Russell Davies

New Vibe Man In Town

Strong buy

I know digital frames are always rubbish, that just seems to be one of the iron laws of the universe. But the Pix-Star actually isn't. Trust me. The website gives every impression that it's going to be a bit rubbish, and all your previous experiences will tell you that it's going to be a bit rubbish but it is actually a good thing. It syncs with Flickr and Instagram and Dropbox and Facebook and all your social doodahs. It's (relatively) easy to control from the website. It makes pictures from your digital life appear on your wall. And it's not too much money. You should get yourself one for Christmas (though Amazon seem to be out of them right now.)

Loose but tight

♫ #lastfm artists: Trouble Funk (6), Sophie (6), Orchestra D’italia (6), Trilok Gurtu (5) & GoGo Peng.. via @tweeklyfm #music

— russell davies (@undermanager) December 6, 2015

Odd week. Not much music listening. I was mostly listening to the audio book of Number Zero. Bit hard going to be honest. I suspect his sort of wordplayery would be easier on the page.

I love Trouble Funk, always coming back to them, but they seem mostly unrecordable. Only the recordings from the early days capture the loose but tight musicality and the right mix of crowd sounds. 

 

334-340

The cloud is a mind

"Harris draws particular attention to the association between minds and clouds, from the cumulus shape of the cartoon thought bubble to the early Christian belief that Adam’s mind was made from a pound of clouds. She might also have cited Sartre, who memorably described consciousness as “a wind blowing from nowhere toward the world.”

Kathryn Schulz reviews/explores Weatherland

Cove Cafe & Beach, St. Agnes

Gardens Cafe, South Cliff, Scarborough

The Cottage & Cafe, Nairbyl, I.O.M.

November 2015

Langston

♫ #lastfm artists: Langston Hughes (46), Cornelius Cardew, Peoples Liberation Music & others (42), Corn.. via @tweeklyfm #music

— russell davies (@undermanager) November 29, 2015

The full version of my week's listening reveals these totals:

    Langston Hughes (46)

    Cornelius Cardew, Peoples Liberation Music & others (42)

    Cornelius Cardew (35)

    The Langston Hughes Project (33)

Which makes it a very tight finish, but ultimately a win for Langston Hughes. I'm not sure ever really, properly heard the poems. I didn't sit and listen hard. Just had him on in the background. What snagged my ear were the stories in between the poems, the real lives of how they came to be written - lines snipped in half to double the amount he got paid.