I’ve been putting off writing about this album for ages. There’s such a gargantuan collision of styles on display here that it’s hard to know where to begin. Over the course of ten tracks, Capillary Action display elements of King Crimson’s kooky song structures, the Fucking Champs’ NWOBHM-drenched metallic gleam, Lightning Bolt’s clattering chaos and disorientation, the chunks of rock favoured across the Oxes/American Heritage/Don Caballero axis and – more surprisingly despite all of that – Mike Oldfield’s pastoral mutterings and any number of cheese-laden jazz-lite conspirators. Initially, I found this a difficult album to get through – at first listen it’s nigh-on impossible to get a handle on who Capillary Action really are, if not simply a duplicator of musical styles. This seems genuinely to be an album which benefits from repeated plays, and I think I finally get it after many spins: the album works as a whole, and should only be taken as such. The high quality parts of the album far outshine the low, and ultimately this is more than a collection of Fragments.

Pangaea Recordings
Capillary Action

Leaving aside the related gig disaster as previous post, I was excited about this, the idea of wandering around the back streets of Glasgow and discovering light installations and disused buildings that have temporarily been given a purpose again.

With Alasdair on map reading and Glasgow knowledge duty we began by meandering our way round the Merchant City. The first couple of installations were so non-eventful as to almost pass notice and the church with, um, some lights on it was similarly unremarkable. We were invited to make our way round a set path through the Ramshorn Gardens which was initially exciting as our giant shadows projected themselves on to the building opposite and slowly shrunk as we walked. Things then turned muddy and dark with some tiny fixed lights illuminating random gravestones, branches and corners. Woo.

Down the back end of King Street things improved with warped, melty shop sign lights making me feel like I had taken a wrong turning into surrealist France, and an enormous video projection on a wall was momentarily awesome in its size.

‘Trapped’ at the bottom of King Street was possibly the biggest installation where a disused building has had its windows lit in colours with video projections filling the central area of windows. We arrived while they were displaying adverts (for the festival. Which we were at) so had to make do with the entertainment provided by Man Pissing in Doorway and Children Crying (possibly related). Then giant ants started marching over the windows in patterns, getting bigger each time they appeared with the colours changing in rotation, eventually culminating in enormo-insects filling the whole central area. Giant insects crawling over buildings is to be encouraged, I think.

Up at the Trongate a building was sporting projections designed by children which meant we had the scarily fun sight of a building covered in brightly coloured balloons. Further projections were based on the actual building itself making it appear as if it had been coloured in with neon crayons, a slightly disorientating look that made me feel like the buliding itself was a projection.

Our last stop was the view of the, again, unremarkably lit church and mosque by the Clyde but much more captivating was the long term lighting developments on the various bridges which reflect shimmering colour on to the river. The blood red pedestrian bridge dominated the view and we walked back over it where it loomed, bright red, clear and strong overhead and easily beat the festival installations.

The main problem with most of the installations is that they were just kind of there. Pretty and kinda cool but not really living up to the status of a festival of light. Radiance was trying too hard. Glasgow doesn’t need this trumpeting and garish cosmetic lighting. Light up the dark random areas, highlight the unused and un-noticed and let people discover them for themselves.

After reading Ollie’s post last week about this new Bill Drummond / Mark Manning book, i immediately went onto Amazon to order a copy – turned up yesterday..

I couldn’t wait to get home, or even onto the train, just away from work to lose myself in it!

First impressions tho, I love the Bill Drummond chapters, but it seems like the Mark Manning ones are even more disturbing than they were in Bad Wisdom. I mean, they are somewhat amusing, but i am getting kinda bored of the sadomasochistic graphic descriptions, rapes, skinnings, wanking, etc. Am i just a prude??

I havent yet, but i am thinking of skipping over the Mark Manning chapters, but wondering if i will lose much (any?) of the story..

Did you finish it yet, Ollie? Whats your thoughts?

Following on from my previous post:

Worth looking forward to: SNOW

We got snow sooner than expected, on Thursday. The light that morning was eerie, amazingly clear and so beautiful. I even noticed entire buildings I never noticed in six months of walking up Queen Margaret Drive daily. As I stared around in wonder, clouds of doom crept in, the sky went dark and the snow started falling. When I got off the bus ten minutes later the snow was thick and swirling all around me and I was so happy I thought my heart would burst. I’ve never been so wide-eyed and over-excitably talkative at 9am on a work morning. I love Glasgow so much.

Not worth looking forward to: playing with Data Panik

Excuse me if I go off on a rant here but I am so disappointed, angry and upset about this. As a huge bis fan, and having seen DP play about 5 times now, I was so excited to get asked to support them. But we ended up pulling out of the gig in the afternoon because of what we consider to be unbelievable and ridiculous promotion. The gig was promoted by a well-known, experienced local promotion company and was part of a local council sponsored and heavily advertised festival. But by the time we pulled out these were the conditions we had apparently agreed to by accepting the invitation to play (maybe we should have asked more beforehand but maybe they should have told us sooner than the day before the gig and without us having to ask):

Running order of support bands, number of guest list places and all payment for the night to be entirely decided by amount of advance tickets sold personally by each band by 4pm on the day of the gig.

So if we sold zero tickets we wouldn’t even get our expenses covered even if 50 of our friends turned up on the night and paid on the door. Am I being mental here or is this just wrong?

We’ve played a lot of gigs in the last 18 months, including some high profile ones, and never been treated like this. Every gig we’ve done has been promoted by enthusiastic, friendly, helpful people who have given us all the information we needed and either paid us very generously or at least given us our petrol money and some beer.

I’d heard about these ticket deal gigs before and always vowed never to play any of them. Maybe my principles are too strong here but after 15 years of doing things DIY I won’t be a part of something that plays bands against each other and doesn’t treat them as people (and people with jobs. Our presence at soundcheck was also demanded for 4pm) with basic requirements. It just seems so corporate.

I’d be interested in what the rest of you who are in bands/promote gigs think about this.

(The Girls Aloud album better be great now)

UPDATE: Our official band response to the promoter is now on our website which explains things in more detail.

…is mostly due to losing access to the internet at work. My world has stopped appropriately. So I’ve been busying myself by

Listening to:
Pumice’s “Raft”
the Thai Elephant Orchestra
Aphex Twin’s “Select Ambient Works Vol.2”
Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” & “Born in the USA”
Quack Quack (review coming soon)
Renato Rinaldi’s “Hoarse Frenzy”
The Deserted Village Orchestra
The Inecto School
Devo
Harvey Milk
Charles Mingus’ “Oh Yeah”
Malcolm Middleton’s “Into The Woods”
Boards of Canada’s “The Campfire Headphase”
Lectures by Michael Foucalt on the culture of the self.
The complete Golden discography, thanks to Chris.

Reading:
Truman Capote – In Cold Blood
Audiobook of HP Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulu” and “The Mountains of Madness”
William Burroughs reading “Junky” (his voice alone is amazing)
Vulture-like column inches about Georgie Best before the poor bastard even croaked it.

Watching:
Rushmore, The Machinist, Ghostbusters 2, Mindhunters (TERRIBLE film), Tank Girl (ditto), Shaolin Soccer, Old Boy, My Name is Earl, Kingdom of Heaven, Code 46, Cursed, Layer Cake, The Grudge, Rubber Johnny.

Working on:
Trying to do something interesting at http://www.flickr.com/photos/souvaris,
Fixing and overhauling www.souvaris.com,
Fixing broken amps and pedals,
A few stupid riffs here and there.

Doing:
Stripping the finish from a guitar using just a stanley knife,
Filling in endless forms before I can start my new job,
Breaking my radiator,
Bologna Pony.

Looking forward to:
A break,
Paid leave over Christmas.

Listening to– Stephen Malkmus, Gastr Del Sol, Tortoise, Birthday Pary, Mercury Rev, Eels ‘Electro Shock Blues’, Go Betweens, Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks, Detroit Cobras, Meat Puppets.

Reading– just been B.S. Johson biography, now Samuel Beckett ‘Ill Seen Ill Said’, next ‘Voice Imitator’ Thomas Bernhard.

Working on– stripping/plastering/painting house, thinking hard about future job strategies for when bulldozers demolish place of work .

Looking forward to– Christmas surprisingly, next Seinfeld DVD installment, reduced price Schwabenbrau at Lidl (6-pack £2.22), chucking snow about, having a party.

Listening to:

Broken Flowers soundtrack
Digable Planets second album (Blowout Comb?)
Deerhoof – The Runners whatever
Kanye West – Late Registration
Kostars – Klassics With A K
BPP ACCA 3.5 Strategic Business Planning And Development revision disc
BPP ACCA 3.6 Advanced Financial Reporting revision disc
BPP ACCA 3.7 Strategic Financial Management revision disc

Reading:

BPP ACCA 3.5 Strategic Business Planning And Development textbook
BPP ACCA 3.6 Advanced Financial Reporting textbook
BPP ACCA 3.7 Strategic Financial Management textbook
can’t wait to get back to reading proper books

Working on:

my ACCA final exams
Pro Evolution Soccer 5

Doing:

a little revision
a lot of sleeping

Looking forward to:

Christmas!!!!!
finishing my exams
Millwall pulling out of the relegation zone
the works Christmas Bash (after not being invited to one last year. ho ho)

Listening To: Part Chimp – I Am Come, I’m Being Good – early 7″s, Animal Collective – Feels (about 3 times daily), first three Mercury Rev albums, Deerhoof – Green Cosmos, The Auteurs – How I Learned to Love the Bootboys, Espers – The Weed Tree, Eyes and Arms of Smoke – A Religion of Broken Bones

Reading: The Wild Highway by Bill Drummond and Mark Manning, before that Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.

Working on: Putting on Part Chimp next month. By ‘working on’ I mean trying not to shit it any more than is absolutely necessary.

Looking forward to: Getting a new phone delivered tomorrow cos I’m a massive loser, ATP which is NEXT WEEK.

Hola.

This is my first post to the Diskant blog, and this thread seems a nice way to introduce myself..

Listening To: too much good stuff lately, and a lot of it actually back into electronica… New material for the upcoming Marcia Blaine School For Girls album, which is sounding ace; Suburb The Record Label’s sampler disc. Its probably badly labelled as a sampler, as its a proper full length compilation release, and the label’s first release to date, but i guess its a sampler of the good stuff to come. 14 tracks of digital goodness, from people like Blamstrain, Bovaflux, 11t1, and other lads i hadnt heard of, but all quality music.
Sawako – Hum. New release on ultraminimalist US electronic label 12k. Pure sine waves, coupled with lush melodies and manipulated vocal sound sources. I’m not always as blown away by minimal electronics as i’d like to be, but this album really stands out.
On the more guitar oriented side of things, really loving the Cocteau Twins 4 disc boxset “Lullabies to Violaine”, especially the Mark Clifford/Seefeel remixes. Although the packaging, beautiful as it is, (5 panel foldout digipack with tactile cover) is so fragile – it has slight smudges on the cover and one of the CD sleeves has come away from the backing already, even though i have only taken each disc out once to rip it into itunes. Maybe thats the beauty of it though! Other re-issues i been enjoying are the two All Natural Lemon And Lime Flavors albums, and the Orchids ‘Striving For The Lazy Perfection’

Reading: Configuring And Tuning Databases On The Solaris Platform by Allan N. Packer. erm, yeah, i like that kind of thing! Last thing i read was The Future Of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law professor lad. Genius book about the possible outcome on creativity, code, music and ideas, of the path we seem to be following with copyright law. highly recommended.

Working On: a Catalyst 6513 multilayer switch with redundant supervisor modules and MSFC’s. um yeah, more of that!

Looking forward to: Like A Stuntman supporting Rainer Maria at the Garage on December 2nd for Silver Rocket.

Or what I have been doing instead of being here

Listening To: Fugazi – ‘Repeater’, Lightning Bolt – ‘Hypermagic Mountain’, Pifco – ‘Pifco’ CD, Woman – ‘das Hexer’ CD, Big Black – ‘Songs About Fucking’, Jeffrey Lewis, Burn to Shine Washington DVD (really not good), Burn to Shine Chicago DVD (REALLY DAMN GOOD!!!!)

Reading: Alan Bennett – ‘Three Stories’, Julie Burchill – ‘Sugar Rush’, Kurt Vonnegut – ‘Slaughterhouse 5’.

Working on: job application form, learning to play the guitar PROPERLY, putting on a lovely gig in January with Woman, Not in this Town and others.

Looking forward to: playing the guitar PROPERLY, getting the new job, Dirty Three (tonight!)