Lovestrong Perri

Last year in May already, once again out of my knowledge, a twenty-six year old female person recorded the results of air pressed passed vocal cords and an array of instruments into what became Christina Judith Perri's Lovestrong album that made it all the way to position 62 on the Polish Album Chart. If we, say, compare her work to the air forced out of contemporary female persons like Lana Del Rey, this album has lesser sass but much better music, in my fumble opinion. The skin-crawling Jar of Hearts (not to be confused with Jar of Farts by Maleaha) should show you what I mean, but take a look at Bang Bang Bang which is a funky tune, or, or, or Bluebird which is a sad song that Regina Spektor might as well have sung (a compliment for sure) or the dancy-dance Mine. She's got talent for sure, will be fun to follow her battles with Florence, Lana and Regina for the throne!

Them codes, Them keys (only for cuties)

The Washington rockers with the coolest name ever thought of - Death Cab For Cutie, wow - came out with an album titled Codes and Keys already last year which escaped my acute sense of perception. After listening to it a few times while cutting mouse brains for mere scientific purposes (and fetiche) I can say that the quasi-Christian rocker boys actually grew on me. Tracks to pay attention to are the eire Monday Morning, the Band of Horsesque Codes and Keys and the tempo-tempo Home is a Fire. Good stuff actually, the rest is mostly acceptable. Good to finally have a band that sounds good with vocals that you can actually understand - every syllable in fact - coming out of the throat of Ben Gibbard.

Sjung med Laleh Pourkarim

Ravishing Iranian Swede Laleh - famous for her kick-ass song Invisible - is back,  (since January this year) with the album Sjung - a word impossible for any angloglot to pronounce correctly and means Sing in the imperative form in Swedish. In my "humble" (a different word for irrelevant) opinion, it sounds like she got influenced heavily by MGMT and their lyrics of children and youth. But there is definitely a Björky and Spektoresque touch to her sound as well. Cannot say anything popped out, the tracks are essentially on a steady level. Although, Samuel is clearly a proof of her talent. The rest, I shall leave in your hands and ears to experience.

Pakito six years ago: Video

French man Pakito, pictured to the left disc jockeying in a lab coat for obvious reasons, released his album Video in 2006. Providing such über-house beats as  Moving on Stereo and Living on Video it has come the time to review the album properly. Indeed, the two hits are present in the album - I would say more than once. What I mean by this is; most songs sound very similar to the other, as if Julien Ranouil decided to only employ a selected repertoire of sounds for all his songs. A healthy change is My Favorite Club which is not about floor hockey but about dancing, drinking and flecking, whatever that is. Additional acceptable track is You Wanna Rock but only if you are willing to give up playing one of the previously recommended ones, same goes for the recent track (2009) Harmony which was not fooling anyone, although it sounded OK.

The eye of Nabokov!

Nabokov comma Vladimir! After Lolita, I thought I had found the only funny classical author - how right I was. This book was written a fat 25 years before Lolita too. Look to your right to see the funny author man himself in all his St Petersbourgeois glory, by the by. The plot of The Eye surrounds a group of Russian emigrants that have settled in German Berlin. A floating eye of someone convinced of his own dis-animation tells the story of intrigue, backstabbing and similar Ruski business. Unfortunately, only a give or take hundred pages and then it's over. Although I must admit the funniest parts were in the very first pages of the book, the content of the book will leave the reader with many provocative quotes to impress his friends with and ponder on lonely nights of self-denial. In addition, it may turn perspectives upside down for the largely perpendicular readers. Give it a go! I read it in four hours on public transportation, trying very hard not to laugh as people do not laugh to written text in book form anymore and I did not want to make a scene.

AMBER, not for kids.

Close to the Hauptbahnhof and the fancy-schmancy Bahnhofstrasse resides Amber where you can get in for twenty-five bucks or so. They will only let people over twenty-five in too, unless you know people. The music line up was great; hippety-hop-you-don't-stop with house - there was an awkward moment when we realized that some song were on repeat... You will likely find guys and dolls in their dirty thirties prancing and sniffing about. If you are in to that, Amber is the place to be. Me? I would at least prefer a larger surface area and fewer pillars.

Dreams from Barack Obama's real father (question mark)

Joel Gilbert speaking here at the National Press club claims that any journalist who would come out and write an article about the stuff in his movie, including Obama's mama doing soft porn in the late fifties (see below), would instantly be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. I do not consider myself a professional on the count of not being bought by the CIA for a nominal fee yet, but let's give it a try and see what it does for my carrier.

Evidently, among the various claims thrown at Barack Hussein Obama II, aka Barry Soetoro, aka Frank Marshall Davis Jr during the recent years, including being a Jihadist Muslim extremist or a skillful politician, Joel and his co have unearthed evidence exposing Obama's true Marxist nature. The aim of him&his being to crush the American middle class to create a socialist dream world Disney Land of a brutally impoverished and dependent lower class, ruled by a few selected members. Which, I know, sounds like sugar coated candy cane for most of y'all couched potatoes, but I gather 7 million dead Ukrainians would disagree.

Gilbert also claims to put forward a lot of evidence in his support - however I did not find any such evidence in the movie, except for "obvious" conclusions that appear logical if you believe the narrator of the movie to one hundred percent, which would be idiotic in the first place. Then again, I did not do an research on any of the movie references either, because I did not look for them, because I did not feel like it. What I enjoyed was the divergence from the birth certificate debacle (downloadable here) with a focus shifted towards a biographical narrative, although very, very few references were given to me on a silver platter. If this gets me the Puli Prize, this world is doomed for sure.

Animal Farm, by Orwell

Georgie Orwell's epic satire Animal Farm I read in Israel under trees smelling of cumquat (get your mind out of the gutter for one second). Even though it is silly, it totally made me, the humble bumble reader, furious at times. It hit the core of the nucleus. A must-read for anyone who is still teeter-tottering on whether we are being profoundly screwed over or not by our beloved governing forces. It is essentially the instruction manual on how to be a giant asshole/successful politician in the climate of today, more than ever. And the people - oh the people... - they buy every word of it. The closing sentence of the book, which I will of course not reveal to you, sums it up very well too. Read it and digest it, my good sir, madam or hermaphrodite.

The Dark Knight Rises

By many standards the previous Batman movie The Dark Knight or "Batman-2008" was the best movie of all times, let alone the Batman series. Considering the competition, this was maybe not a huge achievement, but still. Are we then surprised that the sequel The Dark Knight Rises is a let-down? No, not really. But expected more out of Nolan, the director. The script and dialogue of the Batman-2008 was always, and I mean always (and I don't use underline for everything), kicking arses to the left and to the right. In this one, it just does not happen. Sorry if I spoiled the whole movie for you, but this essence is gone. Other things gone? The chemistry between the actors, for one. Batty-2008 was indeed filmed in a fictive futuristic city of Gotham with advanced technologies, materials and Morgan Freeman, but it still remained realistic. Somewhat. This one? Myaeh... Not so much. Cheap tricks such as last-moment-rescues, crying Alfred and everybody's-happy endings left me with a sour taste after the show. But it was inevitable. The joker is gone and the joke is on us ticket-buyers - and that it has 8.9 on IMDB? Gotta be kidding, yo...

Example won't go quietly

Chipmunk-faced (I'm one to talk...) British guy Elliot John Gleave in the picture to the right may not look like a typical musician but when calls himself Example he makes music. I was in Barcelona, Spain looking for a tank to show off my traffic-stopping arms and shoulders, when I walked into Bershka - another store stuck in the vintage-and-senseless-print swamps of the clothy industry, and heard Elliot's amazing track Kickstarts that my Shazam app helped me identify. Then, I downloaded the album Won't go quietly which was not much to hang in the Christmas tree, as the suedoise say, although the mentioned Kickstarts and also Watch The Sun Come Up should surely be mentioned. If I have the stamina for it, I will check out his newer stuff as well. Word on the street is that he is the real deal.

The best of Paul Wall

Grilled-out white person Paul Wall (Paul Michael Slayton), see picture to the right, has an unofficial Best-of discography created by mostwanted187 at PirateBay.org. The torrent is from 2008, but since Pauly and his mu-zak has not created headlines since The Ozone awards 2006, I suppose we have not missed anything by leaving out his two albums Fast Life and Heart of a Champion. But feel free to listen to them and write me a review and I will post it in my name and accept full credit. You may know him from such movies as I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell which fashions a whopping 5.2 on IMDB - but I would like to raise a flag for his hip-rap-hopping skills, making him likely the most successful wigguh since the days of Marshall Mathers (b.k.a Eminem before his voice changed) and give props, cred and - if there is time - holler back on a few tracks.

Strongest of all his stuff is They Don't Know featuring his best friend Bun B, which is a song about Texas and "candy paint" which I assume is some sort of fly repellant. Later Paul collaborated with Nelly - not the hot latina with the badonka-donk-donk but the other guy - and made Grillz, basically a serenade to the concept of mouths full of disco balls. Other acceptable tracks include Break'em off and That Fire. All in all, I must say the Swishahouse beats were not bad, although I never felt the grills-fetish, not depicted in the figure to the left. Wonder what happened to them?

Overexposing the five maroon kids

With the ugliest cover art of the century, the five brown haired californicated boys of Maroon 5 are out with the new album Overexposed, since June. Although pop-rocka-muzzika is not my all-time favorite genre, of the songs some OK's are The Man Who Never Lied and Lucky Strike was not bad either. But the beeeest track?? Check out the remixes of Payphone as well - top track of the album, actually, would be the dubbed out remix by The Others. Dubbed out Yo!

Anyhow. Worth checking out. FoShiZz. Get the deluxe version at PirateBay. Legal in Swissur.