Ok, so it’s been a super busy year and I’ve hardly had time to catch my breath let alone visit all the exhibitions, read all those books and get a new job like I planned in January… But it has been an awesome year with many amazing moments like my first ever Electrelane gig in their hometown of Brighton- woo! So good that I saw them another three times that month! Primavera, End of the Road (Cecile’s already covered that so I won’t bore you with details) and a stop over in Berlin was also ace. So here goes…
1. Kate Bush releases two albums in one year!
I have to confess that I still haven’t listened to all of the The Dreaming, argued by many as one her best albums (of course Hounds of Love is my favourite album of all time), because when I was younger I was convinced that Kate wouldn’t release anything after The Red Shoes so I wanted to stretch out the pleasure of listening to her albums for the first time by holding out for a specific time period (sometimes years) before I would allow myself to listen to another album. So when she released Aerial in 2005 I was pretty much beside myself with excitement of the prospect of hearing new material. The mature richness and depth of Kate’s voice and her generous use of progressive sound and space, most notable on A Sky of Honey had created something that almost rivals Hounds of Love. Understandably 2011 was an awesome year for me as Kate released not one, but two albums – cheeky!
Director’s Cut is an intermediary album, a re-working of old songs recorded in analogue, which creates a notably warm and brighter sound. The lyrics of Deeper Understanding are more disturbingly pertinent than ever while the bleeping computer complete with Auto-Tune voice fits the track perfectly. Lily is the highlight for me with Kate letting loose over driving bass and rhythms.
50 Words for Snow in sound and spirit is the winter equivalent of A Sky of Honey, an organic and honest work. It deserves to be listened in full but each track holds it own with individual wintry narratives that cover suitably bizarre topics including a romantic night with a snowman that tragically melts come the morning.
If it’s going to be this good I don’t mind waiting six years for the next one.
2. I’ve missed most of the exhibitions that I wanted to go to, probably due to too many lie-ins at the weekend, but I did manage to see a fantastic exhibition in a recent trip to Paris. La Maison Rouge held an exhibition, Memories of the Future, the Olbricht Collection, which was an overwhelming display of art and historical objects spanning a period of 500 years from the 16th to the 201st Century. It was a brilliantly diverse mix of media and felt like a macabre cabinet of curiosities. Highlights were some Druer engravings, Cindy Sherman prints, a giant stuffed crocodile suspended from the ceiling and a suitably disturbing claymation short from Nathalie Djurberg which portrays with dark humour the sacrifice of a young woman when dealing with the affects of ageing and illness.
You can also catch a fantastic installation by Djurberg at the Camden Arts Centre until the 8th January - all info here.
3. Tip top albums of 2011
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow
Metronomy – The English Riviera
Austra – Feel It Break
Francois & The Atlas Mountains – E Volo Love
Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Nicola Roberts – Cinderella’s Eyes
Gillian Welch – The Harrow & The Harvest
Britney Spears – Femme Fatale
4. Phil Solomon – In Memoriam (2005-2009)
Phil Solomon is an experimental filmmaker and artist whose previous work include short films created by chemically altering film. In 2005 Phil Solomon and fellow filmmaker Mark La Pore (1952-2005) made a film that used Grand Theft Auto as its source material. After La Pore’s death in 2005 Solomon made a series of further films entitled In Memoriam. The series was screened for the first time in the UK in October and my friend James took me along; I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pretty blown away by the experience and then went straight to watch Melancholia so it ended up being an intense evening!
The films were poignant, mesmerizing, and melancholic; I was struck by the surprising stillness and breadth of detail made using such a populated, action-packed videogame. One of the more haunting moments from Last Days In A Lonely Place, a film noir inspired by Rebel without a Cause, was a shot in front of an old cinema that displayed no films. It was lit by the headlights of a car, out of shot, and Solomon explained after the screening that he got rid of the people by ‘spawning’ tanks which he then used to block of the roads. You can catch clips here: http://www.philsolomon.com/
5. Josie Long – The Future is Another Place
I LOVE JOSIE LONG! GO SEE HER LIVE. Warm, witty and with charming enthusiasm you’ll be laughing with delight, but if you can’t catch her live then she also does an ace podcast with Robin Ince, until last week she also did a BBC 6 Music show with Andrew Collins which, fingers crossed, will return in the new year. And you can also find her Radio 4 series, All of the Planet's Wonders, in which Josie attempts to better herself through learning from reference books, here.
Merry Christmas!
