Author: Ian France
-
Year Of The Monkey
Title: Year of The Monkey Author: Patti Smith Rating: ★★★★1/2 Review: There’s a fine line trodden with stream-of-consciousness-type writing. It can seem indulgent, disjointed, illogical. Patti Smith falls the right side of the paradigm with this excellent set of memoirs and metaphors from the titular lunar year. It centres around a trip to a small…
-
The Afternoon Slot
This playlist is taken from my Stylus radio station series, which deals in mainly alternative music. The Afternoon Slot is about avoiding that post-prandial slump with a mix of hard-hitting and uplifting beats. The Afternoon Slot / 1: After lunch can be tricky. Food weighing heavily, a little tired from your morning activities, hometime still…
-
Crossing A Dark Bridge – Hint
Remember our intrepid explorers? They were trying to cross a rickety bridge with a run-down torch. If you need a reminder of the problem, find it here. If you’re struggling with it, here’s a hint to help you. Presumably you’re working on the principle that 2 people cross together and one brings it back for…
-
The ArchAndroid
Album: The ArchAndroid Artist: Janelle Monáe Year: 2010 Genre: Progressive Soul Run Time: 1h4m Rating: 86.48% Review: A first class soul opera, featuring rap, strings, ambient noises, and classical piano. Beautiful, inspiring, and epic in scope. A fabulous album.
-
Nostalgia?
A Microstory You know that feeling when a song comes on the radio that you haven’t heard in years? That happened to me the other day, when a hit from yesteryear played early in the morning, just as the sun was peeping over the horizon. I’d been up earlier than usual and I was feeling…
-
The Shape Of Jazz To Come
Album: The Shape Of Jazz To Come Artist: Ornette Coleman Year: 1959 Genre: Free Jazz Run Time: 38m Rating: 79.71% Review: Ornette Coleman was the father of what he called Harmolodics, a method in free jazz of improvising the melodic line whilst simultaneously harmonising with it. It was certainly a bold move to title this…
-
For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)
Album: For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) Artist: AC/DC Year: 1981 Genre: Hard Rock Run Time: 40m Rating: 77.27% Review: You can be fairly sure of what you’re getting with AC/DC. Simplistic lyrics, simplistic chords — a hard rock recipe that’s been around since the dawn of said genre. That doesn’t mean it’s…
-
Ambition > Ability Discipline > Motivation
No doubt you will have noticed, if you work in anything approaching a corporate environment – or ever have – that those at the top are not necessarily the ones with the top abilities. It’s that same the world over. Rarely are those who are in charge the ones who know the most, or have…
-
Crossing A Dark Bridge
I like this puzzle. 4 people need to cross a rickety bridge after dark. In order to cross it, they must have a torch with them. They all move at different speeds: the first could cross the bridge in 1 minute; the second in 2 minutes; the third in 5 minutes; and the fourth in…
-
Quicksilver
This playlist is taken from my Converse radio station series, which focuses on whole-album play-throughs. Quicksilver plays back to back albums from Mercury Prize alumni. Quicksilver / 1: Get a load of some block rockin’ beats with The Chemical Brothers’ masterwork, Dig Your Own Hole (nominated 1997): hard, funky and bass-heavy breaks. Follow that with…
Centred 