I Break Horses, "Hearts"; The Raveonettes, "Raven In the Grave"

More often than not, shoegaze bands seem to emerge fully formed, at least compared to bands in other genres. For every rock band that releases an iconic, generation-defining debut (e.g. Sex Pistols, Strokes, Smiths), there are a million other bands who need a few albums to find their proper footing. But shoegaze bands have a knack for appearing perfectly crystallized right out of the gate.

In the first wave of shoegaze you had bands like Ride and Slowdive who were never able to top their pre-debut album singles according to some of their most diehard fans. I'm still blown away by the quality of tracks like "Morningrise" and "Avalyn", and how such a young band (in terms of how long they'd been together as a band and in terms of the ages of the individual members) were able to master their craft so quickly and definitively. It took a few years, but eventually both bands started to stray from their initial template and to search for a post-shoegaze identity. The results were more mixed, which is usually the case when you're dealing with a band that's looking to redefine itself.

I'm not sure why shoegaze bands are such fast learners, but I suspect it's because their list of influences is fairly short -- in other words, all shoegazers are stealing ideas from the same few bands. It's redundant to even list those influences because everyone knows who they are, and the bands on the shortlist haven't changed much in the past twenty years. Rock bands have immeasurably more influences to chose from, so it takes longer for a young band to find a combination that works for them.

I Break Horses fit the pattern of shoegaze bands that emerge from nothing and arrive fully formed with a great debut album. After listening to "Hearts" just once, you know exactly what they're all about, which is the nice thing (or most boring aspect, depending on how much you like this kind of music) about bands like these -- when everyone takes cues from the same small set of influences, you don't need to waste time trying to dissect hidden levels of detail or to work out what confluence of styles went into the making of album. After the first listen, you've pretty much heard it all, how much replayability the album will have is a matter of personal taste.

I Break Horses combine electronica and shoegaze, but not in an annoying twee way like most other bands who do similar things, they channel a bit of the warped sampledelic abrasiveness of Disco Inferno, they love "Run Into Flowers"-era M83 but bring the rock much better than M83 did back then, and they wrote a song called "I Kill Your Love, Baby!" (with barely any lyrics besides those in the title). If any of this sounds a little bit enticing then you can safely assume that you'll like this album.

----------------------

Once upon a time, The Raveonettes emerged fully fomed with their debut album, "Chain Gang of Love". I've been a fan of them for a while but I bought and heard this album for the first time only a few weeks ago. Just the album title and the fact that it was produced by Richard Gottehrer tells you most of what you need to know. It's thirteen blistering tracks of exhilarating motorcycle feedback doo wop JAMC-drenched fun. They continued in the same vein on their sophomore album, on their third album they cranked the feedback as high as it would go and succeeded in out-Psychocandying "Psychocandy, but by their fourth album they were searching for something new and didn't know where to look for it (I almost never feel the need to hear this album).

Now, on their fifth album "Raven In the Grave", they're still in the midst of an identity crisis but the results have gotten a lot better. It's their mellowest album to date, leaning more toward the doo-wop side of the classic rock and roll they love so much. The most interesting tracks are the loop-based "Recharge and Revolt" and "Forget That You're Young", which is a style they've dabbled with in the past (e.g. "Aly Walk With Me") but have never pulled off this successfully. "Aly Walk With Me" is all about holding back until going for the volume kill during the bridge, but "Recharge and Revolt" nails the vocal melody and doesn't rely on sheer volume to eventually hammer home its point. It's like nothing they've done before and therefore makes for the perfect album opener. It's also one of the best "(slightly) less is more" songs in the Raveonettes' catalogue that still manages to unimpeachably rock. The idea of marrying hip-hop and shoegaze seemed preposterous when Bowery Electric tried to pull it off in 1998, but I think I'm ready for the Raveonettes to give it an album-length try.

M83, "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming"

M83's newest effort sounds even more like an album recorded and released in the 80's than "Saturdays = Youth" did, and I bet you didn't think that was possible. Any hint of an experimental bent to the album has been swept away by the even more audaciously gated drums, layers of vocals drenched in echo, and cheap, cheerful sounding synths. Where are the noisy tracks that recall the band's twee/shoegaze roots, like "Highway of Endless Dreams" or "Fields, Shorelines, and Hunters". Where's the epic closing track in all its 10+ minute technicolour glory, like on all their other albums? Instead, it's a steady stream of three to four minute pop tunes and short, mellow interludes. The interludes beautifully tie together sections of the album, allowing the band to segue between different styles. They're like quick, fleeting snapshots of how their music used to feel and sound, as if these short snippets are all that remains of M83's pre-2005 past.

The fact that they shamelessly rip off all of their favourite 80's bands is a huge part of the album's appeal, I know. For instance, if "Coulours" was their attempt to rewrite New Order's "The Perfect Kiss", "Claudia Lewis" strays so close to "Thieves Like Us" that you can practically sing the latter's lyrics on top of the former. But they've also gone the extra mile to steal from themselves, and I can't be sure whether this is intentional or not. I simply can't get around the notion that "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming" is the first M83 album that comes across as nothing but reassembled pieces of old M83 albums, rather than a new piece of music in and of itself. The starblinded, proggy, cigarette lighter waving "Intro" is a dead ringer for "Moonchild" -- both tracks open their respective albums too. The wailing, rapid-fire synth rushes and rhythmic cadences of "New Map" are lifted straight from "Don't Save Us From the Flames". "Splendour" is the piano and choir weepy ballad that recent M83 albums have been contractually obligated to have (e.g. "Safe", "Too Late"). "Echoes of Mine" and "Raconte-Moi une Histoire" revisit the energetic instrumental + fake TV/movie samples combination (i.e. vocal snippets that were made to sound like samples from some obscure, long lost movie but were actually kitsch-y bits recorded for the album) that M83 have done a few times already.

But bands steal from themselves all the time. All we should really care about is whether or not the old tricks still work. Despite the intimidating running time (75 minutes), the album feels like a sprint, never dragging for a moment as it runs through 22 tracks of treble-drenched 80's pop throwbacks. It's dripping with titanic sounding songs that, on the whole, are more immediate than anything M83 have ever done, and whatever the album might lose by recycling so many old ideas, it makes up for in spades by presenting such a varied palate of instantly addicting tunes.

In case you needed reminding, this is why you sometimes still need to go into music shops; Wolves in the Throne Room, "Celestial Lineage"

I've been a black metal fan for about fifteen years.

The previous sentence is technically the truth, but it isn't particularly accurate. One might be inclined to assume, based on the claims of a person who claims to have been a fan of a type of music for fifteen years, that he regularly buys albums, goes to concerts, reads interviews and album reviews, and is halfway knowledgeable about said genre of music. None of those things apply to me and black metal. In a good year, I'll hear three or four albums. I'm intimidated by the sheer volume of metal out there (across a sprawl of subgenres) and have always felt too intimidated and too daunted by the task of trying to dig through it all. When it comes to journalism, I don't know where to start, all the reference points are unfamiliar to me, it's like I've fallen way too far behind to ever catch up. Metal is one of those genres that I never listened to growing up -- for instance, I didn't listen to 80's icons like Metallica or Slayer, and couldn't even appreciate Guns N Roses like most of my friends did. Simply put, I have no history with the genre. Trying to catch up on folk or country would be just as difficult and feel just as foreign. It's not like techno, where the mountain of music getting released every year might be gargantuan, but I already know the history and culture of the genre, know what I like and what I don't like, and can therefore disappear for a while and always slip right back in.

So if I hadn't walked into Aquarius Records on Valencia St. in San Francisco a few weeks ago, would I have ever heard about Wolves in the Throne Room? There's no way to know for sure. Sometimes it seems that a little bit of internet research and regular trips to a stock list of blogs and websites is enough to keep a person exposed to enough music to keep him or her scrambling for the time to hear everything that piques their interest. And yet all the Pandoras and blog links and Youtube playlists never seem to replicate the thrill of walking into a cool music shop and having your mind blown by a record you've never heard about getting played over the in-store stereo.

When it comes right down to it, all I'm looking for in metal is a killer Wall of Sound.

Across town, I was convinced that goth and metal should almost never be mixed. Ulver's "Blood Inside" (from 2005) was such a disaster that I never believed that a kitchen sink approach to black metal would ever be advisable.

I would have never believed the awesomeness of the intro to the opening track of "Celestial Lineage" if I hadn't been forced to hear it in Aquarius Records with my own ears. After three tense minutes of soothing chants, wind chimes, and sighing synths, "Thuja Magnus Imperium" smoothly segues into its guitar intro before erupting into a choral blizzard of guitars and drums. It's the most satisfying payoff to the long intro of an opening track on an album I've heard since ... well, is there a better one? I need some time to think about this. And only three minutes later, it's back to a Steve Roach lite interlude before exploding again. Spector made three minute operas for the kids, Wolves in the Throne Room prefer a full eleven minutes. Who's counting? Each track is exhausting, exhilarating, and inexplicably heartbreaking.

Give me an honest answer: how would you expect to feel at the end of a ten minute metal track called "Astral Blood"? I promise that if you listen to the penultimate track on "Celestial Lineage", you won't be disappointed that it doesn't match your preconceptions.

The nearly drums-free "Prayer of Transformation" is an elegiac extended hymn that caps off with a distorted drone of guitars that grows slowly in volume only to disappear abruptly. Shouldn't all metal albums end like this??

Ladytron with Sonoio and VHS or Beta, Phoenix Concert Theatre

This was my first time back at the Phoenix in over five years. Never has a place felt so completely familiar and yet also so oddly foreign. It seems like I know every inch of the place, having stared at these pastel coloured four walls dozens of times over a fifteen year period. But I'm also an outsider now, it no longer feels like *my* place, it feels like *their* place. A venue "belongs" to the people who frequent it, and that's definitely not me, at least not recently. And who are these people, these Ladytron fans? It's a surprisingly male dominated crowd with a few goth types mixed in. What was once a niche electro-pop band who weren't expected to last until the end of the last decade have carved themselves a healthy slice of the local indie scene. The truly surprising thing about the crowd tonight is how boring and generic looking they are.

I only catch the last five minutes of Sonoio's set, which is a shame because it's great stuff, a midpoint between kid-friendly 80's synthpop and the noisy aggression of 00's industrial and rhythmic noise. VHS or Beta seem to have a number of fans in the audience, and to their credit, they come across more as rock stars compared to what you'd expect from bands playing this kind of music. They're kind of like a Depeche Mode-loving version of Linkin Park (or is that just Linkin Park?)

Last year, I wondered aloud whether Ladytron had the endurance to really slay an audience from the gig's start until its finish, and if tonight's set is any indication, it would appear that they knew their limitations too. They've cut the guitars and the noise, loaded up on more synth bells and whistles, slowed the tempos to a more relaxed pace, and settled for going only half throttle. Slow and steady works better for them, even though they sometimes walk a dangerous line between pacing themselves and going through the motions. This style also tends to homogenize their material, cancelling out the highs and lows in favour of a steady stream of middles. But in the end, a juicy selection of oldies mixed in with new tracks from "Gravity the Seducer" show just how many great tunes Ladytron have. The new album might be a mixed bag, but there are enough goodies there to pad their increasingly impressive back catalogue, and once you have enough killer songs in the bag then it's hard to play a sub-par gig.

Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 5

"The Vainqueur:Elevations mix" (30 minutes)

What's better than baking to the hyper-minimal sloshing of Vainqueur in the summertime? For me, there's almost no better summer jam than Vainqueur's classic 1997 album, "Elevations". If the sun doesn't dehydrate you to the point of deliriousness first, then this stuff will.

The mix came together quickly, I was listening to the album, figured why not make a mix with this material (featuring every track on the album), thought up a track ordering that seemed to be reasonable, recorded one take that didn't really satisfy me, recorded a second take. It's the second take that appears here exactly as is -- no edits or added effects.

Unfortunately I didn't have any of the original vinyl 12"'s with me and had to settle for the CD versions instead. Not only are the CD tracks edited down, often quite severely, but they're also mastered differently and sound completely different (and inferior) -- distorted, muddy bass; less dynamic treble (which is particularly hard on the whooshing atmospherics that are a signature component of this type of music), and beats that could have been recorded in a swamp. Still, it's one of the greatest techno albums ever, re-jigged and "edited" from sixty minutes down to thirty, so what are you waiting for?

The Vainqueur:Elevations mix assembled by NTBT by Bruiserfs on Mixcloud

Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episodes 4 & 4a

"Wins and WAR and Ambience" (56 minutes/86 minutes)

I set out to make an ambient mix, and usually that means some quiet bits and a whole load of ear-splitting noise, because that's what passes for chillout music around my house.

But this time I really meant it ... nothing but blissful, daydreaming music. That doesn't mean it's quiet like the tune of birds chirping all the time, but I stayed away from the screeching metallic sounds ...

Wins and WAR and Ambience by Bruiserfs on Mixcloud

... for almost a whole hour. The mix should have ended after about 56 minutes, in fact, that version of the mix is what appears above in the Mixcloud link. It makes for a nicely self contained mix with a perfectly logical conclusion. But I couldn't leave well enough alone, and continued on for another half hour, bringing the mix to a painfully loud conclusion. Yeah, I chill to this stuff. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, so the full mix appears here as a separate d/l link. The full tracklist appears in the comments. Enjoy!

Ten albums that turned 20 in 2011 (Idolator list)

1991 was undoubtedly a transformative year in music, as the "alternative went mainstream" and swept away the music (and the bands) of the 1980's seemingly overnight. A hugely disproportionate amount of my favourite music of the 90's was made in that year, thanks to a number of bands making their wildly creative, genre-defining masterpiece albums -- Nirvana for sure, but the three that stand out the most for me are MBV's "Loveless", the Orb's "Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld", and 808 State's "Ex:El".

But what do the pop music gossip crew at Idolator think about when they think about 1991?

Nirvana, "Nevermind". Not sure where they're getting the "30 million sold" number from, but Nirvana were a phenomenon, no doubt.

Michael Jackson, "Dangerous". A lot has been said about how Nirvana knocked Michael Jackson off the top spot of the US Albums Chart, signifying a symbolic passing of the torch from the generation of 80's pop (dominated by Michael) to the flannel wearing generation of Gen-X grunge rockers. First of all, "Dangerous" was f***ing huge. The first airing of the videos for each of major singles from the album were events in and of themselves, subject to week-long hype campaigns and Michael Jackson career retrospectives. It remained in the Top 200 for two years. It sold more than "Bad". Secondly, if we go back and look at the #1 albums of 1991 and 1992, you'll see that the chart history was bit more complicated than you probably remember.

"Nevermind" was released on Sept. 24, 1991. During that week, Metallica's "Black Album" had just finished a four-week run as the number one album in the US. Everyone remembers that Metallica broke through that year, but not everyone remembers that they broke through before Nirvana (I didn't). They didn't ride Nirvana's coattails into the mainstream, and neither did REM, whose "Out of Time" went to #1 in the spring of that year.

Metallica were knocked out of the #1 spot by Garth Brooks, therefore setting the stage for Nirvana to slay the dragons and save music forever, or something. Here's what happened:

Artist	Title	Weeks at #1
Garth Brooks	Ropin' the Wind	1
Guns N' Roses	Use Your Illusion II	2
Garth Brooks	Ropin' the Wind	7
U2	Achtung Baby	1
Michael Jackson	Dangerous	4
Nirvana	Nevermind	1
Garth Brooks	Ropin' the Wind	2
Nirvana	Nevermind	1
Garth Brooks	Ropin' the Wind	8

Nirvana knocked both Michael Jackson AND Garth Brooks out of #1 in separate weeks, which is remarkable. On the other hand, Garth Brooks was #1 for a million weeks before Nirvana and a million weeks after Nirvana, on his way to having more multiplatinum albums in the US than anyone in music history other than Elvis and the Beatles. Nirvana only briefly interrupted business as usual at the top of the album charts. The summer of Billy Ray Cyrus (seventeen consecutive weeks at #1 for "Some Gave All") was just around the corner. By the fall, Garth Brooks was #1 again with yet another new album before clearing the way for "The Bodyguard Soundtrack" to hang around #1 for a while and sell a gazillion copies.

What do we learn from this? In 1991-2, the new boss was usually the same as the old boss, and for the most part that wouldn't change in the succeeding years, as you could always mark your calendars for Garth or Mariah's inevitable return to #1. And "Dangerous" marked Michael Jackson's last run as the undisputed biggest pop star in the world. Who knows how much longer he could have continued that way if he hadn't gone completely off the deep end?

U2, "Achtung Baby". Great album. One of the many "Kid A"'s before there was "Kid A" (i.e. top rock band takes risks and "goes electronic"). N.B. All of the "Kid A"'s before "Kid A" are better albums than the actual "Kid A".

Mariah Carey, "Emotions". Even Mariah had a sophomore slump, although any artist would kill to sell eight million albums in their "slump" phase.

Boyz II Men, "Cooleyhighharmony". From my vantage point twenty years ago, this album might as well have been released on Mars. Nothing could have been further from what I was listening to. Eventually, anyone who turned on a radio for more than five minutes in the 90's had to know at least a few Boyz II Men songs.

Erasure, "Chorus". Here's one I wasn't expecting to see. This was an odd phase in Erasure's career because they'd been brilliant in the 80's but it took a couple of albums for that to be reflected in the charts. In the early 90's they achieved their biggest successes as album artists, even though the quality of the material had declined. They could have settled into a slow, Pet Shop Boys-like decline phase, but instead they baffled everyone with the 70-minute self titled album in 1995, produced by Thomas Fehlmann of the Orb and boasting no obvious singles. It was their "Spirit Of Eden", and it effectively killed their star power.

Pearl Jam, "Ten". In the end this had more staying power than "Nevermind", which in retrospect is no surprise because it's just reheated 70's stoner rock with drearier, more depressing lyrics (this was also fairly obvious at the time, although not right away for a lot of people, including me). You could say the same about Nirvana, but there was plenty of the 80's underground in their music (Melvins, Pixies) and they sounded dangerous from time to time, whereas Pearl Jam were your Dad's favourite grunge band from the get go. Once "Ten" had sold enough copies to make the world safe for Billy Corgan to admit that he was a huge fan of bands like Queen, grunge's reputation as the supposed tough guy killer of hair metal wimp rock was irrevocably damaged.

The KLF, "The White Room". Props to Idolator for paying a small bit of tribute to one of the most fascinating and unusual rags to riches to rags stories in the history of pop.

REM, "Out of Time". I've never understood the retroactive attempt to label this album the better and more depressing album compared with its successor, "Automatic for the People". Anything with "Shiny Happy People" on it should be automatically disqualified from winning any "better than ___" argument with any other album. "Automatic" also stands up much better to repeat listens, I never need to hear "Losing My Religion" again like I never have to hear "Stairway To Heaven" ever again. I think I prefer "Monster" (a very underrated album) to "Out of Time", yeah, I said it.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Blood Sugar Sex Magik". This was legitimately huge, although I couldn't stand it at the time and was tempted to pour boiling cooking oil into my ears to prevent myself from hearing "Under the Bridge" ever again. To this day, I've never really liked a RHCP in my life.

Laetitia Sadier, Bela Tar @ Levontin 7

This is my second time seeing Bela Tar this year (the first time was at this show) and it's more of the same but a little bit better, because her music is far better suited for a cramped underground room than an elevated stage in a spacious club.

Laetitia Sadier is at the point in her career when she's stored up so musical capital from her days in Stereolab that can do absolutely anything she wants. Stereolab in the 90's were one of the most essential bands ever, they were gold in the studio and on stage (their 1996 concert in Toronto, with Cornershop opening for them, is one of my top five favourite concerts ever, if not top three) and influenced countless indie rock imitators. By the 00's, their work as indie guiding lights was basically done, but they were still well worth following even though the music ranged from merely good to "yet another kooky science pop rehash". In the 10's, the glory days are long gone but who cares? Sadier is in a comfortable place, where the music will never be so bad that she'll embarrass herself or tarnish her legacy, but will never be good enough to compare to the stuff she did twenty years ago. She's like the indie rock version of the Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney, where she can release a record every few years to moderate acclaim (even though the music on album will be forgotten not long after) and can always head out on the road because nobody can hate on getting a chance to see the legend live and in colour.

But whereas Macca and the Stones are content to be jukeboxes, recycling the hits year after year, decade after decade, Sadier refuses to do so, determined to forge new paths forward with Monade, and now as a solo artist. She should be commended for it, although Sadier probably wouldn't think of it as anything other than the obvious and natural thing to do. Besides her distinctive voice, there isn't much that separates tonight's performance from a lot of other female artists standing on stages worldwide, singing about The Issues that matter to them (on today's menu: divorce, children, and politicians who don't do the jobs they're supposed to do). But does it matter? Who's complaining?

Blur, "Starshaped", "No Distance Left To Run"; Pulp live in Toulouse 25/08/2011

I remember reading a review of "Starshaped" in one of the UK music weeklies in 1993. It accomplished what a review is supposed to accomplish -- it piqued my interest. I'd followed some of the friendly press they'd been getting, read the "Modern Life Is Rubbish" interviews where Damon Albarn claimed that just like punk killed hippies, they and their introspective British pop songs were on a mission to kill grunge (a short four years later they were writing grunge anthems and trying to sound like Beck and Pavement. The music business is hilarious sometimes). I wasn't biting, and wouldn't bite until the too awesome to ignore "Parklife" came out the next year.

And so, in yet another one of those baffling "my life in music" quirks where time flies and the next thing you know, you're wondering how it took eighteen years to get around to seeing "Starshaped". But now having seen it, I can justify the lack of urgency. If memory serves, the reviews appreciated the "warts and all" approach to capturing the band, showing both highs and lows, and not trying to serve as "oh my, look at our adoring fans cheering us, my what big stars we are" propaganda. Maybe that came across as bold and different in the era before every band was obligated to produce a tour film as a series of bonus chapters on their DVD every time they headed out on the road. It's not as if I was expecting sixty minutes of philosophical musing, but I was hoping for something more than scene after scene drinking and bouncing around on festival stages shown in rapid-fire clips interspersed with more drinking. The only scene that revealed anything personal or even halfway interesting about the band was the one where they're all sitting at a table and Damon brings up the subject of their infamously miserable year touring "Leisure" throughout 1992, followed by ... complete silence and indifference from the rest of the band. Yes, they don't want to talk about it. Have they simply moved on? Are they too focused on the future to dwell any more on the past? Are the wounds too fresh? You won't find the answers here.

Two concerts are featured as bonus chapters on the DVD. The first is a four song excerpt from a 1990 show in a tiny club, reportedly recorded just after they'd been signed. Watch it and marvel at the fact that they even got signed at all. They look and sound atrocious, metronomically flopping their hair around in their very best Madchester impression while their musicianship barely meets high school talent show levels of precision. The second show is a near complete gig from London in 1991, and it's like night and day. Their playing is messy in parts, but overall they sound tight and energetic. The gig captures them at a midpoint between the baggy/shoegaze twin ripoffs of their early days and the take no prisoners attitude of the "Modern Life is Rubbish" era, where they progressed as songwriters by leaps and bounds. Their performance of "There's No Other Way" bears little resemblance to more frantic later versions, here, they're still ironing out the last wrinkles of the Charlatans UK with the frivolous organ parts and mid-tempo shuffling. But "Oily Water" and a searing version of "Turn It Up" -- the worst song on MLIR actually rendered enjoyable -- hint at how bright the future would be.

------------------------------

Blur released their second film, "No Distance Left To Run", in 2010 and this is type of career retrospective that every great band wishes it could make. The history of the band, everything from meeting in school through "Think Tank", is told through a series of interviews with the individual band members against the backdrop of their comeback concerts in 2009. It's honest, painful, and hilarious. Nobody pulls any punches, nobody tries to gloss over the bad parts. Time and perspective has put everything in its proper context. The band knows exactly who they are, who they were*, and there are no delusions of grandeur, none of that "we've come back because music isn't what it used to be, the world needs Blur again" pompousness. They don't rant about they'll conquer the world again, but they all seem genuinely thrilled about the success of the reunion and about playing together again -- about the need to play together again to leave things in a better place than they were in 2003. Damon says that they played the best gigs of their career and it's all because of their friendship, and as corny as it sounds, I'll buy it because I can't think of a better reason why these songs should have sounded so good twenty years later.

* Well, in particular I couldn't let this one go from Damon, speaking about "Parklife", he says "there was no such thing as a left field indie band that were that commercial, and I think everyone had accepted that it was never going to be like that." Forgotten about Suede, have we? Come to grips with it Damon, it's been fifteen years! Oasis were nothing in April 1994 when "Parklife" was released, at that time it was viewed as Damon's effort to unseat Suede as the kings of British pop.

Blur haven't really changed at all after all these years. They're more balanced and responsible, but they look the same (but a bit older), Damon is still the arrogant but incredibly talented frontman, Graham is the quiet, troubled guitar genius; Alex is the boisterous cigarette smoking one, and Dave is the quiet one. The film matches your preconceptions about who Blur are, it takes everything you already knew and zooms in on the details, bringing everything into sharper focus. As far as band documentaries/histories go, this is one of the best you'll ever see.

Blur always occupied an odd place in my life, I used to say they were the band I liked as much as you could possibly like a band without ever really loving them. And it's still true. To paraphrase a famous movie line, every time I think I've gotten away from Blur, that I don't care about them anymore, they pull me back in.

------------------------------

As we all know, everybody reunites. Remember when reuniting meant the bands your parents listened to or the bands you used to hear on the radio when you were in grade school. Well, just like your parents' generation, now it's time for YOUR favourite bands to have another go at it. Jane's Addiction reunited. Blur reunited. Pulp reunited.

Blur had their moment in the sun in 2009 with their widely praised Hyde Park and Glastonbury shows, this year it was Pulp's turn to blow away the festival goers. But before they started on the festival circuit, they made their live comeback earlier this year in a small venue in Toulouse, France. After ten years on hiatus, they sound pretty much the same as always. They've always sounded a bit shambolic (Pulp were never exactly a well-oiled machine live) and Jarvis Cocker's voice has worn down some, but the songs are still unstoppable. As you'd expect, they ran through nearly all of "Different Class" in versions that are nearly indistinguishable from how they were played fifteen years ago, and it all helps to clarify why "His 'n' Hers" has always been the better album. Some of the subject matter from "Different Class" seems so dated and quaint -- yes, people really did pontificate on whether the soul of rave culture was more than skin deep or whether it was nothing but a bunch of kids getting high and dancing all night in a field. "His 'n' Hers" is nothing but a bunch of teenage hormones running wild and expressed through song, those memories never grow dated and will forever stay raw and poignant, especially on songs like "Pink Glove" (possibly my favourite Pulp song and sounding as fantastic as ever here).

The best parts of the gig are the songs that band and audience haven't heard/performed a million times (or maybe it's just me, still burned out on "Different Class"-era Pulp). A sensational, caustic eight minute version of "This is Hardcore" leads straight into the mood changing "Sunrise", relieving the tension before "Bar Italia" and "Common People" close the main set. At that point, they'd played everything they "had" to play IMO, and didn't disappoint by digging deeper into the archives for the encore -- "O.U." (first time performed since 1995), "Countdown" (I have this on a 1993 bootleg ... has it been performed since?), "Joyriders", "His 'n' Hers" (!!), "Acrylic Afternoons", and "Misshapes". Not my ideal closing tune, but that's a fascinating six-song encore that shows how they're not content to do this comeback the easy, safe way.

Dan Sicko RIP

Journalist Dan Sicko passed away earlier this week from a rare form of eye cancer. His book "Techno Rebels" was arguably the first proper history of techno, tracing the evolution of the scene (and the careers of the principal actors) from high school dance parties in Detroit in the early 80's to the more global rave and electronica of the 90's. Sicko's book was a favourite of mine, and when I wrote for Cave 17, reviewing old techno and dance music compilations, I always used the title "Techno Relics" as a play on his book.

A number of sites have picked up on the news of Sicko's passing, but be warned that Rolling Stone and Matthew Perpetua are full of it when they write that "['Techno Rebels'] legitimized the Detroit techno scene of the Eighties for many readers." Techno wasn't waiting patiently for approval and legitimacy from rock critics in the 90's. Journalists didn't breathe a sigh of relief when "Techno Rebels" was published -- "I guess this means techno is real music now." Why not write similarly stupid things like "the Beatles landing in America legitimized the rock and roll of the Fifties for many readers." And of course, the "Detroit techno scene" wasn't only an eighties phenomenon. If anything helped to "legitimize" it, it was techno's blindingly rapid spread to the clubs and raves of Europe in the late 80's and early 90's. That's the kind of thing you can appreciate once you actually read Sicko's book (I doubt that anyone from RS has).

More of Sicko's writing as well as information about "Techno Rebels" is available at the site of the same name.