Peter Carey - Wrong About Japan

A light read, charting Carey's stay in Japan with his twelve year old son (I have a feeling that it's at least partially fictionalised) and organised around the author's misunderstanding-riddled series of interviews with various Japanese figures associated with anime and manga (including an encounter with Hayao Miyazaki, which proves the exception in that it works as a child-like show-and-tell interaction rather than breaking down into mutual incomprehension triggered by Carey's questions). The recurring theme is the futility of Carey's attempts to 'understand' the Japanese psyche - and, in particular, to detect traces of bushido, the initial encounters with the west, the scars of Hiroshima/Nagasaki (and, indeed, the whole of WWII) and so on, in contemporary Japanese art, and to partially explain that art in terms of these historical facticities. Over and over, he asks Japanese artists and craftspeople leading questions along these lines, and over and over is met by polite rebuttals and denials that these are meaningful ways of engaging with their work.

By the end, Carey seems to have reconciled himself to the existence of this unbridgeable gulf - or, at least, to the inadequacy of his own existing frameworks as means of understanding such a different culture - but he doesn't come across in a particularly favourable light (still, no one said that authors had to be pleasant people), and the book itself is, while interesting enough, a bit on the pointless side.

The John Tavener Collection (Layton - Choir of the Temple Church - Holst Singers - Clein - English Chamber Orchestra; Decca)

I first came across Tavener on a cd which I'd bought mainly because it had some Arvo Pärt on it, and it was an apt means by which to be introduced to him, for he too makes very simple, soaring, spiritually-informed music, often choral - and he has the same ability to create beauty out of sparseness and stillness, though Tavener's music tends to be quieter and more drifty. Favourite piece on this cd is the haunting "Song for Athene".

Whiskeytown - Faithless Street

Unsurprisingly, given where I'm at musically right now, I really like this - I'm really tuned into this stuff, and so, as well as being extremely good in its own right, the album is quite instantly comfortable and familiar-feeling. Overused though the term may be, 'alt-country' is a perfect description, the country twang and vibes melding seamlessly with Adams' upbeat rock rhythms.

Intacto

Pretty good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. The idea that certain people have a talent for controlling luck - for using it to their own advantage and taking it from others - is a neat one, and there are some really striking scenes and images (especially the sequence where a group of blindfolded people run through a forest, the winner being the one who makes it furthest without running full-tilt into a tree). It's an intriguing premise, and there's a good story in there somewhere, but the film as a whole was a bit dislocated and cold for my liking.

Stephen Donaldson - The Illearth War

Still compelling, even on the umpteenth read.

Open Range

A western, and, ipso facto, I liked it (too broad a generalisation? It hasn't been proved wrong yet). I think that Costner probably directed this movie; in any case, the characters played by he and Duvall, and the ideas for which they stand, form its heart. All the familiar motifs are deployed, sometimes almost to the point of caricature (and where this happens, I think that it's inadvertent rather than deliberately 'revisionist' - we're meant to take seriously the feelings of the cowboy for a good dog), but they tend to be convincing - the scenery/setting cinematography is appropriately widescreen, the climactic gunfight is well done, the dialogue breathes (even if it occasionally edges into stock phrase territory), and the characters and their feelings are mostly believable, if largely archetypal (in fact, the acting is very good). Maybe it's a touch too long, but that's a forgivable failing in a film with pretensions such as this one.

Interjection 3: A few notes on the rest of the world

Hmmm...this seems like an opportune time to write a bit more about this blog and its ties to that part of my life which doesn't directly involve music, literature and so on. The main reason for bringing this blog into being was to create a personal record of my encounters with aforementioned music, literature, etc - to serve as a continuing series of signposts allowing me to organise where I'm at as well as reminding me where I've been.

[7/9/17: edited to have the rest of this entry warehoused elsewhere]

Gold Stars 1992-2002: The Juliana Hatfield Collection

I like this nineties sound, guitars pulled between jangle and distortion, and particularly when garnished with the singing of so winning a frontwoman as Juliana Hatfield. (And moreover, for maximum nineties-associative effect, "Spin the Bottle" was on the soundtrack to Reality Bites - a key landmark in my own personal cultural history.) But, pleasant though it is, somehow this music is kind of like, y'know, a wee bit boring...

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

...and another. Although this seems to be his most famous book, it's my least favourite of those which I've so far read (at least after my first reading of it), except maybe Dance Dance Dance. It'd be doing Norwegian Wood a disservice to call it merely a love story - even to call it 'merely' a multi-faceted, subtle love story - but I didn't get as much out of it as I have from Murakami's others, and didn't enjoy it half as much. Then again, it's very well written, and it did touch me in its gentle, plaintive way; I'm sure that I'll return to this book, and perhaps it'll have more meaning for me when I do.

Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore

Again, wonderful - maybe one of Murakami's best. I can never encapsulate Murakami's books, or my responses to them, but as to things that I was particularly struck by:
* The fact that Kafka felt like a novel - as opposed to a more free-flowing narrative or sequence of events/images/ideas - in its structure and progression, however unusual the events it describes and the relationships of the two main plot strands.
* The recurrence of a number of images, both specific and general, from other Murakami books (no doubt there were many others which I missed): compromised shadows, cats, leeches, hotels, car hires, a discourse on the correct use of a bayonet, a wind-powered station in the woods, towns/selves with walls all around them...
* The humour, which seemed more clearly expressed, and caused me to laugh out loud more, than in other of his books.

Mates of State - Our Constant Concern

Not as good as I hoped, but still rather nice. Mates of State are husband and wife - she plays organ (and keyboards, I think), he plays drums, and they both sing (often at the same time). That last is probably the best thing about this record - there's much singing in unison, harmony, call-and-response and general intertwining of voices - and gives it much of its character; the instrumentation is fairly minimal, but Our Constant Concern is nonetheless very sweet and warm in that indie-pop, lo-fi kind of way. The tunes aren't quite memorable enough to make this album life-changing in any way, but there's still a lot to like about it.

Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP

While I've never felt any sympathy with the culture from which rap and hip hop spring, and this is a stream in which the music is particularly difficult to separate from the culture, I quite like this record. It has a nice flow to it, it's catchy, and it's interesting (for which sometimes read 'harrowing'). Still, I can't see myself ever walking down the musical road represented by Eminem in any earnestness.

Starship Troopers

The first time I saw this, I really hated it. I can't remember what it was that so irked me, but I suspect that it was the exaggerated lack of depth to the whole film - the blatant artificiality - which really got my goat. Several years on (it must be approaching 10 years on by now), my take on the film is rather more sympathetic, and I quite enjoyed its ridiculousness. But, like all Verhoeven films, it tries to have it both ways in parodying our cultural preoccupations with violence, sex and excess, while at the same time seeking to exploit viewers' reactions to the spectacle of these images (surely it can't be an entirely 'straight' fascist/militarism-is-god film...can it?). I don't know - possibly the latter is unavoidable for a film-maker seeking to work in the former vein, but it still makes for vaguely unpleasant viewing.

Haruki Murakami - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Wow.

I haven't quite worked out the order in which Murakami's books were written, but, following the order in which I've read them, Hard-Boiled Wonderland definitely up-ended my expectations (I have a feeling that it was an early one, probably after A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, but before Wind-Up Bird). Fluid, surreal and dream-like, it's unmistakably Murakami, but it also has a sustained premise and resolution that, combined with the tautness of the story, makes it probably the most self-contained and immediately rewarding (the which is different from 'immediately enjoyable') of the books of his which I've read.

As ever, there's a lot to digest here, but, unlike in Murakami's other books, everything seems internally explicable - within the logic of the novel, things fit together, which is appropriate given that the central concern of Hard-Boiled Wonderland is the relationship between 'consciousness' and 'world', and in particular the manner in which consciousness constitutes the world...I read Hard-Boiled Wonderland as, amongst other things, a literary working-through of Husserlian phenomenology, and I really think that this is the central metaphor/theme of the book (rather than simply my importing my own preoccupations into the text); indeed, it seems central to all of Murakami's work.

I'm beginning to think that Murakami may have effected a more perfect fusion of 'high-brow' and 'low-brow' literature than anyone else I've read. His books are incredibly readable for all of their weightiness, and they stimulate on so many levels: the genre elements never seem superfluous or affected, and always seem to cut through to what makes those genres exciting and compelling in the first place; the peculiar, ordinarily 'impossible' takes place in such a light, matter-of-fact way that there's nothing to do but accept it; and, in this book, the sections near the end where the central character contemplates and prepares for 'the end of the world', with Dylan in the spaces and at the end, are really moving, dropping me straight into sad-wistful, heart in mouth mode.

As I said, wow.

Michel Faber - Under The Skin

Whatever else I might've thought that the author of a book like The Crimson Petal And The White would have written, it certainly wasn't this - this book is very strange, and nothing like that other. It's basically an allegory, and a somewhat heavy-handed one at that, and there are gaping holes in its premise and some truly awkward moments, but it's also somehow clear-sighted and unexpectedly affecting, causing me to forgive many of its flaws. I don't really know what to think about Under The Skin.

epitonic.com

Came across this wonderful resource a few days ago, and proceeded to download a whole stack of music before culling it to three cds' worth...

Highlights (at the moment):
* 50 Foot Wave (Kristin Hersh does punk rock - one of those 'can't go wrong' propositions)
* Helium - "Lucy" [live] (fabulous jagged noisy dream-pop)
* Spoon - "Jonathon Fisk" (almost as genius as "The Way We Get By", which is saying something)
* Mates of State - "Hoarding It For Home" (lovely twee boy-girl pop)
* Mclusky - "To Hell With Good Intentions" (really good, high-octane indie-rock)

Was also able to grab Mojave 3's "In Love With A View", which I've loved for ages but never managed to get on cd, finally listen to some stuff by numerous famous-amongst-indie-types-while-unheard-of-by-anyone-else bands (Mates of State, Pilot to Gunner, Promise Ring, Juno, Erase Errata, etc, etc...), and get a flavour of some of the extremely-hyped outfits of recent times which have so far slipped under my radar (!!! and TV on the Radio come to mind), along with loads of other good stuff.

Mimic

Watched this fairly soon after it was first released (back in '97) and had a vague sense that I thought it was pretty good at the time, but now it just strikes me as very mediocre - not bad, but extremely undistinguished in every respect...Mira Sorvino's cute, though!

Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance

A sequel of sorts to A Wild Sheep Chase, and so worth reading just to see more of the Sheep Man (although of course, this being Murakami, there are countless other reasons). Actually, Dance Dance Dance strikes me more as a sort of Wind-Up Bird in sketch form, which isn't a bad thing but does tend to rob the book of something of its freshness for me; I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the other two, but it's still very, very good.

Bachelor Girl - Waiting For The Day

Pleasant but completely unmemorable.

Terry Pratchett - The Truth

Another 'comfort' re-read (although this one, being a relatively recent Pratchett, I've only read once or twice before).

Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon - Preacher: Gone To Texas

I'm not sure, but I think there's half a chance that, had I taken a few different turnings in and immediately after my teen angst period, I might have ended up in a place where I could really get into the Preacher comics (perhaps a neat symbol of the alternative path I've taken is my fondness for Edward Gorey's work). It's unremittingly grim, violent stuff, laced with dark supernatural happenings and leavened only by flashes of mordant humour - but it does what it does very well, and even though I'm not wired to respond to the blood, gore, dirt and grime of the story-art, I do like the mythologising aspects and the use of western-gothic-biblical motifs, and it's sure compelling. This book collects the first seven comics and, given half a chance, I may read further into the series.

In The Mood For Love

Such a moody, wistful, beautiful film, this one. A love story, more or less, it's suffused by a sense of longing, but marked by the disconnectedness of its protagonists - although their almost-romance seems to be almost fated, there are spaces between them which can't be closed, and while they blur the lines in acting out roles, there's a heaviness to it all, a sense of sadness and untransgressable restraint and an implicitly acknowledged awareness that some things aren't to be. Need I say it: there are all sorts of resonances here with my own current emotional landscape.

Had I not responded to this film so intensely, and so personally, I might have rhapsodised about the marvellous craft which has gone into it - the effectiveness of Wong Kar Wai's stylistic choices, the subtlety of the performances, the manner in which every cinematographic element (colour, lighting, framing, music...) is so evocatively oriented towards the overall effect and mood - but instead I'll just sigh, leave off here, and begin to nurse myself through the rest of the night.

So much for leaving the personal out of these entries...

William Gibson - All Tomorrow's Parties

Readable, punchy, engaging, literate, and often darkly poetic - but lacking the intangible 'edge' and fully-realised complexity of Neuromancer or some of Gibson's short stories that I've read in the past. All Tomorrow's Parties is set in a world closer to our own - while the characteristic hi-tech stylings are present, they're not as advanced as in his earlier work. Presumably this was a conscious choice on Gibson's part, as is the way in which characters now recur - Laney, Rydell, Yamazaki, Rei Toei, and possibly one or two others appeared in Idoru, and I think there was one before that, Virtual Light, which I haven't read, also working with (parts of) the same crew. I liked the concept of 'nodal points' - an idea which I've used myself for a while now (though I'm not sure whether I hit upon it on my own, or adopted it from somewhere else) - but didn't find it to be very satisfyingly developed in this novel. When all's said and done, though, it's still Gibson, and so still very good.

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Brilliant, again. Wouldn't want to say it was either better or worse than A Wild Sheep Chase, but it's certainly more ambitious - Toru Okada is more transparently (so to speak) an 'everyman'-type character than the unnamed narrator of A Wild Sheep Chase and is also much more fully-realised, and his story is more explicitly a quest for meaning twinned with an examination of the nature of identity (I'm standing by my initial diagnosis of those two themes as the key ones in Murakami's writing). One really gets the sense that Murakami is grappling with these big questions - the text seems to be in some sense open to different answers, and different types of answers, and while the conclusion arrived at by the novel is important (insofar as it's a conclusion at all), it also feels at least potentially contingent and polysemous.

But it's not all big picture stuff - indeed, any such attempt would be, I think, inimical to Murakami's particular literary-philosophical method and convictions. In fact, much of the joy of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle lies in the details: in the intricate, whimsical, detached-quixotic characters (not to mention writing - a telling parallel) and the odd things they do (especially our hero Toru Okada, and the fey, quirky May Kasahara); in the unassuming manners in which people drift into each others' lives and form connections which are meaningful whether tenuous or enduring, or both; in the blurring of the line between reality and otherness (dreams, fantasy, the unconscious); and, relatedly, in the metaphors-made-literal (or is that vice versa? or both?) like Toru's sojourns in the well, the double life of Kumiko, the figures like Cinnamon and Ushikawa who seem to have come straight from some kind of collective storybook of the unconscious, and of course the wind-up bird itself...I haven't been as excited about a newly-discovered writer as I am about Murakami in ages.

The Last Samurai

I've watched this before, but I wasn't paying close attention at the time, and so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that The Last Samurai is actually pretty good - it made me care a little bit, it kept me interested, its action sequences were compelling, and all in all it convinced me to swallow its epic pretensions...a nice bit of work.

Laura Veirs - The Triumphs & Travails of Orphan Mae

The first I knew of this album was hearing a bit of it in Collector's Corner - I'd thought that Veirs' only releases were Troubled By The Fire and Carbon Glacier and so was surprised to hear some unfamiliar, very Veirs-sounding music playing as I walked in the door. Of course, I asked about it on my way out (by that point, it'd ended and the record store kids had put on Scout Niblett), and it turns out that Orphan Mae was first released in 2001, and originally only available at Veirs' shows - but has now, in the wake of her relative popularity, been re-released by Bella Union (a label which seems to be doing increasingly well for itself, incidentally). So of course I bought it.

As to Orphan Mae, well, there's a definite continuity with her two later full-lengths - like them, it houses Veirs' distinctive, contemporarily-informed take on the country-blues-folk tradition, and it has the same gently rolling melodies and the same sense of space and wide-eyed wonder. It's more unadorned and somewhat rootsier than either Troubled By The Fire or Carbon Glacier (the simplicity of the record is rather winsome, even though it's a less 'mature' sound) but the overall aesthetic is very similar; indeed, although it shows Veirs 'in progress', so to speak, I think that Orphan Mae is just as good as what was to come...now it's a matter of waiting for the next one.

On The Waterfront

How to even start writing about a film as widely regarded as a classic as this one? I watched it because of the line in Lloyd Cole's "Rattlesnakes" and didn't particularly expect to enjoy it, but found myself gripped by the movie in its own right. Somehow, the canonical nature of this film, and the Kazan/House Un-American Activities Committee back story, and the endless parodies of the film didn't detract from the experience, because, I'm convinced, On The Waterfront really is a great film. Through these modern eyes, it attains that greatness by paying attention to all of the basics of film-making, and doing them nigh on perfectly - the screenplay and characterisation is wonderfully taut and economical (there isn't a single superfluous scene or unnecessary shot) while still being very rich, the acting is uniformly compelling (Brando, Saint and Rod Steiger are all perfect - Brando tough yet vulnerable, brilliantly conveying his internal struggle between the dictates of conscience and self-interest, Saint luminous and Steiger conflicted and tragic - though Father Barry came across as a bit stagey), and while it's shot in a realistic style, the unavoidable hints of stylisation only add to the sense of the largeness of the film's subject...it makes for a powerful whole - as much now, I think, as in 1954.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

As expected, I did watch it. Didn't have high expectations, which is just as well, for they'd surely have been disappointed. It's a sweet film, and I could have forgiven the godawful sugar-coating of the Thai prison (it is, after all, meant to be a fairytale of sorts), and I didn't mind the liberties taken with the book since - let's face it - the book itself wasn't exactly high art and I don't have any particular attachment to it, and I obviously have no objection to 'chick flicks' provided that they're not head-poundingly dull (which goes for all films, really). But I found it hard to get over the unending inanity produced by the episodic nature of proceedings, and I didn't find this one anywhere near as satisfying as the first, mainly for that reason; it's too disjointed, too glib, and too obvious.

Natacha Atlas - Something Dangerous

Atlas' music is a melting pot of different styles - it's electronica-pop with a middle eastern vibe, a bit clubby and a bit r&b, but also a bit 'darkwave' and a bit 'worldbeat' (not to mention the soul, jazz and 'torch' fusions going on)...frequently comes across all Dead Can Dance (also reminds me of Delerium at various points) and suffers from the same inclination towards vocal and musical histrionics; consequently, it took a few listens for me to take it seriously, and even now I'm not sure how much I like it, but it's definitely interesting.

Lambchop - Is A Woman

My first Lambchop album, and I'm not really digging it - while I appreciate the hushed country cum lounge atmospherics and rather bruised americana vibe of the record, I find Is A Woman as a whole to be pretty heavy going and verging on dull in its uniform quietness. Then again, there are enough good moments scattered throughout to make the journey worthwhile (eg, the whole of "Caterpillar"), and perhaps it'll prove to be a grower.

Tanya Donelly - Lovesongs for Underdogs

Not as deliciously swoonworthy as Beautysleep, never mind Star and King, but you can never go far wrong with the delightful Tanya, and Lovesongs for Underdogs is still very fine.

Interjection 2: Academic readings

Although this blog is meant to constitute a fairly comprehensive chronicle of where I've been at in cultural terms, I've excluded the university-related, academic-type stuff that I've read so far this year, and intend to continue to do so, for a couple of reasons - it's not really the sort of material that I intended to cover here, and, in any case, I don't want to feel the need to come up with something insightful to say about every single piece of academic writing that I'm exposed to (and there'll be plenty of them over the rest of the year!), especially given how quickly these entries are, of necessity, written. No doubt I'll make an exception for particularly interesting pieces, and how this will work if the Lit part of my honours degree ever requires me to actually read any literature, I don't know - but, those bridges to be crossed as I come to them, that's the plan for now.

Husky Rescue - "Summertime Cowboy"

I woke up this morning (well, strictly speaking yesterday morning, it now being gone midnight) to this bouncy, brightly-produced, shiny-happy-slightly chilly pop song, and wasn't at all surprised to learn that it came from out of Scandinavia - Finland, actually. The song was "Summertime Cowboy", and the band 'Husky Rescue', and a browse on the net has revealed that it's basically the project of one man, Marko Nyberg, who cites a range of influences including David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Wim Wenders, Erik Satie, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt and "warm and honest country music"...it all sounds very conceptual, but, funnily enough, I can actually see at least some of those influences (Satie/Glass in particular) in the various songs of theirs which I've been able to track down online tonight (entirely legitimately, I might add - it's good to see that musicians are coming to see that the internet can be their friend!), and possibly the cinematic references come through more in the videos; the "Summertime Cowboy" video is fairly cool, while the one for "City Lights" is pretty damn Lynchian. Not sure if I'm excited enough to track down any of the band's recorded stuff (on the basis of these early listens, I don't think it's really that good), but even if not, I feel that the world's a better place for the existence of the music that they're making.

Gaslight Radio - "Z-Nation"

It's basically a power pop/indie-rock sound, built on guitars which are alternately chiming and fuzzy, but the shoegazer elements which make their way into the mix and the drifty melodies which complement those elements mark "Z-Nation" out as a little bit different; although it doesn't hold any individual songs as good as those from previous recordings which I'd heard before - "Tarmac and Line", "New Estate Dreamboat" and "Sleeveful of Slight", all of which are fantastic - this is exactly the way I always imagined a Gaslight Radio album would sound...which is, needless to say, good news.

Julian May - The Adversary

The fourth and final book in May's "Saga of the Exiles" series, which I've been fitfully working my way through over the last few months. One of the quotes on the back cover of the first, The Many-Coloured Land, referred to the books' "glamorous, sinister movement", and I don't think I could do much better in describing them. May's style of writing, or, more particularly, her style of story-writing, is, in some ineffable way, different from anyone else's that I've come across - I can't put my finger on it, but there's just something about the fashion in which she constructs her (many, ambiguous) characters and (complicated, twisting) plots which sets her novels apart. There's a weird sort of magic to these books which works on me even though I don't feel as if I've particularly enjoyed them. Perhaps it's a case of May having over-reached herself, but only slightly, and in a fashion which allows her partial failure to still be rather magnificent...

In any case, The Adversary brings the series to a satisfying close - characters are disposed of willy-nilly (as throughout the series) while unexpected figures rise rapidly to prominence, the struggles and shifts in the balances of power within and between both individuals and groups continue at the dizzying pace set by the first three books, plot twists abound and competing ideas and ideologies proliferate, and everything seems to wend its way to a climax which possesses a kind of logic without being predictable.

Tim Burton - The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories

Okay, so I was so obviously going to like this whimsical, funny, macabre collection of monstrous-misfit-child poetry (and accompanying illustrations). Very much in the same vein as Burton's films, particularly (of course) the more child-like ones; I read the whole thing in Reader's Feast and was delighted. Will now proceed to be severely tempted by the associated figurines I've seen in the right shops around town...

The Howard Years edited by Robert Manne

Published early last year, this collection contains a round dozen essays, written by Australian intellectuals and public figures, assessing Howard's time as PM and the changes he's wrought in Australian society. There are a handful of overview pieces, covering some of the key moments and themes of the his time in office (the reconciliation movement, the rise of One Nation, the growing awareness of asylum seekers in Australia, the 'war on terror', etc) and seeking to give an overall political and societal sense of that time, and other essays focusing on particular aspects of government policy. The general tone is highly critical, which is unsurprising given the backgrounds of the assorted writers - and, of course, rightly so, I think - and the result is a collection which neatly draws a number of strands together, producing an overall picture of John Howard and the effect he's had on Australia which fits comfortably with the accepted wisdom of this class of writers/thinkers (who would, of course, be dismissed by Howard himself with any number of familiar, unflattering epithets) as well as with my own views. Though I enjoyed reading The Howard Years, I couldn't help but wonder whether books like it will really do any good, preaching as they largely (if not exclusively) are to the converted...

See The Sea

I like Ozon's films, but they always leave me in two minds, and See The Sea is no exception. While it plays out quite a straightforward sequence of events - albeit a sequence characterised by perversity and menace - it's riddled with a patchwork of interrelated motifs (the sea/water as feminine symbol; motherhood; female desire; sex; freudian stages) and is highly symbolically charged. It's visually very striking, too - the bright colours and glaring lighting are almost kitsch - and the manner in which the film cuts and jumps from scene to scene is suitably disorienting. But in many ways it's a very opaque film, just as its characters are opaque; while motivations and emotional makeups are sometimes alluded to, the characters ultimately seem to be interacting in ways which are more or less entirely affectless. Maybe the best way of thinking of it is as some kind of grim fairy tale (a la Criminal Lovers).

There was an Ozon short on the dvd called Summer Dress, in which a (probably) gay boy, on holiday with his boyfriend, seems to grow more comfortable with his orientation after a sexual encounter with a girl on a beach...it's rather sweet, and seems to encapsulate something of an Ozon obsession (the 'breaking-in' of the male character in Criminal Lovers by the troll/father figure functioned in the same way, except that the sexual orientations were reversed in that film).

The Triffids - In The Pines

A fairly loose, relaxed affair, and not as dramatic or captivatingly widescreen as the band at their best, but it's reminded me of why I like the Triffids' music as much as I do - I'd rather listen to Born Sandy Devotional or Australian Melodrama any day, but everything (including "Born Sandy Devotional" the song) is here in microcosm.

"arc of a clear night"

A beguiling mix of familiar, often much-loved songs (Bjork's "Hyperballad", Cat Power's take on "I Found a Reason", Francoise Hardy's "All Over the World", Nick Drake's "Northern Sky", Mazzy Star's "Five String Serenade", Joanna Newsom's "En Gallop"), unfamiliar songs from familiar artists (Smashing Pumpkins' "Believe", Bic Runga's "All Fall Down" (which is, incidentally, lovely, like all Bic Runga songs), Neil Young's "Philadelphia", Augie March's "o mi so li lon") and some that were entirely new (a pair of simple, sweet, affecting cuts, one called "All Is Peace", sung by Huong Thanh, and the other by a singer named Salyu, singing as 'Lily Chou Chou', called "Kaihukusuru Kizu", have particularly caught me), this is a mix cd put together by trang to evoke an idea and a mood - perhaps the night as idea and mood - and it really is very apt to that purpose; it's gentle, and drifting, and peaceful, and solitary, and its musical arc does seem to travel, fluid and sinuous, through a clear night from dusk to dawn - listening to it, I feel somehow more at peace.

The Arcade Fire - Funeral

I've been putting off writing about this album because I wanted to live with it for a while before forming my (contingently) final opinion on it - it seemed to demand this treatment both because it's been so extremely hyped by the indie press and because it's manifestly such an ambitious record, each of its songs coming across as a distinct statement in its own right.

In the result, my initial response continues to be borne out by subsequent, repeated listening - Funeral is a fantastic album (if not the masterpiece that some have touted it as). It's very immediate - songs like "Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)", "Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)", "Wake Up" and "In the Backseat" all hit on first listen - and continues to sound good when replayed over and over, at least in part because it doesn't contain any weak, or even weaker, songs.

The appeal of the album is hard to sum up - I was drawn in by the spine-tingling, almost-OTT moments of grandeur, but the more energetic and danceable tracks are equally good. It's very epic, but at the same time feels ragged around the edges, as if the human emotion at the heart of these songs is asserting itself against the beautiful cacophony of noise that makes up the main weave of the album. I hear a bit of Talking Heads in the Arcade Fire's music, and a bit of D-Plan, but mainly this is a sound all of their own, and it's pretty magnificent.