So, I've been quite exhausted recently, with the result that today absolutely nothing happened as planned. However, getting back in touch with a random piece of music editing software I was trialling ages ago, I did compose a scherzo/trio, for the symphony I am apparently writing? (Although the string parts are mostly a cheat and would have to be sorted. But the programme does let you do nice things to the sound quality, so it doesn't sound completely like a midified mess.)

ETA: OK, I can't get Box's embed to work, so here's a link instead:

https://app.box.com/s/4amkwdqlfs2n8wtvn2yc

I'm sure many of you like classical music (and amateur attempts at that!)... Enjoy!

But I thought I should check in again! Thanks for all the birthday wishes last weekend. Life continues, and I have got into jogging and (bizarrely) Beauty (at least in terms of spending ages browsing shit and then buying nail varnish) as ways of destressing.

But on a shopping trip today I also bought this album, which made me very happy:

Electronic 80s 2 from the Ministry of Sound's Anthems series

I don't know what crap they had on the first version - this just keeps giving. I didn't even realise when I bought it that New Order's True Faith was on it, nor White Wedding!

I also have some Deep House Euphoria and a Maison Kitsune compilation of 'new faces'. But those are to think about later!

I also bought fruit. *is anticipating the nectarine season*

Buffy in S6, for an sb_fag_ends prompt that I picked specifically from the poetry wot I like on my shelf, so I didn't really have any excuse anyway. This is the link, or below the cut:

( Flashblind )

In other news, it's been a while since you've had a Nigel Kennedy video, so have another:



Sound quality's ever so slightly better on the Radio 3 website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01g9vvg - but the embed doesn't work because the BBC have never fixed that...

But I think I would have been too stressed travelling around this weekend, not least because I skived on Thursday to go to the Proms! We stood for the first one, but my mum managed to get some jammy tickets to the Nigel Kennedy who was aaaaaaaaaaaamazing. Check it out on iPlayer if you can! (It's Prom 34.) Was very excited to see in some publicity article for it in the Times (wot my Mum reads) that the Nige is doing a collaboration with Massive Attack on another version of the Four Seasons which is meant to be released in the Autumn. It's going to be epic.

I also just bought some shoes. They are... Characteristic?

http://www.office.co.uk/view/product/office_catalog/2,10/1163391601

Go, go, go: moriwen1's What is This, a Joke?

Spike and Aslan walk into a bar. Or, more exactly, Spike's on the hunt for his soul and ends up with a bloody terrifying lead. Cue a breezy-fresh short story with solid metaphysical credentials nonetheless. And chapter one has a twist that keeps on giving. brutti_ma_buoni already linked it, but I'm linking it again, because I don't want you lot to miss it!

In other news, which should probably get its own post so as not to sour the proceedings, I've been sucked back into The Voice? I think it must say something for the rejigging of the format, because it was about this time last year that I abandoned it. It's just a fact, though, that neither Danny wotsisarrogantface nor Tom Jones have any clue about production, which is such a shame, because Jessie J and will.i.am's people are the only ones who end up giving proper thought-through performances.

Everyone's clear favourite, as it should be, is Leah... Because this is just aces! I can't bear pop, but modern covers of disco I apparently like. Also, the vast heaps of sarcasm she pours over the lyrics are great.



But I also like Leanne, who got kicked off. I think she dreams of being Christina Aguilera, but she really needs to be on the dance circuit. That icy high register of hers is dying out for pounding electronics. As they started getting to with this:



Soz; I iz proper hyper on curry and Hotel Chocolat chocolate wot I couldn't resist on the way home.

it was only my fashion ears pricking at 90s hiphop. Loving this track:



Apparently King Krule was on the longlist for the BBC's sound of 2013. Don't I feel mainstream...

So, bogwitch has been getting me into New Wave recently, ever since I found myself listening to a load of it on the American Airlines 80s radio channel... I was convinced that this stuff sounded dead on trend and something was going on with it. Turns out I was right! As my Rough Trade Synth Wave 10 album put me on towards, there is some sort of scene happening, possibly taking the name coldwave or minimal wave, following what to my knowledge are long defunct descriptors of early post-punk. Very excited about this! (And don't worry, will stop talking wank about genres now.) There's a whole world to explore, but currently I'm in love with Led Er Est, who sound a bit like Theatre of Hate would if they'd come from Brooklyn and ditched the saxophones for gameboy-dodgy synth and more groovy lines. Really it's just the vocals. Anyway, this is a track off their album from last year:



and this is a more boppy track of greatness from their 2009 outing (though everything I have says it's called Poll Gorm, not Poll Grom):



ETA: And this is why all the hipster bands are starting to record on cassettes! It all makes sense... Alas, no cassette player for me; not hipster enough, clearly.

Crystal Castles had a new album out recently, it seemed worth mentioning that this song is a triumph beyond triumphs. It's all about the slow, smooth baseline and the echo chamber of everything else.



(The image of the video doesn't change, by the way; it's an unbleached version of the photo from the album cover.)

I can't really name any other standout songs from the album, but that's fairly par for the course with CC, it seems (and I definitely rate the album). I wish they'd set their vision a bit bigger than individual songs, because I would be in love with a proper twenty minute EP or some such. They're clearly developing (and I love the fact, just discovered, that (III) was made without computers), but the songs are still very much one idea played with for a few minutes, when they could easily carry a bit more narrative.

ION I slightly hate last.fm. I had to remove the updated app they had me download, because it kept trying to interfere with iTunes in a way that Windows decided was too virus-like. So currently I have no record of listening habits. Ah well. No one really needs to know that I sat in the library with Simple Minds on repeat for four hours.

I need to leave for the library now, but I found this! Never seen it in full before. Have not got more than about five minutes through, but if you've never heard of Poly Styrene, at least the first part of this should tell you what an intelligent, thoughtful and generally lovely person she was was (RIP Poly :( ). Even if you also get the impression that, like a lot of us, she couldn't hold a tune if she couldn't hear herself over any background racket...



I wanna be instamatic
I wanna be a frozen pea
I wanna be dehydrated
in a consumer society

(^some of my favourite lyrics ever.)

ETA: Oh dear, this may well break your heart. I thought it must have been filmed before Poly left the public eye, but it seems to be more about her reflections on why fame is horrific... Watch at your own risk? I'm halfway through and it's definitely worth watching, but yeah, it's sad.

It wasn't shit. I actually liked it a lot! There were many delights to be had and I might actually go and watch it again now (at least the first bit, not the parade, nor the goo later, though that was pleasant enough at midnight). Macca ruined it at the end, as is his way, but the first section was very clever - I've been made to sing Jerusalem in school in my time and it was quite something to see it played out against the irony of history. With Branagh!Brunel and The Tempest, no less!

And I liked the bouncy beds and the GOSH children's stories. And all the music!! It was so nice to feel like there were people at the helm in the Boyle-Underworld team who knew where to go for a recent history of British music. I'm not even a big fan of Dizzee Rascal, but you can't really have a house party without him (and help me for recognising Tinie Tempah too). There nothing like the Pretty Vacant riff as a siren call...

And I thought the 7/7 memorial firey section was very well done (Emeli Sandé has a lovely voice), and I loooved the cycling birds. (Especially to the sound of the Arctic Monkeys! Not who I expect to pop up at an event like this, and so refreshing. Take note, you bookers of Gary effing Barlow.)

They had some very nice picks on the flag carriers. Shami Chakrabarti looked like she couldn't believe she'd been asked, and I couldn't quite either, but, yeah, she's who you want carrying a flag!

And someone somewhere made some excellent choices about how to do the whole torch-to-cauldron bit. Not least on the copper (best metal). ;)

(Still not going to watch any of the sport.)

ETA: Seriously, I cannot stop re-watching the Isles of Wonder/Pandaemonium opening segment. I'm not sure what other national pageants I've ever seen for the UK, but this is so captivating. That molten steel running down the shape of the Thames; the pantomime-monster-sized industrial looms. Maybe I'm just easily bought by slick and ironic literary references, but this is spectacle.