musics

Wow.

I bow to you, Pixies. What an utterly wanktastic band. The atypical time changes, the manic stop-startness, the visceral imagery and those seemingly emaciated screams.

My interest in black metal has been rekindled, thanks to the two pronged attack of USBM’s relative (but still, in terms of originality, veterans) newcomers; Wolves In The Throne Room and Krohm – The Haunting Presence.

Wolves In The Throne Room – Two Hunters, is WITTR’s second album, following their much heralded debut. Harmonized guitars seem to trip over each other, while the omnipresent blastbeats rarely seem troubling or annoying. It starts off with quite the ambient drone-esque piece, inviting me to check whether I actually was playing a black metal album. Barren keyboards mixed with shoegaze chords, seriously?

Though consisting of only 4 tracks, track 2 and 4 are the longest, clocking in at 12 and 18 minutes, while track 3 ends around a measly (!) 10 minutes. Stunning though, are the operatic vocals of Jessica (cannotrememberlastname). Stunning and surprising, but altogether a welcome and ultimately understandable sentiment.

Krohm – The Haunting Presence, though, is MBV gone black metal. Black metal’s correlation with shoegaze has always been one that is never oft-recognized; for some reason shunned. The similiarities between both genres in terms of their sound is not unnoticeable. Both employ swathes of noise under which lie glistening, ethereal melodies. Perhaps the only difference is that shoegaze tends to tread more dream-popish melodies whereas black metal wants to instigate an innate sense of nihilistic disparity in you.

The Appleseed Cast – End of Ring Wars is an album i’m not entirely certain about. Appleseed Cast, now, are a truly fantastic act. Though 2006’s Perregrine was rather disappointing, it was still a really good album and only when held up to the mammoth Low Level Owl discs does it come across as a disappointment. End of Ring Wars is their debut, and contains a sound quite different from what we’ve grown accustomed to from them. Borrowing heavily from Sunny Day Real Estate, the album is perhaps a minor emo masterpiece (in that that the songs are very strong), but naturally if an album is as derivative as this is, some marks must be cut. YEAH! Either way, the last two tracks are quite the sex. Portrait tentatively works through meandering melancholy arpeggios before a guitar echoing distorted feedback comes into the foray and takes over. Also, the last track, has sax! Sax on an essentially emo album? Come on now!

What I really want to do now, is just jump do a smashing cover of Pixies – Hey. That is my goal for the next couple of weeks I s’pose.

Also, goodbye Stylus.

realllllyyy?

Militants in north-west Pakistan have beheaded six security officials and killed seven civilians in apparent reprisals for an army attack.

more

Really? Yeah, lets step back and take it easy. Let that element rule and eventually seep into rural Pakistan.

What I really like are all those bogus Facebook groups, along the lines of “Stop Islamophobia” or “Not all Muslims are Terrorists.”

What I really like about them is that though we’re on hand to berate the West on how they need to stop typecasting us, all we do is shrug our shoulders when one of our friends goes on to state how the Jews are out to conquer the world and destroy Islam.

Or, when the local maulvi doesn’t hesitate to utter nonchalantly how we should rise up against American forces and Western Ideology.

No. Lets not clear our backyards first, because that’d just be silly.

just another day – exp

convulsions,
you are my endless pity
recalcitrant,
just another odious day

levant,
you are my unwelcome body
opulent,
just another worthless diatribe

so let us open arms and watch,
the birds enter our bodies;
for sunshine and the goddess divine.

your ribcage is bent, inwards,
like the sickle of mother russia;
for my heart pounds to your idle beat.

incoherent, discordant.

beirut – the flying club cup

Place me, place me in the centre of the Champs Elysees. The wind’s blowing against me, my clothes rippling, my hair dismantled and disheveled. Place me as the songs swirl and swirl, above the buildings and the towers, above the birds and the planes into the vast, glorious skies.

Paint me, paint me with the magisterial percussion; bumbling and jovial, invigorating and enrapturing. The trees sway to the gallic rhythms, those innately french melodies moulded with pop sensibilities. Place me, paint me for I give myself to you with voluntary alacrity.

Suffocate me with those horns, as we tread onto a bed on brass. Trumpets and trombones, horns and clarinets, bounced succintly off violins and cellos.

Place me in the centre, the centre of it all. The sounds bounce of walls and mingle with the lights and the fumes, the derelict and the defunct. That understated, mumbled voice, blanketed with gorgeous, austere melodies. That casual formality, that chaotic sustenance; THAT erratic coherence.

Place me in the centre, in the centre of it all, and then let them weave their spectres without palisades.

hahaha

HAHAAHHAHHAHAHAHAHA

more boring politics, sorry!

listening to: Jesu – Pale Sketches

Musharraf’s been re-elected, but his legitimacy as a candidate has yet to be confirmed. Little else can be said or analysed here; nothing to do but wait. Either way, does the SC attain more credibility now? Or less? And if they declare Mushy illegitimate, are we going to hear more sycophancy about the apex court?

More blighted, myopic sycophancy I meant, apologies.

There’s been a lot of talk about Musharraf’s decision to attach even more shackles onto NAB and let politicians with past or current corruption charges run free. Alas, understanding why this decision was taken place is not as easy or shade-less as it first appears to be.

For starters, Musharraf needed politics. Add to that that his deal with Bhutto is supposed to bring ‘democracy’ and more legitimacy to the Government, he barely would’ve garnered enough strength while slapping corrupt politicians. So, to surmise, he needed to do that to get Benazir on board.

Did he need Benazir? Yeah. Democracy. You know, that one thing everyone in Pakistan is going on about without any understanding of what a democracy is supposed to entail?

For that very democracy to work, you need your politicians; MNAs, MPAs and Senators. The position you could run for with your average worthless 2 year Pakistani Bachelors degree. Done A/Levels? Sorry mate, can’t run for the Parliament, you might be over-qualified.

So, what do we get? We get hand-holding. We have Musharraf air-brushing the laws to get those corrupt bastards some leeway, to attain more credibility for our to-be-fledgling democractic state.

Morally wrong? Undoubtedly. Politically motivated and necessary? Probably. So where do you draw the line? Something has to give for some semblance of democracy to be attained. This could be it.

We’re in Pakistan. It’s 2007, our constitutions have been treated worse than toilet paper, our country raped and pillaged by dictators and corrupt politicians. Do we try to make this bastardized form of democracy work? Or do we muck about, hoping for a form of pure democracy; an oxymoron considering Pakistan’s levels of education.

How can you want a democracy, when you slam the politicians that are supposed to represent you? Why do we have this notion that a democracy only means a legitimate sitting Prime Minister?

The minority will sometimes be right, the majority always wrong. – George Bernard Shaw

ack!

listening to: Always The Runner – An August Golf

So, my economics teacher gave me a migraine today.

…

Yep.