New Logo Installed.

Hello everyone. I've spent a few minutes throwing together a logo to make the blog look a little more professional. The guitar used is a Fender jaguar, and the text style is derived from the original FarCry logo. Luckily I managed to make it fit perfectly, seeing as the colour is in a gradient. Let me know what you think, now for that album review...

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2 Album Reviews Incoming

Christ, keeping up with this blogging business isn't as easy as it looks!  Luckily now I have 2 weeks off for xmas and will be able to write some decent content. 2 Album reviews are fast approaching, The Strokes - Angles and Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - S/T will arrive in the next few days. Thanks for reading and your patience, I won't be lo...

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Tame Impala - Innerspeaker - My Take

I come to you today with an absolute gem of an album. Innerspeaker is the debut effort by Australian psychedelic trio Tame Impala, who have been impressing at festival venues all summer. Not mention supporting heavyweights such as Foo Fighters and MGMT on international tours. Innerspeaker got me on the first listen, hook line and sinker. If you have as much a soft spot as I for music a little different, down the psychedelic path perhaps, I'm sure you'll love this. Should you be after the quickest way I can sum it up, I'll say the music sounds the same as the cover looks. They suit each other perfectly. Now for the real low-down; The album is awash with swirling guitars and low in the mix synthesisers creating a picturesque...

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Upcoming Review - Tame Impala

I will be posting my review of Tame Imapala's 'Innerspeaker' on Friday. It's a psychedelic indie style release that has had plenty of very positive reviews. Apologies for the slow updates, the winter nights are drawing in and it's getting toward the busiest time of the year for everyo...

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The Benton Craze

News travels fast.  On Sunday a youtube video appeared of a hilarious deer/dog/man chase. The fact that it was trending worldwide so shortly after upload highlights the sheer power of internet communication. Today it is still trending in others forms. An instant meme. For the few who haven't seen this: Just a quick update, found this absolutely hilarious, as did most. Apparently the owner could face charges if any animals were injured. He's a lucky boy that no cars were involved. Pretty sure he'd be lawyer-ing up otherwi...

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Purchase - MacBook Pro 13"

Update time. As part of my university course (and fees) I have now ended up with a 13" Macbook Pro, something I never thought I'd own. Somewhat unfortunately for me, I'm a complete Apple noob, having only purchased an iPod touch prior to this, but I have to say I am thoroughly impressed. I'm actually doing a degree in Audio Production, which involves production, mixing, MIDI programming and other such skills. Apple have exclusive rights to Logic, which is one of the highest quality Digital-Audio Workstations, so students basically require an Apple computer to complete the work. Any way I won't bore you with that any longer. What I wanted to talk about and discuss is your personal impression on Macs and MacBooks compared to PC's. I found...

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The Future Of The Internet

It's not often many of us stop to consider where information technology will be in 5 to 10 years time. I've decided to dedicate a post to this very subject, as some of the possibilities are truly worrying. As I write to you, the main English service provider, BT, is under pressure to block The Pirate Bay from any access on their service. The site as we all know is infamous for having vast quantities of pirated and stolen information content, from movies to documents. This is something we could see happening on a much larger scale in the future, in a bid to stop all illegal content flow on the web. If you have a couple of minutes, watch this rather interesting clip on a proposition by the entertainment king-pins. See what I mean? I'm by no means saying that pirating...

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Small Update

Whilst I've been busy with lectures and the like, writing content has not been easy to fit in. However I will be posting something very interesting involving the future of the internet very soon. Stay tun...

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Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You - My Take

This is going to be a tough one. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a band close to my heart, I will try not to let this affect an honest review. Remember the distinctive guitar parts of Under The Bridge? Give It Away? Californication? Snow? John Frusciante, the creator of those amazing riffs has left, and is replaced by long time friend and collaborator Josh Klinghoffer. Being a huge fan of John, his departure made myself and many others (including the remaining members) consider the future of the band and what it can be without him. Anthony and Flea eventually decided 'onwards & upwards' so here we are with 'I'm With You' The first thing you'll notice is that Josh has chosen his own path, a path which does not see him replicate Frusciante's...

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Samsung Omnia 7 - Phone Review

Right then time for a phone review. I have owned the Samsung Omnia 7 for long enough to deliver an honest verdict, and that's what you'll get. Perhaps it is somewhat fitting, today it was reported that Samsung has overtaken Apple in the highly competitive smartphone manufacturing market.  Anyway, the Omnia 7 utilizes the highly attractive Windows Phone 7 interface, which personally I highly approve of. The interaction feels silky smooth, the button areas are perfectly sized on the main screen, and the slightly offset positioning works very well both functionally and aesthetically. The theme itself is pretty much everywhere you look in terms of apps, which themselves appear to be limited in quantity but not quality for WP7 handsets. The...

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The Wombats - This Modern Glitch - My Take

'Indie Landfill' is a term often associated with Liverpudlian three-piece The Wombats. Bands commonly classified as this genre include The Pigeon Detectives, The View, The Kooks and Scouting for Girls. The bands are characterised by a softer, less aggressive sound than earlier bands (compare with The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys). - Wikipedia But whether you classify them into that group or not now appears to be irrelevant, after an even catchier, even more fun follow up to A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation was released earlier this year. The deliciously fetching past guitar parts in the style of Moving To New York and Let's Dance to Joy Division are almost completely...

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Foam.

This is going to be something of a departure from my usual posts. On Monday night I went to my first foam party in a club in Oxford. It started pretty slowly but by the end it was pretty crazy, the whole foam out of a cannon at people dancing thing is ridiculous fun. The thing is, the people who care how they are dancing stop caring because you're knee deep in bubbles any way, it ends up like a close range snowball fight disco blur. Everyone generally has a great time and there is way more interaction between people who don't know each other. I highly recommend trying something like this at your local venue, but prepare to freeze your ass off when you leave! I'm interesting to hear about some interesting parties and party formats you've been to, so don't hesitate to...

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Foster The People - Torches - My Take

I'm not entirely sure how the LA trio emerged into radioplay in the U.S., but for us in the UK it is likely we all share a similar story. Radio 1 is playing, it's about 2pm and Greg James, despite being a talented DJ, has little choice but to play the commercial club garbage that Radio 1 are paid to play. He announces his record of the week as Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks enthusiastically and proceeds to play it. The gentle playful bass line is catchier than anything played all day, these are musicians playing actual instruments for a change. The chorus hook is even more addictive and the song goes down a treat. The promising signs persuaded me to investigate their upcoming album further, and what I found was more of...

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It is worth noting that I'll be posting up a review of this album within the next couple of days. Apologies for my slow updates I've been doing university work amongst other commitments. Stay tuned for my take on one of the albums of the year so f...

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Why The Music Industry Is How It is

In your heart of hearts you all know the reason. The reason why no one can get recording contracts except the likes of Jessie J, Kesha and [insert generic popstar who can barely sing]. Even when contracts are handed out these days, the majority are what is called a '360 deal'. The 360 deal is all encompassing, the traditional deal involved giving the artist an advance to record an album, then the company taking most of the proceeds from sales and the artist taking a significant chunk of live performance revenue. This is no longer the case, the 360 deal again sees an advance and expenses for recording an album, but the record company then takes most of everything. Album sales? Check. Live performances? Check. Television and film royalties? Check. The average pop star is likely to make less...

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Endtroducing 2

Music that speaks to the soul is not what you expect to find, but it is indeed what you get with Endtroducing. I swear I just heard a wookie over a breakbeat. The range of sampling in the record is so diverse and so creative that you have no idea what to expect next. Shadow has not just created a piece of art with this record, but an environment, a universe of it's own. Merely a collection of notes can invoke emotions and feelings, granted, but the real talent here is how Shadow can make the listener feel through the use of sampling, there is no 'I've heard this before' or 'This sounds familiar' whatsoever; the record is completely unique, ground-breaking and ahead of it's time, some may need reminding this was released in the mid 90's where...

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Endtroducing

I've just embarked on the journey of listening to DJ Shadow's Endtroducing. So far I have been exposed to a clever intro piece, a haunting piano floating under and over fast, but well spaced and not entirely in your face drumming, and a flanging wah-ing guitar section creeping in and out. I'm in no position to give a true opinion on this album and won't be for a few more listens, but it's completely blowing me away. This sounds fantastic on an overcast Saturday lunch time, making me wonder what would be the perfect environment for listening to such a record. Go away and listen to some of this if you haven't, I'll enjoy discussing it at a later da...

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Good evening friends, As you might expect this will be used for several things. I'm happy to review albums, movies and games, and  will be posting personal updates too. I guess it's worth mentioning that my goal in life is to become an audio engineer and or producer, with other music related projects intertwined. Currently experience the drastic change of going from full time work to full time education. More free time, much less cash. That will do for this evening, I promise to post more interesting discussions in the coming da...

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