It became this anomaly in my collection, Radiohead but not, and I forgot about it until today, when I thought I’d scan it with Last.fm’s command line fingerprinter which told me:

 <track confidence="0.245223">
     <artist>Ennio Morricone</artist>
     <title>Man With A Harmonica</title>
     <url>http://www.last.fm/music/Ennio+Morricone/_/Man+With+A+Harmonica</url>
 </track>

Which wasn’t what I expected at all.

But now a six-year odd mystery has been solved and I’d love to know how the fingerprinter works. Probably some hairy maths .. it’s impressive it can figure these things, especially now they’re automatically redirected.

It’s still an excellent song.

I wanted you to give it a whirl, in his memory.

Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Believe, Beleft, Below

Tape Loop, keeps on turning round, forever.

Hey, I reappeared, with everything intact.

Life went by, I spent a silly amount of time in Appleton Tower’s labs, and my musical life became electronica oriented – Amon Tobin, Venetian Snares, Pitch Black. I discovered the Amen Break and its extraordinary implications for the music we know. Electronica and piano. Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans could have my soul any day.

I was told by a child that ‘I’d like to go to Jamaica because I really want to kill some zombies’, and suddenly I’d rather like to visit this Jamaica that only exists in the world he inhabits.

Mogwai Fear Satan became my example definition of the sheer incredible nature of life. I’m surprised there’s not some kind of prose written along to it; starting from small groundings we get higher and higher and higher and higher until eventually we peak in minutes of glorious noise and from there it’s gentle fade out to the eventuality of death.

Didn’t I stop writing here because I was going to use LastFM’s journals?

Oh, and I discovered that googling ‘flamboyant american penis‘ returns zero results. :-(

I put a few photos from travels on Flickr, take a look and tell me they’re hot. I managed to post so little on the way I didn’t get to use a single Mogwai song title.

We’ll be poking our toes around Warsaw in twelve days now. I’ll totally use Mogwai song titles for posts along the way – We’re No Here, Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home and A Cheery Wave From Stranded Youngsters are a few (though hopefully not the last, I suppose). Smooth connection: These are some great Mogwai sessions. Download My Father, My King and You Don’t Know Jesus if you only want a taster. I have no idea how long they’ll remain available. And go see them live if you get the chance; I can’t think of any band more intense.

This is pretty astonishing.

The quality of support and jousting and play between John Zorn on sax and Dave Douglas on trumpet is entirely ridiculous and each member of the quartet seems to know exactly what the others might do, any given moment, even at 90mph. Zorn’s solos squeak and squeal and wail everywhere, always getting ever more intense, never once faltering. Douglas’ counterpoints to Zorn work brilliantly. The rhythms supporting are tense and pumping with energy. It’s how jazz should be. I’d really love to see them live – it seems almost bizarre I’ve never heard of the group before.

Ne’eman and Nashon are particular highlights, scarily fast and complex.

I have this down under silly because it’s so, SO fucking good it’s unreal.

It’s like some kind of throwback to five years ago or so, just with a greater variety of music.

Read a lovely summary of Mario and Sonic getting together on the Guardian Games blog:

Frankly, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley must be gutted that their potentially historic appearance together has now surely been superceded in the minds of many political pundits.

Quite.

There’s little left for me down here save family, photos of my childhood, a handful of old school friends, books, music and calm away from university. I had the very first metal I ever heard on the go earlier, courtesy of the free CD that came with Metal Hammer in April 2002. Down’s Beautifully Depressed still resonates just as strongly, the screams of Five Pointe O’s Untitled are still as shocking. I love how my mindset has subtly altered in the intervening years.

Rediscovering toasters has been a joy.

Saw the Esbjörn Svensson Trio on Sunday night at the Usher Hall, I hadn’t been quite so excited about a gig in a long time! After the brilliance of the show at the Barbican in 2005 I knew what to expect and I had that strange nervous chill that only gets you when you have your hopes up.

Support came from Chris Bow(the kind you take, not tie)den, and though the acoustics of the Usher Hall are supposed to be superb they really didn’t help his trio’s sound – it was cavernous, the drums too thin, the bass too light. They were good once they’d got started, especially when he soloed, though I prefer Polar Bear & Acoustic Ladyland’s approach to the whole ‘build an atonal lick into a fast-paced climax’ thing. Better in a smaller venue perhaps.

The sound seemed better for E.S.T., maybe they were just more careful about the balance between their instruments. Svensson spent the show either hunched over his keys or swallowed inside his piano, plucking strings and dissonance, bassist Dan Berglund was positioned to reflect a bright light from his scalp and drummer Magnus Öström’s sex face was just an added bonus.

Musically they were everything you might expect, opening with a wonderfully intense version of Tide of Trepidation, covering a good portion of their new album Tuesday Wonderland and closing with Dolores in a Shoestand (though a strangely reluctant audience refused to clap along). A long version of Definition of a Dog was maybe a bit extravagant, especially with the five, six minute white noise interlude, but that aside the show was practically spot on – melodically fantastic and rhythmically perfect. They really do their songs justice.

For me this was far more about reaffirming their brilliance; to have usurped their previous performances would have needed something out of this world. And of course, with some brand of Swedish efficiency, they managed it with honours. On a scale of Marmite to Marmalade it definitely ranks above crunchy Peanut Butter.

(She could have had it too.)

Regina Spektor at the Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow, 20/02/07

Regina Spektor might be one of the oddest creatures on the planet – angular, pale and toothy yet still bizarrely pretty. She can even get away with wearing Borat on her chest.

She came out and of course opened with Ain’t No Cover (or Eight Miles High, whichever) and of course it was amazing. The crowd were silent, almost reverently so and her voice seemed ever more powerful – she really belted the songs out .. Human of the Year was just .. wonderful and Baby Jesus was pure cheekiness cubed. Don’t think she could have whacked her piano stool any harder when she came to Poor Little Rich Boy <3

And then a backing band appeared. Suddenly the nuances and subtleties were gone, replaced with almost silly, formulaic pop songs. Character profiles were lost to guitar blasts and drum slams, her delicate piano playing was practically drowned out and those atonal inflections that make Regina Regina went with it. I wasn’t sure how she decided this band was a Good Thing .. the only songs that came to life were (necessarily!) Sailor Song, Hotel Song and Your Honour, yet it still wasn’t quite the same.

She played a couple of songs solo in the encore but by then the magic, for me at least, was gone. The crowd still adored her and Samson was a particular highlight. It’d be worth looking for a recording just for the strength and awesomeness of the three-fifths she played solo.

Alas Pound of Flesh, 20 Years of Snow and Uh-merica never appeared :`(. Maybe next time..

Smooth Russian connection:

Saw Regina Spektor at the Shepherds Bush Empire on the 23rd, she was fantastic. Her songs are full of bizarre scenarios and character profiles and odd happenings and everything fits together so perfectly it’s as if she made no effort at all in writing them.

Baby Jesus, Pound of Flesh and Eight Miles High are my new favourite songs, Baby Jesus is totally awesome for the matter of fact way she states ‘I could -honestly- say I was scared for my life‘ without sounding at all ridiculous .. take a listen – I uploaded a version she sang somewhere in Seattle on May 7th earlier this year, download it here.

She’s very pretty in a bizarre, angular way that doesn’t make complete sense.