It’s that time of year again. I don’t mean the Winter weather which for some reasons always manages to bring London shuddering to a halt for at least a day. No, what I mean is the deadline for filing Self Assessments with her glorious majesties Revenue and Custom’s department is looming and as ever I’m on target for scraping mine in before the deadline.
Well, I say that but my deadline is a week earlier as I won’t be at home to file mine the night before as I’m off to the South West coast for a spot of me time. Yes, I know it’s hardly the weather for splish-splashing in the sea but when did I ever do anything the normal way.
Truth be told the only reason I’m updating the blog as I sit here sipping on a freshly juiced vegetable cocktail is because it’s either blog or start sifting through the drawer that I nickname The Tax Drawer. As you can imagine all it is is a drawer in my desk where I file every bit of paper from January to January, each year I swear I’ll file things more regularly but you know the score…
One thing the New Year has brought however is a flurry of red-hot music related stuff ( see what I did there?) We had David Bowie announcing the release of an album after 10 years, The Postal Service are hinting that a new album is on it’s way and Nick Cave announced the release of his 15th album which will see a performance with video, orchestra and band at a few select venues Worldwide.
It’s not all good news however, HMV has gone into administration although I’m not sure how many people in their 20’s really have the same memories as those a little older. I certainly remember as a teen that Saturday afternoons were often spent in HMV perusing albums and posters, keeping warm and annoying the security guards who would rather kick you out on the off-chance you were really shoplifting and not there to spend the gift vouchers you’d received for your birthday. Good times.
Social media has of course been quick to denounce the likes of Amazon for the death of the high street names like HMV but in this capitalist society in which we live the law of the jungle dictates only the fittest will survive and whilst Amazon has the edge with its tax efficient structure, it’s very likely HMV would have gone down the pan anyway as it just wasn’t competitive enough when it needed to be. Yes, it soon started trying to price match Amazon but it was too little, too late.
January is also hotting up for Drum n Bass fans; yesterday Brazilian producer André Sobota, who prefers to go by the name Bungle, had his AA single Astral Travel and Aura drop on the Soul:R label and if you thought you knew Drum n Bass you may have to reconsider your opinion after hearing this. It’s a fucking belter! I’m not sure if André ever watched Rainbow whilst growing up in São Paulo but you’ll agree he doesn’t look much like a slightly deranged bear.
In fact he’s one of those annoying people who seems to be gifted with talent. He started studying music aged 7, wrote his first piece when he was 9 and now plays the guitar ridiculously well. As well as official remixes for Coldplay & Rihanna’s hit ‘Princess Of China’ he has been involved in remixing Snow Patrol’s Open Your Eyes and Back Like That from Ghostface Killah and that’s not even scratching the surface!
You can imagine then why Astral Travel and Aura are Drum n Bass tracks that demand you rethink your perception of Drum n Bass, André has a lot of musical influences that give him that ‘something different‘ sound but hey, don’t take my word for it, have a listen and make up your own mind. You can pick up both tracks from Soul:R for as little as £2 in either FLAC, VBR MP3, 320 MP3, ALAC (Apple Lossless), AAC, or Ogg Vorbis…talk about choices!
Whether you’re a DnB fan or not I think you’ll be very pleasantly surprised and if this is just the start on 2013, imagine what’s in store?
