Listening Material

- Ame - Mixing.. (Sonar Kollektiv)
- Heidi - Monza Club Ibiza Compilation Vol.1 (Get Physical)
- Paul Kalkbrenner - Reworks (Bpitch)
- Goose - Bring it on (Skint)
- The Presets - Beams (Gigolo)
- Trentemoller - The Last Resort (Pokerflat)

A phone call to Putin

Today I had a workshop with a torture expert of the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture and he was describing a new technique which is currently used now in the Russian Police. The interrogation technique is called 'A Phonecall to Putin': The police attaches wires to the earlobes of an individual and send electric shocks through them. This practice can go on for up to nine (!) days...

Fox News' insightful analysis of Iraq...

Yesterday's DVD: Nick Cave's The Proposition

The Guardian: There are echoes of Sam Peckinpah's western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). Both are stories outlaws forced to hunt down former partners, and deal with the brutal business of bringing "civilisation" to a wild land. This film also shares Pekinpah's exuberant, bloody violence.

Trailer

Soundtrack

Italian Television

Unbelievable. That's the only word that I have for Italian television after watching it for three weeks now. I saw one of the most absurd shows ever last week. A local television-station here in Venice has only enough money to buy the rights of one Champions League match per week. So what do they do on the other day? They show 8 talking heads who are shouting non stop at each other (they look at televison screens which are invisible for the viewer), while one or two men (dependant on the amount of italian teams that are playing) is watching in a seperate construction a television-screen. The camera zooms in on the speaker when something is happening. At the same time the moderator simulates the game on the kind of board they also use for tactical discussions in a school for football trainers.

So you are watching a guy that is watching television, 8 talking heads, the crazy presentator who simulates the game and then, of course, a beautiful young Italian lady who is sitting in the back of the screen, doing absolutely nothing.

* Another example: four times in each match (even when Italy is playing and it is broadcasted on Raiuno) there is IN the match a commercial of +/-20 seconds during a 'dead' moment in the match.

* The whole weekend there was a strike (literally everybody is striking here every 10 days so it seems). What did RAIUNO do? They showed the football match without any comments, because the commentators were not paid on time.

And don\t get me started on the big TV-shows...
That's for another episode..

James Holden Is Finally Coming

JAMES HOLDEN DEBUT ALBUM: THE IDIOTS ARE COMING (Border Community)

UK: 30/11/06
EU: 04/12/06

01. Lump
02. Quiet Drumming Interlude
03. 10101
04. Corduroy
05. Flute
06. Idiot
07. Lumpette
08. Intentionally Left Blank
09. Idiot Clapsolo
10. Quiet Drumming

So the long-awaited EP is immediately switched for an LP. Smart thinking James. James doesn't promise beats but 'sounds comparable to Aphex Twin, Four Tet, The Knife, Herbert and Boards of Canada'. Strange he opens with the not so very impressive 'Lump', which already appeared on a Damian Lazarus compilation. I really like the cover-art by the way: Border Community's regular design with a Jackson Pollock touch

The following Holden quote is maybe a good basis for a Fire In The Mind piece:
"It's about time I achieved something with my life. What I want to do in my production is electronic music that feels more human and more live, just letting the machines malfunction and me be barely in control of them. You just need to know where to inject the life into it, and how to, and then the computer can become an instrument just like any other. Computer music is naff really, unless it has that punk feel. Those dirty bits. That's what makes it human, and that's what I'm focusing on now."

Too bad I miss him on I love Techno, where he will play in the Yellow Room after Kraftwerk. (God, why do I have to miss this...)