Tuesday, 18th of December, 2007

A few days ago I finally posted my ridiculously comprehensive 2007 list at the Utility Fog blog. Over at the Mess+Noise boards today there’s a thread on “Official…ish Top 10 of 1997“, of which I thought, “Hm, 1997, the year the Clouds broke up, and surely that dire period where indie music was pathetic and nothing much of interest was happening.”
Could be, but then again… could be not! Upon searching my mp3 player for 1997, here’s what I came up with (and I haven’t done the fancy UFog-like linkage, sorry):

1. µ-Ziq - Lunatic Harness
2. Amon Tobin - Bricolage
3. Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy
4. Autechre - Envane (lucky it doesn’t say ”top 10 albums”, although Chiastic Slide is awesome)
5. Björk - Homogenic
6. Farmers Manual - fsck
7. Fennesz - Hotel Paral.lel
8. Mouse on Mars - Autoditacker / Instrumentals (really can’t choose)
9. Plaid - Not For Threes
10. Squarepusher - Big Loada EP (Hard Normal Daddy came out this year, but Big Loada is packed with classics)

So, a fucken awesome year for idm, which shouldn’t have been surprising - and also two absolutely seminal releases for Mego-style glitch. Also this year:
Arcon 2 - Arcon 2
Beth Orton - Trailer Park
Bill Laswell - Oscillations remixed
Boymerang - Balance of the Force
Can - Sacrilege (I liked it… I still like it!)
Clouds - Never Say Forever (their last release)
John Fahey & Cul de Sac - The Epiphany of Glenn Jones
Michael Fakesch - Demon 1 EP (his first solo release, with a Boards of Canada remix that’s up there with the best BoC tracks ever)
Godspeed, You Black Emperor! - F# A# infinity
Heligoland - Creosote & Tar EP (not the Adelaide band, this is Tim Friese-Greene of Talk Talk etc)
Nine Inch Nails - The Perfect Drug versions (Plug’s remix here is one of the best drum’n'bass tracks evar)
The Orb - Orblivion
Paradise Motel - (Please Keep Me Safe)
Plug - EPs 1, 2 & 3 (compiled by Nothing, obviously through Trent Reznor’s interest)
Radiohead - OK Computer
Regurgitator - Unit
Robert Wyatt - Shleep
Soma - Stygian Vistas (legendary Aussie electronic release, for me at least)
Third Eye Foundation - Ghost
Various Artists - Altered States of America
Various Artists - Buena Vista Social Club
Various Artists - Random (a tribute to Gary Numan)
Various Artists - Spunk Jazz (in some ways, this spelled the end of drill’n'bass, but it’s pretty good still)
Peccadillo - Little Sins (first album release from a band I was in, year before FourPlay’s debut album. I can’t argue that the album really stands up, but hey, it doesn’t suck, and the songwriting’s great…)

Monday, 17th of December, 2007

You can unsubscribe, but what action can be enough to counter our complicity in this? The link takes you to the horrifying account of a man kidnapped and tortured in a CIA black site.

There are people who are, shall we say, more complicit in these atrocities, however, and they must not get away with it. (They will, I know). And in our little corner of the world, our brave new Rudd government is happily allowing the Federal police to place a control order on David Hicks when he’s shortly, finally, released. He’ll be reporting to police three times a week. I guess we can all feel a little bit safer that this misguided, broken, harmless man is still being vigilantly watched.