RichRock : Running Free

Don’t get me wrong. I like watching movie trailers from www.apple.com/trailers. But this metrics.apple.com just makes it hang. I can leave a page loading for about 10 minutes and still it’s ‘waiting for metrics.apple.com’ If anyone’s got any idea why, or if I can bypass it, please let me know. My system is Ubuntu 7.10, the browser is Firefox 2.0.0.12.

I’ll say I’m a dance music fan. I grew up listening to early 70’s electronic music like Edgar Froese, Tangerine Dream, Didier Bocquet, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre. Then I found out about electro - I was fascinated by the concept that electronically generated music could become popular. It did. The rise of house in the late 80’s, with acid house, then moving into the 90’s with techno, then I got into ambient music around 94-95, never looked back. In fact, I have an ambient mix online for download here. I listened to all sorts, catching the wave of early pioneers of IDM like Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, any of the Warp Records posse. I never once professed to liking pop/rock music, although some bands held my attention, like Jansen, Barbieri & Karn (they of Japan fame), Bjork, Kubb, and even Fiona Apple!

Then I experienced Pete Namlook aka Peter Kuhlmann. A one-man record label, producer and produced more albums in one year than most people would in a lifetime. This guy did more for my musical interests than any other. He was a father figure to my view of ambient and electronic music, as he pushed the boundaries, exploring old school Berlin electronics, new wave ambient sounds, dance rhythms, and world music. It was a little hard to get his music though, but that was to change again.

I found the internet. Full of useful information, I trawled resources about creating music. When broadband arrived it brought two important things.

1 - The Creative Commons Licence. Without this, there is no legal way to redistribute music. This license comes in a variety of flavours, and it interested me, as I always stated on my own productions that the music could be copied, as long as my name remained as the creator of that music. I have a personal affinity with the CC license.

2 - The rise of the Netlabels. Netlabels are just that. They release music on the internet, for people to download, using the aforementioned Creative Commons license. My favourite netlabels are listed below :

• Sutemos - a Lithuanian netlabel dedicated to electronica in a variety of forms from, you guessed it - Lithuania. The site is available in english too.
• Laverna - An italian netlabel catering for electronica, with a leaning towards IDM. Pretty good, but not exceptional. Materaelectronics, Transient and D.a.f. are my favourite artists.
• Monohm - a netlabel from Vienna, mainly outputting material from Markus Brosel, who does some excellent ambient piano pieces, but also providing releases from other artists. They even have collaborations with mainstream artists like Vidna Obmana, Asmus Tietchens and Kraftwerk.
• Spheric Lounge - not a netlabel, but an improvisational/gathering/outlet for experimental electronic musings. The gist is this: Musicians gather at a location for a weekend or however long, create ambient noodlings over the weekend, then they are masterered and released on the website. Forthcoming gatherings are posted on the site too. Music varies from the sublime to the ‘why???’, but it’s a dropping in point for me every now and then.

So there you go. An update on my musical voyage. It’s going to continue for a while, what with Christian worship music and hiphop, plus the odd foray into classical tunes. A work in progress.

And look, I got through the whole post without mentioning Sigur Ros!

Pixar make great films. End of story. Each films they’ve released has not only upped the technical bar on CG generated films, but also in terms of story, character, and atmosphere. Ratatouille is fantastic. Not an outrageous laugh a minute film, but thoroughly enjoyable, accessible, and despite the circumstances, believable. Let’s face it, Pixar rock. Here’s the proof:

• Toy Story - Awesome
• Toy Story 2 - Even better
• A Bug’s Life - not seen, can’t comment. Yet.
• Monsters Inc - made me cry at the end. Excellent - even for ‘Welcome To The Himalayas!’ scene.
• Finding Nemo - I wasn’t sure about this. The bubble had to burst. Pixar do it again. Awesome film.
• The Incredibles - this time I really thought they’d blown it. I watched this with a degree of cynicism, and I was wrong, but it was Pixar’s darkest feature yet.
• Cars - How do they keep going with new stuff all the time? This was awesome - great characters, excellent story. Even the attention to detail was superb.
• Rataouille - I’ve given up on Pixar ever making a dud. If they have, this is most definitely not it.

Which leads me to their next film, Wall-E. I really don’t like the voice they use in the trailers, but the character has already shone through. Pixar are going to do it again. Here’s the superbowl spot:

Following on from last night’s commentary on War Films, I’d like to look at the misunderstood part of cinematography - the single shot take.

What I mean by this is an extended take of one scene which could last 1-2 minutes. Notable examples include:

Children Of Men - When the resistance (Clive Owen et al) are driving towards Bexhill, and are confronted with the rampaging youth mob. In this scene, the mob drop a burning car in their path, and a motorcyclist gives chase. The whole scene lasts around 2 minutes, without a single break in the shooting. Only later, upon much investigation, do you learn that the whole scene was filmed around the shell of a car. Only when you do see this scene do you realise the impact that a single-take scene can have.

War Of The Worlds - when Tom Cruise is fleeing the dock area, this scene is not only notable for the Superbowl shot of the bridge blowing up and destroying his local neighbourhood (a scene I will never forget), but the freeway escape where the camera skirts around the vehicle, and past other vehicles strewn around the road. Notable because it included other elements in the scene, such as the aforementioned car debris.

Bad Boys II - Gangster shootout - where Will Smith and Martin Lawrence encounter a bunch of drug dealers in a hideout, the camera pans round our heroes, and through the doors of the bad guys, adjusting the camera’s path through debris, fans, etc. This is virtual one-shot cinema at it’s almost finest. A constant revolution through doors, windows and scenery to reveal the actions of both good and bad guys in one take.

Such cinematography could be labelled as virtual cinema. And in the post-Matrix era, this could be true. However, long, linering shots of such quality could be traced back to Japanese cinema. These guys could make a facial expression interesting. For 5 minutes. Never mind any action. In these days of Michael Bay-esque fast cuts, heavily saturated cinema, we could be forgiven the works of Alfonso Del Cuaro and remember the longer cinematography as featured in Snake Eyes, where the opening scene lasts 15 minutes or so. But it is a clever deception. It is a series of four or five takes, overlaid with clever cuts, from bodies blocking to overplacement of shadow. But it’s what makes a shot interesting. Like photography, it’s what makes something worth keeping. Something visually interesting, or unique. Which is why Children Of Men, despite it’s dystopian themes, will always be a favourite film of mine.

I’ve just watched ‘Schindler’s List’, possibly one of the most moving movies that I’ve ever seen. There’s a small selection of cinema which I will watch not to be entertained, but reminded, of we as a human race, and our capabilities of atrocities towards one another.
When I say that there are movies that do not entertain, I am correct. Quite often we see war movies as glamourising the art of death-dealing, yet the pain and suffering that this causes shows us that we are really human, emotional beings. Of these films, I have a few that I hold dear to my heart, not because of the violence they portray, but the essence of what we are as humans, and how flawed we can be:

• Schindler’s List - already mentioned, the systematic extermination of the Jews, recreated in black & white film, and how one man’s profiteering bought him the ability to give several hundred people hope at life after WW2. Not entertaining because it shows a brutal regime, the abuse of Jews having to sift through the remains of their brethren, having to bury their friends, subjected to torment and terror.
• The Killing Fields - based around the story of Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg, a journalist for the New York Times, with Dith Pran as his ever able assistant. This story tells of the genocide that happened in the killing fields of Cambodia. Following both stories of Dith Pran’s captivity and Sydney Schenberg’s efforts to locate Dith, this movie moves towards an intensely emotional reunion. The horror of the killing fields is quite accurately portrayed, and very realistic. This movie, again, is not entertaining.
• Brotherhood (Taegugki) - this is definitely not one for the weak hearted. This film centres around two brothers drawn into the Korean war, a war which has never been resolved, with only a ceasefire holding place. Considering the tense situation between both countries, it was impressive that Korea’s largest budget live-action film could out-do ‘Saving Private Ryan’. And the reason this is mentioned? Saving Private Ryan, despite it’s brutal depiction of war, somehow glamourised it. Brotherhood rips any glamour of war to shreds. And your emotional state with it. This film has emptied boxes of tissues from me, merely because of the base nature that mankind can stoop to when faced with these decisions: kill or be killed. This film does not entertain, but informs, due to the socio/political nature of Korea (the scene where the girlfriend is taken to be executed merely because she attended a communist rally being a point), but also lifts the lid on how families cope during these times of war. One review stated,
  

  “Most positive reviews cite its unflinching portrayal of war and praise it for showing the brutality of both the North and South Korean armies.”

  Not a bad statement coming from a South Korean film.

So that’s my immediate selection. A series of films which do not entertain, but inform us of historical events, that show us facets of human nature we choose to hide under a layer of glamour. These films, being war films, when people get shot, they die. There are consquences. Scenes like where the Jews were lined up to save ammunition make this even more poignant. There is no glamour here. No dressing up, no ‘get up and carry on’. It’s a depiction of human life. And death.

Yes this post has been morbid. But there is something good about all this. People do live. The Schindler survivors. Sydney and Dith. I won’t mention the last, it would be a spoiler. The quintessential point of mankind is hope. Like the Architect states in the Matrix : Reloaded. Hope.

Hope is what we have to drive us on. But as in 1 Corinthians 13:13:

And now faith, hope, love, these three remain; but the greatest of these is love.

Nuff said. Mainly because I’m tired. And it’s late.

I’ve been listening to the rather interesting remix album of Unkle’s ‘Never Never Land’ (4CD ltd ed) (courtesy of my parents )

And even though I’ve heard it many times before, I thought I’d post up the lyrics I found interesting…

1st track - ‘In A State’ -

My mind is in a state
”cause all I seem to do is tempt my fate
Well I try a real space
But all the while, I’m crashing at the gate
This time…
This time…
Reality struck me between the eyes

My mind is in a state
”cause everything I’m missing comes too late
So I try and disappear
But there is only one way out of here
This time…
This time…

My mind is in a state
But all I need to do is change my pace
And I know there’s fear to face
But happiness is found in its embrace
This time…
This time…

And the 2nd track - ‘Reign’

I am the lightning, i am the heat
I am the reign, reign oh, reign oh, reign all day
I am the reign
I’m gonna reign this way again
I am the reign

I am the spy
Before the blade
I am the raindrop out at sea I cause
The ripples that becoming crashing waves
I am the reign, reign oh, reign oh, reign all day
I am the reign

You thought a different day had come
A day you thought the earth was done
And if you could have said it all
I know you would have said it all
You thought a different day had come
A day you thought the earth was done
And if you could have said it all
I know you would have said it all

I am the reign
I’m gonna reign this way again
I am the reign, reign oh, reign oh, reign all day

You thought a different day had come
A day you thought the earth was done
I am the reign
And if you could have said it all
I know you would have said it all
I am the reign

Reign sung by one of my favourite male vocalists, Ian Brown.

There’s an excellent remix by RJD2 of Reign, and DFA do an awesome remix of ‘In A State’, which has to be one of the best build-up tracks of all time…. In A State has a remix by Moby which has a sample at the start which although I cannot recognise, would love to know the source, because it sounds like a surf film, and because ‘theres the God they taught me about at school, and theres the God thats, ‘hidden’.’ Might do a plugin to create favourite tracks of all time…