Falling Sky

A Modest Proposal

September 2007. I start researching what birthday pressie to get the Burd, with a mind to choosing a piece of jewellery just as I had in 2006. This time around, I focus on the work of Sheila Fleet, an Orkney-based jewellery designer with quite a range of styles. Bumbling around the website, even though I know I'm looking for a pendant, I find myself clicking on Rings. I click on Gemstone. Curious thoughts begin to form. I get back to finding the right pendant - in the end choosing a real beauty, if I do say so meself - but still catch myself coming back a couple of times to one particular ring. The price-tag makes my eyes boggle (well, more than usual) but that didn't really matter. A vague idea of putting such a ring on a certain lady's finger has set root in my noggin, but vague is all it stays. See, there's no way I could remotely afford the price tag on said ring - or any like it - and I'd also promised myself I wouldn't marry while I was still lugging (non-student-loan) debt around with me. At this point I've got a £2500 overdraft and it's in constant use. The idea floats about, wistfully, in the back of my head, along with the home on Skye and 100 Lives, my next animated short (due circa 2030). Life goes on.

October 2007. I buy a necklace for Burd's birthday. It's very nice. I look at the ring on the website a couple of times and rue my pisspoor finances.

November 2007. The Lass gets her birthday pendant and is very happy. I get a temporary, somewhat unexpected promotion at work and am also very happy. All the more so because the jump in wage is substantial enough to put me in a position where I could clear my overdraft well within a year, maybe even six months. Considering I've been in debt using that overdraft constantly for at least the last 12 years, this is pretty bloody exciting. The idea thickens. I realise that there is absolutely no doubt that I want to propose to my girl, but I need to figure out how, where and when.

December 2007. I ask the Lass for advice on good Orcadian jewellery, ostensibly to consider what to get Mum for Christmas (when in fact I already knew just what I'd be doing) but really to see if there were other jewellers of note on those islands that might be good for a ring. The pay rise was good, but still not enough to reach the heady heights of the Sheila Fleet ring, and if I waited until I could afford that, well, that'd be a ruddy long time, and the floaty idea was getting impatient, insistent and more serious by the day. She recommends Ola Gorie, and gives me a catalogue to look at, where I make a big deal of looking at the ear-rings.

Ha ha! Such subterfuge! Once alone, I instead went straight for the rings, my eye very quickly settling on one particular design. It's still more than I'd ever normally spend on anything non-Apple, but not the heart-crushing figure that the SF ring was. At work, I ask a few of the women in the office their opinion of said ring and whether it would be a suitable engagement ring. The squeals are all positive. But! I have no idea what ring size the Burd is, asking her would be too much of a clue, and I dread getting an approximation from her existing jewellery, ordering the ring and then, on the day of days, discovering the approximation was way off and it would only fit on her pinkie. Even if I got a 'token' ring produced for the proposing - having contemplated commissioning Hugh to carve a wooden ring for this purpose - there's no way to be absolutely sure what finger size it should be. What to do?

7th December 2007. Breakthrough! I ask the Lass for a list of various goodies she might like for christmas, so that I can be sure of getting her something she'll like. A very handy list follows, including - gasp! - a ring. Complete with the Lass's ring size. Now we know! I follow the link, and the ring is a beauty, simple and silver, produced by Elizabeth Scott who sells on Etsy under ES Designs. When I see it, the pieces that have been floating around my head for a few weeks fall into place: this is the ring you propose with, then - assuming she says yes - you make sure she likes the Ola Gorie ring, the two of you go up to Orkney and you get that ring there, fitted especially for her finger. It's perfect.

25th December 2007. The Lass doesn't get the ES ring for christmas. However unbeknownst to her, I've been in contact with Elizabeth Scott and arranged to buy the ring, having it sent to my office address so Burd doesn't spot it in the mail and wonder why I've received a strange little package from Americaland. Floaty thoughts about how, where and when to propose are considered in more detail.

7th January 2008. First day back at work and the ring arrives. Oh, it's lovely. The ladies of the office coo their approval. Various thoughts and plans on the how, when and where of proposing have ramped up furiously over the last fortnight and crank up all the more now I'm back at work.

...Edinburgh Zoo... no, too many people... Hidden Gardens... maybe, what if it rains?... surprise trip to Skye... she'd guess the moment we're on the train... dinner at the Witchery... venue would be a giveaway... cook a special meal at home... maybe, I dunno, feels like it should be done somewhere else, somewhere non-everyday... at the train station when she gets back from Paris next week... no, she'll be knackered, exhausted ... propose via CuteOverload... tsk, too late... edit together footage from Family Guy to make a proposal, burn it onto DVD and put it on one evening when we're having dinner... cute, but very fiddly... where, dammit, where?... and when - oh fuck, it's a leap year - what if she pops the question on the 29th?!... at the train station just before she goes to Paris next week... are you nuts, that'd be fucking cruel... at dinner at Iglu... hmm, maybe, can imagine everyone watching us there... we're shy, dammit!... it's got to be a good 'story', we'll be telling it for days after...

See, I want the proposal to be a complete surprise. I'm very very aware that this is the only time I'll ever get the chance to do this, so I have to get it right. It needs to be somewhere that's sweet in some way, personal, but not cheesy; out of the ordinary, yet not so much that she'd immediately suspect something was up. At this point I'm thinking that the best time to do it would be Monday 21st, a day after she's back from Paris when we were planning on both taking the day off and taking it easy, maybe going for a nice meal somewhere - Iglu, David Banns - which seems like the best opportunity to pop the question. The ring sits in my filing cabinet at work, impatiently.

11th January 2008. It's the end of the week and I've come to the conclusion that I need to propose before she goes to Paris. I keep imagining her sitting on her tod on the Eurostar, looking down at the ring on her finger and smiling. I have to make this happen somehow, but I'm still very much undecided on how. I'd concocted plans during the week for us to go off somewhere nice - but not far - on Saturday 12th, to make up for being apart the following weekend, my proposal targets being either the Hidden Gardens in Glasgow or, if she didn't fancy getting the train over there, go for a coastal walk by North Berwick, then pop the question. On the plus side, the weather forecasts for the 12th are good, chilly but rain-free. However, the unsuspecting target of all this plotting has been feeling poorly all week and doesn't know whether she'll want to leave the flat at all. I tell her not to worry about it, trying not to sound remotely nervous or hysterical, thinking all the while of the ring sitting in my coat's inside pocket. So close, so close...

12th January 2008, 9am. Argh! Balls! Fuck! Tits! The Lass is not a healthy lass this morning and clearly is in no shape for travelling to Glasgow, North Berwick or quite possibly anywhere else for that matter. I ponder furiously, briefly considering waiting a day until I check the forecast and see that Sunday is expected to be 24 hours of heavy rain. Monday or Tuesday are both workdays and I'm damned if I can think of a decent way to propose with us both worn down from a day at work. One furrowed brow later, I'm positive that it has to be this day.

12pm. I gently talk Burd into coming for a walk along the canal, reasoning that the nice fresh air (very chilly, very sunny, not a cloud in the sky) might help her feel better and it'd be good to get moving for a wee bit. She accepts! I make sure my business-as-normal face is on securely and we leave the flat, heading west along the Union Canal, my awareness of the ring in my coat pocket cranked up to infinity, I almost expect it to thud loudly, Telltale Heart-style. How can she not know it's there? How can everybody not know it's there? The forces of gravity and mass seem to go wonky around the ring and I have the peculiar sense of orbiting the ring, or following it, pulling me where it wants to go. Lyrics from Tom Waits' Crossroads briefly spring to mind before being drowned out by loud, wide-eyed, super-anxious thoughts:

...Where are we doing this??? The bridge? Don't be stupid, too narrow... She'll want to turn around soon... What are you going to SAY?!... has to be a surprise, got to get it right FIRST TIME... where? when? where? how? where?... along the Water of Leith... will she go that far??... what if it's full of walkers?... where?... think what you're going to say, THINK...

Much of the canal is iced over and it looks lovely, spooky and still. There's plenty of people walking, jogging and cycling on the canal and it feels wrong, it's too open, too public, it won't work anywhere along here. Since last night, as a contingency, I've had one location in mind and the nearer we get to it, I know it's the only place I can do this. We just have to get there.

12:30pm. We've reached Slateford Aquaduct, the point where the Union Canal and Water of Leith overlap (albeit at very different heights), but the Lass is feeling tired and wants to go home. Shit! Don't panic lad, we planned for this. I play the somewhat pitiful over-excitable boyfriend card, saying I just want to go a teeny bit further along the Water of Leith and see the nice little stone building we saw there last time on a similar walk a week or so ago. She agrees, I act pleased (inside I'm whooping with relief) and we start walking down the steps towards the Water of Leith pathway. My adrenaline levels leap, I feel my eyes widen just a little more and my hands shake, but not from the cold. Thank goodness for sunglasses and coat pockets. My mind is screaming:

OH CHRIST OH FUCKING HELL WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY?!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU PRACTICE THIS?! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY?! FUCK FUCK FUCK! YOU CAN'T MESS THIS UP! OH GOD IT'S JUST A FEW MINUTES AWAY! THINK!! THINK!!! DON'T FUCK UP!! WHAT IF SHE SAYS NO?! THINK!!!

12:45pm. We cross the road and walk past the Dell Inn (once known as the Tickled Trout), following the Water of Leith. It's notably quieter, and we hardly see anyone as we walk along a little further. My heart is racing like FUCK, as is my mind which is scrabbling for the perfect opening line and failing miserably, and when the little stone building we're aiming for comes into view my mind briefly shrieks like a firebell and I feel so anxious, so nervous, so inexplicably scared that in retrospect it seems ludicrous but at the time was utterly genuine, I shit ye not. See, that little stone building is where I'd decided to propose, being a wee bit secluded, by the water, with a 'window' at the back through which you can see tiny waterfalls rolling down towards the river. I didn't know what it was for and assumed it was something to do with milling, just like every other old stone building alongside the Water of Leith, but it felt right. Mind you, the fact the doorway is open to the elements meant that just before we walked in my thoughts suddenly yelped

OH GOD WHAT IF IT SMELLS OF PISS IN THERE?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

(It was only a few days after that I discovered that, far from being mill-related, the little stone building was an 18th century romantic grotto for a nearby mansion house. Really, you couldn't make this stuff up.)

12:50pm. Thankfully, it was pee-free. We went in and the Lass sat down on the ledge of the window, taking a well-earned rest. I stayed standing, affecting nonchalance while inside I told all the shrieking thoughts to

SHUT THE FUCK UP because here we go, here we go, no pre-prepared lines, we're going to do this now, no turning back, ready, ready, ready, you can do this, you're the man, just say what's right, say what's true, ready, ready, aaaaaaand GO!

I stroked the top of her head and made what I hoped sounded like a conversational note of how long we'd been together (2 and a half years, fact fans!) and let that hang in the air for a moment. She smiled, happy enough, and I knew - she really doesn't know this is coming. SWEET! FULL STEAM AHEAD!

I told her how wonderful those 2 & a half years had been, how she made my life so much better, how I didn't want to be with anyone else but her for the rest of my life, and they were the truest words I've ever spoken.

Her eyes widened. My heartrate was like a hummingbird. The universe beyond the little stone building vanished.

I reached into my coat pocket , pulled out the ring box and got down on one knee. Katherine gasped "oh my god...", hands to her mouth, utterly astonished.

I opened the ring box, looked into the eyes of my love and asked her to be my wife.

....

12:55pm.

Well, that was a relief.

Normality Resumes

(First time I’ve tried posting via MacJournal, so hopefully this’ll work and not vanish into the digital ether)

She’s back! Hooray! I’ve been living on my tod for the last few days while the newly ring-sporting Burd went off to Paris for work-related gubbins and the purchasing of two unfeasibly beautiful books full of artwork by Studio Ghibli’s Kazuo Oga (background artwork from Totoro? Check! Concept art from Pom Poko? Check! Luscious watercolours of Japanese landscapes? Oh fucking check!) from a Japanese bookshop. It’s the first time since we moved in over two years back that we’d been apart for a few days and quite frankly it sucked, the flat feeling weirdly empty and quiet, so much so that I ended up working late in the evenings at the office. I’d thought it’d be great to churn through all my gloriously 18-rated films that gross out the missus (starting with Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste and hurtling downhill from there) but in the end I just moped around the flat and got sod all done. An attempt at watching the DVD of Ghostwatch was scuppered when I got the fear after five minutes and turned it off (and with good reason - when I woke up at 2am that morning I got brief flashbacks just from that five minutes, so fuck knows what the full monty would’ve done). Shut up, it’s spooky!

So how else to fill a Chatiry-shaped void? Thankfully, we had our work christmas lunch on Friday (January is the new December, haven’t you heard? Actually, we were double-booked in December, but in retrospect it was better to have it in January, free of all that pre-christmas stress, noise and music). Due to my constant rabbiting about the excellence of Iglu, the lunch was had there and it turned out to be as gorgeous as ever, eschewing the typical turkey-and-tinsel guff for chicken paté, pan-fried duck and mulled wine pear. Delicious! If you’re in Edinburgh and will be looking for somewhere to have your christmas lunch later this year for 30 people or less, do get in touch with Iglu, they’re thoroughly right-on, treat you like kings and make food that’s a real pleasure. Plus they play Tom Waits and dub reggae in the background and there’s Black Isle Blond beer there - on tap!

Now, during the course of Friday afternoon and evening I quaffed a certain amount of said Blond as well as some complimentary red wine, so come Saturday morning I was a tad... fragile. I took the whole day exceedingly easy, venturing out for the Farmers Market and spending the rest of the day indoors enjoying the trio of noisy LPs that had just arrived from Plastichead - Killing Joke, October File and Red Harvest, on blue, white and red vinyl respectively, a nice tricolore of industrial riffage and bellowing. I finally managed to get round to watching some good splattery horror that evening with the comedy genius of Evil Dead 2 rocking my little world while I feasted on roast tatties and parsnips with an Auchtertool Angus mince round (serves 3? Ahh, so that’s why I felt stuffed).

Sunday rolled around and I scampered about the flat, getting it tidy and shooing the wild pigs out before the Lass returned. Brunch at the Caley Sample Room was smashing as always, after which I swanned over to the local Cineworld for a preview showing of Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd. Ye gods! I thought it was bloody marvellous, but be well aware that it is a full blown musical and anyone who doesn’t enjoy musicals in general will probably be severely wound up by all the singing. Not me though! It’s also gloriously vicious, earning the 18 rating nicely with explicit throat slashing all over the shop, and it’s a tremendously good-looking film, one of the best depictions of a dark, pre-electric-light London city, practically monochromatic. Johnny Depp is excellent, somewhere between Edward Scissorhands and Christopher Walken’s headless horseman in Sleepy Hollow (when he had a head), and everyone else is well up to scratch, Alan Rickman at his most bastardy, a superbly sleazy Timothy Spall, and Helena Bonham Carter’s fascinatingly bewitching eyes and heaving bosom. If you’re the kind of person who’d enjoy both Evil Dead 2 and My Fair Lady, you’ll have a great time.

A little more aimless moping about followed, including a shopping jaunt to Morningside where people are forced to walk in the street if they earn less than 30K, before one last hoovering, buzzing with anticipation. And then the Burd came back, and All Was Good Again.

"Yes"

"...I believe in Love
And I know that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you."
- Into My Arms, Nick Cave

'Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face', originally uploaded by chatirygirl.

Taken earlier this afternoon. If you're wondering why we look so happy, there's a little silver ring on Katherine's finger that wasn't there before...

Full story to come, no doubt, but for now I'm going to leave the computer alone and relax in the living room with my fiancée.

That's right, my fiancée. WOOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!

Spin The Black Circle

It's been years since I've had a functional turntable in my clammy paws, what with my previous one giving up the spinning ghost somewhere between the Shire and Glasgow in 2002.  Since then I've had two boxes full of vinyl and sod all to do with them apart from look at them wistfully and think just how much nicer album artwork looks on a full 12" sleeve than in a CD jewel box or iTunes window.  There's been this vague intention to get a new turntable for the past few years, but it was only when Radiohead's glorious In Rainbows discbox plummeted into my life - complete with the album spread over two heavyweight vinyl records - that I finally decided to do something about it.

But where's a boy to begin?  The only turntable I've had was connected to a hi-fi unit, which doesn't appear to happen anymore, so it was through the separates that I started to look, starting with Richer Sounds.  I figured that it'd be better to get a good quality one, rather than the cheapest available, with the hope that I'll still be using it in a decade or so, and didn't fancy any of the USB models being flogged by places like Maplin as their primary purpose seemed to be transferral rather than decent playback.  The more stores and review sites I looked at, the same name kept coming up - Pro-Ject.  Described here as "perhaps the largest producer of enthusiast-grade turntables in the world," Pro-Ject has been making record players for more than fifty years, based to the east of Prague, and their Debut III turntable was repeatedly listed as the best choice in the relatively-sensible price range I was trying to stay in - What Hi-Fi awarded it Best Turntable Under £300, yet it's less than half that price (three hundred quid on a turntable?!).  The more I read about it, the more I liked - "for those accustomed to digital sounds, the Pro-Ject Debut III is likely to be a revelation [...] you will undoubtedly be stunned by how much more music you'll hear" (The Absolute Sound, June/July 2007) - but I was left perplexed by a couple of things.

Now, with that old hi-fi turntable of mine, there was a little switch that you pressed to change speed from 33 to 45 rpm, plus a 'play' button that would automatically lift the stylus arm from its rest, move it to the rim of the record and gently plonk it down.  Oh, and the system would automatically lift the arm away from the record once it had reached the end, putting it back to rest without the slightest bit of human intervention.  I'd assumed, rather naîvely it turned out, that this was standard practice with turntables.  Nope!  Instead, while the cheaper models included these features, the more expensive turntables pitched at the audiophile market, such as Pro-Ject, Cambridge Audio and Goldring, were pretty much feature-free.  For a technology nerd who's grown up associating extra cost with extra stuff, this was a bit confusing - the more you pay, the less you get?  Even more bogglingly, these features could be attained, but only via different separate boxes (change speed for £75 or £280! ye gods!) or by buying a more expensive version of the Debut III.  Otherwise, record speed is changed by actually lifting up the turntable and moving the drivebelt from pulley to pulley, and the only way the stylus is going back in its rest at the end of a record is when you put it there yourself.  It's a whole new world...

Still, I went with the feature-free Debut III.  Why?  Well, I figured this sparseness was for a reason, suggesting it was designed with one sole purpose - quality playback of music - not to be compromised for the sake of convenience or economy.  Reading up on all this (oh, the research I did before pressing the buy button!) emphasised that this would be a toe-dip into the deep and murky waters of audiophiles, where people speak of valves, tubes, semi-conductors, "sweet spots", platters and woofers, the joy of analog, the weight of vinyl and cartridges, the positioning of powerpoints and circuit breakers... it really is a whole new world of nerdiness, and one which intrigues me, yet looks ludicrously expensive and unnecessary, especially with us living in tenements where it just wouldn't be neighbourly to crank the speakers up (hell, after last year it'd be downright hypocritical).  If I do step further into these sonic-obsessive waters, they'll be very slow, very slight steps - at least until we've got our own completely detached house and I can turn one room into The Chamber Of Sound, at which point I'll probably go mad, grow a massive beard, buy every Grateful Dead LP and go deaf in a month.

Anyway, I got the turntable (in black, naturally).  So how is it?  Well, set-up was a bit of a culture shock for someone used to getting things out of the box ready to run (the iMac that I'm typing this on, for example).  But this turntable was another matter - transport screws had to be removed, the belt looped on, turntable and mat added, then the fiddly matter of balancing out the tonearm (thank goodness for Needles & Spins interpretation of this bit).  I'm sure it's all a doddle for those experienced and expecting it, but for a turntable n00b like me it was a bit daunting, with nightmare images coming to mind of getting the balance all wrong, gouging that precious stylus deep into the first record I put on.  Thankfully, I didn't - gouge, that is - and it worked like a charm first time, and it seemed only right the first record played was disc one side one of In Rainbows.  Now, the speakers and amp I'm using for playback aren't great (in fact they're the hi-fi that used to have a turntable with it) but even so I'm pretty bloody sure I can hear a palpable difference between music on the turntable and the same on the CD player.  There's a clarity, a depth to the analog sound that isn't so present on the digital version, certain instruments or rhythms become clearer.  Track one from In Rainbows, 15 Step, is a good example, with the initial BOMP beats deep and contrasting that much more with the slippery electronic sounds that start the track, and when the guitar glides in, oh, it's lovely, sounding so smooth and fresh it's almost intimate.  To be fair, it's a bonza track whichever way it's heard and the production on it is so good that a 128kbps MP3 of it still sounds thrilling, but playing it back that first time on vinyl was almost as gleeful as the first time I heard the album, fresh from downloading that fateful day in October last year.

I know that this probably sounds like hyperbole and I wondered if there could be a placebo effect of sorts, as though I'm willing vinyl playback to sound better than digital (because if it didn't I'd have been a berk to have bothered), but even with sub-standard amp and minor speakers I'm sure that there is a real and tangible improvement in the sound of the LPs and 12"s I've played compared to their CD, MP3 and AAC counterparts.  In a bizarre reversal of what my folks were doing twenty years ago, I'm now hoping to get albums on vinyl that I already have on CD.  Not all of them, not even close, but just the odd few that I think would really benefit.  'Big' sounding bands like Sigur Ros, Isis, Killing Joke, Boris, Mono (I've already got Godspeed You Black Emperor's back catalogue on vinyl, and it's a joy to play it like this again), music that veers from the quietest of quiet to the loudest of roars.

And it's not just the sound - when you've become so used to the convenience, quick-hit of digital playback, there's something strangely ceremonial about playing a record, especially on a manual turntable like this.  From sliding the record out of the sleeve, placing it on the mat (having methodically moved the belt onto the right pulley beforehand), gently lifting and lowering the stylus onto the record... it's not arduous, but it takes time, and once that needle is down the first impulse is to sit back and savour what you've started rather than carry on with whatever nonsense you're in the middle of, especially when the record player is good enough to bring out the best in the sound.  Add to that the aesthetic pleasure of a full-size 12" record sleeve (I'm this close to framing the sleeve for the original 12" of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart I bought in a second-hand shop - the thumbnail shown looks indifferent, but at full-size it's a heartbreaker) and you've got music as a real tangible object, rather than a bunch of zeroes and ones.  It's not just for nostalgia - though my heart really did jump for joy when I started playing my old KLF 12" singles on Monday night - but for taking time to appreciate music, rather than just have it rattling along magnificently in the background, and using a record player like the Debut III encourages you to give the attention that the best songs deserve.  A bit like drinking a good single malt whisky, playing an album becomes something to be savoured, not devoured.  So, yeah, vinyl - it's whisky for the ears.  Slainte!

MP3 of the week: RED!

Good lord, isn't this a bit early in the day for blogging? Sadly I've been up since 5am thanks to a resurgent cold mucking up my sinuses and generally bunging my noggin up. I'm on holiday for goodness sake, I shouldn't be up until it's time for elevenses. Ah well, since I'm here I may as well make up for yesterday's non-freebie of musical joy with some proper legit MP3 goodness...

One of the last albums I got to hear last year was by a group called Baroness, who I only knew of thanks to Amazon and their pesky recommendations. Signed to ear-batterers-par-excellence Relapse Records (home of previous MP3OTW stars High on Fire and Pig Destroyer), what really caught my eye when they cropped up on Amazon was the artwork for their debut album, notably different to the monochrome covers of doom usually found in metalworld. Curiously, it reminds me a wee bit of some of the Glasgow Style artwork at Kelvingrove, and their previous three releases (all EPs) feature a colourful and distinct style that really stands out nicely. Lookee!

Turns out they're the work of John Baizley, clearly a thoroughly talented graphic artist (check out these two t-shirt designs). But that's not enough, ohhh no, he has to go and be a bloody good singer/guitarist as well, because that's him hollering away in Baroness. The scamp! Baroness's debut album, Red Album, came out in September last year and there's a couple of tracks from it available for your listening pleasure on the Relapse site. It's good melodic heavy stuff, in the same vein as Isis, Pelican and Mastodon rather than the veritable sonic onslaught of Pig Destroyer, thick powerful riffs and rhythms that move all over the shop. If you've ever enjoyed the sound of an electric guitar chugging hard, you really should check out The Birthing, which starts steady, pulls a nifty false-stop, then mid-way goes into an utterly glorious rock-out reminiscent of Iron Maiden's The Number Of The Beast. Of course, the other track's a smasher too.

The Birthing (MP3, 4.6MB)
O'Appalachia (MP3, 2.4MB)

(If the links don't work, go here and scroll down to Baroness) It's an excellent album, one of the best of 2007, remarkably confident and solid considering it's their first full-length album, and at $12 from Relapse in America it's a veritable steal. I bought it via Emusic (and most likely will get it on vinyl later in the year), while Amazon UK has it for a tenner They're on tour in Europe over the next couple of months and will be at Glasgow's NicenSleazy at the end of January with Kylesa (who I'd never heard until this morning, but like what I'm hearing) - getting to & from gigs in Glasgow is quite a hassle, so I'm not sure if I'll go, but their live reputation is mighty (nice wee review in the Bostonist last month) and this footage from a show in New York looks and sounds cracking.

What's The Gaelic For 'Soylent Green'?

Just about to take my first sup of Laphraoig Single Malt 10 Yr Old (christmassy gift from Mum) and thought I'd have a gander at their website while doing so, if only to see if I was pronouncing it correctly as "lah-fraaaaargh". Well, turns out it's "la-froyg" which isn't half as fun. However, given my anti-cannibalism stance, I was exceedingly disturbed to read this on the front page...

"There are 3 main ingredients for making Laphroaig - Barley, Water, and Yeast, but the secret ingredient is the People."

Gah! No wonder the islands are under-populated. Still, I've already poured the dram, so I may as well try some, humanoid-content or not..

First - the smell. Woof! It's a formidable scent... stings the nostrils... is that Love Panther? It does wonders for the sinuses anyway, a bit like Vaporub.

Next - first taste. Whuh! Oh, now that's different. Initial KA-BLAM in the mouth, quickly followed by a distinctly peaty smell/taste towards the back of the mouth, increasingly tasty and warming. Let's try that again.

Whuh! Did it again, seems to connect with the nose more than whiskies normally do, if that makes the slightest bit of sense, feels as though it's tasted by some point between nose and upper mouth. Most peculiar, but after the initial shock of the initial BOSH it's very nice. It's a hearty bugger, no doubt about it, surprisingly evocative and tasty for a 10 year old. The site says...

In making Laphroaig, malted barley is dried over a peat fire. The smoke from this peat, found only on Islay, gives Laphroaig its particularly rich flavour.

...which would account for that tangible peatiness that's somewhere between taste and scent. It's a whisky that certainly demands your attention and I can't imagine ever having a drink of this without momentarily lurching back just a little, eyes momentarily bulging (well, more than usual), but the following taste is pleasing indeed. It's the kind of dram that goes well with wistful moments, soothing music playing in the background (Colleen's The Golden Morning Breaks is on right now and is ludicrously perfect for this), daydreaming in that wistful way that whisky encourages - I like to imagine the SMWS Members Rooms like some kind of meditation chamber, everyone with distant eyes and dreamy sighs. Anyway, first impressions of this are good indeed - though I wouldn't rate this over Talisker or Bowmore thus far, the Laphroaig 15 Yr Old sounds like it could be much more my cup of tea, so to speak. The website describes drinking it as being one of the ultimate highs in life, so at that rate I assume drinking the 40 year old is akin to beating God at arm-wrestling. My desire to do a comprehensive sketchbook tour of the distilleries of Scotland just got cranked up a couple more notches. You'll have to excuse me now - there's just enough left in the glass for some quality daydreaming of waves crashing against shores, little white houses against a windswept shore, ahhhh...

Technorati Tags: laphroaig, whisky

"Blame It On The Falling Sky..."

Now, the following would be an MP3 of the week, only it's available to buy as a single track and posting the actual MP3 here would therefore be very naughty.  However, it's such a treat - and, conversely, so rarely heard - that it deserves a few sentences of my enthusiastic yelping.

One of the problems of being subscribed to the RSS feeds of a wodge of music blogs (currently Awesome Tapes From Africa, Because Midway Still Aren't Coming Back, Copy,Right?, Funky16Corners, GorillaVsBear, Skatterbrain, Southern Lord Records) is that often I'll download tracks from them which I never then get round to hearing for weeks, nay, months, nay, years.  I'm a feckless soul, it's true.  However, it also means that when I do finally get round to hearing one of these tracks, usually thanks to the joy of iTunes and the shuffle button, I can be knocked off my socks with pleased surprise at unheard & unexpected excellence (or, sometimes, shriek with horror at the musical shite that's been sitting on my hard drive waiting to pounce on my ears).  So it was that a couple of weeks back the random factor pulled up a live recording of Radiohead's Black Star, given the acoustic treatment by country chanteuse Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in Minneapolis, September 2004.  I've no idea which blog I got it from - quite possibly Copy, Right back in December 2006 - but it's a superb cover of an already ruddy great track, the stripped-down sound fitting the melody and lyrics like a tailor-made glove.  Now available to buy, it's only 99 cents from Gillian's own website or 79p from iTunes - just follow the below link.  Worth every cent/penny, it's well worth hearing no matter your opinion on the original.

Black Star (link to iTunes)

Even though I had the file already, I've gone ahead & bought it since a) the artist deserves the money and b) the iTunes version comes as a 256kbps file, making the quality just that bit sweeter.  As a taster, here's a recording of it on YouTube, though the sound quality isn't great, the camera lurches a bit and you can hear the recorder singing along...