"Sadness is my boyfriend": Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

Lykke Li's first lp, Youth Novels, piqued my attention with its interestingly sparse, rhythm & melody popisms, but despite a handful of stand-out songs, didn't really sink into my musical landscape; her second, Wounded Rhymes, while in some respects quite different, has taken me in a similar way.

For me, the highlight is "Sadness is a Blessing", the most overt of several homages to classic girl-group pop on the record; also outstanding are the shuffle 'n' snap of tracks like "Rich Kids Blues" and "Jerome". And there are other good moments, too, and not really any obvious low points - but somehow the whole doesn't really inspire. Still, I guess, I do like it quite a bit and sometimes bits get stuck in my head for a while, and you know, greatness doesn't lie under every bushel so overall the record is still well ahead of the game, etc.

Roxy Music - Avalon

It starts with "More Than This", nowadays inseparable from Bill Murray and Lost in Translation, and in any event addictive. And it turns out that Avalon as a whole is really good, synths, sax, smoothness and all - colour me surprised, because normally this wouldn't be my kind of thing at all. At times it reminds me of the Cocteaus' amazing Victorialand, at others of ABC (less surprisingly); I find myself wanting to listen to it without knowing exactly why, or what it's giving me - which is perhaps how pop music should be.

Arrested Development

Things have been a bit hectic lately, and I've been rewatching Arrested Development in the gaps, as a way of unwinding. Extemporanea tells me that I first watched the show in '06, but in the years since I've often dipped into it, caught parts while others were watching, etc; going back and watching it from go to self-reflexive 'whoa' only makes its greatness clearer...no other tv series is even close in terms of the amount of joy that Arrested Development has brought me.

Howl

An odd sort of film, but it made me happy. The beats have never been a particular touchstone for me, but of course the idea(l)s they stand for resonate very strongly, and this rendition of the "Howl" obscenity trial dramatises (performs) the poem itself - through a series of animations that are interspersed with scenes from the trial and a retrospective 'interview' with the poet - in a way that Ginsburg might have approved of...the film also made me realise how much the beat generation have influenced the modern hipster, consciously or nay, for better or for worse.

(w/ C)

Glenn Richards + Amaya Laucirica @ Northcote Social Club, Friday 18 March

Early Summer has sunk in quite a bit over the last few weeks, and I was keen to see Laucirica, albeit as a support act...it was pretty much the way one might've imagined she would be live - I enjoyed it.

As to Glenn Richards, I was open-minded - I remember those early Augie March radio songs very fondly, but haven't particularly followed their/his career since. Anyway, his set was a pleasant mix of folky/rootsy pop-rock with that distinctive troubadour flavour, quite nice for a Friday night but not memorable.

(w/ David + Justine)

The Hollowmen series 1 & 2

I've been noticing lately that my expectations of modern life have apparently been heavily shaped by sitcoms, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but is certainly a thing and perhaps best in moderation; unrelatedly, I've been meaning to sit down and watch The Hollowmen for a while - and the combination of those factors led me to go through the two series (they're only six episodes each) in the last week or so.

The show's undeniably amusing - much of it did chime with my experience and impressions (albeit in exaggerated form), and of course satire depends on that kind of recognisability for its effectiveness and humour. The depiction of the public service rang less true than that of the Central Policy Unit and the other political operators who move through the show's corridors - but that's probably just quibbling given the show's intent, namely to send up the whole system as much as possible.

Catfish

As well as being a cautionary tale of sorts, Catfish is a documentary, or at least a 'documentary' (I'm not sure I believe it really was entirely real and unscripted). Given the premise - man develops relationship through facebook, but it turns out that not everything is as it seems - it's easy enough to predict the general direction in which things go, but what's surprising is how gentle the depiction is (it's also a bit sad, though for me the element of hope in the ending was more prominent)...and it did make me think about the pitfalls of getting to know others - both online and otherwise - and the different ways in which we construct our selves, and in which those constructions can be meaningful.

(w/ Caroline - last Saturday)

Starship Troopers

Generally, I value films that provoke me, but those made by Verhoeven tend to be an exception - there's a nastiness to them, a brutality, that rubs me the wrong way...

Anyway, I think Starship Troopers was the first of his that I saw, back in high school, and I really hated it. Since then, though, I'd revised my opinion upwards, having realised that it must be a satire (while feeling some disappointment in my younger self for not having picked it up at the time) - but catching it on tv last night (my life is rather glamorous) made me realise that the satire really isn't that cutting or clever, and in fact it is basically a flashy sci-fi b-movie seemingly as interested in glamorising the militaristic values it depicts as criticising them (on the other hand, it did have the bonus appearance of Neil Patrick Harris, now better known to me as Barney from How I Met Your Mother...again with the tv).