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Santi White (a.k.a. Santogold) debut album: “Santogold” is in one word good!. Interesting sounds, some pop, some reagge, some glam, and some voice!… my favorite song is L.E.S Artistes and Creator. Creator is quite unique, at the beginning it used to annoy me, but after few plays I became a fan. It is hard for me to compare her with anybody else, perhaps some Macy Gray and some Cocorosie… but then again perhaps not!…

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Parasyte is the title of a very fun manga series. It is written and drawn by Hitoshi Iwaaki. The plot is more or less an alien species that arrives earth and attempts to intrude humans by taking over their brains. Some successfully accomplish their mission and use the human form to devour other humans in very gory ways. These alien invade human brains through their ears. Our hero, Sinichi, is saved because he was using headphones. The alien attempts to enter his body through his hand but Sinichi is able to stop it from leaving his hand. The alien having little time to survive chooses to settle for his right arm and therefore can’t take control of his human brain. Eventually he names the alien Migi (right) and they develop an interesting relationship, that allows them, for one to save themselves from other aliens, and to destroy other aliens when either Sinichi or Migi are in danger, as Migi is dependant on Sinichi’s health.

At the beginning the alien just devour others, soon the plot evolves into the potential symbiotic relationship, that there are good ones and bad ones, and there are philosophical attempts here and there to use the aliens as a metaphore to explain humans faults and virtues. However these are mostly cliches and nothing deeper than that.

The art gets better in the second book, more focused and detailed. There is also much better character development than in the first book. It seems the author is feeling more comfortable with the characters and the story itself.

The book is kinda silly and childish, but it is a lot of fun to read, especially if you like b-horror type stories. Think Robert Rodriguez or Tarantino, if you like their styles then give it a try.

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version en español

damn… another long time… oh well!…

The Long Road Home is the title of the newest comic series related to Stephen King’s Dark Tower saga. Same creative group behind it than the ones in “The Gunslinger Born” comic series, finished not so long ago. The Long Road Home is almost done, we are in issue 4 of 5, and it is fantastic. It is even better than “The Gunslinger Born”.

For those of you that might be new to the story we are on the trail of Roland’s adventures when he just became a Gunslinger. Currently we are on the story when he first meets and confronts the Crimson King, which depiction is just great. Everything you ever imagined it would be.

At the end of the fourth issue of the series there is depiction of the different mutants, both animals and humans that we encounter throughout the books. What came to mind was the passage in the first book when Jake and Roland are traversing the mountains and get attacked by the slow mutants. The depiction is as terrifying as the description in the book. I had to go back and read the first book again. It was a very satisfying reading experience having the pictures in my head while reading the book.

En español

“The Long Road Home” es el título de la nueva serie de comics relacionada con la saga “The Dark Tower” de Stephen King. Esta nueva serie está escrita por los mismos creadores de “The Gunslinger Born”, que culminó no hace mucho y que ahora está disponible en libro. En la nueva serie estamos en el fascículo 4 de 5, y es simplemente buenísima. Aún mejor que “The Gunslinger Born”.

Para aquellos que no saben mucho de los comics que siguen “The Dark Tower”, básicamente empezamos con la historia de como Roland se convierte en Gunslinger con “The Gunslinger Born” y sus historias con Cuthbert y Jamie (el Ka-tet). Esta segunda serie cubre la historia de ellos volviendo a la ciudad a avisar antes del ataque de “The Good Man”.

En el cuarto fascículo, al final, muestran dibujos de las diferente mutaciones de animales y seres humanos. Los dibujos son increibles. Lo que me vino a la mente fue el primer libro de la serie “The Gunslinger - The Dark Tower I”, y el pasaje de Roland y Jake a través de las montañas y el ataque de los “Slow Mutants”. Tanto así que decidí leerme otra vez el primer libro. Leer el libro con las imágenes de los comics es una experiencia más completa. Los mutantes son tan fascinantes como uno los imagina mientras lee el libro.

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I heard this song in a podcast and got into my head for the rest of the day. The song was “Its not you its me” from “Coconut Records”. Got no choice but to look’em up. The band (one man band - Jason Schwartzman) has put only one record out: Nighttiming, and the whole album sounds pretty silly if you ask me, but damn, I can’t get some of the tunes out of my head. So let me share my pain with you…

You can here some of their stuff at his myspace page: http://myspace.com/coconutrecords

West Coast

Its not you Its me

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It’s been since Mulholland Drive, Lynch’s puzzle, that I have been so lost at the end of a movie.

Primer is a mind puzzle thriller about a couple of techies that by accident build a time travel machine. As expected they get invigorated by its power and things happen as you can imagine. However figuring out exactly how it is happening its what makes it really enjoyable. I mean you can get the main idea at the end of the movie, you sort of understand what happens as you move along, but I, at least, could not really explained it.

So what did I do?… I watched it twice in a row, then jumped on their website, read many theories and I am dying to watch it again just to check which theory likely is right.

Primer won the jury award at Sundance 2004, and, as you, probably, I’d never heard of it. The movie is as low budget as likely possible. It is written, directed, produced, edited, music, and acted by the same guy Shane Carruth (KUDOS to him by the way). There are a couple, really a couple, of visual effects, sound isn’t great, acting outside the main two guys is very amateur at best. Dave Sullivan (the other main character) is very good. The script is sound, the storytelling is very good, good pace mostly, and it is, in my humble opinion, very well directed. Not anyone can pull it off with such a complicated story. The first 20 min or sort the first act is quite heavy on science lingo and it is hard to know what to make it out of the movie. Hang in there, the second act is quite strong, and a very good finish.

I won’t get into any details because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone that might read this…

Trailer at their website.

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Ireland has given us many fabulous musicians over the years. Among them are luminaries such as U2, Van Morrison, Enya, Thin Lizzy, The Cranberries, and of course Sinéad O’Connor. Today, I read in The Wall Street Journal about another Irish band called Bell X1 (X one and not eleven) about to release their first album in the United States. This album, called Flock, was first released in Ireland in 2006 and went on to become a multi-platinum selling one vaulting them to superstardom in the Emerald Isle. I had never heard of the band until today and curious, checked them out online. They sound awesome and are like a cross between Coldplay and Radiohead, if that’s even possible.

There are many of their songs on youtube (including some from Flock) but the following from an earlier album stood out for me. It’s called Tongue and is a high rocking number. Wear headphones if at work.

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it’s been a while… anyways…

I was recently listening to all songs considered podcasts. They have a concert from Iron and Wine, which is great. I didn’t know much about them (really him - Sam Beam) until I got one of the demo cds in one of the music magazines I am subscribed to. I really enjoyed his track: “Boy with a Coin”, from his latest album release: “The Shepherd’s Dog” late in 2007.

The lyrics are a bit sad, but I love this verse:

” A girl with a bird she found in the snow
then flew up her gown and that’s how she knows
that God made her eyes for crying at birth
Then left the ground to circle the Earth”

enjoy…

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A couple of nights ago I was flipping channels waiting for Weeds to download. I happened to stop at MTV music channel in HD, which believe it or not, it actually shows music, go figure!. Anyways there were showing James Blunt acoustic show. The only thing I knew about the guy was that he was behind a song my niece really likes: “You are Beautiful”, which I find particularly sappy for my taste. I heard a few songs, because his music is mostly acoustic anyways.

Among the few songs I heard there was this one that both Vanessa and I liked, I guess more for the lyrics than anything else, the music is ok and he delivered it quite well in the acoustic show. The song is “Same Mistake” and is worth listening to.

The song is part of his latest album “All the Lost Souls”, which it took me half listening to realize that the style is not my favorite. It actually reminded me a bit Dido, whose songs all sound the same after few chords. Very uninteresting.

The studio video is terrible… you can be the judge. The surrealistic camera is very much misused. I am sure Mr Aronofsky will be dissapointed. But of course that is just my take.

The unplugged version is also in youtube, but for some reason the embedded link is not available. You can get it at youtube by clicking here.

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It’s been a while since I wrote about the first three issues of this comic series. I was so disappointed at issue #3 (Sloth) that it took many trips to the comic shop to get the next three issues: Lust, Pride and Envy. Issue seven is still in the making.

As with the rest of the series, issues 4 through 6, are a roller coaster. Being Lust the best story telling and Envy the best art and character development I’ve seen this far. Pride is a bit boring, but not as bad, nothing could, as the story telling of Sloth.

In Lust, they give us a bit of the background on the religious upbringing that is quite consistent with the character we know. The art is good, but the story telling is what shines. We know of his mother and her relationship to his uncle, how the mother pushes him into a world of guiltiness (is that a word?), and how his teenager hormones had something to say about it. But not quite enough, so it all start making sense.

Pride is quite uneventful, a bit of cheese here and there, very cliche, nothing much to say… the art cover, as usual, is great.

Envy is perhaps the best issue thus far. It is actually what prompted me to write about the series again. It is what I’ve hoped the whole series would have been. It goes deep, it shows how John Doe cracks and we understand how he becomes vulnerable to the sin he is guilty of at the end of the movie. The writer, David Mack, found a story that makes sense. The art is very good and compelling. If you are not interested in the rest of the series, at least try this one.

It is said that by the end of the year they are going to put out the whole series in a graphic novel, so if you are reading this and you are tempted to get it, then just wait until the graphic novel hits the stand.

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You can’t miss the first 30 seconds of this song. I don’t care if you don’t like the rest but the first 30 seconds are amazing. I actually like the song, but it may have something to do about the context I listened it. The band is Dresden Dolls, which I’ve liked some of the stuff they’ve done in the past. I particularly enjoyed their version of David Bowie’s Life in Mars in the Contamination: A Tribute To David Bowie album (I actually blogged about the original song before)

I spotted the song while watching weeds episode 5 of the current season (season 3 that is). I was watching it last night and both the lyrics and the music were so dead on what was going on in the show.

They have a bunch stuff free at their website.

Girl Anachronism

Life on Mars by DD

Life on Mars by Bowie and Arcade Fire

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