Goodbye MCA

My return to blogging here used the title of a Beastie Boys album as the post title. An indicator, if you will, of where they sit in my head.

This weekend the world had to farewell part of the act that influenced my musical taste through my childhood, up until now. Goodbye MCA, we'll miss you. But you know you can't, you won't, and you don't stop.

The mau5 is back in the hau5

It's no secret that I am a big fan of Deadmau5. The Canadian purveyor of bleepy goodness has been on high rotation in my musical bag of tricks for a long time - in fact, his previous release For Lack of a Better Name is my go-to running soundtrack and "I need some stomping good amp up" music - more than a year after it was originally released.

With that in mind, it's probably fair to say that I had incredibly high standards set when I purchased a copy of his latest release 4x4=12. It was a bit of a fluke actually - I hadn't heard anything about the new release, but happened to spy it on a rack in a record store while wandering past, as luck would have it only the day after release.

Unable to wait I threw this on in the car on the way home, expecting to be utterly blown away in the manner of For Lack of a Better Name. I was initially disappointed, but persisted the next morning with a re-listen to the album (again in the car) on the way to work.

4x4=12 doesn't carry the same initial punch and grab of For Lack of a Better Name - it has a totally different mood and the tracks carry off in a totally new direction and style. This is not actually a bad thing, as it's a very solid release and once I'd given it a couple of listens it started to grow on me a lot. It just took me a little bit of time to accept that it was not a second For Lack of a Better Name.

mau5 is known for taking his listeners on a musical journey, and in that respect this album definitely does it's job while managing to be a little less progressive than the last. Some of the track layout isn't as smooth as it could be, but it's the price you pay for getting a wider variety in the music. It's a lot easier to glean the mau5's influences on this album, picking elements from various electronica legends through the ages. The most notable of this is Cthulhu Sleeps (one of my favourite tracks on the album) which is ten whole minutes of whumm-whumm awesomesauce, a la Timo Maas and Azzido da Bass circa 2000.

My picks on the album are Sofi Needs a Ladder, Cthulhu Sleeps, Raise Your Weapon (the first single) and A City in Florida. While there aren't any tracks I feel that I have to skip, One Trick Pony is easily my least favourite - interesting since it also features Sofi who appears on the earlier Sofi Needs a Ladder.

Overall after a few listens this album has come into it's own right for me and I'm enjoying it on high rotation. I'm yet to test it out for it's run-ability but as it's a mixed album it should fare very well. Another solid performance from the mau5 - not at epic as the last one but still a lot of fun.



And for a little bonus - here's Deadmau5's personal highlights of his Aussie tour in November/December last year. The opening animation sequence is what introduced him onstage, and see if you can spot me in the middle of the crush when he kicks the inflatable roo off the stage. It was absolutely crazy in there.

iPod Lotto, the second.

Here we go again - a short iPod Lotto played on the way home last night.

Lady Gaga - Just Dance
Aerials.Spans.Earth - Mr Kessler (Links to a free, legal MP3. This track was a triplej unearthed winner back in 2000.)
Metric - Satellite Mind
The White Stripes - My Doorbell
Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood
Lily Allen - Friend of Mine
Simian Mobile Disco - It's the Beat
Itch-e & Scratch-e - Imperial Rockets
The Beatles - Ballad of John and Yoko
Dutch ft Crystal Waters - My Time
Urthboy - Hellsong
Basement Jaxx - Where's Your Head At?

iPod Lotto: The First

I often get comments on the interesting mishmash of music I have on my iPod. To be perfectly honest, I listen to a wide variety of music and I like to have a variety available to me. This can lead to interesting (and sometimes downright weird) results when I play iPod Lotto.

What is iPod Lotto? It's my term for shuffle - I feel it describes the results I get more accurately.

I had monster drive home tonight - 1.5 hours thanks to traffic chaos. What's a girl to do? Crank up the music and indulge in a little iPod lotto. I hit the Gaga Jackpot tonight with three Gaga tracks in the mix and found what I got was great for keeping me (relatively) happy on the way home.

Here's what my iPod felt like playing tonight, in order:

Chicken Payback - The Bees
Hand that Feeds - Nine Inch Nails
Nine in the Afternoon - Panic! At the Disco
Root Down - The Beastie Boys
Unsent Letter - Machine Gun Fellatio
Ride On Time - Black Box
The Others - TV Rock vs Dukes of Windsor
Soup Kitchen - Eva Trout
Let It Be - The Beatles
Take Me Away - Lash
Teeth - Lady Gaga
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
Holy Groove - Yolanda Be Cool
Walking Away (Tocadisco remix) - The Egg
Hustler - Simian Mobile Disco
Intergalactic - The Beastie Boys
Reptiles - Them Crooked Vultures
Sly PI - Fatt Dex
Happy Up Here - Röyksopp
Get Down - Groove Armada
Selfless, Cold and Composed - Ben Folds Five
I Want I Want - Digitalism
Speechless - Lady Gaga
Again Again - Lady Gaga
Pure Massacre - silverchair
Semi Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
Toxic - Mark Ronson feat. Tiggers

Going Gaga

This was too good not to share...

Soldiers in Afghanistan. Doing Gaga.

Music rant

Why are two out of the three tracks that I really, really want to purchase not on the iTunes store?

It is most unhelpful to hear music on the radio, only to find out that it's not released yet.

I'm with the DJ

The other half is playing the Big Day Out next year.

I'll be in the Boiler Room going off. Hah.

Daft Punk

Way to go Modular.

silly wristbanding rule you've created. Well, there are some very, very cranky punters, myself included.

Boo!

So, I'm a bit slow.

I had noticed that Myf Warhurst has been notably absent from triplej this week, and the intros to the show had been redone to exclude her name. Silly me, I thought she'd gone on holidays or something and the other two hosts were trying to be funny.

Today I checked the triplej website and found a "Goodbye Myf" guestbook. Ack!

Turns out she's taken a job on MMM in Melbourne. Awesomeness. No more Myf in the mornings for me.

I am not a happy camper.

Weekend is here!

Glad to be at the weekend... it's been a long week (albeit a short work week.)

Currently have Pendulum stuck in my head.

Muscles - Guns Babes Lemonade

Ice Cream can certainly save my day.

Love the album.

Found!

The name of a track has been bugging me for ages. I had no idea what it was called or who it was by. As it was more of an electronic mishmash, I couldn't search lyrics, either.

Found it today! Grip Like a Vice - The Go! Team.

What else am I listening to?

Konichiwa Bitches - Robyn

Various Daft Punk offerings (gosh, I wonder why?)

We are the Night - Chemical Brothers (it's a great album)

Other fantastic news - Rage Against the Machine are touring in January. Rumour has it they'll play BDO in addition to the shows already announced.

I am one happy camper.

NIN - MOAR!

Ok, so this footage is from Munich. I couldn't find decent footage of this track from Sydney.

This is what Only looked like on Saturday night.

Nine Inch Nails - wow!

So I went to see NIN last night.

It was much better than the last show (same tour, same venue) that I went to. The production this time was FANTASTIC!

There was a portion of the set where there was what appeared to be a giant LED screen behind them... then after that it turned out to be a translucent curtain - and it was now in front of them. Video would play over and cover the band, then you could see them when there was no video.

I really, really want to know what it was. I found some info that on a 2005 tour they used an opera gauze curtain and projected video onto it from Front of House... but it didn't look like this was a projection. The way the screen looked and acted led me to believe it was LED driven, but I've never seen a translucent LED curtain before.

I must find out.

Bits and Pieces

Vista: I am not enjoying it so far. Seeing how much memory and system resources Aero takes up was staggering though. I've turned it off. Some things I just do not understand: Why have they changed where things are located.. when they've been there for many, many versions? Why have they hidden options that should be easy to access? Why are there 3 ways to turn off the computer in the same menu space?

Once I get my brain working again, I'll post full updates.

On the music front - Do yourself a favour and listen to Who's afraid of Detroit - Claude VonStroke. Is good. Beautiful, even. The rest of his album seems ok, I will withhold full judgement until I get hold of a copy.

Underworld - Oblivion with Bells

I know I mentioned that I wished that the new Underworld album was being featured on my favourite radio station. I'd heard one track and wanted to hear more.

No, it's still not featured. The very idea.

However, word on the street is that the new album is very, very pretty. (Yes, that's verbatim. It's pretty.) I can't wait to hear it. Hopefully soon.

Ack!

The feature album on my favourite radio station (triplej) is the new Kanye West album. ergh.

Please someone save me. Why can't they use the new Underworld album instead?