consider a scientist to have any authority on any subject outside his chosen field of study.

The Bible is primarily concerned with the relationship between God and man rather than the proposition of a scientific theory for the inner workings of creation. The writers of the Bible are attempting to articulate with ‘the why’ rather than ‘the how’ and it’s this ‘why’ that is central to the life of faith. For them the ‘the how’ is a far less important, as the intended audience are more concerned with being the ‘People of God’ rather than the students of creation. Whilst certainly a big issue in certain quarters, mainly an insecure Christian minority, who build museums to creationism and argue against the existence of dinosaurs, and to fame hungry scientists who make great show of burning spiritual strawmen on an alter to their own desperate thirst for glory, ‘the how’ is by no means the subject of the book and of the christian life in general. But as the ‘journalists’ at the Daily Mail are well aware, controversy is far more effective at selling newspapers than boring things like ‘news’ and for scientific authors few things are better for raising your profile than invoking false conflicts between reason and faith.

It’s a shame that otherwise smart people are drawn into such senseless arguments, repeating Dawkin’s polemic battlecries word-for-word, rather than actually thinking about the complex and for the most part complimentary relationship between science and faith. Both sides of the debate would be far better served realizing the limitations of their respective views. It’s not in anyone’s interest for the church to go wading into scientific debates, where most of the time it has a) no business b) very little reason to feel under threat. Equally when it comes to the realm of personal relations, science has actually very to say about how we should live and the big relational questions, like grace and love and the search for meaning.

Perhaps it’s best left to Albert Einstien to illuminate the way;

For example, a conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against the doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. On the other hand, representatives of science have often made an attempt to arrive at fundamental judgments with respect to values and ends on the basis of scientific method, and in this way have set themselves in opposition to religion. These conflicts have all sprung from fatal errors.

Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith.

The situation may be expressed by an image: Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Three years ago today, basilika, a blog I co-write with some deejay buddies, took a break from talking up the gigs we promoted and the latest obscure disco track we’d stumbled across and became something else entirely.

It’s amazing how much life can happen in 3 years, how different things could have so easily been. As I write this, just eight weeks away from meeting my unborn son, it staggers me to think how much was stolen from the victims and their loved ones.

Manni’s blog ‘Those City Nights‘ is one of the best researched and consistently well written music blogs out there. The level of detail and work that goes into it, puts most blogs to shame.

Today there is a great interview with House pioneer Jesse Saunders who talks at length about the evolution of house from disco-it’s fascinating stuff;

So whenever I played, my first record on the turntable would be this bootleg ‘On & On’ record because that was like my signature tune. When I put that on, everybody knew that I was in the place because nobody else was playing that side but me, no one even knew what it was, and I wouldn’t tell anybody, even though there were a few people that had it. When I would go up on stage I would make sure that security cleared it so that no one would know what it was that I was playing. It was amazing to me that they hadn’t flipped that record over and found it themselves.

The bootleg, Mach’s ‘On & On’, was put together in Miami by a local Cuban club dj (hat-tip discomusic.com) but remained unloved till discovered retrosptively by music historians and deejays wanting to pay homage to the roots of house. DJ Rahaan certainly falls into the later category as the video above so vivdly illustrates, reminding us, if nothing else, that one man with ‘a b-side and a plan’ can change the course of music forever.

For the second and final part of the Music Like Dirt / Horse Latitudes collaboration ‘Listen To This’ - check here: Part 2

This time it’s my selections under the microscope. Well, go on then…

I love 4-hero.
Not only do they make incredible music but the sheer scope of what they produce is evidence of a deep love of the rich, broad spectrum of black music. Anyone hearing ‘Mr Kirk’s nightmare’,back in ‘91 could be forgiven for thinking that 4hero were in the business of making novelty records but 15 years (!!) of making killer music has put pay to that particular theory, their latest release being no exception.

Whereas ‘Two Pages’ and to a lesser degree ‘Creating Patterns’ sometimes fell victim to the overbearing ambition of it’s creators, ‘Playing with the Changes‘, somehow manages to find enough room to squeeze in all these influences, without sacrificing their own distinctive voice. A good example this is the track, ‘Morning Child’, which, whilst positively haunted by the ghost Charles Stepney still manages to retain that unique (ex-)dollis hill, future soul vibe.

People go crazy about the production skills of the late, great jdilla. But for all his undeniable talent he was working within the relatively conservitive fields of hiphop and rnb. These guys hit up jazz, broken beat, detroit techno, soul, funk ,house and a load of styles that don’t really have names yet and somehow manage to represent in all of them.

Sometimes it’s easier to rain down love on artists based in detroit or nyc than the ones who are just around the corner.

Here’s to London’s finest.
4hero-Morning Child

not wanting to fall short of my mantle as purveyor of melancholy, internet-derived, acoustic ear balm not to mention the fact that two thirds of the hl will be hopping in the merc and heading to the seaside to catch some of j tillman’s meanderings next week, i figured it was time i got around to at least a cursory attempt at the review i promised way back in october, of the j tillman album, minor works.
now the thing is i don’t write for pitchfug or none of those worthy-opinionators and i can’t quite seem to seperate the man from the music and the music from the myth. and i’m so utterly enamoured of this release (his first real record on the admirable keep recordings) that i really can’t be objective.
josh tillman has a quiet, stoney voice which must barely register on an mixing desk eq, his fingers squeak on the fretboard and you hear him breathe. maybe its because he’s pouring his heart out with such concentration and earnest that forcing volume as well as emotion might deflate him too much.
when he first posted a couple of tracks from minor works on his myspace page i wasn’t so impressed. there was some slide guitar and even a (whisper it) drum, so used was i to his voice and guitar four-track bedroom demo ‘long may you run, j. tillman’ that this occasional loudness was an affront. but when i listened closer and found the melody and his subtle, measured gothic way with words still wove its way around the more trad alt-countryisms it just gave me even more reason to listen to minor works on repeat.
i think he’s so talented that words almost fail me (yeah, i did say almost) so just listen…

j tillman - restlessness

So I have quit cigarettes (again).

Feels good.
Well, it will do in a few days.
Right now I’m in constant growl.

In an effot to ease the pain I have been trying to compensate by indulging in other ways.

Chocolate, booze and music seem to be doing the trick.

Here is something that has been going round my head (insanely) for the last couple of days. It’s by AManCalledHorse and it’s about grace (which is what I need right now, more than anything).

Check it out.