I am not sure why Richard H. Kirk released this as Sandoz because it doesn’t really sound anything like previous Sandoz records, and, as I said in an earlier review, the man can’t settle a band name to save his life. As the title suggests, this is Kirk’s electronic take on dub reggae. The end result is fantastic. There are throbbing bass lines, disembodied Rasta voices, reggae samples and lots of digital bleeps and bloops. I have found that this a great record to play in the car during a slow drive at night in the big city. Don’t ask me to qualify that statement beyond me just saying that I once played this CD while driving late at night in the big city and I liked it. It’s a great mix of old and new sounds.
Since the demise of Cabaret Voltaire, Richard H. Kirk has had about a zillion solo projects all with different names. It’s a bit of a discographer’s nightmare. I’m all for the one band line-up, one name approach that Wire used (when the drummer left the band, they renamed themselves Wir). But, seriously Richard, just because you used an arpeggiator doesn’t mean you need to call yourself Arpeggio 13 or whatever. Anyhow, Sandoz’s (was he manufacturing generic medications while recording?) Digital Lifeforms stays much closer to mid 90’s Cabaret Voltaire’s sound than other Kirk solo efforts. This is dancy electronica with a laid-back feel and not quite as many distorted transmissions and found sounds one might expect from Kirk.
So, I’m now four books into the Discworld series and I think I will keep going with it (only 33 more to go). Mort is another underdog-type story that I always enjoy and, on top of that, it has an imaginative take on what it must be like to be the grim reaper.
Rhino knows how to put together a great compilation and this 24-track “Best of” Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs is no exception. I already had this 70s “Best Of” record. I think all of those songs are represented here and there’s about dozen or so more without a stinker in the bunch (well “Big Blue Diamonds” is not that good, but I’ll give it a pass). There is also the added bonus of a nice thick booklet filled with detailed history and a few photos.
Aside from the laugh-out-loud “twist” finale involving a cat, a bag and a car driving down a winding road, this was, overall, a pretty crappy Fulci film. There wasn’t even that much signature close-up gore to keep things interesting. The story felt like it would have been better served if it were simply a 22 minute Twilight Zone style tele-play rather than a full-length feature.
Another collection of analog synth laden songs from the members of Poster Children. This one feels a bit more focused and less sloppy than their debut EP. Still, these are loose, live feeling songs and not sequenced laptop tracks. I had always hoped that Poster Children would have incorporated more of this experimentation in their records too, but, alas, that never really happened. The CD includes a bunch of obsolete CD-ROM multimedia that crashes in a modern OS.
The Rutles make you realize just how unique, yet weirdly predictable the Beatles were. Although intended as a joke, the lyrics are not too far off the mark of actual Beatles songs. In fact, I may actually prefer most of these songs simply because they have a sense of humor about them. Stuff like, “Although I may not be a man of words, yeah, yeah” is just great. This CD makes me want to be a hair dresser, or two. I’d like to be two hair dressers.
Don’t Look Now is known mostly for Donald Sutherland’s naked gyrations. I was more impressed with his hobbit-y mop of hair. I thought the movie was overly long and boring. It’s supposed to be horror movie, but you would know that if left before the last four minutes. For the most part it is mostly just people walking around Venice and being dull.
I liked the original Dead Space well enough. The sequel is just more of the same endless dark hallways, jump scares, limb shooting and occasional weightless environment. This makes for some mindless fun, but, like the first game I was just yearning for a little variety.
The story is okay. Once again there’s that marker thingy that kills everyone but for some reason humans keep trying to rebuild it. I guess your job is to destroy it, or find out why you were hospitalized or find out why you keep seeing a ghost or something like that. It doesn’t really matter. Just shoot the arms and grab the ammo. Oh, and then there’s a Fulci-esque eye gouging scene that makes even less narrative sense an actual Fulci plot. If it’s any consolation, your character gets to speak a few lines of dialogue and we get to see what he looks like under that glowing knight’s helmet.
I am not usually a non-fiction reader outside of the occasional political tome, but I bought this after it was recommended by Virginia Postrel on her Twitter feed (and it was a 99¢ deal of the day on Amazon). To demonstrate how the brain’s chemical processes effect decision making, the author uses various real world examples like a quarterback picking a receiver, a pilot crash landing a plane and a world champion poker player. The anecdotes themselves are very interesting and on top of those there are quite a few examples of weird psychological studies. You know the sort: a patient’s brain is missing region X and because of this he can’t do Y. These are always fun to learn about but somewhat depressing when it begins to seem like everything we think, feel or do is because of some chemical fluctuation in our frontal lobe.
