My Marshall DSL 401 does have a line out socket but that sounds a bit sterile and thin; the general sound of the amp isn’t really suited to the style of music I play anyway. A bit of shopping around helped me decide on a piece of kit that’s right for the job (see above).

Needless to say a 100 or 200 watt stack is a bit excessive for what I need so I narrowed my options down to low wattage, all-valve combos that kick out a good quality sound at a volume that won’t have my ears bleeding and neighbours running to the hills. The Fender Princeton reissue has built-in reverb, a really pleasant tremolo effect and, at 15 watts, gives plenty of undistorted headroom in a compact package with that classic bright Fender clean tone. Sadly it was a bit out of my price range and I’d have to mic it up to record. The HT-5 was my other choice and, with only a couple of minor complaints, is perfect for my needs.

It’s a two channel amp so I can switch between a clean sound and an distorted one: I’ve grown reliant on pedals for my distortion but it’s handy to have the option of valve overdrive should I need it. It’s very punchy (thanks in part to a smaller than usual 10″ speaker) and has a remarkably Marshall-esque ‘Brit grit’ sound that’s great for rock and heavier blues. The valve configuration is one ECC83 preamp and a 12BH7 , which I must admit I’ve never encountered in an amp’s power stage before. I’ve seen EL34s, EL84s, 6V6s and my personal fave of 6L6s but one 12BH7 in push-pull mode is new to me.

For only five watts it’s a very loud amp. My overdrive channel setting is the gain on two thirds and the volume at less than a quarter; plugged into an external speaker cab I reckon I could play distorted along with a band but I don’t think it could give the clean headroom. The clean channel is really warm and takes pedals well though: the Big Muff fuzz or my beloved Proco Rat 2 sound great and aren’t noisy at all. The three band eq is the same as you’d expect on larger amps, and the ISF control (a knob that acts as a second mids/bass voicing control) is really useful too.

There’s an effects loop send and return on the rear panel with a selector switch for either stompbox-type or rack mounted units, which will be useful I’m sure at some point, plus an array of external speaker connections. The recording-out socket has a selector switch for two speaker types: an emulated 1×12 or a 4×12. Although it could never sound as good as a microphone in front of a real speaker cab, it’s not bad; the 4×12 gives more warmth and bottom end so I’ll probably use that.

The only problem with the amp I’ve found so far, apart from the fact that the footswitch cable is only a metre long, is that the speaker output is automatically muted when I plug a cable into the recording-out. This is fine for using with headphones but I like to use the amp’s own speaker as a monitor. Since the guitar goes into the PC and that in turn is connected to my hi-fi I can work around this by sending the guitar amp’s signal through the PC’s soundcard and then out to my hi-fi speakers.

In other news I’m really happy with the cheap (£20 off Ebay) Danelectro Fab Tone, which gives a really thick and wild distortion; it’s allegedly based on retro distorted sounds but I’d say it’s more of a lo-fi fuzz than a tribute to mellow-sounding vintage amps. Unless the amp is being hacked in half with a chainsaw, because unless you back the volume and treble right down that’s what it sounds like! I’ll try to get some demo mp3s recorded because, for a cheap second-hand effect, it’s a lot of fun.

My favourite pedals at the moment are either my Blues Driver (for mild overdrive) or the Rat, run into the Holy Grail Plus reverb with the DD-5 adding delay. My next projects will probably be changing the Big Muff’s on/off switch for true bypass and building a tap tempo switch to make the digital delay more useful live; I’m still longing for an analogue chorus and delay (Electro Harmonix Small Clone and MXR Carbon Copy, respectively) but those will have to wait until I’ve paid off my credit card…

This is a 1989 Korean-made Squier Bullet that has much more sentimental value: I bought it second-hand at the age of sixteen with money from a part-time job. It’s the good old First Guitar that you can never bear to part with, no matter what happens to it. Despite various things going wrong on it I kept the thing regardless with the hope of making it playable again some day. And y’know what, I finally did.

It’s not actually all that bad as a player. The neck is one of those narrow profile Fender-style efforts with slightly narrower string spacing that’s comfortable enough and the frets aren’t too worn. It has a three pickup circuit of a standard Strat, except with only one tone and volume control (the hole where the other tone knob would go is instead where the jack socket is fitted). It’s a slightly stripped-down, more basic take on the classic Strat shape which I’m guessing was intended for the beginner/student market.

The bridge has the Strat vibrato arrangement too, except it’s held in place with two pivot screws rather than the usual row of six; again it’s a cheaper/simpler arrangement but I’ve always liked it because it’s more straightforward to set up. It doesn’t look as robust though, so I fitted it with 0.09 gauge strings instead of my usual 0.10s.

Interestingly the body has a set of three single-coil sized routs, rather than the larger ‘bathtub’ routs of modern Strats so there’s no room for fitting double coil pickups (the smaller routs are supposed to give a better tone…but like I’d notice the difference). The body is slightly smaller than the standard Strat body shape but it’s well balanced and feels fine. Apart from new machine heads the only major work that wanted doing was with the circuitry.

I slapped on copper insulating tape over the entire underside of the pickguard and soldered on a new earth wire to make sure there wouldn’t be any hum or background noise. The five-way pickup switch and both the volume and tone pots were on their last legs so I replaced them: the volume is a 250k linear, the tone a 250k log (with an orange drop cap) and the switch is the standard five-way. Considering this was my first attempt at soldering I was pleasantly surprised that the tone control is the only thing that isn’t working; I’ll check for dry joints the next time I restring it.

The only thing left to do now is sort out the pickups. The stock ones were, unsurprisingly, not all that great and the wiring was virtually useless anyway. I nicked the pickups from my Affinity failure which aren’t much of an improvement but at least I was able to wire them in. They’re pretty weak-sounding so I have my eye on some Lace Sensors which I’ll order and try out in the next few months. Next up: I really need a new amp.

Click on pic for larger version

I’ve covered the distortion pedals already and I’m pretty happy with what I have at the moment. I’m either going to change the switch on the Big Muff to a true bypass (it sucks out some of the treble out of my sound, which is annoying) or swap it for a Fender Blender reissue or a Danelectro Fabtone for the more chaotic fuzz moments. As for the rest…it’s about right for me now.

I shopped around for ages looking for an affordable and compact 9V power supply. They tend to be very bulky or expensive, and there’s also the risk of ground loops and other unwanted background noise. The Diago Powerstation is not only small (around the same size as the transformer for a laptop) but relatively affordable, noise-free and offers a variety of different plug types as optional extras. Not all pedals have the Boss-type socket and some eat batteries for breakfast so it’s a neat solution.

The board itself isn’t the most rugged and high quality around but again it wasn’t too pricey and it does at least store everything in one place. Getting the velcro to stick onto the pedals was a pain though, and turned out to be stronger than any glue I use with it! In the end I settled on superglue for sticking the velcro on and when the time comes to (re)move the pedals I’ll have to use a blunt knife blade to pry the velcro off the lining of the board.

After all these years I still have that second-hand Boss chorus that I got off a friend at university but I find the sound to have a foggy, metallic tang to it. At some point I’ll replace it with a tremolo or some other chorus/vibrato unit but I’m still undecided. The pitch shifter/harmoniser is another one I don’t use all that often but I do like the octave up and down settings. With the detune function I can get a chorus-like sound of sorts.

The digital delay is another one I’ve had for quite a few years but I really need an external tap switch to set the tempo; converting the delays from milliseconds to BPM using the rate knob had me literally getting a pen, paper and calculator out; hardly practical when playing live and working to whatever tempo the rest of the band are following, so an external tempo control would help me get the best out of it.

Right from when I first started playing guitar I’ve been a huge fan of reverb-type effects so I guess it’s no surprise that I’ve wound up with more than one reverb pedal. The Holy Grail + has a Spring reverb setting that’s miles better than my amp’s and the Hall setting is fantastic. The Room setting on the other hand isn’t something I use very often and the Flerb is just…odd. The mix control is a brilliant idea though – I can have the effect on pretty much permanently and blend it in to suit whatever I’m playing at the time.

The RV-3 is a recent buy and is proof of how lethal Ebay can be for this sort of thing. They’re discontinued now sadly, which is a shame because the delay effect is the typical crisp, precise digital sound that the Boss pedals excel at and the combined delay/reverb settings are great. The reverbs on their own aren’t quite as warm as the HG+’s but using two delay effects at the same time with reverb on top of that gives some interesting ambient sounds when you’ve tweaked the delay times right.

It’s all connected up with the standard 6″ patch cables and Planet Waves 10′ cables to connect the pedals to the guitar and amp, which seems to eliminate most of the hum I used to get. Blending more than one distortion tone sounds great but when I used cheap unshielded cables I got unwanted noise and the sound quality wasn’t impressive either. Since I like my wall of sound and want to do home recording, noise was becoming more of an issue for me.

With the recording thing in mind I really want a new amp that sounds good at lower volume. I’ve been recommended all sorts of things from lower-powered Blackface Fenders (given time and living room space I’d buy a Twin Reverb in a heartbeat, although the loudness is way above what I would need right now) to the Orange Tiny Terror but at the moment the HT-5, a five watt model made by Blackstar, is looking like my best bet.

The 40 watt Marshall combo I’ve been using doesn’t suit my playing style any more and if you want the best out of a valve amp at a volume that won’t upset the neighbours you really need a lower-powered one. *sigh* Fortunately I think I’ll be able to sell my flanger pedal since I don’t really use it any more, which ought to offset how much the RV-3 cost me.

I’m not a gamer though, which meant my budget didn’t need to be too high. On the other hand I’m still a cheapskate who refuses to use a TV set so I wanted something that can play DVDs and, early on next year, Blu-Ray discs too so I settled on the best performance for around £500. I already splashed out on a 22″ LG monitor that can cope with full 1080p video so this figure only included the tower itself and the components inside. I almost kept to budget too…

After extensive conversations with friends and online contacts I decided that it would be better to opt for an AMD processor because Intel CPUs are slightly more expensive and my needs are middle of the road in terms of power. The one I went for (an Athlon II X4 620 for those curious) turned out to be a good choice since it’s a quad core but the RRP gives plenty of performance for the money. No problems with it so far – 2.6GHz ought to be enough to keep things running smoothly, especially since I work with a separate graphics and sound card anyway.

This all plugs into an Asus motherboard, with 4GB of RAM. I’m not running on 64bit (more on that in a minute) so couldn’t see the point of installing more than this; it’s currently listed as 3GB of that as usable so for the forseeable future that ought to be enough to work with. The motherboard was chosen for its compatability with DDR3 RAM and the AM3 processor, but again I couldn’t afford to go mad and spend too much. I wish I could say I understood all this tech terminology without having it explained to me too, but I don’t. All I know is that it works.

Because I wanted full HD playback I was concerned about my choice of  graphics card. I agonised over getting an Nvidia unit for the CoreAVC suport, so eventually settled on a 512MB Asus GTS 250. It copes with the full 1080p video but the only downside is that, for whatever reason, the cooling fan is a bit on the noisy side. As it turns out, the spec of the processor and the GPU itself made the case for Nvidia CUDA a moot point anyway; it works fine. My knowlesge of the technical details on that front is also VERY limited, unfortunately.

The sound card was another major factor: I’m currently running my audio into standard 2.0 hi-fi stereo but I wanted to leave the possibility of surround sound open for when I upgrade further down the line. I also wanted some extra features beyond the usual, mostly concerned with line-in channels and fine-tuning the audio. A second-hand Creative Labs SoundBlaster card was perfect: it has a front panel for connecting with other equipment and has all the Eq and other controls I could ever need. The only analogue output is the headphone jack, so that’s what runs into the AUX sockets of my hi-fi; there’s an optical out socket too though should I need it.

As for the OS, I could have gone for the 64bit route since I’m running on Windows 7 which, by the way, has performed flawlessly so far. Given that I’ve been a faithful XP user for a number of years, the change is quite a revelation! In the end though I decided to play it safe and stuck with what I know and installed the 32bit version; I was worried about compatability issues between a 64bit OS and the sound card. One or two certain pieces of software I’ll be installing in the near future date back a few years too, so I need to be mindful of them.

I also wanted plenty of storage space to archive photos, videos and mp3 backups of my music collection (currently standing at over 200 CD albums!). The C drive is a 320GB unit but the E drive (which is the main file storage drive) is in a RAID array to give one terabyte of space, mirrored across two identical 1TB drives. That might seem like an excessive amount (especially when I wimped out of backing the CDs up in .flac format, a decision that I’m not sure was the right one) but I’m thinking about forwards compatability here: the bill for all this was just over the £500 limit and I want it to last me a while before anything needs replacing or upgrading.

I absolutely love the keyboard, a Cherry ultra-flat model which only set me back around £15. I wanted something with a quiet laptop-style keystroke since it’s what I’m used to, but with the standard PC layout; it’s really flat and has music player-friendly hotkeys too. Although the technical jargon leaves me stumped most of the time, I was really keen to buy a keyboard that’s comfortable and easy to type on for long periods.

The only task left is the installation of a Blu-Ray drive, which ought to test my choices of hardware – if the GPU and processor can do that, I’ll consider this project a success. I’m still unsure whether MPC (which came a part of the CCCP package) is BR disc compatible – it works fine with standard DVDs through my Pioneer DVD R/W drive but I’m hoping I won’t need specialist software for the different type of discs. More reading around on that, then.

Finally, I’d like to thank Steve for providing the DVD drive (free of charge too), Andy for his expert advice on the minefield of graphics cards and Seb for showing me how to put the whole thing together. I’m just glad I’m not reliant on the clunky old laptop any more…

This doesn’t include my Boss flanger and Electro-Harmonix Small Stone phase shifter, because I rarely use them. The pedals above (yes, all seven of them) get pretty regular use. I believe there’s also a condition known as Pedalboard Envy, which is brought on by the epic rigs from the likes of Mono’s ‘Taka’ Goto; seriously, what the hell?! Anyway, I have settled on a setup of distortion boxes in the mix which do the trick for me…for the time being at least.

The amp I’m using at the moment, a Marshall DSL 401, isn’t all that great and the only thing I really like about it (apart from the D.I. out socket) is the clean channel! I have the distortion boxes connected up with the Blues Driver first in line, followed by the Rat and finally the Big Muff, which then goes into the spatial-type effects. I settled on this order because the Boss is great as a level boost to drive pedals further down the effects chain, while the Rat is less suited and as for the Big Muff…you’d be hard-pushed to find a useable sound when combining it with anything!

Boss BD-2 Blues Driver

The BD has a relatively mellow and valve-like sound, allegedly based on the sound of an old-style valve amp being overdriven. It doesn’t have the sustain I need for lead work but for mild distortion, especially when playing rhythm, it has a great gritty sound that lets the guitar’s own tone shine through. I actually picked this up when in Japan on holiday because Boss gear is slightly cheaper there than in the UK; I tried it out on a Les Paul standard and this is where it’s in its comfort zone: it goes well with power chords and bluesy riffs played on a guitar with double-coiled humbucker pickups.

What the Blues Driver lacks in gain and sustain (which makes it unsuitable for heavier stuff) it makes up for in volume. It’s a pretty loud pedal so if you’re after a box that can push a valve amp while only subtly changing the tone, it’s perfect. I often use it to colour the sound before running it through the other pedals in my rig, not to mention giving the amp more gain to work with.

Pro-Co Rat 2

I’ve had this one for a while and love it. It has its little quirks – such as the filter control working in the opposite direction to the tone controls of the other two, meaning you lose top end as you turn it clockwise, and the taper of the pots meaning you have to tweak it gently to dial in the sound you want – but otherwise it’s really easy to use. It has a very unique sound – warm, thick and grungey (e.g. the chorus to Nirnana’s Heart Shaped Box) that’s neither fuzz nor the crunch you get from amp.

With the gain at 0 and the volume full up it’s totally distortion-free and at doesn’t give any volume change at all. There’s a lot of gain on tap though – it goes from mild bluesy grit to insane levels of fuzz. I’ve actually managed to coax feedback from this pedal at bedroom levels so suffice to say it has all the distortion most players will need. The filter control is very sensitive too: it goes from raspy fuzz, through wall-of-sound overdrive to dark sludge. The build quality’s superb too; I can see it lasting me years.

Big Muff USA Reissue

This is it: the classic, unmistakable fuzz tone of Pink Floyd and the fat rhythm chords or the Smashing Pumpkins…the legendary (not to mention amusingly-titled) Big Muff. I have to say I had the tone of Dave Gilmour and Billy Corgan clearly in mind when I bought this so nailing the sound of Cherub Rock and Time right out of the box made up for its limitations. The sound is so distinctive and so un-transparent it’s far from verstatile: unless you intend otherwise you really have to use it through a clean amp, or an amp on the edge of distorting, because it descends into a murky sludge of fuzz that buries the character of your instrument completely and feeds back like mad if you’re not careful with gain levels and unshielded cables.

It’s not passive bypass either, so when this pedal is in your effects chain you’ll notice a slight loss of top end to your sound. At the end of the day though, it’s the old-school classic fuzz tone fans know and love, in one neat box that has an impressive battery life. With a bit of careful tweaking I’ve managed to run my guitar through the Rat or Blues Driver with the volume high and gain low and still get a useable sound out of the Big Muff when its sustain control is backed off. In this configuration I get not only the classic fuzz which sustains forever, but more tonal variation that makes palm-muted chords sound okay. It’s a one-trick pony really, but I love the sound of it anyway.

If my amp was a little more suited to my current tastes I’d probably crank up the gain on that but for the range of stuff I play these days – from blues and classic rock to heavier 90s alternative and more recently ambient post-rock too – I need a wider range of tones and ways of throwing up a wall of sound easily, plus being able to experiment a bit. I still prefer individual pedals over the all-in-one modelling multi-effect units because there are little quirks with the ways the individual boxes interact. Good quality cables are a must though – I’ve found feedback (of the bad variety) and background noise to be a problem live, which I would never noticed when practicing at home.

Is this the end of it? Hell no. Every now and then I spot something that sounds interesting, such as the reissue of the notorious Fender Blender. I must say I’m tempted…

The thing is, this record has everything I love about MV and more but it’s barely a taster. War of the Worlds, bandied around as the single for that infamous upcoming second album, is one of their strongest numbers; hell, it’s absolutely immense (and as such, is excellent live). The shrieking rise-and-fall guitar riff is accompanied by vocals battling for supremacy over what I reckon is Ravi’s heaviest ever recorded drumming. It feels more insistent and brave than anything on their first album; like much of Muse’s recent work it’s hard to tell whether the lyrics are about world events, personal issues, or both. Basically it’s MV at their best, and is worth the RRP on its own.

Lord Knows How I’ve Tried could well have been intended to be another high-gain, FX-laden slab of shoegazey noise but this, the ‘mellow version’ comes with a haunting and atmospheric sensation of doubt and loneliness. The synthesised-sounding percussion and textured overdubs carry an almost funereal feel, with a piano line reminiscent of the intro to the acoustic version of Windows and Walls. It’s easy to forget how they can pen such moving slow, quiet songs when their singles are anything but slow and quiet; this one is a great foil to the first track and features some of Som’s finest vocal work too.

Their version of Toy Soldiers is an odd one but as is so often the case when MV cover songs they somehow manage to make it their own (Re: the baffling yet dazzling take on Madonna’s Oh Father). I’d never actually listened the original Martika version before hearing the cover either, just so you know. Still, the soaring chorus, punctuated by more of the trademark quavering and shimmering distortion from Som’s and Seth’s guitar pedal boards, is oh so very My Vitriol I don’t mind at all.

The Electrowar remix isn’t an unexpected addition considering the rock conventions for EP and single B-sides but the reworking of the first track had me wondering about future directions the band could take. Might they make remixes an integral part of their tracklistings in future? Or work it into the main sound to silence the critics when their My Bloody Valentine+Nirvana template gets old? It’s an effective re-imagining of the song though: the towering riffs become a brooding then hypnotic synthesised effort with sampled vocals that draw it to a close.

If the title and sleeve artwork didn’t make it obvious, the lyrical content proves that My Vitriol are a more politically outspoken band than they once were. I think rock artists taking on politics is a bit risky at the best of times; not many can pull it off without sounding hackneyed, insincere or misguided. In MV’s case I suspect the ongoing involvement of the UK in Iraq and Afghanistan provided the inspiration here, and it works. I don’t have anything against progressive politics in popular music but keeping the theme for a mere EP is putting the point across without labouring it, mind.

What I do welcome is the broader and more mature songwriting that is on show: not only is the subject matter more topical and far-reaching the band seem to be progressing musically too. Granted, we have little to go on here but the storming opening track, a more restrained B-side, a surprising cover and an (for them) unusual remix are a neat cross-section of their sound with some tantalising extras. It promises a lot in terms of what they release next but the important thing now is for them to deliver on that promise. Seriously guys, you are still out there, aren’t you?

The cinematography is deliberately gritty, with a Cloverfield-esque hand-held camera documentary style and a setting that’s very different from those of typical Hollywood movies. The alien spaceship arrives not above some photogenic locale such as New York – a fact that the film uses as an opportunity to distance itself from the likes of Independence Day – but Johannesburg, and the aliens end up as leaderless refugees rather than conquerors.

The extraordinary tack that District 9 takes doesn’t stop there. It turns out that the setting is not just geographically convenient for the South African director Neill Blomkamp: it makes no secret of its intentions in being allegorical and making references to real-life places and historical events. The issues of segregation and xenophobia run strong and deep, and the poignancy of this premise makes its moral messages all the more powerful.

The human population of the area is quick to voice its reservations concerning the extraterrestrial settlers, and the aliens are soon confined in the residential camp of the film’s title. Since the authorities are unsure of what to do with these apparently harmless yet mysterious and numerous creatures, it soon becomes a lawless slum and the decision is made to evict the aliens and move them into a more ‘suitable’ area by employing the Multinational United (MNU), a private contractor.

We never really know why they are here, or even if they are friendly or not. That is the whole point, of course: some humans can converse with the aliens in their own language but little effort is made by any of the characters to answer these questions. The outcome (which would be the most likely one in the current world climate) is not one in which we wage war or try to enslave them: instead, a noncomittal attempt is made to placate and contain them, while politicians and parties with more vested interests argue behind the scenes. If it’s possible to make an alien visitation film realistic, I reckon District 9 is one that succeeds.

The man chosen to evict the aliens is a hapless office worker named Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley); a man in all likelihood chosen for his expendable status in the eyes of his employers rather than because of any particular qualifications for the job. Initially he’s portrayed as well-intentioned yet clueless, devoted to his wife but one who follows orders without considering the bigger picture or the morality of what he’s doing. As he becomes inexorably trapped in the complexities of the eviction procedure his role becomes very different but even more pivotal; by the end I started to admire him as a hero, which is the polar opposite of my opinion of him beforehand.

Some of the scenes are pretty shocking: the aliens are referred to derogatorily as ‘prawns’, the eviction at the hands of the MNU sidesteps any legislation that would normally protect the civil rights of humans and we witness incidents that amount to genocide as Wikus and his collegues oppress the aliens in a realistically chilling way before cheerfully reporting a job well done to the camera. The MNU turns out to be a big player in the weapons trade, which adds a very distasteful aspect to the operation: the aliens are the prime target for exploitation, and this soon includes Wikus too.

The final act of the film is more action-orientated and the ending is very open; there’s room for a sequel but any follow-up would probably be very different in content and tone. As it is, the first two thirds cover a lot of ground in Wikus’ transition from spineless chump to courageous champion for justice; the portrayal of the MNU was a little too far into the conventional stereotype of the unscrupulous corporate monster for my liking, although it’s hard to imagine the screenplay managing otherwise without a serious re-write.

Reading around, many aspects of District 9 took on even greater relevance. Some of the locations for filming were genuine slum areas going through evictions of their occupants; many of the interviews with locals were lifted from real-life recordings for Blomkamp’s earlier film Alive in Joburg; even the alien internment camp itself references District 6, a particular region of Cape Town which went through similar troubles during the Apartheid.

The fractured and complex nature of South African society actually meshes really well with the fantastical addition of extraterrestrials: for the most part the elements thrown into this thought-provoking and occasionally depressing melting pot of disparate themes hold together to deliver a surprisingly character-driven tale in a refreshingly different setting. It might be a little too hard-hitting for some viewers to stomach but considering its humble origins this is an example of intelligent science fiction done well.

My beloved Ibanez and my cheap-and-cheerful Tanglewood acoustic

The money in question was £400 iirc, although I’ve been told since then that similar models go for considerably more than that these days. Basically it’ll gain value the longer I keep it as long as I look after it but quite honestly I’ve no intention of selling it just yet.

Ibanez started out making cheap knock-offs of the classic US designs but by the late 70s the quality had risen quite substantially; even now Ibanez and Yamaha produce some really nice guitars for very little money, which is something to bear in mind given the RRP of American models. According to the serial number, my guitar was made at the end of 1980, the period during which the Artist line was first sold. It’s a two-humbucker, solid mahogany body with a maple cap and sunburst finish; the layout of the controls and the appearance in general are clearly inspired by Gibson’s Les Paul range, except there is a double cutaway at the heel of the neck, much like an SG.

As you’d expect, the Artist has a very Les Paul-type sound: in comparison with my SG it’s thicker and woodier, with a pronounced bottom end and a little more treble. These two aspects of the tone mean it’s a little softer and mellow – SGs are renowned for their midrange punch but the combination of the thicker body and, I’m guessing, Ibanez’s pickups (V-2s in this case, since it’s an AR 100 CS), make this one louder yet more balanced.

Needless to say the mahogany and maple construction means the body is very heavy: I’ve always used a padded leather strap to prevent it giving me a sore shoulder! The weight is worth it though because the tone is smooth and the sustain is superb; I’d say it’s perfect for the 70s-inspired classic rock thing, which is I’m guessing what the designers had in mind at the time. The quality of the tone is best demonstrated by the fact that I’m actually reluctant to use too much distortion or many effects when playing this guitar: the high notes are sweet and clear, while the lower ones are rich and full of clout. A mild overdrive and a little delay make for wonderful lead lines, while I can coax out solid palm muted power chords with a bit more gain.

Part of the playability of this guitar is I think down to the neck. Gibsons are notoriously chunky but the Artist has a flatter fretboard and a thinner neck – it’s the most comfortable one I’ve ever played on. The fret wires are smooth and because the neck’s cross section is a little smaller than its rivals, it’s easy to play lead licks quickly and smoothly. In all the time I’ve owned it I’ve fitted 0.09 gauge strings, moving up to 0.10s fairly recently; the glue-on neck is probably not intended for heavy gauge strings, but quite honestly it’s more of a rock player’s guitar than one for jazz players.

Only now am I experiencing a bit of string choke higher up the fretboard, which probably means an action adjustment. Considering all I’ve done in almost a decade is replace the pickup selector switch and machine heads, it’s standing up pretty well. Cosmetically it’s been through the grinder a bit: there are chips, bumps and scrapes everywhere (some my fault, many not) and one of the rotary control knobs needs replacing. Structurally it’s sound though: for a guitar that’s older than I am all the regular maintenance I need to do is routine cleaning and string replacement.

Not only does this guitar sound great but the build quality is excellent. The wear and tear doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s beautiful old thing, apart from a peculiar feature around the tone and volume knobs: at some point they were removed, a hole cut in the body and the knobs remounted, in their original positions, on an unsightly yellowed plastic plate. Whether it was damage or someone’s misguided idea about a cosmetic improvement, I don’t know; personally I don’t like it at all but it doesn’t affect how the guitar sounds or plays.

Seriously, ’sup with that?

The Artist range has been recently reissued (some including extra controls such as coil tap switches) and as far as I can tell the same loving care and attention has been paid to the quality of the structure and finish as the 70s and 80s originals. As far as things like binding, inlays, gold (yes, gold) plated hardware and that wonderful sunburst colour are concerned, I don’t think Gibson can compete – not in this price bracket, anyway. My style of playing these days is starting to call for the brightness of Fender-style single coil pickups but for that classic rock tone you can only get from the old two humbuckers and mahogany body it’s absolutely perfect. It’s a bit battered and bruised now, but I still can’t bear to part with it.

Perhaps part of the appeal is in the way cyberpunk draws so much from two other areas I appreciate: the twisting plotlines and ambiguous morality of Chandler-esque hard-boiled detective fiction and the gritty yet stylish feel of film noir. Being part futuristic sci-fi and part butt-kicking detective movie, Chrysalis ticks all these boxes…with the bonus of being French and therefore even cooler and more stylish. In other words, it’s pretty good.

I suppose the premise is pretty well-worn territory: we’ve all seen futuristic films with well-choreographed hand-to-hand fighting and those featuring embittered old detectives who fill the gaping hole in their personal life with dedication to their work or personal grudges. The clincher for this one, apart from offering a decent storyline, is that it does these familiar things in a really slick and entertaining fashion. The Parisian cityscape is given a subtle yet convincing futuristic facelift that is different yet not vastly so; basically it looks familiar enough to be believable, and provides a suitable backdrop for the action-packed thriller themes.

The Gallic flair carries over to the designs of the buildings, streets and other props: you notice a bit of product placement (fortunately not on the same level as I, Robot, mind) but it still has that air of French cool to set it apart from the competition. You normally expect the likes of New York, Tokyo or Hong Kong to be given this sort of treatment but it’s refreshing to see how Paris could look and feel in a few decades time.

The gruff and disallusioned hero is David Hoffman, a middle-aged detective who is still mourning the death of his wife and co-worker at the hands of a criminal named Nicolov. The fact that Hoffman, the miserable loose cannon hellbent on revenge but assigned with a new partner and given a tough case, is pretty predictable I know but the way in which the plot builds on this premise is what makes Chrysalis worthwhile.

I won’t toss out a load of spoilers but suffice to say political wranglings, mind-altering technology and that escaped criminal all come together with some interesting twists and double-crosses. When I watched this for the first time the combat choreography looked familiar so after a bit of searching I was pleasantly unsurprised to learn that it was due to the involvement of Alain Figlarz as Nicolov and stunt/fight coordinator, who also worked on The Bourne Identity. He certainly adds an edge-of-your-seat element to the hand-to-hand combat which spices up a narrative which is, probably intentionally, dark, cold and as a result would otherwise be hard to get into.

Speaking of cold, Albert Dupontel does a good job as the stoic and bad-ass lead, by which I mean he’s seething with rage one minute and trapped in the depths of personal loss the next. Sadly I’m not familiar with much French cinema but the performances from Dupontel, Marie Guillard (as Hoffman’s new colleague), Marthe Keller and Mélanie Thierry all impressed me and made me keen to see what else they’ve starred in to date. Hell, I can’t wait to see what Leclercq does next.

The cinematography is excellent, which I believe ought to lead Leclercq and his team to even better things. The viewpoints glide with clinical precision through the futuristic environs and the camera work speeds up accordingly when Dupontel and Figlarz butt heads…which is a considerable number of times. All this makes for a film that is visceral and exciting, yet still sophisticated and classy: it’s punctuated with punishing comic book kicks and punches yet has a realistic grounding that oozes arthouse cool. A very good balance I think, and one that I’d like to experience again.

You could argue that this is a run-of-the-mill film: the writers know their sci-fi and know what stock premises and tropes to throw into the mix in order to make a film that’s in keeping with those that inspired it. That said, the execution is the key here, which is where Chrysalis shines: the setting, the performances and the unique touches made me feel at home in a familiar area of cinema but it still brought its own plus points to the table. It’s as if the makers are out to prove their worth, which I think they have done here…a bit surprising then that it’s not one I’ve seen many people make a fuss about.

The funny thing is, their pre-’95 material sounds nothing like what the band’s fans are familiar with today. Ashcroft’s smoker’s baritone isn’t there, the indie ballad theme of the songs isn’t there. They owed little to their more (then) successful contemporaries at all; hell, McCabe could have passed for a younger 70s-era Dave Gilmour because the entire band wore their hair down to their shoulders. Looking back, I’ve decided that, ironically, their earliest songs were actually their best; at the very least they ought to be as well remembered as the more recent ones.

All In The Mind

The debut single, way back in 1992, was miles away from the trendy indie fare that was popular at the time: announcing its presence with a desolate wail of feedback and driven by clattering drums, almost-whispered lyrics and guitar lines drenched in reverb, it owed more to the shoegaze scene that was currently in decline. There’s the spacey, ambient feel of, say My Bloody Valentine or Ride but the desire to break out on their own was very much in evidence. A feel of 60s psychadelia and copious quantities of hallucinogenic drugs power the delirious verses and breathless refrains; the pace picks up before falling into another drone of feedback and background noise that marks its conclusion.

The B-sides are different but no less striking: One Way To Go is more introspective and filled with contemplation, with Jones’ bass rising and falling while McCabe adds chiming, bell-like arpeggios. I’ve always felt this is their most beautiful song because it has plenty of tenderness but that coda is bursting with pent-up feeling. Man Called Sun benefits from a great bassline, guitars and background percussion but its feeling of atmosphere and restraint makes it shimmer: it’s a song that teeters on the edge of existing, as if a gust of wind could blow it away like smoke.

She’s a Superstar

There are two ways of looking at this single: a band who were still trying to pin down their signature sound, or a band who weren’t prepared to stick to the same template. This one is a bold, stadium-sized effort driven by distorted power chords and crashing crescendos; while the first single creeps into the listener’s mind with its quavering grooves and reverb effects that make you feel like the band are calling to you across a vast expanse, She’s a Superstar tinkles with anticipation during the verses and blows you away in the choruses. Like its more subdued B-side Feel, it has a wonderfully long improvised instrumental coda; several years before the term post-rock made its way into the mainstream music press I might add.

The use of dynamic changes in tone and volume are nothing unusual, of course, but the raw power of the guitar, the solidity of the bass, the soaring quality of the vocals and the seismic drumming all work together wonderfully. I can only imagine how this would’ve sounded when performed live because it highlights the lofty ambition and energy of the band.

Gravity Grave

This is another example of how a hypnotic, repeated melody – this time another Jones bass riff – melds seamlessly with drug-fuelled lyrics and extended improvised passages to give the band their own unique sound. Gravity Grave is another long effort, clocking in at over eight minutes; and yet, there’s still a vague sense of pop sensibilities thanks to that catchy bassline. Any mainstream leanings are outshone however by the expansive atmospherics, textured guitar licks and occasional contributions from a harmonica and flute. The first B-side track, Endless Life, is drenched in echoes and half-heard lyrics but the pleasant surprise lurking behind the A-side here is the inclusion of two live recordings: A Man Called Sun and an encore of the title track.

I’m not sure about how widely available these three are as singles either on CD or to download; many of them, in original or edited form, are scattered around on their stateside debut, the self-titled Verve EP, the Singles album This Is Music or No Come down, the compilation of B-sides and rarities that was released shortly after their first full-length studio album. I really want to waffle on about that now and how it got me into playing guitar, etc., etc., but this ought to be enough for now. Honestly, give these songs a try when you get the chance.