Ode to Zardoz

Zardoz, the most brilliantly awful film I have perhaps ever seen. Made in the 70's, starring Sean Connery, in between Bonds, in the future and - I'm so serious I could cry - in a red pair of pants. For the whole film. The flimsiest of premises, the worst acting by extras, a multitude of mind-bogglingly bad crowd scenes, and overall so incredibly terrible it was in fact, quite enjoyable.

In a nutshell, there are a group of people running the show called the Immortals. They wanted to stop the plebs (called the Brutals) from getting in on the good life, so they banished them off so somewhere called the badlands or something.

They sent one of their own to keep them under control, and this guy went around in a massive floating head, pretending to be a god called Zardoz by speaking out of the head in a massive booming voice. So far, so wizard of oz.

What has the stone head got to say? 'The gun is good, the penis is evil'

Sean Connery is one of this God's band of henchmen who go around killing the brutals to keep them under control, all whilst wearing his quite incredible red bikini. He decides to break out of the badlands and gets into the vortex the immortals live in. 

There are all sort of really odd bits about how the penis is mysterious, and a massively awkward scene which revolves around Sean Connery getting an erection when the girl he fancies gets annoyed with him. 

In the end he somehow destroys the exploitative set up those pesky immortals had going on and get the girl. I kind of fell asleep but I think that's the gist of it.

MIND BOGGLING

Delroy Edwards ' Plumskins Burnout Mix'

What a banger. New track from this dude Delroy Edwards (who's just had something out on L.I.E.S.) just went up on his Soundcloud yesterday. Obviously it's annoying to just compare people but it's like the bits I like from Omar S, Marcus Mixx (drum patterns & sounds) and Dance Mania all in one record. It's raw! Rampant, straight-up banger. No messing. Amazing sounds! Listen! Loud!

NHK'Koyxeи Dance Classics Vol I

Have been meaning to write about NHK'Koyxeи ever since I bought Dance Classics Vol 1 (a misleading title if ever there was one btw) and now that both Kouhei Matsunaga (aka NHK'Koyxeи) and Bill Kouligas of Pan Records are tweeting about the imminent release of Vol II I might as get on with it.

'Dance Classics Vol. I' is an incredible album, massively complex rhythmically but not at all dry. The total opposite in fact, it's immediate, accessible and intuitively enjoyable even though it's really quite clever. Actress-like yes, but more technical and less emotive - although some of the more experimental tracks have a certain whimsicalness to them.

It's very structural music, with a construction far more complex than its immediacy and visceral impact would suggest. The basic pattern is set up then further elaborate flourishes and layers develop out of it, and the best moments of the album (see opener 587) are when these new elements breathe fresh shimmers of unexpected richness into the sounds. 

There are a couple of tracks with real dancefloor appeal. The bassline of 587 wouldn't be out of place on any bass music or dubstep dancefloor (is dubstep still a thing?); 530's beats are so laid-back they almost trip over themselves but it still lopes along with irresistible, vibrating force, and the unsettling insistency of 572_2 just makes you want to put a puffa jacket and baseball cap on and start winding. Other tracks are way more abstract and dreamy, one sounds like a girl's music box which needs winding up, another like a skittery anxious collction of recorded sound and digital fragments. With the two kinds of tracks complementing each other so perfectly it makes for a really rather amaze album altogether. Very much looking forward to VOL II. 

For more sounds check out the nhk_koyxen Soundcloud page and his Raster Noton podcast. 

Will Jarvis Hellraiser

Popped into the Gowlett pub in Peckham to see some bathroom themed art by Will Jarvis of the Sunday Painter gallery. Amazingly intricate with a definite trompe l'oeiul effect - check out the tiny detail on the silver balls which make up the plug chain, for example. Liked the grid of toothpaste best I think.

 The Gowlett 'Public House Projects' space upstairs is actually really nice, very bright and white and a good place to see art.

Christopher Kane AW12

Doing some fashion research, ended up looking through the latest Christopher Kane collection and you know what, I wouldn't mind wearing any of the below (sadly the same is not true of a great deal of the fashion world's output). Fashion meets Dalston meets granny (check the luxe granny florals, luxe granny knitwear and luxe granny shoes, albeit with massive granny-unfriendly fashion heels).

Which reminds me, my favourite new game to play on the top deck of the bus is hipster or granny. You see the back view of a woman walking down the street in sensible shoes, socks and a massive coat, and you try and guess whether she's a granny or a hipster. The only way you know for sure is when the bus overtakes and you can look back and check her face. You'll be surprised.

LUKE WYATT SAD STONEWASH - A Video Mulch

The video Luke Wyatt made for his Torn Hawk Tarifa track has been calling me, and en route for another gawp at it on Youtube I came across another amazing video he's done with the Tarifa track. It's a promo for a full length DVD called - best name ever - Sad Stonewash. Its VHS sentimentality is totally kitsch and surprsingly poignant, and major visual disintegration FX push it as far towards pixellated meltdown as it's possible to go without completely destroying the meaningful looks, sunsets and 80s dance moves. And the harsh metallic beats in the track, balanced by the balearic sunset melody, perfectly complement the sentimental/destructive feel of the video.

Luke Wyatt explained to AAVV how he works and what inspired Sad Stonewash:

 “I select video to appropriate based on its mood resonance or compositional zing. My VCR gets beat up with a size 13 docksider until it makes errors and the VHS tape spits up on itself. While digitizing the video I induce the computer to make mistakes by not telling it the truth about the data it is ingesting. I isolate the mistakes I like best, outline them, and send them back to my VCR, resuming the docksider attack, repeating this process until things attain an anti-sheen, losing any crisp edge, as if they had always belonged together. I then arrange the images in an order that must appear equally inevitable. I term the results of this technique Video Mulch. For this work, the following was on my mind: languid linen-suit sadness via the stylish poignancy of Michael Mann sunsets. A cold weather cousin sadness to that: the dour, grey, gothic sadness of a few old bands who played chiming delay guitar. Sixth grade sword obsessions (a dream of the sky), meet adult shoe and leg love (hangups of the earth). Both crowns and castles point to the sky (or space), pinnacles and minarets announcing heaven as the place kings should shoot for. Remember how the Voltron castle became a spaceship and lifted off the earth?”

check Luke Wyatt's website

Stream brand-freaking-new tripped-out space shit from Jamal Moss's Music from Mathematics

These three tracks are off a forthcoming Music from Mathematics release. I'm actually listening to them as I write. It's great 'artnoise' (as it calls itself). No 5 is a low-end squelch fest with tinny space keysboards drifting in out and of pitch above.. No 6 is a massively wigged out intergalatic battle jam and No 8 so far is full of tense deep space synth patterns and unsettling vibes. Check it!