Hello. I have 50 free song downloads from www.emusic.com. My mother gave them to me. I was fairly excited about this as it’s an independenty version of iTunes with no nasty DRM and it has a pretty good selection of labels involved including Dischord, Kill Rock Stars, K, Wiiija, 4AD, Touch & Go, Matador, Chemikal Underground etc etc.

BUT, what with my recent listening being mostly major label pop music and tiny local bands I am actually finding it rather difficult to think of anything I might want and trawling through things randomly is getting tiresome. So far my ‘Save for Later’ area has ‘Starlite Walker’ by Silver Jews (which I haven’t heard in FOREVER) some Lung Leg songs I only have on vinyl and a Comet Gain album. So suggest things I might, or should, like and if they have it I will download it and let you know what I think.

Also if anyone wants a free trial let me know and I’ll recommend you so I get even more free songs.

Bill Drummond presents No Music Day

I’m not sure what’s happened but I am suddenly awash with brilliant ideas. I am famed for having approximately 14 brilliant ideas a day, and intend at some point to open an Ideas Consultancy, but few of these ever relate to diskant. However, this week I have thought of literally 5 great new things for diskant and I will hopefully find some time to create them sometime soon. All will be revealed soon (unless end of year poll time looms first) but here is the first:

Exciting news!
Believe it or not, the diskant newsletter will soon be resurrected and will be entirely awesome. Turning up once or twice a month, it will let you know about all the new interviews, features and reviews on the site, what’s up on the blog, some tips on cool events and websites you should check out and whatever else we think you might want to to know about including EXCLUSIVE NON-WEB CONTENT*. Wowee. You best sign up now if you’re not already a member. You can do so here.

Possibly my new-found enthusiasm is due to the fact that it’s quite clearly Autumn now and this brings happy anticipation of jumpers, snow and the annual joys of Instal and Audioscope, not to mention my first jaunt to Winter ATP. I’m glad I kept half my holidays for the end of the year as once I run out of things to anticipate it will be practically next year. By the looks of things this could be a Grand diskant ATP Reunion and we’ll maybe even manage some kind of report back, as these have been sadly absent since, well, I stopped going. Look out for some Instal reportage next week once we’ve had our fill of noise.

I have also been reading an awful lot of books recently so I will try and put together some recommendations for next time.
Current listening: Squarepusher, Trail of Dead, Dananananaykroyd, Girls Aloud, Joanna Newsom, The Rapture.

diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 3

* This may just be some jokes about pie but, you know…

I have been downloading stuff more than usual lately, using MP3 blogs rather than slsk which I have not bothered to install on my new mac yet. I like this way better as you don’t have to think about what you want, instead you just cherrypick from a rush of MP3s being flung at your ears. And, as a bonus, sometimes you get some good writing about the tracks. It’s even good for The Artists as MP3 blogs generally only post 2 or 3 tracks from an album, making me much more likely to buy the album than if I’ve got all the tracks off slsk.

So, here are some new things I have heard that I have added to my buy list.

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – So Divided (some MP3s here and here)
Oh, how times have changed. I didn’t even know Trail of Dead had a new album coming out! This is where MP3 aggregators are great. I spotted some unfamiliar TOD tracks, clicked over and discovered the new TOD album, complete with pretty cover art. By the sounds of things, TOD have finally made the major label album they always intended to. Where Source Tags was a bit too commercial and throwaway and Worlds Apart a bit too sprawling and bloated, So Divided sounds like it could be the one where they get their prog-pop in perfect balance. Stand In Silence, the only likely hit song so far, sounds so much like another band but who? Anyone?

Squarepusher – Hello Everything(some MP3s here)
These tracks are so good that after one listen I was all set to get off the bus and go buy the album before the shops shut. Except it’s not out til next week. I’m no major Squarepusher fan, more someone who picks up a cheap album here and there bt nothing I have sounds as great as this. It’s so clean and warm and layered. I love Hello Meow’s xylophones, like Tortoise gone pop and Welcome to Europe’s insanely clever interlacing, warped melodies. I am so excited about this album.

Joanna Newsom – Ys (some MP3s here)
I was pretty much in love with The Milk-Eyed Mender when it came out but I wasn’t entirely sure whether I’d buy her new one. A long wait at the bus stop on a rainy morning listening to these two 10 minute long songs and I’m thinking I probably will. These songs seem less attention-grabbing, more subdued but still sweet and strong. Sounds like it will be perfect for cold, damp autumn days.

Ellen Allien & Apparat – Orchestra of Bubbles (some MP3s here)
I’ve been pondering buying this for a while now but it hadn’t drawn enough attention to itself. I’m a big fan of Ellen Allien who I find so much more playful than your average techno artist and so far this is softer than her recent releases, sounding vulnerable and a little unsettling.

MP3 BONUS – Those of you who haven’t heard the wonder that is Gay Against You, you can now download their CDR album for FREE! Do it.

I will try and do this on a regular basis and if anyone else wants to join in please do. What have you been downloading lately?

Their record label have manage to misunderstand my perfectly clear (so I thought) instructions and have sent me two copies of the rather awesome ADHD by Blood Red Shoes on 7″ instead of one copy plus a Foals 7″. I really can’t be bothered trying to return it so if anyone wants to trade me something cool for it email me or leave a comment.

In other news, I just purchased an original Jay Ryan print from Art Prostitute and am rather excited.

Nice article in The Guardian today profiling the best 20 independent record shops in the UK. I’ve shopped in 8 of them, I’m proud to say.

Some new web things I like

Flickr’s new Map feature – www.flickr.com/photos/diskant/map
Absolute genius and immediately lost me an hour of my life as I mapped all my photos. It’s nice to see how much of Japan I did actually see though locating Mt Fuji was more difficult than expected. I love that you can look at all the photos everyone’s taken in your hometown or wherever. Flickr is possibly my most favourite website ever. Also do enjoy me and Alasdair dressed up as the Super Mario Bros.

BookMooch – www.bookmooch.com
List your unwanted books, send them to other people and ‘mooch’ books in return. Brilliant idea and tied into Amazon so you can check user reviews of the books that sound interesting. I’ve given away two books I would never have read again and will be getting a hardback book of Japanese poetry in return, for FREE. Marvellous.

ThisNext – www.thisnext.com
Odd little site that I need to spend some more time with – you recommend products you like and these are categorised and tagged in similar ways to Flickr and del.icio.us for easy searching and browsing. You can also make lists of related products like Maki’s Recommended Japanese Snacks.

Bloglines – www.bloglines.com
I have mostly been using this as a Blog search engine, to find out what people have been blogging about a gig or event recently. Much better than trawling through pages of unrelated stuff on Google. For those of you who haven’t jumped on the RSS train (and if so, why not? It will literally change your life), Bloglines is a simple entry, a web-based RSS reader that will keep a track of new posts to the blogs you subscribe to.

Current listening: Girls Aloud, CSS, Bertine Zetlitz, Jamelia, Ladytron.
diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 3

Random music-related survey. Do your own if you like.

First record you bought and do you still own it?
When Will I Be Famous? by Bros on 7″ and I do still own it, though I haven’t listened to it in a long time.

Last record you bought
The Last of the Real Hardmen/Gareth Hardwick lathe cut 8″. It looks lovely. I haven’t listened to it yet.

Last song you downloaded
A song called Hugs by a band called Kawaii. It sounded too cute to miss. It is very cute Scando-indiepop

Last song/record you went to enormous lengths to find
The theme song to the Paradise Kiss anime series by someone called Tommy february6. It’s a delightfully bizarre Japanese/English hybrid called Lonely in Gorgeous, whatever that means. I ended up on Limewire, for shame.

Most elaborately packaged record you own
Definitely has to be the Aufgehoben album on Fourier Transform, being as it is the only record I am too scared to even attempt to open.

Last song you listened to
Something Kinda Oooh by Girls Aloud which I “acquired” at the weekend. It is fantastic.

Favourite mixtape someone made you that you still listen to
Kompilatione ist Rad by Simon Bond, a friend from my Ride days. It includes an amazing remix of DOSE featuring Mark E Smith that I have never managed to track down plus Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc by Prolapse and He’s on the Phone by Saint Etienne.

What records are you going to buy next?
I’m looking forward to the new Bertine Zetlitz album and I think I’m going to have to give in and buy the CSS album since Alasdair won’t let me borrow it again.

What are your top 10 most listened to songs on iTunes/last.fm/whatever.
1. Rachel Stevens – Crazy Boys
2. Girls Aloud – Biology
3. Hood – The Lost You
4. Errors – Mr Milk
5. Rachel Stevens – I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)
6. Girls Aloud – Models
7. Girls Aloud – Wild Horses
8. Errors – songos ya mongos!
9. Rachel Stevens – Funny How
10. M.I.A. – Galang

Although we do have writers based around the globe, there’s a small majority of us living in Glasgow. I cannot deny that part of the reason for this is me trying to offload CDs from our overflowing review box on to anyone I happen to meet. Alex McChesney, however, claims quite the opposite, having originally run his own music review website back in the day. “After meeting Marceline and seeing the excellent diskant, my need to come over all self-important about music was re-awakened, and I volunteered for reviewing duties. Duties which I have been somewhat negligent about lately. Er… sorry.”. Alex has mainly stuck to reviews so far but that ranges from getting thoughtful about Songs of Green Pheasant to getting hyper-excitable about Lightning Bolt live. He’s also diskant’s resident movie buff helping collate diskant’s Films of 2005.

When not reviewing CDs, Alex spends his days writing “the world’s most boring computer software” and his evenings as a member of electronic-rock combo Sister Blades, and making occasional unpleasant noise in podcast form. He is also married to the lovely Rebecca who will be joining us on diskant’s review pages shortly.

Unfortunately Alex is less lazy than I anticipated so these answers are now ever so slightly out of date. Hopefully this means we’ll get some words from him about his trip to Iceland soon to go with his marvellous photos. A-Z of Iceland, Alex, come on!

Where do you live and what do you like about it?
I live in Shawlands, on the South Side of Glasgow, which is a scant 15 minute train journey from the city center, has a great number of decent shops, bars and restaurants, including what is (in my opinion) the best Italian restaurant in Glasgow – Bacco Italia. (Now what are the chances of them reading this and offering me a free meal in return for plugging them? Rather slim, I suspect.). The South Side. It’s “the new west end” dontchew know. Still, it could do with a record shop or two – there was one in the arcade that was ok, if a bit heavy on the alt.country, but I went to look in the other day and it was cold and dead.

What have you been listening to/reading/watching/playing recently?

Everyone’s sick of hearing me bang on about the Nintendo DS, but it really is my favourite games console ever. I’ve had it for about two months now, and I’ve already been tempted into buying almost as many games for it as I have my PS2, which I’ve had for around four years. It’s a little white box of fun.

I’ve just bought an album called “Hypnotic Underworld” by Ghost, who are a sort of folk-prog band from Japan who I have heard many many positive things about, and have meant to get around to listening to since their collaboration with Damon and Naomi some years ago. Some records you buy and can form an opinion on by the end of the first song, but this is one I can’t quite decide if I like or not. I’ve thrown it on my iPod for listening on the train, so maybe I’ll get the bottom of it one way or another.

I find myself listening to more music in work than anywhere else nowdays, which is a far from ideal situation. I own some great music that just isn’t appropriate to programming to, so isn’t getting played.

Watching? Not a lot. There’s nothing on TV that interests me at the moment, and I haven’t been to the pictures in quite a while. I do, however, have a pile of DVDs bought cheap from the Blockbuster up the road that need watching. Oh, and we bought “Screaming Masterpiece”, the excellent documentary about Icelandic music. But more of that in a minute….

Tell us about your favourite local bands.
Gay Against You rule the roost as far as I’m concerned. I enjoyed Park Attack the last time I saw them. And we just played with Beaches of the Proud and Captain Haddock, who approach instrumental ambience from opposite directions but are both ace in their own ways, in addition to being jolly nice folks as well.

What are you planning on writing about next for diskant?
I was thinking about doing an article about the original Wicker Man, in time for the release of the shite-looking remake.

What are your favourite articles/interviews on diskant?
Chris Summerlin’s diskant Gets The Blues is a tour-de-force, but the yearly Instal round-up is always a good read too.

What are you looking forward to this year?
I’m going to Iceland in September! About which I am stupidly excited! It’s just for a long weekend, but already I have become a total Iceland bore. Go on – ask me anything!

What have you learned during your time at diskant?
That the diskant Overlord is not to be trifled with.

Does the festival season ever end these days? This year mine started back in April with Triptych and will end in December with ATP, taking in Cross Central, Indian Summer, Audioscope, Instal and goodness knows what else in between. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. It’s certainly a lot more expensive than going to a bunch of smaller gigs but it’s good to discover bands you wouldn’t otherwise have gone to see.

There really is no reason to leave Glasgow at the moment with all the fantastic new bands around at the moment (and an actual summer this year). Expect some interviews here soon with the best (i.e. least lazy) of them soon. RIP to Arab Strap and data Panik though. Everyone seems to be going solo these days. Is that now just Mogwai left from the original Chemikal Underground signings? That really would be the end of an era.

I did pop down to London the other weekend but that was mostly to visit my sister, eat cake and buy armloads of Japanese food at the JapanCentre. There’s still so many things from Japan that I miss so much and only a few of them can be found over here. Someone start importing Qoo and Fanta Grape please, and the tubes of tiny cakes.

In other news, the webzine/fanzine axis has flipped again with Plan B going monthly and now available in all kinds of mainstream newsagents, Is This Music? now on issue number 23 and a new issue of Beard due imminently. This makes me very happy, especially with my RSI. The only music website I seem to bother with these days are Popjustice and No Rock’n’Roll Fun. Is there anything else worthwhile? Let us know! I think a complete overhaul of the diskant links section is long overdue so tell me what sites you love to visit .

Most things are long overdue on diskant but hopefully we will get back up to speed with the coming Autumn. I am steeling myself to make a promise to write one record review a week but for now, I am ill and I’m going to make Japanese curry and watch some anime.

Current listening: The Pipettes, Bertine Zetlitz, CSS, Ladytron, Aztec Camera.
diskant interview slackness stats: Interviewees: 2, Me: 3