Lolomix 7: Insects

Tweet Who ever knew there were so many class songs about insects? Not me! But in this, the most random Lolomix yet, it would appear that many of our indie heroes have a thing for six legged invertebrates with exoskeletons. How Loreana managed to find all these songs beats me, but its a fine mix. Those kerazy Portland groovers Menomena appear here with 'evil bee'. I'm just about to pop down to the sugar club to check them out and review the gig for Analogue (which is going quiet in print form until Summer, but very much continuing to rock on in its electronic format!!) Download Lolomix 7: Insects Jonathan Richman- Hey There Little Insect Guided By Voices- Bug House Olivia Tremor Control- Shaving Spiders Modest Mouse- Fly Trapped in a Jar Douglas Liburn-Cicada Oscillations and Treefrogs Stereolab- Black Ants in Sound-Dust Menomena- Evil Bee The Low Lows- Dear Fly, Love Spider All Smiles- Moth in a Cloud of Smoke Blur- Beetlebum Sufjan Stevens- The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is out to Get Us! Mercury Rev- Chasing a Bee Blog awards tomorrow night!! A weekend of heavy drinking begins...

Two shiny new nuggets of Irish electronica

Tweet To continue the recent nepotistic slant in my blogging, here's more shit about people I know, a friend of mine from Kells and a dude who shares 100% of my DNA but about 14% of my kind and generous nature. I promise my next blog will be about the origins of Brazilian psychedelic music or something equally unrelated to me, my family, or my mates. Colours Move is the mysterious Kells dude who produced that pummeling remix of Ham Sandwich's 'sad songs' I put up a few weeks ago. By all accounts this weather has seen him very busy in the poorly-lit neon confines of his techno lair. He's in there, coaxing floods of new music out of Roland synths under the watchful eyes of stuffed seagulls and nude mannequins with photographs of his own face glued to their heads. His friend, my twin brother Storkboy is inappropriately messing around with synths and sounds too and one of his older tracks, a twinkly thing called Rockfield symphony features on Nialler9's February podcast. Both of these fledgling techno-nerds will now be playing support to Casiotone for the Painfully Alone on the 9th of March in Whelans. They assure me that they'll be doing more than pressing play on a laptop. Below are two new tracks from the lads. MP3: Storkboy Choons-By the Waters Storkboy's 'by the waters' continues his established pretentious tradition of yoking the cart of lines cribbed from great Irish literature to the horse of modern techno in a pathetically transparent attempt at profundity. I'm kidding, he really means it. I think the strange poetry lyric from Yeats marries far more successfully with the fluctuating crackles of synthesizer in this track, than some of the lines he swiped from that other influential Irish techno pioneer, James Joyce, worked out in the context of his earlier tracks. MP3: Colours Move-Winters In 'Winters,' Colours Move moves away from the stuttering M83 style electro of his Sad Songs mix, into expansive techno that for me feels a bit more acid (acidy?, acidic?) and reminiscent of Luke Vibert, especially during the wet and squelchy sounding bits at the end. Sure I'll toss in some Luke Vibert for good measure. MP3: Luke Vibert-Chicago, Detroit, Red Ruth I wish the lads the best of luck in Whelans. I'd be as nervous as fuck if I had to do anything like that. Tune in tomorrow where I'll either be plugging my Dad's Kells-based Irish country band's new album "Big Tommy and the Carnaross Cowboys present- Paint your Hiace", or discussing the merits of Tropicalia music.

Fuckin' breadly! ham sandwich earn their crust by playing a butterly brilliant gig!

Tweet Its rare to read something about Ham Sandwich that doesn't have an obligatory cringey pun about their name. However, in fairness, they brought the current shitstorm of cruddy bread-related references on themselves that fateful day they chose to stick with the name for good. So its a measure of their rapidly burgeoning popularity that people are getting used to it. A woman I work with and who is in her early sixties mentioned them to me with a straight face the other day. For some reason, it was all I could do not to choke on laughter snot. Why was it funny? I really don't know. It just was. There are some things that older people should be spared the indignities of naming. Namely stinger bars, CBBC programmes such as Tellytubbies/Tweenies/The Hoobs and bands called Ham Sandwich. Well, at least they will never be banned from playing festivals like those poor sods Holy Fuck. Live pic by Loreana I went down to Wheelie-bins last week to check out the 'Sambo for what was probably the 20th time. As I've said before, I have a vested interest in this band as Podge is a close mate and I've known the others well over the years. But this was a bleedin' massive gig, and I reckon I'd say that regardless of whether the fuck I knew them or not. Nobody could deny the exuberant rock'n'roll credentials that were on display, flowing out of this raggedy bunch in showers of tickertape and blasts of pure power-pop. There was so much to enjoy, from Ollie's muscular drumming (which I think is absolutely key to their arresting live sound), to the playful enthusiasm etched all over Podge and Niamh's faces, and not forgetting the crowd pleasing jangly/loud aesthetic of the songs themselves. Also, it was surprising to see so many people hollering along the words of lesser known tracks from a record barely out a week. They have a following. Ham Sandwich have something special that is winning over the Irish public right now. I think this could be their inclusiveness. When they are at their best, their live performances include the audience as the sixth member. They court the crowd, banter with them, and make no secret of how much of a buzz they get from the attention. This sure beats the standard spectacle of frozen dudes with haircuts churning out pedestrian po-faced riffs and barked lyrics. It was a great night, and I won't be surprised if another Meteor ends up in the bag next year for best Irish Live Performance. Finally, I must admit to having initial doubts about the new single Keepsake, thinking it was a bit laid back for a band that excels at rushing power pop. But last Saturday it had morphed into a bit of a sing-a-long anthem which ended on a mad cadbury's gorilla style drum solo from Podge that brought the house down. Fair Fucks. Oh and one more thing. The animated video by Kells artist Marc Corrigan that they previewed for forthcoming single Broken Glass is really something else.

John Peel fest

Tweet Class. I just found a torrent compiling every last song featured John Peel's festive 50 Christmas shows from 1980 until 2004. That's 50 cherry-picked songs songs per year for 24 years. Its downloading onto my laptop now, but it will probably take a few days to get them all. I'm dead excited about this. Imagine, a year-on-year compilation of 50 songs as selected by perhaps the greatest radio tastemaker of them all. And unlike Ireland's version, Fanning's flabby 50, it never repeated itself, thank fuck (Creep as song of the year 1993/1994/1995/1996?* THAT SHIT MADE PEOPLE EMIGRATE). Its pretty much as good a history of left-field music as you could ever hope to get. And it'll be my long overdue introduction into the weird world of the Fall. For some reason, my exposure to this band has been minimal over the years. I saw the drooling obsession the mention of Mark E Smith brings out in some men, and frankly it scared me off the band. I figured that if I'm already half brain damaged by my Guided by Voices fixation, getting into the Fall could finish me off for good. I know jack shit about them really. Just a few big tunes (like totally wired) which I've loved. But now I am ready and willing to learn. This John Peel shit will serve as my apprenticeship. Once I get stuck into the Peel stuff, I'll post some of it up here. Can't wait for it to download. Its gonna be Christmas on the compost heap, and John Peel is a ghostly digital santa!! *I know these figures are probably inaccurate, but please don't feel the need to correct me and remind me whatever other ponderous alterno-turd of a tune topped the chart in these years. I heard the tail end of the fab 50 for the fist time in 5 years at Christmas and it actually managed to instantly put me in a bad mood. One minute I was eating sweets and grinning; seconds later The Smiths were singing the 9th most popular alternative song of 2007 and I was juddering with dread. The light dimmed, a curtain fluttered and Dave Fanning's spindly finger reached out of the radio from the depths of the 90s to tickle my scalp with its chill touch. Fab my hole. MP3: Evangelicals-skeleton man

playing marbles in the empty bowels of a ruined alien spaceship as big as a planet

Tweet Remember the atrociously named electronica genre Intelligent Dance Music (IDM)? A genre beloved of humourless, pedantic and invariably baldy male bores who are biologically connected to their record bags and wear runners that require mortgages to buy. Guys who probably use maths equations to compute how much an album appeals to them and who would prefer to jack off all over a rare Rephlex vinyl than kiss a girl. These guys' favourite song titles read like ingredients in a stinger bar, or unsolved clues in Estonian crossword puzzles-"actually, my favourite track on the analogirophlex album is e.1774, which has more appealing glitch sound than garly_zz.iphlex." SWEET!! Its the tracklisting for the new Aphex twin EP Well, I used to love IDM, but in a clumsy half-informed way. I only bought the big albums on the warp label, Aphex, Plaid, Boards of Canada, Autechre and Squarepusher. And I only bought them on CD. So I never had the pleasure of shelling out too much for a rare heavy pressed vinyl. Like 40 euro for a lump of plastic where gobbledygook catalogue numbers on the label might or might not indicate that its scuttery drill'n'base racket is actually Richard D. James repeating the word cunt interminably, or just one of his mates farting while he laughs all the way to the bank. I was at the normal end of the IDM spectrum; more a case of mild Asperger's Syndrome than the full blown autism of the vinyl geeks. Boards of Canada were (and still are) my favourites. I love the elusive widescreen riddles of their early stuff, which sadly got lost somewhere down the line. Second to Boards of Canada in my affections were probably Autechre, who seemed to me to be their evil twin, a bleak and alienating distortion of Boards of Canada's warm earthy drone- although I must add here, there was no comparison in terms of beats. BOC's simple and blocky hip hop patterns always stood only knee high to the awesome clicky machinations of Autechre's best work. Right, finally, the point of this post is that Autechre are about to release a new album called Quaristice. And I'm excited for many reasons including the fact that all the tracks are about 3 minutes long- which makes a big change from the difficult 10-minute glitch-fests that required some serious active listening on the previous few records. But don't be fooled by the pop-song length. We're still a long way from 'little deuce coupe' here. Download this only if, like me, your definition of enjoyable music extends to the sound of ball-bearings skittering across a sheet of metal while something huge and discordant bangs in the distance. Its not likely to trouble Ray Darcy's morning playlist. MP3: Autechre-palalel suns

Brrrrrrr!!

Tweet Its really frosty cold these days. To make matters worse the curtains randomly fell off the window of my room a few weeks ago and I've been too distracted to get them fixed, so most mornings I lie awake shivering like a neglected mutt and squinting miserably into the daylight. However, I saw a few daffodils and crocuses and yokes starting to grow so that gives me heart. Finally got to see the Field live in Crawdaddy last Friday night. It bugged me. The guy acted like a prick tease. He appeared close to 2am, played some awesome incandescent techno for one measly hour and disappeared. I felt turned on and cheated on at the same time. He really did himself no favours by knocking out such a short set. Looking forward to Menomena play the sugar club on leap year night though. I did an interview with Brent for analogue and its here. In an embarrassing type-o I end up calling their debut album 'I am fun lame monster' instead of 'I am fun blame monster.' Pah! I hate type-os. How come you're blind to them until the second you actually submit something? Then the little fuckers pop up all over the place like measles.

LoLomix 6: LoLo's Love

Tweet This is a day late, but that's on purpose cos St Valentine's day is frankly, a cringe-fest. LoLomix 6 on the other hand is neither soppy nor a cringefest. Ya won't find any puke bucket fodder like 'you raise me up' here. No siree. Instead, you'll find a brilliant hand picked selection of unlikely lovesongs from the corners of LoLo's record collection, which I'd say looks a bit like mind-bogglingly huge warehouse full of crates at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Halo Benders- Love Travels Faster TV on the Radio- I was a Lover The Knife- Heartbeats Steve Winwood- Higher Love Psychic TV- Stolen Kisses Lavender Diamond- You Broke My Heart Fruit Bats- When U Love Somebody Magnetic Fields- I'm Sorry I Love You Half Japanese- 1,000,000 Kisses Tall Dwarfs- We Bleed Love Guided By Voices- Smothered in Hugs The Mountain Goats- Love Love Love Daniel Johnston- True Love Will Find you in the End Download Lolomix 6: Love Fileden version to follow!!

Obligatory Vampire Weekend Post

Tweet I didn't think I was going to blog about this lot, with the reams of bollocks that people are spewing about them all over the 'net. If you read too many blogs it now seems possible to be bored of a band before hearing one bar of their music. That's how I felt about Vampire Weekend last weekend. Bored, over-exposed, smugly dismissive. But could I even name, let alone whistle one of their tunes? Could I fuck? I'm gonna shut up now, as the thread of this argument is making me look like a babbling hypocrite considering I keep a blog myself. Also, I'm about to add my vampire weekend related tuppence to the dribblings of ten bazillion gibbering and geeky yanks out there in the electronic fog. Corey and Tegan hope people don't get too into Vampire Weekend or else they'll have to stop liking them Ignore all the bullshit about them being preppy college dudes -eh, whats the big deal anyway? last time I checked most of the current crop of North American indie bands were hyperliterate brain monkeys- and the equal dose of hype about whether its an affected ploy to ape african music -again, what odds?- and you're left with a playful, breezy and quality album with no filler. It sounds good now, but mark my words this shit is going to sound so much better come the warm summer evenings and icy beer. The guitars on 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa' drip liquid sun. MP3: Vampire Weekend-Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa Okay, we all know they sound like Paul Simon, but listening to 'Oxford comma' on the bus commute today I kept getting a frustrated deja vu feeling that the song really reminded me of something I once loved. I almost went nuts trying to place it. Eventually I resorted to scrolling all the way down my walkman trying to identify it, until it hit me at 'W'. "Ah... the WALKMEN, BOWS AND ARROWS!" I announced to nobody in particular in my special needs headphones-up-too-loud voice. Its that resonant organ sound that keeps cropping up on the record. It sounds like jets of air blowing through the glass hollows of old chemistry lab equipment. I like that. Also there are lots of bits that sound like milk bottles being rapidly tapped with sticks. I like that too. The only tune I'm not sure of is M79 which spends its four minutes freakishly threatening to morph into either the theme tune to the Antiques Roadshow or Ski Sunday. Vampire Weekend then; its as Summery as a melted golly bar on a tarmac driveway. MP3: Vampire Weekend-Oxford Comma

Odds, sods and two headed boys...

Tweet While munching on yesterday afternoon's marmite toastie I had the pleasant surprise of finding out the 'heap has made the final shortlist for best music blog in the Irish blog awards. I'm honoured. I'm happy enough just knowing people bother to read this. Anyways lots of my favourites made the list, but I'm still baffled as to how the mighty thrillpier was overlooked. LoLo of LoLomix fame is up for nomination too for her brillo photography journal, currently featuring loving shots of the baldy human spider that is Billy Corgan. In news relating to my favourite record, I've noticed that many blogs are marking the tenth anniversary of 'In the airplane over the sea' by Neutral Milk Hotel. Indie rock tastes are fickle, but that record stands proudly like a huge groaning pier that has weathered the ebbing seas of hipster shit that came and went in its wake. I gave it a spin today for the first time in months, just to remind myself of its power, and found myself transported, stirred and awed. Anyone who has had the misfortune of listening to me after one or five too many will know that I could fill buckets with the amount of shite I'm capable of talking about that album, as I have done right here on the heap. But in fairness neither my grasping words nor anybody else's could ever do it justice. It exists on its own, outside of people's descriptions of it. Its almost physical, like an unchanging place you pay a visit to every now and again. And what a troubling and thrilling place it is, with its two-headed boys, burning apartment blocks, bombs, Christmas trees and whirling planets held together by Jeff Magnum's enduring and emotive vision. MP3: Neutral Milk Hotel-The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1 MP3: Neutral Milk Hotel-Holland 1945

Now its 1987 all the time...

Tweet Dan Bejar eh? I saw him play in a gunge-soaked carpeted bingo hall at ATP a few years ago, and really didn't think 'owt of him at all. Well, not much except this guy seems a bit up his own hole and has an awful dose of sinusitus. I have a terrible tendency to do that, to instantly turn my nose up at something new with a simplifying smart comment. This often leads to me pulling an opinion u-turn and eating my shitty words months later. Such came to be the case with Destroyer, Bejar's band. But come on, I think my early dismissal of him is fair enough given initial impressions. He does always sing like something from a sudafed ad, and he constantly references his older songs in his newer ones. This makes many of them feel like postmodern wormholes full of mirrored Dan Bejars checking each other out and complimenting each other. Help! I'm trapped inside a destroyer song. In addition to this self-obsession, he often over-eggs the pudding with bookish digressions and clunky metaphors that flap all over his albums waiting to be put out of their misery. But, in spite of all this... when he's good, he's great! And that's because of the music itself. He plays around with a number of styles on his many albums and side projects, but to me his best work has the buzz of classic 70s and 80s guitar rock playing through an old AM radio. It echoes and reverberates from some dreamed up corner of his imagination where its "1987 all the time". Although the melodic structure is quite different, the production values of a lot of Destroyer's work remind me so much of the shins second album, which jingle-jangled in a similar evocative way. I think Bejar's gifts are best demonstrated on his last album Destroyer's Rubies. This is an essential album. ESSENTIAL. And in spite of more than a few exasperating lyrical flourishes there are moments of pure poetry. I have high hopes for the forthcoming release, trouble in dreams. Going on the strength of the released MP3 Foam Hands, I've good faith its gonna deliver the goods. Here are two painting related songs off Destroyers Rubies, one was on LoLomix 5! MP3:Destroyer-Watercolours into the ocean MP3:Destroyer-European Oils

The return of LoLomix 5: Lost at sea.

Tweet I've bumped this post up because LoLomix 5 is NOW AVAILABLE ON BLEEDIN' RAPIH'-SHARE. Download LoLomix 5: Lost at Sea And here's the old fileden version just in case. I'm a long way from the compost heap! My crab trawler left cape caribou 10 days ago. Im 62 degrees north. Its cold here. So cold that the water in my jumper has turned to frost. Every night, below deck, when I close my eyes all I can see are crabs. Huge raggedy armies of them, spilling out of cages, through the hatches and into my sleeping quarters. I'm going nuts. ARGGGGHH, I'M LOST AT SEA. Wait what's that? It sounds like something's coming through the ship's tannoy speaker. Its crackling and hard to make out above the clanking crab containers, but it sounds familiar. Some sort of mix of music I think, sweet, sweet indie music. Is that Dan Bejar? It is. I can hear his warm voice guiding me through the frozen Arctic night. Everything's gonna be OK. Elf Power- Green Sea Days The Music Tapes- Song for soon to be Sailor Sonic Youth- Diamond Sea Evangelicals- Diving The Olivia Tremor Control- The Ships Dirty Three- Restless Waves Destroyer- Watercolours into the Ocean Radiohead- Weird Fishes/Arpeggi Shout Out Louds- Seagull Fleetwood Mac- Safe Harbour Slint- Good Morning Captain LoLomix was brought to you by the lubbly Loreana

This coming May...

Tweet ...is nearly falling off the calendar, its so laden with gig dates. The amount of choice on offer is disorientating in its sheer abundance and quality. Its scary. Because of increasing college research commitments, I'll likely be low on money and busy at work. So I can only realistically go to a small few. How will I choose? Deerhunter or Animal Collective? Jens Lekman or Sunset Rubdown? Gui Boratto or the Hold Steady? And thats not to mention other bands I'm not as obsessed with but would likely check out if it were any other month. That's Battles, Yeasayer, Liars, Man Man, the National etc... There are some tough gig choices ahead. Can we not just lump them all into Trabolgan for an Irish style ATP with go karts, waterslides and wooly alterno-music? That would be a savage solution to the predicament. MP3: Built to Spill-Distopian Dream Girl Thinking of gigs. I know I've blogged about this before but fuck it here I go again. Its 'cos of a recurring dream I've had a few times. Last Summer I saw Built to Spill play at Primavera on the main stage late one night with a sparkling full moon reflected on the sea behind them. Doug Marsh's inimitably epic guitar squiggles swelled magnificently to fill that landscape. The entire night felt thick with music, these pealing, meandering riffs and melodies that kept heaping up on each other, breaking apart, crashing and spilling all over the place, meshing with their stunning surroundings and casting an indescribable spell in the balmy air. I was there with my girlfriend and good mates. They all shared the same shit-eating grin with me whenever I caught their eye. Moments like that only happen a few times in your life. Anyway, I mention this because the gig had such an effect on me I've dreamt about three times since that Built to Spill played Dublin. Mad lucid dreams they were too. Dreams so realistic I could nearly see the nits hopping about in Doug's beard. And I never dream about gigs. Are they premonitions? Will the 'Spill's seeming never-ending tour of the States ever hit our shores? Now that Guided by Voices are permanently split, I can safely say that this would be top of my wish list of fantasy gigs. Hold on a sec, the clouds in my crystal ball are clearing, I can see it now. Its Whelans, its sometime in September, is that...I can't be sure...yay it sure is! Built to Spill with a special guest appearance by Calvin Johnson for a quick spin through Virginia Reel around the Fountain. I swear, I'm gonna wish this shit into existence!

Brp Brp Brp BEERRRR... Sap of the week award goes to...

Tweet ...Niall Stokes. In this week's drug-tacular issue of Hotpress (which for some completely unfathomable reason proclaims itself to be a 'Collector's Edition') Mr Stokes shares the following in his editorial: There has been so much hype, so much nonsense out there on the subject of drugs... we have been bombarded with sensational drugs stories I agree. So I'm glad Hotpress sidestepped the sensational end of things with their restrained and understated front cover. I mean, what better way to illustrate the gravitas with which you intend to treat the subject than a picture of a smudge-eyed skinny blond with a dead gaze gripping a rolled up 20, and more baking soda plastered across her face than the class simpleton used to have in Home Economics. Nice one Niall. Oh and I'm sure any echoes of the Katy French tragedy are coincidental. 'Cos that would be sensational wouldn't it? Hotpress may have a few interesting things to say on drugs. But if someone had only that trashy, tasteless mess of a front cover to go on, they'd doubt it. And if I have to read one more Hunter S. Thompson lite piece of self serving shit written by Olaf Tyrannasarus about how he smokes dope, I'll march down to the custom house, buy a bag of smack and inject it straight into my brain just to cope. I suppose the real deal is that they are trying to sell a few more mags by appearing edgy. I've seen more edge on a bean bag. Relaxing after a typical dinner party in Mullingar... MP3: Grandmaster Flash-White lines don't do it Other stuff: Look out for the funkiest free-est mag around, Analogue! It came out today. And on Cluas there's a mad coluredy table that looks like the nutritional information on a box of reddy brek, except its for music blogs. Its rating us according to how much content is on our page, and by extension how easy it is to download the blog on a slower connection. The compost heap is quite calorific, dangling precariously over the red zone. Not as bloated as poor old egoeccentric though, which weighs in at a whopping 2 megs and probably wears a virtual mu-mu. If anyone has tips on how to slim this page down a bit, I'd love if you could share them with me.

Fighting the Sunday night heebs through the power of Eluvium

Tweet Meh, there's not much in life that wearies me like the Sunday night heebs. I'd happily trade them for a bucket of Monday morning jitters and a few dark Tuesday afternoons of the soul thank you very much. Its the impending early rise that wrecks me. I keep second guessing the alarm on my phone and waking up every hour on the hour (a bit like Sky News) from about 3am waiting for the fuckin thing to bleep. I don't even know what it sounds like. That's because I'm so afraid of alarms my body has developed some sort of militarily precise psychic early warning system that repeatedly wakes me up before they go off. Nyehuurgh its sunday night. Each time I wake up, my tummy sinks a little deeper into the pit of inevitability with the realisation that I am 30 minutes closer to Dublin Bus hell. I'll soon be cold, crusty-eyed, sadly chewing a rubbery Centra rasher sandwich, and wedged between all those spiny haired office dorks with Jack Johnson turned up too loud on their ipods (if its a 9am start).Or in the vodka fug exuded by our eastern European counterparts if its a 7am start. The eastern European dudes also tend to have their ipods turned way up. Every morning they all seem to be listening to the same song. Its a sort of a jinga-jinga-jinga techno beat that runs at a similar bpm to a hummingbird's heart and its overlaid with a female vocal going doorshkie-doorshkie-doorshkie. That, or death metal. I always thought listening to death metal was one of those things like drinking whiskey where its not socially acceptable to indulge before 3pm. Not in eastern Europe its not. Over there breakfast must consist of a nip of vodka accompanied by the agonized demon-yelps of Burzum turned all the way up to 11. Anyway, no matter what bus I'm on, it appears that nobody is happy. Everybody looks bleak, ruined, broken. Jaysis, Monday mornings on Dublin bus eh? They're like personally starring in a less fun version of the collected works of Ingmar Bergman. Fun and games! I developed various coping strategies to combat the Sunday night heebs. The one that's works best for me is a good dose of ambient music. Stuff to wash gently over your gnarled and cowering stump of a soul and smooth out all those knots. The best is the sort of music that makes you feel like your drifting off in warm water or under a dome of balmy sky where the stars are actually visible. Like Brian Eno's 'music for airports' or my recent deep obsession, Stars of the Lid. Currently, its the sublime sounds of Eluvium that ferry me into the land of nod. Some of it is quite like Stars of the Lid, all gliding monochromatic drone effects and wide open spaces. But a lot of it veers close to minimal classical music too, recalling the repetitive tumbling piano motifs of Philip Glass's solo piano stuff. Its always beautiful. Also, they have super song titles. I love an evocative song title, and in 'indoor swimming at the space station' Eluvium have one of the best ever. If you too suffer from the Sunday night heebs, these MP3's are my gift to you. MP3: Eluvium-an accidental memory in the case of death MP3: Eluvium-thoughts for pachelbel

Barry Egan is sound!

Tweet Just kidding! He's a repugnant twat. On thrillpier Ian has linked to a barmy piece in the Irish Indo where the illiterate buffoon temporarily removes his Mick Hucknall lookalike competition winning head out of Andrea Roche's ass to sing the praises of James Blunt. In the piece, Egan comes out with this remarkable nugget-"If, say, Ian Curtis had written Goodbye My Lover, the critics would be swooning." It gets better. The Egster draws comparisons between James Blunt and Lord Byron, presumably by the same faulty mental mechanism that once had him liken Paris Hilton to Botticelli's Venus. And, in a final demonstration of his awesome knowledge of alternative music, he calls Radiohead a lo-fi band. I wrote him a wee comment. But funnily it didn't show up. Shame, because it wasn't libelous or anything. Just horribly abusive. But seriously, Radiohead are about as lo-fi as Genesis, and comparing James Blunt to Ian Curtis? Is he on crack? Barry Egan's journalism is without fail, overwrought nonsense that celebrates nobodies and is about as substantial as candyfloss. Our national press is a disgrace when clowns like him and Victoria brown-nose Clarke are getting so much column space in the Sunday broadsheets. Come to think of it, he really does look like a clown, a big creepy ginger clown without make-up. "Can I haz interview wit Glendo Gilzen Plz?" My brother recently saw this band when he was on holidays in the States and reckoned they rocked like motherfuckers! MP3: No Age-Everybody's Down