Abandon ship!

Chilinism is no more. I have proper hosting (DNS entries busy propagating as I type)... so from now on please go to www.gailycolouredplasticbag.co.uk

Ta.

Never Mind The Video iPod, here's...

...the manuscript score of the Grosse Fuge, which has turned up unexpectedly in America. It amuses me that the BBC have referred to the piece as though "Grosse Fuge" is actually a title given to it by the composer, when, of course, it was originally just the finale for the Bb major string quartet. All it means is "big fugue".

When I was still at school, I once tried learning the lower part of a piano duet arrangment of the thing with a friend of mine. We barely scratched the surface - it's fearsomely difficult, remorselessly contemporary in its outlook (the first time I heard it I genuinely thought it was by Stravinsky) and completely unlike anything else in music. The manuscript is expected to sell for about £1.5 million. Money well spent if you've got it.

How to make an iPod nano screen protector

For this recipe, you will need:

1. One iPod nano
2. One "tube" iPod nano sleeve
3. Two small pieces of sticky back plastic
4. The transparent plastic container your iPod tube sleeves came in

Instructions for assembly:

• Cut a rectangle of transparent plastic that is slightly larger than the iPod screen
• fix lightly to the sides of the iPod using sellotape - if you don't do this it will slide about in the sleeve
• insert iPod into sleeve

And there you go. No nasty scratches on your beloved iPod nano screen.

Fall Heads Roll preamble

I'm writing this as a preamble to a proper review, because the review will take me far too long, and I haven't posted for days ;-)

Firstly: I am what you'd call a die-hard Fall fan. I'm possibly not of the ilk that would buy recordings of Mark E. Smith breaking wind in the bath, but not all that far behind. In the past I've bought everything The Fall put out; I've trailed off a bit in recent years because I got fed up with paying out for thoroughly substandard live compilations, but still buy all the canonical albums and singles, and will still drive a fair distance to see them live.

All of which means it's actually very difficult for me to be objective about a Fall LP without judging it in its context next to all their other LPs. So bear in mind before you read these few comments, that I actually quite like Fall Heads Roll, and the harshness of my opinion of it is based entirely on the fact that it's a vastly inferior album in the Fall's canon. Nevertheless that still means it's head and shoulders above just about everything else.

But anyway, impressions based on a week's worth of listening:

• Lyrically, FHR is, without doubt, the weakest thing Mark E. Smith has ever produced. The straightforwardness of the lyrics fits the straightforwardness of the music, granted, but it's not what I want from a Fall album.
  
• Production-wise, it's also the most conventional. No scratchy mixes, or left-field stuff to destabilise the sound. It's a full-on garage-rock album.
  
• The band, bless them, are great - Spencer Birtwistle is definitely the best drummer Smith has ever employed, and Steve Trafford is a more than worthy successor to Steve Hanley. But Pritchard's guitar playing doesn't have that wonderful off-kilter approach that Craig Scanlon, and, to a much lesser extent, Julia Nagle had. So the overall texture is, well, a bit too rock for my liking. In fact it's a bit ROCK!! for my liking.
  
• It's far too bloody long. Some of the songs are pure filler - the "cover" of Walk Like A Man is dreadful, and should have been chopped. As should "Early Days of the Channel Fuehrer", which is a nice enough countryish waltz, but nothing really happens in it.

Anyway, this is just an initial summary - more later in excruciating detail.

Fall Heads Roll

The new Fall LP arrived today, god bless Action Records... along with t-shirt and a couple of badges. I've bought the UK CD and vinyl issues... now all I need to do is order the double LP heavy vinyl version from Narnack records and I'll be away. ;-)

Nobody gets any sense out of me today.

iPod nano covers

The long-awaited nano covers have arrived, so I can now use my beloved new toy with impunity. I've been really restrained up till now and not used it, which has been quite a struggle and has needed lots of willpower.

The cases themselves, disappointingly, are more "sleeves" than all-over body-armour; the nice young lady at Apple did tell me as much when I bought them, but I didn't really realise that they come with no degree of screen protection at all (in fact the gap for the screen is the bit you use to actually get the contraption into its sleeve). I think they're much the same as the sleeves that you used to be able to get for iPod minis, though I wouldn't swear to it, never having even seen one of the things. However, looking like a selection of rectangular luminous condoms, they come in packs of 5, which is four more than I need, so I've given three away - one each to Dan, Ashleigh and Mark (who bought one while on his Hols, bringing nano ownership in our team to an impressive 60%). I've kept the nicer colours for myself, naturally.

I might see about constructing some sort of cack-handed Heath Robinson affair of a screen cover, using only a section of transparent plastic from the packaging, a teaspoon, and a pound of parma ham. This may end up being quite dangerous.

The Sensual World - reappraisal

A proper account of this LP is on its way, as I think it merits it - but, in brief, I listened to the album in some detail last night and am now far more convinced by it. The way Bush manages to integrate such diverse performers as Davy Spillane, Dave Gilmour, the Trio Bulgarka and Nigel Kennedy into her own sound-world is quite an achievement in fact. But that blasted Fairlight still dominates nearly everything, damn it! I know the Fairlight was an amazing piece of kit for its day, but even in 1989 it needed pensioning off. I assume she's still using it.

I think if I could only hear one vocal-only ensemble again, it would be the Trio Bulgarka. I've never tracked down any of their own recordings though - I must remember to do so. There's something electrifying about the coarseness of that open-throated Eastern European singing style that we reserved Brits simply can't do, although Kate manages a fair approximation of it on occasion.

Predictably I've been completely side-tracked by the final Delgados LP, Universal Audio, which I didn't really give due attention when I bought it. Everybody Come Down is perfect pop of the sort that makes me really wish they hadn't called it a day.

Kate inundation, part the second

Having listened to Lionheart and Never For Ever a little, though admittedly not really enough, Never For Ever is clearly the stronger album, although England My Lionheart is admittedly a great song. Lionheart really does come across as an LP of out-takes from the sessions for The Kick Inside though, and feels pretty insubstantial.

Today a spanking new CD copy of The Kick Inside - the first Kate LP I bought, on vinyl of course - has arrived. I'm interested to see whether I still think it's any good, as I loved it when I first bought it, more for the left-of-centre material like Strange Phenomena and Them Heavy People than the "classics" like The Man With The Child In His Eyes and Wuthering Heights.

The other disc that arrived this morning was The Sensual World which I borrowed off a mate at school (I think it was Richard Daft) on cassette. I hated it then - my overriding impression was that Kate was smoking too much and relying on reverb to hide her shredded, dry vocal chords. My expectations of this one aren't too high.

Just waiting for a CD copy of Hounds of Love now.

Mental Oriental

Gary is posting stuff on his blog again. There will be stuff about zombies, cheese, Barry, coal, ninjas (particularly ninjas).