Hey Elizabeth, I forgot to ask you what you think of the new Alcest song, "Protection"? After a couple of listens, I think it is pretty awesome, and I am glad that he seems to have decided to make the screaming vocals a consistent part of the music. No one does them like Neige, and to me they really add incredible power to the songs. I do have one comment, though. Over the course of the last few albums, it feels like Neige has moved away from what I will call the French melodies of the earliest albums, in favor of big, sweeping riffs of a more anthemic nature. In a song such as "Autre Temps" (which you know very well), you can hear a distinctly French quality to the vocal line. Though he would not have had a lot of French rock music to use as inspiration - because there wasn't any - it may have been that he absorbed other styles of music popular in France - cafe singers and such - and used them in creating his own style.
I know that Neige would mostly cite shoegaze bands as influences, but if you really listen to the early albums, there is a definite Parisian melodic influence running through the songs, in the same way that there is in the music of Edith Piaf or Frances Poulenc, even though all three of these artists make music in disparate styles. Anyhow, especially with the last album "Kodama", to me it sounds like he has moved away from the early melodies into a bigger rock sound. Don't get me wrong cause the music sounds as dynamic as ever - the word for "Kodama" is propulsive - and the concert I saw last November was the best one I've seen by Alcest. They just keep getting better and better live, and are freakin' epic by now. But it does seem like the old French melodies have gone by the wayside.
I am looking forward to hearing the whole album, and on cd rather than Youtube. I am stoked that we have new albums by Alcest and Opeth coming out within a month of each other, and I'm sure you are looking forward to "Spiritual Instinct" as well (and maybe the Opeth too). :):)
So anyway, whattaya think? You don't have to post now, but after the album comes out I would love to hear your thoughts. :):)
And now I return you to your regularly scheduled programming in the form of a movie review. Tonight I was all out of library flicks, so I opened my Tim Holt Western Collection dvd set to watch a sixty minuter called "Gunplay", which turned out to be a cut above the usual paint-by-numbers fare in these serial Westerns. Holt movies are always entertaining, but "Gunplay" actually has a script that moves beyond the formula a little bit to incorporate a measure of intrigue and suspense. I am not gonna detail it for ya, because it's still a Serial Western, but I hope you - and in this case I mean the General You - will become Holt fans yourselves. Then we can discuss his Westerns and break down their fine points, which do exist. They were almost all shot at the Iverson Movie Ranch, which is enough reason in itself to buy the collection.
Because "Gunplay" was only an hour long, I also had time to watch an episode of "Tales Of Tomorrow".
Now wait a minute! I am becoming more clever in my scrutinizations of titles, be they from motion pictures or television shows, so right now I want to know: how could you have a Tale Of Tomorrow if tomorrow hasn't happened yet?
"Oh shut up, Ad".
Right. Well anyway, it was a great episode, called "The Crystal Egg" and based on a story by our old pal H.G.Wells. Man he was far out! In the show, a tall stranger walks into a pawn shop in London. He wants to buy a crystal egg that he has seen in the window display. The proprietor fetches it for him, then - noticing the man's tension and his hurry to make the purchase - he decides to raise the price. He'd thought the egg was just a trinket, a worthless piece of junk and fake crystal at that, but the man's excitement has him thinking again. They dicker over the price, but the man is not willing to pay the five pounds the shopkeeper wants. Finally he succumbs, but hasn't enough money, so he gives the shopkeeper two pounds to hold the egg for him until he can return with the balance.
After the man leaves, the shopkeeper gets on the phone to a friend of his, a professor who works at the local university. Can the shopkeeper come over right away? He has an important object he wants the professor to examine, a crystal egg. Will the professor be able to tell him if it is real crystal, perhaps even rare?
The shopkeeper hopes so as he drops off the crystal egg with the professor. He will need it back the next day, however, because the man will be returning to the pawn shop to finish paying for it.
When the shopkeeper arrived, the professor had been entertaining a young lass - a Cockney girl who is fascinated by his brilliance. He shoos her away now, so that he can examine the egg under a microscope. The shopkeeper's spiel has him intrigued.
We see the clock on his wall. The passing of the hours is sped up to signify he has been at it all night. Suddenly it is morning. The pawn shop owner is calling, wanting to come by and pick up the egg. He also wants to know what discoveries, if any, the professor has made. Is the egg worth a lot of money?
Well, the professor has made a discovery alright, but he's not sure what to make of it, in fact, he can hardly believe his eyes. He needs time to double check the egg, but he can't tell the shopkeeper why, so he makes up an excuse, simply that he hasn't finished his examination as yet.
I really cannot tell you anything more about the egg, except that a lot more intrigue will follow because of the professor's discovery. The will be scheming between the parties to get control over the egg, and conflict will result.
It seems that there is something inside the egg, something that resembles.......a landscape?
Now that's really all I'm gonna tell ya. I don't want H.G.Wells getting mad at me. I might wind up in one of his horrifying tales......
Seriously though, do yourself a favor - this is again addressed to the General You - and buy all three sets of the "Tales Of Tomorrow" dvd collections. You get 13 episodes per set, and while the picture quality is not perfect, the shows are watchable and more than that, this is an incredible series. We are talking live television from 1951, the very early days of the medium. As a bonus, the commercials from that era are left in place, so you get to see the show just as it aired almost 70 years ago. The bottom line is that it's weird, weird, weird! And, it predates Twilight Zone by eight years.
Really, "Tales Of Tomorrow" rules the sci-fi roost. It's a must-own, I say. /////
That will do it for this afternoon. Tonight I am gonna go see Bryan Ferry at the Greek Theater. The last time I saw him (with Roxy Music) was in 1976! 43 years ago, holy smokes. I was still in high school and Gerald Ford was President.
Now that should be a Tale Of Tomorrow! See if you can make something weird out of it.
I'll be back after the show at the Usual Time. See you then!
Tons of love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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