Orbital - The Blue Album

Orbital's new, and last album, The Blue Album has hit the stores. It's pretty damn good!

Mixing the sounds of many of their earlier albums, particularly some of the ravier sounds of the Brown Album. Highlights for me are Acid Pants, a brilliant return to the acidy roots with a silly sample; You Lot" which seems to sample someone with the same accent as The Orb sampled on S.A.L.T., from Mike Leigh's Naked, but I think this one might be Christopher Ecclestone from last year's Second Coming telemovie and a little less deranged than the Revelations/Barcode rant; Bath Time is reminiscent of much of In Sides.

All in all, an excellent closing album, effectively closing off an era. Can't wait to see them this weekend at Glastonbury. Can't wait to hear what they do next, seperately. We'll miss you lads!

Glastonbury tickets!

Our Glastonbury tickets just arrived. Wahoo! So getting up at 5am in Sydney to buy the tickets was worth the effort.

Orbital to break up

According to their web site, Orbital are breaking up after the next album. Fortunately, their last UK gig is at Glastonbury for which I have tickets...

Ahhh Kooky

Three and a half years ago, Holly and I spent our last night out in Sydney at Club Kooky. All this time on, and it's gone through moving location, stopping for a time and now it's back at Club 77.

I went last Sunday night and had a fab time. Club 77 has removed a bunch of internal walls and stuff, making it a much better space. The sound still sucks and the air conditioning is still inadequate, but it is an improvement.

Kooky is just awesome because it's one of those rare places with a great, consistent crowd, excellent music and a quality vibe. It's a queer club in the truest sense: completely mixed in terms of gender and sexuality, making it quite unique.

I wish I could find something as diverse in London...

Also went to Frigid last Sunday before Kooky. The new venue (old Newtown RSL) is excellent, the crowd great and the vibe very good. Had a great time and managed to catch up with loads of people I wouldn't otherwise have seen.

Kraftwerk

I saw Kraftwerk play at the Brixton Academy on Saturday night. It was a midnight show and they played for about two hours. Wow! Absolutely amazing.

This is a band I've wanted to see for many many years, and they definitely lived up to my expectations. Brilliant music, incredible visuals.

When the robots came out for the second encore, it was quite amusing because the robots moved about quite a bit more than the band members on which they are modelled.

Warp does digital music right

One of my fave record labels, Warp Records has just launched their digital downloadable music site, Bleep. At last, someone has done it right!

Have a look at this little exerpt from the EULA:
You shall be authorized to store as unlimited copies of the Product on any media, provided that these copies are for personal non-commercial use only. The Product or copies of the Product may not be resold or streamed either for profit or non-profit use,
You shall be entitled to export, burn or copy Products solely for personal, noncommercial use.

Brilliant! Their prices aren't particularly cheap though. Lower than the CD prices, but not much. For example, the new Broadcast album is £6.99. Not exactly cheap! Sure, Amazon are charging £10.99, but you'd think the costs of digital distribution would be much lower...

Still, the quality should be good and it's nice to see someone trusting users. I'm off to get that Broadcast album!