The Robin LeBlanc

Wonderful video I found while cruising around.  Certainley brews up some possible ideas…

I remember being a little kid and at some point, I got this three-pack of LucasArts DOS games for my IBM Aptiva.  Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis, Sam & Max Hit The Road and Day Of The Tentacle.

I never played the Indiana Jones game much, but Sam & Max Hit The Road and Day Of The Tentacle dominated about an hour or two of my times after school for a little while.  They were fun, made you think, and at the time, anyways, there were no walkthroughs easily found.  So a young me had to figure things out and piece it all together.  Sometimes when I was stuck I would leave the game for a week and go back to it with fresh eyes.

But anyways, it just ocurred to me today how much those games shaped me as a youngster.  The dark and twisted art, the sick humor and the weird mysteries that demand for you to think.  Also the Sam & Max game made me want to search for more stuff featuring them, which led me to find the WONDERFUL comics by Steve Purcell and my life was made when I later discovered that a cartoon on Fox Kids was going to be made.  Damn…What a great couple of games.

Anyways, here’s the intro to Day Of The Tentacle.  Just cuz.

My new article at AWMusic.ca is up

The Floodlight Collective is the debut solo album of Deerhunter‘s Lockett Pundt (going by Lotus Plaza) and to many people, this has been a much anticipated album. Some tracks were released on the Deerhunter blog and they were met with giddiness (yes, GIDDINESS). And after hearing a track that writer Warren Ellis put on an 8tracks mix he put together, I became very enthusiastic about giving the whole album a listen. I contacted my editor from the bowels of…actually, I don’t know where the hell he lives. I always assume it’s a bachelor apartment with weird rantings scribbled on the wall in blood, pen or whatever he can find. Anyways, I contacted him about it and he got in touch with the good people at Kranky, who rushed a copy of the album to me.

I’m glad I listened to this album at around this time, where spring is starting to pop up. This is very much an album that goes well with sunlight and doing things like looking out a car window in the passenger seat. It’s contemplative, mildly nostalgic and sunny. I’m hearing all sorts of influences here. No artists in particular, but more of genres from different times. 60′s surfer music, 50′s crooners…it’s there if you listen close enough. The song Quicksand really makes that point stand out for me. I felt like I was on a fucking beach. The album also has it’s meditative moments too, such as the song I fell in love with, These Years. It twists and turns but the album never escapes those overexposed sunlight moments from your mind. Also an honourable mention should go to the song The Floodlight Collective for making me think of the science fiction movies I used to watch in the 80s.

Now that said, it wasn’t perfect for me. Three or four tracks in I was under the impression that I was listening to a male-fronted, down tempo version of Camera Obscura. There are some big differences between the two, but some of the sound was very similar and I found that the two brought up the same kind of visions in my head and while I love Camera Obscura, why should I listen to music that reminds me of them when I could actually be listening to them?. Another thing that kind of annoyed me about the album was that it just…didn’t seem to change that much. The vocals always gave that “singing in an empty auditorium with shitty acoustics” echo sound. No matter what the tempo of the actual song, I was still hearing the same inaudible ghostly moaning which for all I know could have been singing the contents of a grocery list. But what the hell, maybe that was the point.

In conclusion, The Floodlight Collective is a decent album, but is probably more appreciated by fans of Deerhunter than anyone else. It’s got a great sound and is clever, but I can’t help but feel that there should be more to it. put 2-3 songs in your spring playlist but any more than that and you might overdose on the sound.

Now here’s some music for you:
Quicksand
These Years
The Floodlight Collective

My new article at AWMusic.ca is up

Dear Odin, I’m doing an actual review on something current. Next thing you know it pigs will be flying around shooting rainbows out of their asses and Jesus will be coming back as a London mobster named Charlie (Or Chaaaaalie as they pronounce it in those glorious films).

Fever Ray is the solo project for The Knife‘s female half Karin Dreijer Andersson. Personally I became excited by this self-titled album after seeing the music video for If I Had A Heart which was an incredibly eerie journey that showed us how creepy it would be if a couple of kids, some pants-shittingly terrifying people wearing masks and a dog wandered around a land full of dead people in the middle of the night. Now on to the album. Fever Ray is one of the best albums to listen to at three in the morning after you’ve tried to go to sleep for the tenth time. It just works with insomnia so well. Apparently most of the songs were created in the sleepless hours following the birth of Andersson’s second child, which makes this album even more suitable for late night playing. It’s unbalanced, dark, weird, twisted and just plain fucked up…which is how most of us feel when we can’t sleep.

I’m not sure if I’m going mad or not, but I can really hear a Peter Gabriel influence in this album. The 80s-style synth, and voice filters just scream Gabriel while her vocal tone reminds me of Kate Bush (though just a little bit). i don’t know…I just get a sense that in these songs there’s an ode to the darker side of 80′s pop and that fills me with a bit of giddy nostalgia and horrible dread. There’s no other song in the album that represents this better than the song Seven.

In short, Fever Ray is an album that needs the help of the environment around you so it can be fully appreciated. It doesn’t really hold out well in the day time, but when it’s playing at around 2 or 3am, it sounds magnificent and will help see you through your late night insanity. Here are some mp3s from the album.

If I Had A Heart

Seven

When I Grow Up

My new article is up at AWMusic.ca

Is this Spring? This crazy Toronto weather is horrible…well, nevermind.

It’s been discussed before. How is the world going to end? What will you do? Anyone who has spent at least an hour with a bunch of friends who don’t know what to do that day has talked about these possibilities. We’ve watched the films with all sorts of different scenarios (nuclear war, alien invasion, zombie infestation, virus), and more than a few of us have had the odd fantasy of living in that desert wasteland, leather-clad, “every person for themselves” lifestyle. Scrounging around for gas, ammunition, water and maybe some food. All left over from the world that was.

here’s some music.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (site)
Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls and Dead Flag Blues
When I think of these two songs, I imagine two different moments in the same Scenario. Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls is the moment that the nuclear bombs go off. Parts of buildings are falling to the streets, people of all sorts are running in a panic trying to find somewhere safe. And Dead Flag Blues makes me think of that first night after the bombs have done their damage and there are still some survivors hiding in bunkers or something, knowing that their lives, and the world, will never be the same.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Dead Flag Blues

Kepler
The Changing Light At Sandover
Years have passed. North America (and what the hell, everywhere else) is a desert wasteland. People have started coming out of their caves and bunkers and started to rebuild. But the world is a twisted wasteland. To find some food you have to wander around the desert until you find an abandoned building or something large and horrible to kill. All you have is a spear and a revolver with two bullets in it.
Kepler – The Changing Light At Sandover

Clint Mansell (site)
Ghosts Of Things To Come
(From the soundtrack of Requiem For A Dream) This is a very bittersweet song for me. In a post-apocalyptic scenario, I would say that this was just after a huge fight with a mutant horde attempting to invade your settlement in the middle of the night. They took your best friend and killed your father. The people of your settlement fought hard and eventually the mutants went back to their caves. You’re tired, angry and upset…but you’ve won. And at the top of the hill you can see the sun coming up and it dawns on you that you are alive. Alive to fight another day.
Clint Mansell – Ghosts Of Things To Come

Jill Tracy (site)
Doomsday Serenade
You’re in love! you meet a girl or guy while scavenging for scrap metal for your settlement and instantly fall in love. You frolic amongst the dirt and rubble. La la la la…
Jill Tracy – Doomsday Serenade

Jesper Kyd & The Budapest Symphonic Orchestra(site)
Apocalypse
(From the soundtrack of the game Hitman: Blood Money) You were betrayed by your supposed loved on and have been captured by the mutants! As you are dragged in to their caves you marvel at the flamelit underground cities they have built for themselves. But it’s a savage place. Human skin is being tanned, fights are incredibly common, and you are very very certain that you are going to die.
Jesper Kyd & The Budapest Symphonic Orchestra – Apocalypse

ES Posthumus (site)
Pompeii
You were saved somehow and taken to a walled up city in the middle of the desert. In this city is a club filled with sex, booze, and unarmed combat to the death. You watch in amazement as you see your fellow survivors passing the time by allowing themselves to be entertained by this. It is then that you are informed that you will be fighting next. Fuck.
ES Posthumus – Pompeii

The Ink Spots (site)
Maybe
You won the fight, got the hell out of that city and found your way back home. You grab yourself a mug of water and look at the sunset, knowing full well that tomorrow is another long day of surviving. And for those who are snickering over the song, YES I PLAY FALLOUT 3. The song just seemed appropriate, damn it!
The Ink Spots – Maybe

So there you have it. Hope you enjoyed it. if you have any other post-apocalyptic songs you’d like to suggest, leave a comment.

I know, I know…it’s been a while since I’ve updated.  Apologies all around.  Things have just been too busy and I haven’t been able to report on them just yet.  But aside from two tweeks (an element of which I am waiting on from the client) I’ve finished the Christine’s fitness video and will be moving on to the next one which is the EPK for Crush Luther.  And judging by the footage it should be wonderful.

In other news, as a way to help get my friend Luka to quit or at least cut back on smoking, Tyson, Luka and myself formed a bet.  For one week Luka can’t smoke.  For one week Tyson can’t use narrative (tell stories, refer to anything in the past tense, make recollections etc.). And for one week I can’t do anything nerdy (no comics, no sci-fi/horror/fantasy/science/history movies or documentaries, no video games, no cartoons etc.).  Now…on the surface it sounds incredibly stupid (and it is) but this is to help our friend and maybe if he sees that he’s not suffering alone, he’ll kick the smokes.  I’ve been taking it fairly well as time goes by.  The first day I was a wreck, almost desperate to click on my beloved daily links or watch a particular cartoon.  But now I’ve gotten better and seemed to have transferred the nerdy lifestyle with a kind of healthy/hippy one.  I’ve been working out, going for walks, eating lots of fruit, getting back in to yoga and have been coming up with some amazing vegetarian dishes.  I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for the past couple of days, but once I’m better I think I’m going to make this healthier lifestyle permanent (with some nerdiness thrown in  of course.  I’m only human).

Also, a short story I wrote has been accepted in to a zine based here in Toronto.  This will be the first piece of writing I have had published that wasn’t a comic or written when I was eight.  As such, I’m looking forward to seeing my stuff printed.  I have to write a bio now and I don’t know what the hell to write.  Maybe “likes Bok Choy” or something.  I guess I’ll figure it out.

Right.  I’m off now.  I leave you with the video of the fitness tests for Miss Canada without the small tweeks (I only have to add one picture and a web site address, so visually you aren’t missing much).  Because it is untweeked, it will probably be up for a short amount of time.  Take care.