The beginning of Sean O'Hagan's insightful article on meeting the author of Oracle Night in The Observer (via g3rm):

Infos on two box sets including a live and music video DVD spanning My Bloody Valentine's entire career over at Kingblind. Scheduled release date not before end of next year. Apparently there won't be any post Loveless material included.

visited 23 countries (10%)

create your own visited country map

Shortcut to DJ Martian's blog entries section. Thank you Martin for having answered "my prayer".

Google's pageranking system goes from 0-10. Google.com and some other sites have a pagerank of 10. The question I ask myself. Would it be possible for a site to have a pagerank higher than Google with the current PR system? If not I'd have some serious doubts about everybody's favourite search engine.

Very nice. Eleven demos to Pod and The Last Splash (via herr k.).

The two most interesting observations concerning the Janet Jackson incident:

1. "You know, I'm almost completely shocked by the near complete lack of commentary on the irony of a Jackson being molested by a boy." (from here)

2. The most amazing thing on the photo are not her breasts nor the piercing but how ugly her face looks. Or how uncomfortable she feels. Which kind of saves her in a way. Or maybe not. Maybe that's just not professional. Next time when you will show both of them we want you smiling, Janet!

Heute morgen bei der Fahrt zur Arbeit mal wieder befremdet von den privaten Radiostationen. Ich höre gerade CD, die CD wird von Verkehrsmeldungen unterbrochen. Der Sprecher sagt so was wie

Nicht nur dass ich das ziemlich penetrant und anbiedernd finde. Hier wird eine falsche Direktheit erzeugt, oder bin ich etwa der einzige Hörer dieses Senders? Da werden mit einem Schlag tausende Leute pseudo-persönlich angesprochen. Früher sagte man noch "ihr/euch", da gab es noch eine Gruppe von Hörern bzw. es wurde wenigstens noch eine Gemeinsamkeit unterstellt. Heute ist da nur noch eine Ansammlung von Egos. Anschließend kommen dann übrigens noch die Blitzermeldungen. Aber kurz vorher schaltet sich mein Verkehrsdurchsagesystem glücklicherweise aus.

There is not enough love for Piano Magic in the world. Not even a fan page on the world wide web. The first time I heard about them was in 2001 (they were formed 5 years before) in this Classic or Dud thread at ILM. Gareth who is a fan equated them with November, the last month of autumn, there. The discussion finished quite disastrously. Even the critics seem to have given up on this London band fronted by Glen Johnson which has changed personnel and record label after almost every release.

Only recently when reading agenbyte's top ten of 2003 I stumbled upon them again. He mentions a new album which came out end of last year: The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic. There are two real audio links on the news section of their site. The first track, Saint Marie is a minimalistic electronic instrumental. The other one, Comets is a slow atmospheric ballad with a woman singing in a sort of sprechgesang.

The song which made me get into them was the impressionist The Canadian Brought Us Snow (hosted at epitonic). It is like a still life or something. Very far away from today's stressful world. Somehow this makes me think a bit of Boards of Canada.

But what really made me heart this band is the concert they gave in 2002 in Paris for Radio Planet Claire. The nine tracks of the concert have been preserved on mp3.

The first group I associated with Piano Magic was Joy Division and they actually begin their set with a cover of Exercise One. It starts slowly with many strange electronic sounds. Later on bass and drums get the song going. Then the guitar and the voice which isn't too far from Curtis I find, join in. A cover that adds something to the original.

The next song No Closure I don't like too much as I find it too heavy. And the chorus is annoying. From the title and the dark mood it again conjures up memories of Joy Division.

You & John Are Birds is a nice atmospheric song with a catchy little tune. There is something joyous and playful about it though it isn't a happy song.

The Season Is Long is a slow affair including a violin. Like the Dirty Three with a blot of Tindersticks.

The first Untitled starts with percussion and a bass guitar. It has almost got a rock feel. Some great hypnotic drumming on this one.

The next track is Untitled again. It is pretty long and slowly rising in speed and volume. Reminding me a little of Godspeed You Black Emperor! .

Already Ghosts is next. Dominated by low keyboard and synthesizer lines. This is very sombre. But in a fascinating way. Listening to this is like feeling the physical attraction towards the abyss.

The blog post title song (Music won't save you from anything but) Silence is a little bit disappointing. The lyrics and the drumming just before the end are the highlights of this song.

The concert finishes with Password in a drone of (electronic?) strings. Phantastic drumming again.

Piano Magic in this concert sounded like a New Order including Ian Curtis could have sounded. New Order whose best album by the way is their first, Movement, their Ian Curtis memorial album. The contemporary band which comes closest to Piano Magic is Low, I think. No time constraints can be felt in the music of those two groups.

i would like to promise to myself to give some reasons in my blog whenever i withdraw a link to another site. there are at least three blogs who are in danger of facing this fate in the near future. for completely different reasons by the way:

• dj martian: please redesign your blog, martin. i can't stand it anymore. for the last couple of years i spent hours in scrolling down twenty screens to arrive at the beginning of your posts (after all the links and crap). i don't have the time to do that anymore in the future. don't get me wrong. the contents of your blog, esp. the blog discoveries are ace.
• wood s lot: just too much. too time consuming. too many links, too few personal entries. no personal posts actually. and too much stuff i don't care about. maybe 5% are interesting but 95% are just about bush and his imperalism and crap. i can't take it anymore. yes i have exaggerated but still.
• rub: stop the whining, paul. posting a screenful of rub on jackson's breast and then complaining on getting too many hits because of that is pathetic. got me?