The Hard-Boiled Wonderland

Anton Corbijn is a logical choice perhaps as the director for a music biopic: he has an extensive CV both as a photographer and film maker in the company of rock and pop artists, not to mention having first-hand experience with working alongside Joy Division, the earlier incarnation of the band that would later be known as New Order. His style makes an interesting transition to Control, an unavoidably gritty and ultimately tragic adaptation of Touching from a Distance, the story of Joy Division’s frontman Ian Curtis told from the point of view of his wife Deborah. It charts their first meeting as teenagers and follows Curtis’ tragically short life as a young husband and father, then vocalist of an upcoming band through to his eventual suicide from a combination of illness and personal demons; most importantly it is keen to portray Curtis the man rather than Curtis the rock icon.

To date, Depeche Mode’s high water mark has always been 1990’s Violator LP but their 1984 effort, Some Great Reward, can also be considered a milestone in their career. The fact that it was recorded in partly in Berlin may have heightened the influence of electronic trendsetters Kraftwerk but the main reason why this record is, for me at least, a turning point in their back catalogue is where it hones the dark yet catchy signature sound that they are known for today. Much of the lyrical content turns away from the politics and social commentary (such as Construction Time Again’s Everything Counts) towards a stance that is more personal and introspective; this increased emotion is juxtaposed with a crisp, almost industrial synthesised sound that is very much a product of its time but somehow still feels fresh nearly a quarter of a century later.

I’m a fan of fiction that deals in world-building - the creation of not just foreign lands but entire alternate worlds and universes holds so much room for the writer’s imagination. My appreciation of the likes of Pullman, Tolkein and Le Guin does not stem purely from the portrayal of fantastical environs far-removed from our own though. Such fiction often incorporates ideas and issues of our own world but in doing so presents these ideas and issues in a refreshing and different light that helps us understand them in a new and possibly more productive way. Ursula Le Guin for example has addressed topics as far-reaching as politics, organised religion, racial and gender prejudice and the balance between humanity and nature in her fictional work centred on the world of Earthsea.

The first four full-length Earthsea novels (the fourth originally intended to be the last, but more recently followed by The Other Wind) are available in paperback format as one volume, which is a convenient and appropriate way to approach the series. They are self-contained works but take place chronologically, which means reading them in such an order is, to my mind at least, strongly advised but not essential. Earthsea is clearly far-removed from planet Earth in the Twentieth Century but as with similarly themed literature, it can be read as fantasy/alternate universe or equally as an allegorical work that deals with subject matter that is universal to both the world of Earthsea and our own. For all its talk of magic, dragons and distant lands, each novel has a lot to say about human nature and how we perceive our own world, here and now.

Taiyo Matsumoto’s graphic novels have enjoyed a good track record in print-to-screen adaptations. Black and White became the innovative and vibrant animation Tekkonkinkreet; Ping Pong in contrast shares the live-action treatment with Blue Spring. Across all of his back catalogue, regardless of medium, Matsumoto’s work has an uncanny knack for highlighting inner conflict and the importance of friendship in the face of adversity. In the case of Ping Pong it follows the exploits of teenage eccentric Peco Hoshino and the ironically nicknamed ‘Smile’ Tsukimoto - two childhood buddies who, despite their polar opposite personalities and philosophies, are united by a mutual interest in playing table tennis.

At worst, sporting films are often limited to fans of the pursuit in question and at best limited to sports fans in general. Given that I know little about the technicalities of this particular game and that my general feeling towards all competitive activity is often apathy, it’s an understatement to say I was pleasantly surprised at my enjoyment of this movie. The game of table tennis is actually a background to the story that unfolds, and the finer points of the game are considerably less important than the consequences of events and the feelings that the characters harbour for the game and each other. Granted, the dramatic slow-motion camera work in the tournament scenes and the obvious - and often obsessive - enthusiasm the protagonists have for the game will draw in viewers who are fans of table tennis, but Ping Pong’s approach ensures that it has a wider appeal.

The rock duo Monoral, consisting of Anis Shimada and Ali Morizumi, have two EPs and two full-length albums under their belts but I first heard their music, as quite a few others no doubt did, through their single Kiri, the song used in the opening theme to Ergo Proxy. This is featured on the second of their LPs, 2007’s Turbulence.

It’s testament to the soaring Kiri (not to mention my impulsive music purchasing habits) that I went ahead and ordered the entire album based on my impressions of that song alone; fortunately the rest of the material on offer is of a consistently high quality. It’s worth noting that all the lyrics are performed in English - a fact explained by Anis and Ali being fluent in both this and Japanese. This means that not only are the songs somewhat more accessible to overseas fans than other similar J-rock bands but it also gives the music a distinctly American flavour. Indeed, the best way I can describe the album’s sound as a whole is ‘grungy’ - there are elements reminiscent of Stateside alt-rock and similarly influenced artists that followed in the intervening years.

Along with the gas attack on the Tokyo Subway at the hands of a religious cult, the Kobe earthquake was a significant event in Japan in the 1990s. As with the Tokyo gas attack, Haruki Murakami tackles the after-effects of the earthquake on the media and public opinion, and highlights how such an incident can affect the public collectively on a national level and on the level of individuals; in contrast with his journalistic and factual approach to the former, he instead uses the earthquake as a starting point for a collection of short fictional works. In that sense, After the Quake is a concept album of short stories: none of them depict that infamous natural disaster that struck Kobe in 1995, but instead take a number of people and situations within Japan who are connected to the event in more indirect and abstract ways. Directly or not, all are connected to a common theme: that of a natural disaster coinciding with turning points in their lives.

After the Quake can be enjoyed as a stand-alone anthology of his short stories in the same way as, say, his Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman or The Elephant Vanishes collections. This particular selection however can also be read as a cohesive whole, thanks to that common thread: allusions to earthquakes and the mysteries of nature and coincidence. Inevitably some stories will work better than others from reader to reader, depending on what exactly one wishes to draw from what they have to tell. Some are shocking, some are touching while others are just plain odd - all however exhibit Murakami’s trademark pop culture references, dabblings in the supernatural and brilliantly-realised observations relating to the everyday.

The style of music performed by Irish outfit God is an Astronaut falls under a number of categories that are somewhat constrictive and inaccurate, rarely doing their own individual style justice. Post-rock, shoegaze, nu-gaze, dreampop - none of these really capture it, which is especially apparent when you read of their live shows’ reputation for their visual as well as musical inventiveness. GiaA and similar artists such as Mogwai and Sigur Rós are nevetheless experimenting with how modern music can be redefined while still being melodic and are doing a fine job of it, as the EP A Moment of Stillness ably demonstrates.

The music itself is hard to describe - I can only wonder at how it would sound when performed live alongside the visual accompaniment because it feels for all the world like the soundtrack to a movie that has yet to be filmed, in a similar way to, say, Mercury Rev’s albums. GiaA, on this record at least, take a different tack to the ‘Rev in that the vocals are not a means of vocal delivery but more of another instrument that mixes in with guitar, drums and keyboards. The lack of lyrical content on offer here would otherwise threaten to take away the focus of the songs; especially when they are of the ambient variety that also casts away the pop/rock traditions of guitar and drums solos, not to mention conventional verse/chorus structures that we have become accustomed to.

This is the first of what I’m expecting to be an ongoing series of musical equipment reviews based on my current home setup. Needless to say I’m only an amateur enthusiast with a number of other interests (DVDs and CDs among them) so my rig’s pretty limited. Anyway, I’m sure there are fellow guitar geeks around who are only too happy to discuss/compare/brag about the various bits and pieces they have stashed away in attics, studios and spare bedrooms.

MBV effectively drew a line under the ’shoegaze’ scene with their album Loveless but its predecessor Isn’t Anything is a timely reminder of how they themselves helped define the genre in the first place. It may lack the polish and perfectionism of what followed yet in some aspects it actually meets the greatest heights that Kevin Shields and co attained. One point on which this album scores higher than Loveless is how each song, whether the listener finds it to be a highlight or not, is a separate part of the whole rather than a succession of pieces that blur into one; that is to say, it is an album that contains memorable songs that stand out as individual pieces.

There’s some magical quality to the music of the Pillows that, regardless of time or mood, it can somehow make everything seem that little bit brighter and happier. Even when they’re dealing with issues such as lost love and regret for good times gone, their own brand of upbeat guitar pop lifts me without ever coming across as trite or insincere. How in heaven’s name do they do it?