Torr

Bits & Bobs mp3s

Guillemots

• "Trains To Brazil"
• "Made Up Love Song #43"

Michael Stipe (backed by Coldplay) on ACL covering "In The Sun" by Joseph Arthur can be downloaded at APOA. And on the ACL site you can watch a 10-min behind-the-scenes.

And here's another new Coldplay b-side:

• "Sleeping Sun" (3:09)

Video to make us famous

The new promo-video by San Fran laptop-group Pants Pants Pants is a shot-by-shot recreation of the entire opening sequences of season 1 and 5 of the TV show Full House. It's even complete with an in-screen comparison to the original. Funny. The song is actually really good too; mid-tempo, atmospheric, and instrumental, not at all what you would expect from a vid like this.

• Pants Pants Pants - "Fabio Salsa" [.mov]

The song appears on the band's latest album, Pop Songs To Make Us Famous.

       

"Brown paper packages wrapped up in string..."

A few of the gifts I got (or gave) this holiday season:

Gap jean jacket (Not exactly the one in the pic.)

Bose TriPort headphones (Quite a step up from my $10 Target ones!)

Sonic Impact 5066 15-Watt Portable Class-T Digital Audio Amplifier ($25 but being compared to ones which costs hundreds!)

Tix to the New Year's Eve game vs The Kings (Not this ugly jersey.)

Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years

Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity

Small Things Considered: Why There Is No Perfect Design

UK chart report

Here's the good stuff that entered the UK chart this weekend:

#3 The Pogues - "Fairytale of New York"

#10 Coldplay - "Talk" [Watch their recent BBC session which ends with "White Christmas."]

This one did not chart: Trashcan Sinatras - "Wild Mountainside" [Their first post-WL single. Guitarist John Douglas recently appeared on a version of this song on Eddie Reader's Songs of Robert Burns. Now this is TCS' cover of that track.]

Here's the only good thing that's out in the UK on Monday:

       
Hard-Fi -  "Cash Machine" [re-release]

And here's the only good stuff that's out in the U.S. on Tuesday:

       
Ricky Nelson Sings [DVD or CD]

       
Immune [Photography collection includes pictures of The White Stripes, The Cure, Leonard Cohen, Björk, Sigur Rós etc.]

DL Nicky Wire solo track

This out of of nowhere: Manics.co.uk is offering a download of a Nicky Wire solo track. Apparently he's gonna put out some solo stuff in 06.

• "I Killed The Zeitgeist" [2:36]

It's no "Wattsville Blues" [from KYE] that's for-sure!

Embrace's xmas gift

Embrace have got a special Christmas present for you. It's video of the band performing "Chestnuts" at their secret gig last December at Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall.

Stream another new Richard Ashcroft track

Richard's Ashcroft's new album Keys To The World [$13 @ amazon!] is out in the UK on Jan 23rd. First single "Break The Night With Colour" is out on Jan 9th. Here's a track from the album:

• "Cry Till The Morning" [4:00]

This song is vocally repetitive, but does feature some guitar noodling that we haven't heard much of on RA's solo stuff. But why did they bury it so deep in the mix? Having heard the single and now this song they haven't done much to get me excited about this supposedly "shit hot!" new album. And unlike most people, I actually liked his first two solo albums; though AWE was better.

BTW: Stream a recent Richard Ashcroft session which features 3 tracks and an interview [show tracklist.] And here's a short video interview.

Your work day just got a lot better

Holy crap, Listen To A Movie is the greatest site ever. Just register your e-mail address then stream the audio of tons of movies and tv shows to your hearts content; all for free with no adverts or anything. I'm listening to the hilarious documentary American Movie right now.

DL new Coldplay b-sides

Here are some of the b-sides to Coldplay's new UK single "Talk."

• "Gravity" [5:41] As much as I Iove Embrace, this version is a little better.
• "Square One" [5:13]
• "Swallowed In The Sea" [4:16]

BTW: All the audio I host here from now on will now be thru ezarchive (no more rapidshare!) so you can right-click-save-as to your hearts content! You're welcome!

Most overlooked films of the year

[Thanks to LHB for the heads-up on this TNR article]

The list below leaves out worthy pictures like A History of Violence (the year's best English-language picture), The Squid and the Whale (the year's best indie), and Grizzly Man (the year's best documentary)--films that don't need the help.

Funny Ha Ha follows the romantic misadventures of Marnie an aimless 23-year-old just out of school. Set among a cluster of recent grads in Boston, the film lovingly nails the details of that twentysomething limbo--apartments are still furnished with Salvation Army finds, daily routines are remarkably amorphous, and temping is practically a rite of passage. Resolutely DIY and refreshingly uncontrived, it has an unassuming quality that's evinced in its refusal to make grand pronouncements: It's less a generational statement than stutter. Redolent of the best of the indie tradition--Linklater, Jarmusch, Cassavetes--it carries itself with the kind of modesty that disappeared long ago from the careerist post-Sundance scene.

Tony Takitani. The movie tells the story of a lonely Japanese man who, unexpectedly, finds love in middle age. Although once comfortable with his solitude, the man begins to dread its return--which, Ichikawa and Murakami suggest, is an inevitability. Murakami's prose is spoken over the spare images, narration that's occasionally interrupted by the characters, a device that keeps the movie from becoming excessively hermetic.

Tropical Malady. Forsaking plot for ellipses, the movie depicts the budding romance between a rakish soldier and a shy farmer. It's an obstinate movie, forcing the audience to piece together a story from seemingly incidental moments. Confounding though it may be, it casts a bewitching spell--the absence of inflection mesmerizes as much as it bewilders.

The Holy Girl. Argentine Lucretia Martel seems to have entered filmmaking fully formed. Like her debut La Cienaga, The Holy Girl is populated by addled souls who crowd into Martel's bustling frames. The movie focuses on the adolescent daughter of a provincial hotel owner in northern Argentina. Amalia, a devout Catholic schoolgirl, discovers her vocation when a doctor attending a convention at the hotel rubs up against her on the street. The epiphany hits--she must save the poor frotteur's soul. Interrogating the link between sexual ecstasy and religious fervor, Martel is far too sophisticated to draw facile conclusions.

Kings & Queens. The queen of the title is Nora, a single mother seeking to define her relationship with the kings in her life--her dying father, a departed first love, a manic ex-husband, and a current fiancé. Desplechin constructs a mercurial character study that eschews the glib expositions of narrative. What we get instead is a freewheeling tour de force of ecstatic experimentalism, in which elegant dissolves bump up against jarring cuts, flashbacks fuse with dreams, and high emotion veers into low comedy.

UPDATE: Film Threat offers a few more...

• Whisky
• The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill