Future
Sound of London and DJ Shadow
CDs My
first CD purchases in a long time are two long-awaited releases.
DJ Shadow's
Private Press follows from a heralded debut CD "Entroducing".
Private Press is a lush, jazzy production with some great
core songs that you are probably hearing played in boutiques
the past month since its release including "Fixed Income"
and "Six Days". "Six Days" has an awesome
video by Wong Kar Wai. The album is breezy, a summer concoction
of lounge-tronica and hip hop. I can't believe I wrote that
sentence.
Future
Sound of London's The Isness is another reinvention of
the UK-based ambient production group's sound. Fans expecting
a return to the raw industrial
sounds of their last album "Dead Cities" will be
a little shocked by how psychedelic "The Isness"
is. The closest comparison I can summon forth is that this
is their Pink Floyd tribute. There are none of the hard edged
samples of "Dead Cities". Instead, there are sitars,
Roger Waters-like mad singing, fuzzy guitars and dreamy melodies.
You know, I totally like it. Even the second to last song
that sounds like a B-side of Supertramp's "Crime of the
Century".
Aug
20/02
Two
moves
There
will be two moves in my life very soon. My work offices are
moving after two years to a larger space Friday so I will likely
be sore this weekend. Also, KeithLoh.com will be moving to a
new host likely this weekend as I find I'm starving for space
for the little videos I'm producing.
Aug
19/02
Cornelius
concert Saturday
I took in an early concert at Richards on Richards. It was
Japanese experimental
pop wunderkind Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada). He could be compared
to Beck but he predates him. His best-known work is
Fantasma. The concert was highly scripted to the very
well-done video presentation in the background, which is not
to say that it was stiff. It was a nice, slam bang guitar
rock concert by a band very interested in their musicianship.
At one point Cornelius threw out a sampler into the crowd
so they could play along.
He
began the concert playing selections from his recent CD "Point",
which I thought was a little esoteric and lacking in energy.
But live, it took on a lot of zest.
Playing
with After Effects 5.5 All
Sunday I've been editing my five minute bathroom video with
Adobe
After Effects. This is the first time I've touched the
program since 1996 and I am impressed. It really is a fun
program for editing, filtering and generally fucking up your
video with effects. I'm actually not sure what Adobe Premiere
is good for and I may just use After Effects all the time.
Battling
spam with SpamWeasel Mike
at work has recommended Spam
Weasel as an email filtering program that identifies spam
before your email program gets it and tags it. Then you get
your email program to filter it into a certain folder (in
my case: trash). So far it is working fine for my home account
which I read using Outlook. But at work I am using Eudora
and I have a long legacy of filtering already that may be
working at cross-purposes with Spam Weasel...
Battling
with Amelicans and Nipponese For
a couple hours each day the past five I've been playing the
multiplayer demo of Battlefield 1942, a joyous FPS and vehicle
shooter. This is a demo where you can play as either an American
or Japanese soldier battling over 'Wake Island'. As well as
picking one of several
classes of soldier, you can also jump in and pilot any vehicle
you come across including tanks, planes, ships and assorted
jeeps and trucks. While this doesn't sound like anything different,
it really is one of the most fun multiplayer experiences I've
had since Counter-Strike. Already the game is filled with
exploits as players try to do ridiculous things like surfing
on planes, parachuting on top of tanks, kamikaze with jeeps.
Aug
18/02
Books
recently read
The
Napoleonic Wars by Gunther Rothenberg This
is a very good general reference to the Napoleonic campaigns
beginning
with the spectacular rise of a young Corsican nobody named
Napoleon Bonaparte to his self-coronation as Emperor to
his abortive attempt to regain his former glory after
exile; an attempt that ended at Waterloo. This book, part
of a series of general handbooks edited by John Keegan,
is well laid out, clearly written, and contains many colour
plates and easy-to-decipher maps. There are both campaign
maps and a handful of battle maps. Rothenberg does a good
job of describing the character of warfare during this
time as well as speaking to the innovations performed
by Napoleon that made him one of the great military leaders
in history. In particular, his strategy for fixing the
enemy with one force and striking deep into his lines
of communication with an extraordinary force. For a more
in depth look at the character of Napoleonic warfare (including
individual stories) I recommend Rory Muir's excellent
Tactics
and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon.
Medieval
Chinese Warfare: 300-900 by David A. Graff This
is a history of the character and patterns of Chinese
warfare during a period which roughly coincided with the
waning of the Roman empire and ends before the rise of
the Mongols. Not a light read. While here and there Graff
does make the actual form and character of Chinese warfare
apparent, a lot of it is concerned with underlining how
Chinese history during this time was made turbulent through
wars with the periphery, internal struggles, coup d'etat
and banditry. In general, Graff shows that despite all
the turbulence, the Chinese method of war was distinct
from other civilizations of the time by its constantly
mutating forms of complex organization. While in Europe's
medieval period armies were little more than randomly
organized bands of retainers following their lords, at
many times in China there were long periods where armies
were organized according to rule, following doctrine set
by bureaucracy. Graff makes comparisons between certain
periods of Chinese military organization with that of
the Byzantines who were themselves concerned with professionalizing
and regimenting their way of making war.
Stanley
Park by Timothy Taylor A
French-trained chef returns to Vancouver and tries to
start an avant-garde bistro but finds he has to sell out
to a 'Starbucks'-like tycoon. Meanwhile, the chef tries
to reconcile with a professor father who is living in
Stanley Park studying the lives of vagrants. This was
more or less a light read. I enjoyed the cooking stories
more than his philosophizing with his father who is sort
of an Obi-wan like character.
Shadow's
Private Press follows from a heralded debut CD "Entroducing".
Private Press is a lush, jazzy production with some great
core songs that you are probably hearing played in boutiques
the past month since its release including "Fixed Income"
and "Six Days". "Six Days" has an awesome
video by Wong Kar Wai. The album is breezy, a summer concoction
of lounge-tronica and hip hop. I can't believe I wrote that
sentence. 
industrial
sounds of their last album "Dead Cities" will be
a little shocked by how psychedelic "The Isness"
is. The closest comparison I can summon forth is that this
is their Pink Floyd tribute. There are none of the hard edged
samples of "Dead Cities". Instead, there are sitars,
Roger Waters-like mad singing, fuzzy guitars and dreamy melodies.
You know, I totally like it. Even the second to last song
that sounds like a B-side of Supertramp's "Crime of the
Century".
experimental
pop wunderkind Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada). He could be compared
to Beck but he predates him. His best-known work is
several
classes of soldier, you can also jump in and pilot any vehicle
you come across including tanks, planes, ships and assorted
jeeps and trucks. While this doesn't sound like anything different,
it really is one of the most fun multiplayer experiences I've
had since Counter-Strike. Already the game is filled with
exploits as players try to do ridiculous things like surfing
on planes, parachuting on top of tanks, kamikaze with jeeps.
beginning
with the spectacular rise of a young Corsican nobody named
Napoleon Bonaparte to his self-coronation as Emperor to
his abortive attempt to regain his former glory after
exile; an attempt that ended at Waterloo. This book, part
of a series of general handbooks edited by John Keegan,
is well laid out, clearly written, and contains many colour
plates and easy-to-decipher maps. There are both campaign
maps and a handful of battle maps. Rothenberg does a good
job of describing the character of warfare during this
time as well as speaking to the innovations performed
by Napoleon that made him one of the great military leaders
in history. In particular, his strategy for fixing the
enemy with one force and striking deep into his lines
of communication with an extraordinary force. For a more
in depth look at the character of Napoleonic warfare (including
individual stories) I recommend Rory Muir's excellent
