Gunther Verheyen is an independent Scrum Caretaker and Workplace Humanitarian on a journey of humanizing the workplace.
Alhoewel een jaar uit 12 maanden bestaat, maak je het niet noodzakelijk in 12 maanden. Mijn jaarkalender van Winnie-de-Poeh ging eerst van januari tot juni, dan naar juli, augustus, september, oktober en november om tot en met december een volledig jaar te vormen:
Jaja, de kreten van bewondering moeten niet onderdrukt worden…
Voilà, het jaar is volgemaakt. Op 7 jaar tijd ging ik maar van januari tot juni. Maar daarna in 1+1/2 jaar door juli, augustus, september, oktober en november tot in december… van mijn Poeh borduurwerk.
Enfin, daarmee is mijn geboortegeschenk voor Ian klaar. Net niet vòòr zijn ter-aardekoming, maar, ach, uiteindelijk is hij nog maar net 8.
Hypnotic pulses and stratospheric waves drive a mystic voice whispering about the inhaling Earth. The listener awakes to a beautiful thing to hear. Once awake he finds himself In This Light And On This Evening.
The opening tracks of the new Editors album gave me a feeling of being dragged along a psychosonic trip through 70’s Jarre synths, Radiohead-ish morphs and imagery of the Future (Sound) Of London, melted in a clearly recognizable Editors sound. Genuine rock, even while it lacks… guitars.
And the album keeps surprising as could be hoped from the 2 demo versions on the Papillon EP. Editors have not only set course into a new musical galaxy, Tom Smith has clearly entered a new era as vocalist. Luckily there is still his manic drive (as in his live act) but he’s explored more sides to his singing. Venomously layered irony, higher regions.
The Cuttings II bonus CD strikes even harder. Experimentalism. Gravely effective with its explosions of semi-symphonic nature, re-introduced guitar kick punches, layers of thunder. Enter NIN. Plastic(s). Dance. Entertain. Count. Money. The way you found your god. Silent debts.
Hand of Flood.
Ik ging op reis en heb veel gelezen. Rare boeken.
De enige echte Elvis, zijnde Peeters, is een talige duizendpoot. Dat blijkt uit zijn songwerk bij Aroma di Amore en De Legende, zijn literaire concerten, een paardenverhaal (van Nietzsche), zijn gedichten en… romans. De laatste in de rij las ik op reis, WIJ.
Wij toont ons de leefwereld van een vriendengroep. Waar verveling leidt tot experiment. En experiment tot ontsporing. Waar streling geen tederheid is. In een boek dat geen moreel oordeel geeft, vraagt of verdient. Gewoon, de ondraaglijke leegheid van gruwel.
Peeters beschrijft ongepaste daden met gepaste, a-morele scherpte. Met explicitisme verontrustender over de bredere omgeving waarin de hyper-verveling gedijt dan de uitspattingen van de hyperverveelden zelf.
Een absoluut hoogtepunt is de verantwoording van de ontsporingen in een marktgericht denken. De gehanteerde analogieën oprecht… ironisch. De hoofdstuktitels… kippenvel. De ware gruwel… de verlichte vorm van gewenning, tolerantie. Wat je pas beseft als je met brute kracht weer wakker wordt geknald. De (nochtans voorspelde) truuk met de wesp, de ultiem zelfzuchtige ‘oplossing’ met de baseball bat, de fatale ‘krak’. Het open einde laat veel… open. De zekerheid dat diezelfde zij van Wij het helemaal zullen maken in de wereld van ons. slik
De gebruikte taal mocht meer staccato, nog meer de taal van de verworpenen, nog meer desinteresse. Het vertelperspectief iets duidelijker. En de mix van de hippe muziek van zij die zich verwerpen en de voorliefde voor Heidegger en co van hij die toch wat anders is, komt niet los van de schrijver zelf.
Maar globaal heeft Peeters gedaan wat literatuur soms kan (Dag Arm Varkentje): het onvoorstelbare voorstelbaar maken. Daarmee heeft deze Elvis het gebouw duidelijk nog niet verlaten. Amai.
(ik geeft toe dat ik ooit -1998- zijn romandebuut ‘Spa’ las en niet onder de indruk was, zodat het terug in de winkel verdween)
The Papillon EP by Editors gives me excitement, like I only remember from feeling at the release of the An End Has A Start EP by… Editors.
The phrase ‘if there really was a god here, he’d have raised a hand by now‘ 
resonates the same down to earth coolness of ‘some things should be simple, even an end has a start‘. The dark vocals are now covered in electronics, but the band still rocks. Haunted. Caged. A papillon on an island.
Make our escape, you’re my own papillon.
IT KICKS LIKE A SLEEP TWITCH !
(can’t wait to get the full album, limited edition)
How watching Watchmen might turn into a depressing experience:
1. Either you’ve read the extraordinary comic and you won’t recognize it.
Gone are: a carefully revealing puzzle, everyday hero backgrounds, their naive intentions, the retro-graphics, the suggestion of violence.
Enter: explicit atrocity, underportrayed characters, übershiny costumes and graphics. Luckily the end scenes preserve the philosophical core of the book and (just partly) save some of the movie.
2. Either you haven’t read the extraordinary comic and you have doubts.
You wonder: what is this movie about? What connects all pieces?
One advise: read the book. Reconsider this obnoxious movie afterwards.
By the way, it is NOT impossible to make a good movie from an Alan Moore product. Check out V for Vendetta (soundtrack by David J). And while From Hell may have been mediocre, Watchmen is really disappointing.
A man with a familiar voice wanders off to a different musical spectrum. Determined to be judged on his own merits. That this will be his party.
Clearly different rhythms and breaks. Vocoders, a delicate touch of keys. Rocky edges, drops of sound. More mesmerizing as well. Pretty relaxing. Reflecting. But I feel reluctance, distance. I miss vocal energy. Does the Julian Plenti persona need more development? It is still a good record.
Who he is? Well, Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper. Cerebral celebration!
No betrayal though. A familiar musical spectrum here. Join the party!
Shortly after its release on DVD I watched the Joy Division rockumentary by Grant Gee (much acclaimed for similar stuff on Radiohead -‘famous’ it seems-). Being a sort of old-skool fan I couldn’t escape the same sense of disappointment I had with Control. It was good, maybe even great in a way, but it certainly didn’t fully live up to my expectations. Not excluding my expectations to be the problem.
I regretted that Control didn’t fully capture the insights from Deborah Curtis’ heartbreaking book Touching From A Distance. The problem with this Joy Division rockumentary is that it is mainly a collection of people talking about the band, about Ian, but without much focus or coherence.
The influence and ‘atmosphere’ of the grey concrete of Manchester is visually well captured. The visionary approach of Martin Hannett -sound of breaking glass-. Peter Saville‘s graphics. Authentic footage. All… nice.
But nothing on Warsaw? Their early recording? And no clear chronology or backgrounds on the making of the music, the songs. Confirmation that those who survived (aka New Order) can’t sit in the same room. I only liked Stephen Morris’ funny nervousness, kinda like his drumming.
Deborah Curtis preferred not to appear in a movie with a certain Mrs. Honoré in, but her contribution would have been tremendously bigger.
So, finality? It will probably never be. There are just… opinions.
No worries, Arctic Monkeys have not released any ‘rubbish’. But Humbug does have an unexpected relaxing, deep and resonating sound with an overall pretty mature and self-confident feel to it. Gone is the overstressed, rushing, high-speed sequence of crowded, multi-melodic songs.
Most of the typical style elements have remained though but in a calmer form. Luckily there still is Alex Turner’s amazing ability to stress syllables that you didn’t even know were there. And his way to cut up sentences but still make them fit some sort of rhyming purpose.
Monkeys may be animals, I don’t feel that the Arctics are D A N . G E R . O U S here. But maybe I’m just lost in an Age of the Understatement.
Once upon a time (in 2009) my attention was drawn to Florence+the Machine. However, around that time I was too busy being impressed by a strong, yet fairy-like, lady voice/musician known as Bat For Lashes. But great reviews on Florence’s summer festival performances convinced me to get Lungs anyway. 
And I now know (this is a confession) that I shouldn’t have hesitated in the first place.
This is truly a wonderful lady (and a machine, of whatever kind)! She put out a very strong album, that is musically substantially different from Mrs. Natasha’s (when -wrongfully- sticking to some form of comparison).
Power to this Florence that is no nightingale, but flies+sings with the firm conviction of an eagle. She has a steady and straight-forward power in her voice and in her lyrics. At most a little tremble -controlled-. The music is composed and arranged with lots of subtle layers. Enjoy the extraordinary collection of instruments.
Somewhere halfway there’s a fantastic playful, rocking interlude, clearly telling us not to mess around with her. Because I imagine she just might turn into this punk (song) princess that will set fire to your bed, despite her rabbit heart. In the way that she leaves no room for doubt (all over this record), you can tell that she has a lion heart (and lungs…).
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