History

Well, the inevitable happened: I started my boring new job and neglected my blog. Sorry about that. Having a proper daily routine has been quite a shock to the system. And at the weekend I completed a ludicrous 'drink your age in pints challenge', which knocked out both Saturday and Sunday. I feel lucky to be alive, but never mind about that.

Tomorrow's an exciting prospect, isn't it? I really hope Obama manages it. Sarah Palin worries me in a big way. Seriously. Most would-be beauty queens are bullshitting when they threaten to bring about world peace, but this woman is like all four horsemen rolled into one. In any case, I'm sure most of us will be glad to see the back of Bush. Then again, he did give us a few laughs along the way. (Small consolation for ruining large parts of the world, sure.) He also inspired some edgy, brave, heart-pounding music - music that will soon be consigned to history, just like the warmongering chimp himself:

Radiohead - The Gloaming (DJ Shadow Remix) (mp3)
Immortal Technique - Bin Laden (mp3)
Bloc Party - Helicopter (mp3)
M.I.A. - M.I.A. (Arular Bonus Track) (mp3)

More Intimacy

Bloc Party keep on surprising us with this new album. First they announced that Talons would be joining the CD release's tracklist (between Zephyrus and Better Than Heaven), now they've revealed a pair of new bonus tracks. If you're the kind of Bloc Party fan that complained about Flux being too dancey then wait until you've heard Your Visits Are Getting Shorter. It's basically 4/4 garage! (Or maybe 'bassline', if you like that term.) But don't worry, indie conservatives: Letter To My Son has a lot more in common with the band's first album.

Bloc Party - Talons (mp3)
Bloc Party - Your Visits Are Getting Shorter (mp3)
Bloc Party - Letter To My Son (mp3)

Intertextualité #3

Reading Festival 2008 should go down as one of Bloc Party's most triumphant performances so far. I took this photo when they'd just come on stage, I think - it was just before my friend and I made an effort to get right down the front. We did have a much better position, but we made a strategic pre-set trip to the toilet. We could have both held it, but there was little entertainment to be had from The Raconteurs' encore. Anyway, enough about our bladders. We'd seen Bloc Party play the same stage in 2007, but this time it was dark and they'd only just released their third album, Intimacy. The timing of that drop was a masterstroke. They opened the set with Mercury - cue lots of audience participation on the 'eh eh eeh' bits - then later they silenced us all with the brand new track One Month Off. You're always hearing new music at festivals, but it's something special when it's coming from a band who you've been listening to for years.

A couple of days later, once I'd scrubbed off five days' worth of festival dirt, I heard Ion Square for the first time. It's a beautiful album-closer and I loved it straight away. If you haven't already heard the song, I'd advise you to get hold of the album first. Once I'd given the whole thing a couple of listens I read Kitty Empire's Guardian review. (Why do we do that?) It was going alright until she claimed that Ion Square 'is basically I Still Remember all over again, but with machines'. Well I still remember how annoyed I felt when I read that comment. Both songs are about desire and retrospection - of course they are - but Kele is clearly telling a new story that details a much more grown-up relationship. For a notoriously shy frontman, he gets surprisingly frank about it. But there's still some coyness left; although he sings the f-word, he also quotes a poem by e.e. cummings:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Bloc Party - Ion Square (mp3)