Talamasca and Friends & other: May 2008

Thursday 29 May 2008

Matrix and Fierce

Artist: Matrix and Fierce

   Genre(s):
Drum & Bass

Discography:

Metro (MTRR010)

Year: 2003
Tracks: 2

This bird can sing

Sunday 25 May 2008

Jennifer Aniston - Jennifer Aniston Enjoys Miami Break With John Mayer

Jennifer Aniston and her reported new beau have been enjoying the summer weather together in Miami.

Pictures show the couple relaxing at the pool of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, with Aniston looking stunning in a skimpy bikini.

After a spot of sunbathing on the loungers, the couple cooled down in the pool.

Mayer, 30, is reported to have flown from New York to be with Aniston in Miami, where she is currently filming Marley and Me with Owen Wilson.

The singer-songwriter is no stranger to having the spotlight on his relationships, having dated other high-profile beauties including Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Despite the nine-year age gap between the couple, friends of Aniston are reportedly hopeful the relationship could be more than a summer fling.

Her former flames include Brad Pitt and Vince Vaughn.

11/05/2008 13:15:53

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CD: The Ting Tings, We Started Nothing

There are bands whose appeal is strange, alchemical and impalpable. It's something to do with the perfect conjunction of people, time and place, but its essence so utterly evades definition that not even the band's members really know what it is they're doing that's so fantastic. And then there are bands like the Ting Tings. The Manchester-based duo are currently poised to knock Madonna off the top of the singles charts with That's Not My Name. If such a concept as a sure thing can be said to exist in the current turbulent musical climate, then the Ting Tings are probably it.

You don't need a degree in applied mathematics to unravel their formula. In Katie White, they boast a frontwoman so pretty you feel like giving her a round of applause just for existing. In That's Not My Name, they have a song of such catchiness the World Health Organisation is currently preparing a report on how it can be contained. It's a dead ringer for Toni Basil's effervescent 1982 novelty hit Mickey, borrowing its guitar riff if not, alas, its sense of gleeful subversion. Beneath Mickey's wholesome cheerleader-themed video lurked a song apparently about a woman trying to "turn" a gay man by offering him anal sex, subject matter that makes That's Not My Name's tale of music industry indifference to White's previous outfit, pop trio Dear Eskiimo, seem strangely decorous, however snarling her vocal.

The beautiful-girl-sings-catchy-pop-song formula may be simple to crack, but it's hard to repeat: choruses as contagious as That's Not My Name's gobby playground chant don't come along that often. Impressively, the Ting Tings managed to do it with their first three singles, which also form the opening tracks of their debut album. Fruit Machine boasts a similar effortless sassiness to their current hit, but Great DJ is even better. Like New Order's True Faith and Björk's Big Time Sensuality, it captures the dizzy transcendence of chemically enhanced dancefloor euphoria. The chorus, with its breathless vocal attempts to imitate the sounds on a dance track - "the strings - eee-eee-eee!" - and its blank-eyed chant of "the drums, the drums" sounds both hugely excited and slightly vacant, and, as anyone who's ever spent the early hours of Sunday morning in front of the big speakers with pupils like serving plates can attest, hugely excited and slightly vacant is pretty much the size of it.

But the problems set in when the first three tracks have drawn to a close. Driven by Jules De Martino's booming drums, the rest of We Started Nothing clings to fizzy, new-wave pop for inspiration: a bit of disco-era Blondie on Shut Up and Let Me Go, a touch of Talking Heads on Impacilla Carpisung. There's nothing wrong with that: criticising an album called We Started Nothing for being unoriginal seems a bit like complaining that Public Image Limited's This Is Not a Love Song isn't a love song. But after achieving a perfect strike rate on their singles, the Ting Tings' admirable quest for glossy, depthless pop perfection keeps coming up short. Keep Your Head and We Walk prove White and De Martino can do glossy and depthless at will, but pop perfection comes less easily. As a result, We Started Nothing sounds like a collection of early 1980s novelty hits, with all the qualitative issues that entails: for every Mickey or Echo Beach, there's an I Eat Cannibals and a Shaddap You Face.

In fairness, there's nothing genuinely terrible here - Traffic Light's vaguely jazzy balladry is pretty, the title track's blend of two-chord garage churn and funk horns is pretty good - but equally, there's nothing that doesn't sound a bit pallid when compared with the singles. With no songwriting as powerful as Great DJ or That's Not My Name to hold you, attention gets drawn to their flaws, not least White's agonizing habit of dropping into Estuary-accented gorblimey. At one point she starts going on about having something she calls an opportuni-ee. Given that White comes from Wigan, this does stretch the bounds of creduli-ee, and indeed, tolerabili-ee.

Furthermore, you end up wondering about the Ting Tings longevi-ee. On the evidence of We Started Nothing, they could theoretically be Blondie, who also had a photogenic frontwoman, understood that a certain lack of depth was no barrier to making fantastic pop singles, but had a tendency to follow up said fantastic pop singles with faintly underwhelming albums. Or they could be the Knack - That's Not My Name also recalls their solitary 1979 hit My Sharona. It's hard to tell from a debut album that's all over bar the shouting after 11 admittedly wonderful minutes.

See Also

Oscar winner Crash becomes TV series

The Oscar-winning film 'Crash' is to become a TV series.
The drama will be shown on the Starz network in the US this year and the film's director, co-writer and producer, Paul Haggis, and co-writer and producer, Bobby Moresco, are among those involved in the new show.
This is only the second time a film which has won the Best Picture Oscar has been turned into a TV series: 'In the Heat of the Night' was the first.
Commenting, Haggis said: "I'm very happy that Lionsgate [the show's co-producer] and Starz have decided to develop 'Crash' into a series. Ironically, my initial impulse was to present the material in a format for television. I am thrilled it's coming full circle and can't wait to see how it expands and transforms."
Production on the 13-episode first series is set to begin in the spring.
Haggis' new film, 'In the Valley of Elah', is currently in cinemas. Read the review here.

Showgirl Cher turns back time

SHE may have reached the grand old age of 61, but CHER is clearly of the
mindset that age ain't nothing but a number.

Her latest shows in glitzy Las Vegas were a playground of sequins, feathers,
bright lights, bizarre headdresses and skin-tight barely-there dresses.

Despite retiring from touring in 2005, the super diva has returned to the
stage to perform four gigs per week for a month at the Colosseum at Caesars
Palace.
For more snaps, click the slideshow below:
The plastic fantastic singer put on a spectacle of a show, with several
costume changes including a sexed-up Red Indian, a demure ball gown and 80s
biker chic.

She sang tracks from her SONNY and Cher days to her recent dance pop
phase.

Disembowelment

Artist: Disembowelment

   Genre(s):
Metal: Doom

Discography:

Dusk

Year: 1992
Tracks: 3

Still august in resistance circles as doom-grind pioneers, Melbourne, Australia's Disembowelment left as their legacy only a geminate of highly traded demos (1990's Mourning September and 1991's Deep Sensory Procession into Aural Fate), an EP called Twilight (1992), and a often emulated 1993 LP entitled Transcendency into the Peripheral. But what a bequest. The last 2 persist genre classics and were issued by the Relapse label, later on which bandmembers Renato Gallina (vocals/guitar), Jason Kells (guitar), Matthew Skarajew (sea bass), and Paul Mazziotta (drums) regrettably disbanded due to growing musical differences, having ne'er even performed live.

Prince Croke Park gig confirmed

The Sopranos - Academics Study The Sopranos

TV hit THE SOPRANOS is a cultural phenomenon "equivalent to the Beatles and Shakespeare", according to a group of academics travelling to New York this month to analyse the show.

Professors from 60 countries will descend on Manhattan's Fordham University this month (22-25May08) to dissect the show in a conference entitled The Sopranos: A Wake.

They will examine the show's role in popular culture and the messages it delivers regarding issues such as gender; parenthood; ethnicity; race and racism.

And Paul Levinson, from Fordham University, insists The Sopranos' place in history should not be underestimated.

He says, "The Sopranos is the equivalent of the Beatles, or Shakespeare, of a great piece of fiction which redound through the ages."

See Also