Audio

Marching Church
Throughout the Borders

What I wouldn't give to see a double bill of Marching Church (Iceage's frontman) and Horrid Red. Hopefully all set in a Bavarian Castle somewhere, and in the intermission someone walks around in slow mo, with a look of slow motion horror on their face, akin to the Animal Collective fan's face when he realises the new album isn't MPP. or the slow horror that you watching Dina Lohan be interviewed on Dr Phil. Better yet, for manic pop culture thrills, play the track over a slow motion Dina Lohan being interviewed by Dr Phil... yes.... Listen here.

Audio

Prince Rama
Those Will Live For Love Will Live Forever

I remember there was an exclusive 7, featuring Prince Rama and Sun Araw, it was announced via my spam ... I was pretty disheartened that google cruelly took away my opportunity to actually get into that, and have it soundtrack my life. No. Of course not google, you let me get spammed daily with shite UK bands, and the one interesting thing - am I allowed it? Oh noes.... anyways, Prince Rama have a new record coming out soon, and they kinda cosplay at being everyone. Including this - 'Those Who Live For Love Will Live Forever which you can download here.

Movies

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Douglas Sirk second and more successful attempt in seducing the women’s picture from the hands of Hollywood schlock, and reinventing it with clever subtleties, is highlighted in ‘55’s ‘A That Heaven Allows’.  Sirk previous attempt ‘A Magnificent Obsession (as written by the odious Lloyd C Douglas, a preacher turned Hollywood script bro - yes, its as bad as that) - whereas the plot of Magnificent Obsession is pure camp at its best (and would go on into influencing John Waters)  (seriously its too be seen, to be believed), the follow up - ‘A That Heaven Allows’, contains a lighter technicolor touch (Rock Hudson doesn’t unintentionally kill, blind, or maim Jane Wyman in this one).  Sirk explores the conformity of sexuality within 1950s America - when Wyman, an older lady, falls for Rock Hudson, a younger gardener, and through their affair, shocks and defines the sexual morals of a small town.  Wyman, a widower, has the best cutting lines, when her daughter tells her about relief in that they don’t wall up the widows of today, like they do in Ancient Egypt - Wyman responds ‘Don’t they?’.  It’s a film bursting with unconcerned lust and sexuality, with clever asides at societal loneliness and the damaging effects of television and neurotic middle class children with an emphasis on bohemianism and Freud as America’s answer.  ‘A That Heaven Allows’ - is charming as it is cutting.  Rock Hudson, openly gay in his private life, plays a virile young woodcutter’, an effect that Sirk must have been bemused by, as he slowly morphed him into housewife’s choice.

Audio

James Ferraro
So N2U

So n2this. I remember when James Ferraro was a drone bro, doing 'worthy' drone records on Holy Mountain, and probably had more than three Japanese/Kraut/Psyche references thrown into his music on some weirdo blog, back when freak was folk, and drone was drone. Something changed up. I hope its the influence of Eric Copeland and his own twisted pop phantasies, or something - cuz Ferraro went from 'drone bro' into seemingly wanting his own number one record, but kinda his way - and his way only. God. 'Elements' are still there, but he's made it into a new sound - and kudos for calling it 'So N2U' - if this came outta Warp, it would be called 'Psihghaie 2000 the Romumland Empire' - so basement dwellers can gaze out on fields and write sci fi fan fiction to James Ferraro, in hopes of securing a BFF internship on Ferraro world. Get into this after the jump...

Audio

Inc
The Place

Supposedly there are going to heavy bad vibes until the 5th of October, feel 'let down' by this, as I just feel that I got out of my bad vibes this weekend. Goin' have this as a soundtrack against the weirdness until the 5th. Funny - when people talk about Inc, its like 'ooo avant guard' but in reality, this is kinda - just lite funk, not nite funk, but lite funk. Download it after the jump.

Movies

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Malick’s first foray into film making after a near twenty year absence, shows an almost magical hand at what he directs.  The Thin Red Line is an end statement on war movies in America, and indeed - when in comparison to other films such, as Saving Private Ryan, or Platoon, it shines through, encapuslating, the best of the first half of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, or what you could imagine Charles Laughton would have handled Mailer’s Naked and the Dead, if his own film debut didn’t bomb.  The Thin Red Line, is a geogerous tome on war.  Ostensibly lead by Witt, it is philosophical, but not leaden - instead - the wonderment of life is seen through the fear of each character’s eyes, as they all prepare for battle, letting silent thoughts come to life through narration, Malick makes The Thin Red Line, less about World War 2, and more about the beauty and cruelty of life as it faces extremes.  It isn’t a film, but a redemptive poem.

The production is interesting.  Lured out from reclusivity by two producers, Malick story of The Thin Red Line is best brought out by Days of Hell an intriguing look at the post and pre productions.

Interviews

Autre Ne Veut answers the Questions of Doom

Kinda think Autre Ne Veut's self titled album on Olde English Spelling Bee is a perfect pop album. It just is. Hey! If you were expecting a dour foray into pop, think again - Autre Ne Veut aesthetic has a slight sense of irony and bizarre humor (check his cover of Lindsay Lohan's 'Bossy') to keep it on the right side of pop art pop. Earlier this summer, he released 'Body', another pop masterpiece juxtaposing club and bedsit anthems that balance effortlessly on the tightrope between artful experimentation and mainstream pop. 'Body' is just not a 'taster' for more work,or tied into an album campaign; it is almost like an imperious, standalone work in its own right. We had to get in Autre Ne Veut for this week's Questions of Doom.

What are the secret origins of Autre Ne Veut?

Not such a secret.  Started working on this stuff in the winter of ‘05/‘06. 

You’ve talked pretty openly about the internet, and yet - you’ve managed to low profile yourself on the internet Was this conscious?  Why so mysterious?

At the peak of my interest in the internet, I thought of myself as a tourist.  That was a number of years ago.  ANVs profile on the internet is only as big as ANV is.  As for “me” the individual, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Really liked your cover of Lindsay Lohan’s Bossy - what is it about Lohan that drives the internet to blog?  And what statement were you making (if any) by participating in the covers EP?

Couldn’t care less about Lindsay Lohan really.  I was excited by the prospect of hunting through an unknown (to me) catalog of music, discovering exactly how mediocre it was, and then ultimately choosing a solid Ne-Yo track as the basis for creating a pop song that I found to be both interesting, and that expresses the same ideas that I express throughout my musical output.  Having just over 24 hours to do it made it like a reality TV show challenge.

The cover of your self titled debut is rather affecting, what does it mean and how does it relate to the narrative of the music?

Just another piece of anti-war propaganda.

You seem suspicious of the media tag and are conscious on the cyclical nature of music trends.  Where do you see Autre Ne Vuet in a few year’s?  Where would you like to take the project?

Which media tag are we speaking of?  I’m generally suspicious.  In a few years I hope to have released some of the aggressively progressive pop music that I produced primarily in 2008.

I know you are under the influence of mainstream culture but why do you think you process it in what is considered a nostalgic way?  Or is there such a thing as nostalgia for yourself?

I’m really neither a pop hound nor a nostalgicist.  I’m interested in popular forms and mass media, but I’m not up on my gossip rags or my Top 40 (though I have been so in the past, regarding the latter).  I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly schizophrenic, but that’s been thrown around a bit regarding what I do.  Maybe what ties this all together is this, a sort of creative schizophrenia.  Its fairly common for the young psychiatrist to confuse a total social disregard for social norms in fashion for trendiness, though really the patients are simply wearing the same clothes from decades earlier which have returned to fashion.

Read more →

Audio

Eric Copeland
Bowlin'

Why isn't Copeland's genius being uttered in hushed tones amongst the blogosphere? Why isn't he getting thirty page write ups in Pitchfork, using ridiculous adjectives, and bad comparisons to Russian novels and Kant? Why is the 'meh' Ariel Pink album being heralded across newspapers as 'the favorite freak you want to know' and Copeland's mastery of the mighty groove, his futurist sound, his utter bloody genius (and sometimes literally as you hear almost blood on these grooves) gets ghetto'ed out? Copeland is a pop masterpiece. His solo efforts easily outrank his cohort's Panda Bear, et al. He destroys and rebuilds. And he's like totally meta. Just get on this. It will change your life. Copeland is the Brian Wilson it is seemingly ok not to know, and yeah - its beginning to get on my nerves. Champion the bro already. OK? Good. Hear the latest creation after the jump.

Audio

Oneohtrix Point Never
Stone of Spiritual Understanding

This is heavy. A collab with 'Rene Hell', its kinda rankling, spraying out shots of Exorcist 2: The Heretic, as it sounds if you are being attacked by swarms of bees, before being rescued by some metal band of the early 8ts. But really - it has a loftier aim than that - replicating speech patterns, or something - but the reality? It sounds like the above. Hit it up after the jump.

Movies

Badlands (1973)

With Malick’s Tree of Life hitting the UK theatres, Bad Vibes thought it time to discuss his debut ‘Badlands’.  Terrence Mallick’s “Badlands” (1973) is one of the most powerful and finely made films to have resulted from the Hollywood pre-Spielberg renaissance. It is a dreamlike, languid journey from a dead-end town to forests and deserts. There are few other films that capture the condition of the outsider in America with more sensitivity and intelligence. Although the story is that of ‘50s serial killer couple, Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugates, the murders depicted are curiously unmoving and seem like incidental, unfortunate accidents during Kit (Martin Sheen) and Holly’s (Sissy Spacek) strange journey into spaces each emptier than the last.

Movies

Ms 45 (1981)

ust watched Ms 45.  Incredible.  So bizarre, how - on release - this
was a critical and commercial bomb.  Could kinda see it, marketing and
done up as ‘exploitation’, it was sent out into the world for a ‘meh’
response, and yet - the subtext of Ms 45 - is important.  I remember
reading an essay with regards to the feminism of ‘I Spit On Your
Grave’, and how - instead of exploitative trash, the film was a
feminist manifesto.  I had to disagree - the film was violent and
horrible, and yet - Ms 45 could easily be read as a militant feminist
movie.  The main character is raped twice (!) on the same day, and
goes on a rampage revenge killing spree against any male who shows the
slightest degree of sexuality towards her.  It feels like an update of
Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, yet set across the aesthetic of Ferrera’s
New York.  The film carries itself on Zoe Lund - who you could say
was Ferrera’s ingenue.  Lund was the archetype of the NYC downtown
artist in the 80s; the utter personification of the downtown NYC
artist (which no longer exists).  Ms 45 could be seen as the sister
film to Driller Killer, in both - he captures the utter gritty soul of
New York, in all its violent glory.  End scene of Lund dispatching of
party goer’s whilst dressed in a nun’s costume pays tribute to the
Catholic obsession of Ferrera’s cohort, Nicolas St John (where is he
now) and was sadly and clumsily ripped off for Robert Rodriguez’s
Machete (remember Lilo in a nun’s costume, shooting people, yeah - I
tried to forget as well).  Again - the true star of the flick is Lund,
whose mute face said more ... and expressed more ... than any words.