Category: music

Susanne sings

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Everyone on BBC 6 Music is gushing over the Scott Walker Prom concert held earlier in the week, and from the bits I have heard, with good reason. If you’re reading this soon after I wrote it, there’s loads of stuff about it on the 6 Music website.

The audience raved about son of Sheffield, Jarvis Cocker and… er… son of Sheffield, Richard Hawley, who were both star performers on the night. But the real plaudits went to Susanne Sundfør for her outstanding vocals. Who she, you ask? Well, she the lady singing on this Röyksopp track:

…with its crazy, disturbing, heartbreaking “invited independent filmmaker” video from Lauren Rothery.

Go west?

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“Go West! Life is peaceful there!”
So sang the Village People and then so also sang the Pet Shop Boys.

So it must be true.

Trouble is, if you’re in Cape Town and you’re planning to follow that advice, life is going to be rather wet there too. (West being the South Atlantic, for the geographically-challenged.)

That’s why I’m going to turn things around and Go East! this weekend.
Logic suggests that life will be turbulent there, and, should we extrapolate through the rest of the song, that we will be enclosed, alone, there will be rain in the summertime, the skies will be grey and we will do anything except be just fine.

Hmm. East seems a bit crap, to be honest.

Still, the beaglesitter is booked and we’re heading off… East… for a weekend away. Posts here will continue (obviously), and my Instagram is always open for your delectation.

Have yourself a good one. And try not to contract antibiotic-resistant Gonorrhea. (That latter bit of advice applies beyond this weekend, to be honest.)

Monument

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No, not the undersung London structure of the same name (although I do have a blog post waiting to be written about that). No. This is a track with the name Monument from Röyksopp’s best album* The Inevitable End.

Teaming up with vocalist Robyn (she looks like a lot of fun, but you wouldn’t mess, hey?), the boys popped out this banger, in which director & cinematographer Stiaan Andersen has basically made me want to attend a Röyksopp gig, right now. And then another one a bit later. And so on.
There’s a lot going on in this monolithic, monochromatic masterpiece, but it’s all underpinned by the strength of that steady, positive lyric.

Wonderous. Turn it up loud. The lab is a good place to be this afternoon.

* don’t @ me

20 years of OK Computer

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It’s twenty years to the day since Oxford band Radiohead released OK Computer.

I lived in Oxford back then, and the local HMV on Cornmarket Street opened at midnight for Radiohead fans to buy the album before anyone else in the UK got the chance – no mp3s or downloads back in those days, remember.

And yes, I was looking forward to the release, but wasn’t a HUGE fan, so I wasn’t planning on heading into town. But then, finding myself still awake at the witching hour, thought “why not?”, jumped on a bike and hit the High Street.
I was only just in time. The crowds (such as they were) had gone (it doesn’t take long for 50 people to each buy a CD), and the staff were about to close up, but a friendly guy let me in just before locking the door, and I got my CD and my free poster (woo!).

The album was definitely one of the best releases of the 1990s and has aged really well. And yes, the CD is still somewhere safely boxed up in my loft. The poster never made it out of the damp Cowley Road flat we lived in though, and even the branch of HMV succumbed to the pressures of the modern retail environment and closed in 2014.

Favourite track? I liked all of it, but the slower stuff hit home more for me – No Surprises, Exit Music (For A Film) and of course Karma Police, as mentioned here.