The first of September. So we’ve exited the summer, where people only celebrate blogging for no good reason, and which is far too hot anyway. It definitely felt like winter the other day when it was pitch black at 9pm. An uni starts again in a couple of weeks. Gah.
Archive: summer
What a lovely day it was today. Not that I saw any of it.
I finally got off my arse and got a job recently. Nothing special of course, just bits and pieces at Woolworths — to give me a reason to get out of bed, to give me something to do as much as anything else.
So I was stuck in there all day, not that I should complain too much because it’s “something to do”. But it was boiling hot. It’s usually bad enough, but this afternoon I was at the kitchen tills which is basically in the middle of the shopping centre and next to a swimming pool. If you’re walking through the shopping centre in that area you can often feel a bit of a hot blast along with that swimming pool smell that makes you want to gag.
Usually it isn’t too bad because you’re just walking through it, but today I was standing there for four hours — listening to the same Sharkira album on repeat. All I could think of was “Sex Farm Woman!” Apparently the Shakira thing is the entertainment department’s fault. Just you wait until I get there, I’ll blow everybody’s minds.
I was going to bring some water up but there were no cups at the water cooler (!). I guess I could have just asked somebody where the cups were, but who can be bothered with that?
Anyway, to add insult to injury there were hardly any customers — very unusual for a Saturday. Where were they all? Outside enjoying the sun of course. Meanwhile, I was indoors drying up.
(Thought-provoking transaction of the day: One person bought two umbrellas. I guess she could have been looking for shade, but really?! Or going somewhere rainy on holiday?)
When I woke up I was actually freezing cold — so cold that I had four or five sneezing fits in the morning, which is about two or three more than normal. Inside the house it was pretty cold, but it was very warm outside. I’m still hot actually. What a contrast from the morning.
Stickers at RantSpace was concerned for me. I thank him for that very much. A fridge would have been nice, but unfortunately I wasn’t doing juice today. A jacket was the last thing on my mind.
I have tomorrow and Monday off. 
One of the reasons I never got a job until now (at the age of 20) was because I didn’t want to miss the Formula 1. A Grand Prix is one of the things that I most look forward to. Why sacrifice something you enjoy for the sake of going on a wild goose chase in the stockroom?
But there comes a time where you have to be adult enough to make a compromise. Inevitably, the first question in my job interview was along the lines of, “Why the fsck haven’t you ever had a job before?” Good point, and the longer I left it the more that question would become a barrier to future… whatevers. Anyway, I guess getting tomorrow off is kind of a way of being rewarded for taking that leap. Er, if you believe in fate I guess. Still, pretty cool huh?
Anyway, all of this work nonsense has of course contributed to the declining quantity and quality of blog posts. Sometimes from getting an idea for a post to actually posting it is taking three days or a week! Nasty. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things blogging-wise.
You’ll see I’ve made some changes recently. Mostly tidying up and cosmetic stuff — all self-explanatory really. But asides (mini posts) are back! I decided that both asides and the linklog can exist together in a way, so let’s see how it goes.
I know summer is meant to be all about birds twittering, lots of sun and long days. But let’s face it: it’s actually about wasps, sunburn, and the sun rising before you even get to sleep.
This ranter is sounding off about Aberdonians complaining about the heat. Now there is lots that you can slag off Aberdonians about — their driving for a start! But I must sympathise in this instance. I cannot stand hot weather. There is nothing worse. And to top it all off we’ve had thunder and everything a couple of times, so you can throw heavy rain into the mix as well. Extremely hot, cloudy, raining like a drunkard on a tree — it’s bad, bad, bad.
You might say, “ah, but winter is very cold!” But the thing about that is that at least you can wrap up warm. Putting on four layers of clothes doesn’t require much effort but it can keep you comfortable all day. But if it is boiling hot then you are properly snookered. If you strip right off people will be all offended by your flesh, and you’ll still be too hot!
Summer. I’d rather gnaw off my nose.
I already wrote about this album on my Last.fm journal a while back, but I’m really getting into this album at the moment, so I thought I’d write a post about it here as well.
Do you, like me, get it when an album really reminds you of the summer just because of the time of year you bought it? ‘One Word Extinguisher‘ by Prefuse 73 is a very summery album to me, as is OutKast’s ‘Speakerboxxx / The Love Below‘. Even Tortoise’s ‘TNT‘ reminds me of summer, and the music isn’t particularly summery at all.
But some music is perfectly suited to a long summery evening, the sort warm evening where the sun is a deep orange and casts a long shadow, yet never threatens to set. Just right for this time of year then! Lit by Malcom Kipe is one of those summery albums, so it’s a shame it wasn’t released at this time of year.
Although I fear it may be too late for anybody who may be swung by this post to find any copies that still haven’t been sold, I am really enjoying this album at the moment, and it also gives me the perfect excuse to write about the Merck label.
Malcom Kipe is perhaps better known as Nautilis. His mum calls him Skyler McGlothlin. Frankly I’m not surprised that he resorts to using pseudonyms. Anyway, on his website he put up a ‘Locked in the cabin’ mix, which is along the same lines as Lit. He advised, “This mix is a good summer jam, so download it and play it in the ride – on the way to the bbq.”
Lit is chilled out, gently jazzy instrumental hip-hop with a slightly nostalgic tilt. There is nothing terribly groundbreaking or unusual about the album. It is an album of rather enjoyable, relaxed music that won’t tax your brain too much, but might well still get you tapping your foot. I agree with the review that Boomkat gave it: “As long as you’re not heading into ‘Lit’ expecting any blinding bouts of sonic innovation, then you’ll likely be cosily seduced…”
I had only bought one McGlothlin release before — ‘Are You An Axolotl‘ by Nautilis. Even though I really liked Axolotl, I never bought another of his releases until now. I need to catch up some more.
Lit is released on the rather good Merck label. When I was first getting heavily into IDM and that sort of thing about five years ago, I bought a good few Merck releases. The first was the cutesy ‘Pistachio Island‘ by Ilkae, an album of forty-odd short tracks designed to be played in ‘shuffle’ mode. Then there was the dark and crunchy ‘Negativ‘ by Proem. I also bought MD’s ‘Between Gaps‘. Later on I bought the excellent ‘Now You Know‘ by Machine Drum. That is numbers 5, 6, 7 and 8 in Merck’s catalogue — and I’ve bought nothing from that label since then. I can hardly believe it! What have I been doing for the past few years?
Well I guess I’d better hurry up and get round to buying whatever I want from their discography, because they’ve decided to call it a day towards the end of this year. Whatever the reasons, it is a shame. It’s never nice to hear rumours of a small record label closing, especially when it is as good as Merck.
Sometimes in the electronic music bubble it’s difficult to remember just how small demand for the music is. With a lot of these labels, releases are limited to maybe 1000, 2000 or 5000. Often that’s not because they want to keep their records rare — it’s because it’s what meets the market demand. Indeed, the Wikipedia article on Merck suggests that the label’s closure is due to financial constraints. But while labels may close, at least great music is never too far away.
That promised Brothomstates release for Merck never came! I heard that he prefers to enjoy life rather than making music though. Fair enough.
It is probably a bit much dedicating an entire post to ‘Lit’. It is not a great album. It is good and pleasent, but not really great. But I anticipate that I’ll be listening to it a fair bit over the summer. Unchallenging, unpretentious, enjoyable music.
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I have just come home from my final exam of the summer. Hoorah, etcetera. It’s been a pretty bad couple of weeks. The politics exams were easy enough — you can bluff your way through them easily. But I think I actually died during the Economics exam. I’m not certain about that though — I haven’t had time to check. What they say about cramming is true. Don’t do it kids! You’ll only burn out! Instead, relax the night before. Just make sure you memorise all the equations at least a week in advance!
Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been blogging recently, but now I’ve got free time until the resits at least. I’ve got lots of things that I’m planning to do over the summer now. You know when you get a list of things that build up. During the study period you always feel guilty when you do anything that is remotely not revising, so you just put everything off. Gah. I am going to try and make myself a useful human being that’s worth something, rather than just sitting about which is what I usually do during the summer… But first I need some sleep. And to read 1,500 blog posts.
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