This weeks most listened to #2

Radiohead - Fake plastic trees
A favourite since being bought The Bends in what were definitely my formative years in terms of music. Thom Yorke's voice can be so sad and angry and a major reason behind my love for Radiohead. "She looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing" - these lines are huge. I hadn't seen the video before either and its pretty good, just for Thom's face.

Toyboy and Robin - Jaded
These guys have placed themselves perfectly in the current space for house/garage interest from 90s kids, and this track is exactly what we want. The video is perfect as well, laying down the challenge for anyone to attempt the moves at a party for ultimate respect.

Pictureplane

I heard this guys self-proclaimed punk-rave music from one of the many links Grimes' twitter account has led me to. Pictureplane's 'Thee Physical' album is full of great tracks, good for running too, and to see him in interviews on youtube helps explain how he reached this mash up of genres. Also he wears mad shit which I couldn't.

Friday Film #2

Rebel Without a Cause

I'm really good

I watched this film with my parents, who I had a feeling were anxious to see whether I related to Jim, the main character brilliantly portrayed by James Dean. His struggle with behaving as a man should, with confusing influences from his dad, guys at school and the policeman, are shown by his extreme emotions throughout the film. The girlfriend serves to steady Jim as he becomes more confident in his new surroundings.  These factors of teenage life are spot on, I'm sure they relate to many more people who saw this film as they did to me (plus I own a red jacket, as I know many more do as a result of its iconic status when donned by Dean).
Yet while we see Jim as an unstable young man with a number of conflicts arising from his detachment from the family and lack of any other constant in his life, it is the quiet and calm Plato who emerges as the real threat. His reaction to the turbulence of teenage life is to defend himself by placing the power back in his own hands via a gun, the opposite of Jim who is able to embrace the possibilities open to a lovable rogue and get himself a babe.
This film could be seen as one of the first in a series of countless high school films in which good looks and confidence prevail over the 'geeks'. But this would minimise it to a film about high school. I found it to be one of the more convincing accounts of the transition from boy to man, something I don't recall from the many films made since which attempt to tackle the same subject.

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad's account of his character's experience of the jungle and the mysterious Kurtz is the purest example of colonial endeavours into the unknown, and the morbid fascination we have with such bleak adventure. With the end of the novel comes a sense of freedom from the claustrophobic descriptions of darkness, which follows the realisation that the experiences within the book are unlikely to ever be encountered in today's world.
It is a very well written book; the pace of the novel reflects the speed of the old steamer, crawling upriver further into the unknown, until Kurtz is met and 'dealt with', and the sailor Marlow's telling of his story to other crew members sat on a deck of a ship at anchor on the Thames means the reader is allowed brief moments of respite from the oppressive jungle atmosphere, perhaps like flashes of the sun through a heavy canopy of foliage.
But it has proved to be more than just a good read, inspiring many great films who deal with human's journeys into the unknown. Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God comes closest to Conrad's stifling tragedy, a brilliant film whose madness is a product of Herzog's fanatic directing methods coupled with Klaus Kinski's demonic presence, whose maniacal stare serves to capture the strength and destruction which teeter on the edge of Conrad's Kurtz. Apocalypse Now is Hollywood's attempt, and the force of the film comes from its stunning transplant of Conrad's novel to the Vietnam war; the infamous "the horror, the horror" line is visualised in my eyes by the napalming of the jungle in the opening scene. Marlon Brando opts to play Kurtz as a formidable physical presence battling with a hellish kingdom of his creation, a haunting screen presence compared with the ghostlike Kurtz of Conrad's African jungle.
A slightly more tenuous product of the 'heart of darkness' concept is the monolith in 2001: a Space Odyssey. While the psychedelic journey through the darkness of space is arguably a more obvious metaphor for mankind's progress into the unknown, the monolith itself, pure blackness with no explanation behind its appearance or existence, could be taken as a concentrated physical embodiment of our unanswered questions. Arriving at the beginning to spark the dawn of man, and later discovered by man's progress beyond earth, its appearance at the end of the film reminds us of the potential crushing force of the unknown, with us all our lives this darkness can never be illuminated, something we have to accept in order to live our lives (particularly relevant for discussion of 2001, which has no firm explanation from Kubrick or widely agreed theories behind its meaning).

2001 shows us the shift from earthly threats to that which beyond our planet. While space has become the subject of our interest and exploration since the 20th century, the jungle still holds a magic over us, as it did over Conrad. Its exoticism and danger combine to have me fascinated and most other people respectful of one of the last remaining unknowns on earth.

This week's most listened to #1

Music feature showing the songs/albums/artists I've heard or revisited each week

Yung Lean - I cannot get enough of this kid. An unlikely product of decades of rap, his take on the music made by his idols sounds so cool. His soundcloud is growing, but this track is still my favourite. Plus he loves arizona ice tea, really loves it.

The Horrors - their last two albums are go to listening for me. I saw them in Birmingham last year and really like their recharge of melancholic British guitar band music, in this way they're not particularly original but have some addictive songs nonetheless. I love Monica Gems

Modest Mouse - possibly my favourite band (so could turn up every week), their first two albums definitely make my top 10. I love drums, and this track builds to awesome drumming, aswell as catchy lyrics.

Friday Film #1

The first in a feature discussing the last film watched by the Friday of each week.














'White Diamond' - Werner Herzog.
Documentary following the return of an aerospace professor to the rainforest canopy.

Its a beautiful film, which doesn't surprise me having experienced some of Herzog's other work. This one felt particularly ad hoc, with spontaneous tangents away from the airships flights providing just as much to care about as the success of the airship.
The loneliness of one of the locals, Mark Anthony, whose family left him behind to live in Spain was one of the unexpected things to stick around after the film ended, especially as Herzog appeals to Mark Anthony's family to contact him in the closing comments.
I am fascinated by the jungle, just as humans in general fear and respect the unknown, and this film uses the Amazon as a the living embodiment of this unknown. Herzog's earlier 'Fitzcarraldo' is one of my favourite films for its slog of a story unfolding in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. This time out the cameras don't immerse themselves in the suffocating foliage as seen in other jungle epics, instead reflecting the perspective of the airship itself; slowly observing the teeming forest from a close distance.
The climax of the film comes around halfway through with the professor Graham Dorrington's recounting of his previous experience with a similar airship. Never shy of providing Herzog with  tasty anecdotes to narrate the filming of his project, Dorrington describes the death of the wildlife cinematographer Dieter Plage after his last airship failed, clearly finding it difficult to come to terms with as he stares into the dark river bank opposite. This point, brought about by Herzog's relationship with the professor, is one of the moments Herzog is renowned for documenting; in this case a perfect image of human struggle towards achievement.