Orwell Continental. Orwell gone pop. I won't reiterate my previous laments about Phoenix. I should. But I will not. All of this is in English. It will not be allowed into Quebec then. I can see the apparatchiks in Bell Canada, I believe that it is still called Bell Canada, working feverishly to sever all lines of communication to protect the gentle ears of the population of Quebec from the endemic spread of anglo-pop even if it does originate in France. My mother is French-Canadian. I am not certain that she is a huge fan of Orwell. Probably not. I mention my mother's ethnicity often. it means that I am to at least some degree a frog. I am a dissident. My parents left for their long journey home early this morning. Colorado is on the far eastern edge of the mountain time zone and so sunrise is around 5AM. Very early. It aids me in my bicycling endeavours across the platte each morning. My parents visit for one week and I revert to the son they know. I am amorphous. I can adopt different personas based on the situation. I played in a softball game on Friday and I was Jock me. I hit a home run and made a diving stop but we still lost but only just. Second track, acoustic guitar and soft voice, I love Orwell. This is a lovely pop record, perhaps he was inspired by the breakout success of Fugu when he recorded his bubblegum pop record. That record was genius, absolutely, you ignored it, Fugu is probably washing dishes in an Applebys. After softball I came home and was Fox news watching son. All during the week I was golf playing son. I could be a serviceable golfer. It is a curse. I am athletic. As I am also now very old I have to prepare to prevent pulls of quadriceps and tendons and egos. When my parents left I turned back into recluse son. I don't say anything all day long. I make an effort at silence. I am saving my words. There is a limit that is granted each soul as it departs the guf on sparrow's wings. I learned this from Demi Moore. This track is lovely, it's bouncy, mid-tempo, harpsichord-ish, jaunty, delightful, in english, it is all in English and so I will not repeat the folly of my Arnaud Fleurent-Didier interpretation when I ascribed to him all sorts of nefarious motives when really he's just very odd. I love him even more. Now an electric piano-ish sort of thing, slinking, sliding, warm and nice. Now are these digital strings? I reviewed the last Orwell record and I was contacted by their manager afterwards. He was a one man concern back then but I am led to believe that he has recast the outfit as an actual band. They wear matching red stars over their hearts, vote in concert for Olivier Besancenot and smoke near the entrance of the Grand Palais. Are these digital strings? An echo. It's very much in line with this sort of thing, the Orwell thing, the Fugu thing, the Chut thing, a crystalline, delicate, filamentous pop that endears itself to me so easily. Now to cheap drum machines. More english. Was he poetic in French? He is not in English. I am unable to read in French. I own several books by French poets but have only ever experienced these poems in English. It isn't the same,t eh words seem dressed up, inhibition poured upon, nuance discarded. Antonin Artaud must be more brilliant in French. I could send these books to Andrew Sullivan and he could pause from his journey up Sarah Palin's uterus and read them to me in the original French. It would make all of the difference. I wonder if my parents know who Andrew Sullivan is? They receive nearly all of their news from Fox news. We had a philosophical argument where they were attempting to convince me that somehow their needed to be a national consensus on morality or else this country was doomed. I argued that it is the compulsion against personal conscience that has led to most totalitarian excesses and murder and they didn't seem to agree with me. Orwell has not yet addressed this on this record. I am being patient. I am certain that he will. But state compulsion of personal conscience be it for religion or any other sort of ideology is the nose under the tent. And then I said truly it is all down to private property rights. Bertolt Brecht was brought up. They agreed. Slightly. But when the government makes claim on the air we are all heading in to the basement. This is a slower track, it reminds me, to be fair, of the Allen Clapp solo record. Obviously he is not so nerdy and his voice is more appealing but it has that cosmic piano bar feel going on so far. There is the piano, in the foreground, his voice multi-tracked, and vintage Todd Rundgren sound effects to round out the track. Nice. Now to the track Eastern, more of the tinny drum machine. It is a recession, we may not have been able to qualify for a loan for the more spectacular beat package He could have gone to the showroom and asked for the Will.I.AM package and was told he only qualified for the government subsidised MC 900 Ft Jesus package. I don't mind. Drum machines should sound rustic in my world. They should have cobwebs floating in the dappled sunlight. Is this an instrumental? Pianos, fake harpsichords, drum machines, loveliness, some harmony vocals at a distance. Very nice, a bit reminiscent of a Giorgio Tuma track perhaps. I am also waiting patiently for the Giorgio Tuma revolution to begin. Musicians will be exposed to his new record and be drawn into a vortex of pop majesty and wonderment. There have been many lovely records released this year actually. This one. Others. This track started off as a gentle pastoral ode and has been layered into a more robust type of cumulus cloud chamber pop. A hypnotic keyboard motif. A repetitive vocal, very Stereolab, it is all very hypnotic. Non French speakers of the world will feel superior to the masses in several Arrondisements that will lie ignorant of such beauty. I am inspired to travel to France and describe the loveliness of the sentiments on this record, even if perhaps they do not exist, to the greater population of France. I am just dreadful. I could travel to Laval instead. I love the French. Truly. i visited a beautiful French restaurant with a very kind person recently and had mussels and cheese. It was a delightful evening. This could have been the eclectic soundtrack to my having mistaken bowls of mussels for very large bowls of soup. Gazpacho! But that is Spain. We are spending this evening in France. Durutti has just been talked out of his raid on the national Bank. Whew. This is the only reason that I read, so that I may make incoherent references to whatever it is that I am reading at the time of my varied musical infatuations. This track is a bit modern seeming, almost club-ish. Wailing guitars or electronics now, a drum machine preset, vanilla vocals but it is still very good. His voice is not distinctive. It is pleasant. The words are not distinctive, they are diverting. Whereas Fugu seemingly bleeds his heart across all of these tracks this is more professional. I don't mind professionalism. If this were American I might mind. If this was Liam Hayes I might mind. Why doesn't he release records? I saw him play live once. He is exceedingly talented. I think he is aware of this. This may be his problem. He might be best served by a move to the continent. A bit more interesting drum machine/sampler patter to open Them. It starts off a bit singer-songwriter-ish. I keep describing everything as something-ish, my apoliges, I get into ruts. It is difficult to type whatever comes out of your head and not have it rotate in circles and be reminiscent of what you wrote from the same head only a few days before. I haven't written anything at all this week. My parents do not inspire me. My father could be a muse. He's had a remarkable run of bad luck and doesn't seem to have let it bring him down. He is without his left eye now. He had a very large portion of skin from his back removed and affixed to his face by surgery. It resembled a foreskin. Truly. But he has had several surgeries since and they have reduced the genital nature of his face. Soon he will wear an eye patch. I was hoping he would have a tattoo applied either of an eye or of an eye patch. Tattoos are so passe though, he declined my proposal, he is much too hip. My parents may be more hip than I am, in spite of their rejection of Glen Beck. I am unhip and unaware. I am buried in the early 20th century with Jean Marais and Nijinsky and Tristan Tzara and I don't mind. Every time I turn on the radio I hear David Mamet and he is never discussing Orwell. He mentions Wilfred Trotter though and Gustave Le Bon. I would like to be able to inject those two names in my everyday correspondence and conversation but I find the opportunities to are somewhat difficult to come by. A Long Way to the Start, strings, these seem real, are they real, I think they are real. Now the drum machine. Drum machines and strings are the future of music. Ask Bjork. She may be on NPR at the moment debating David Mamet about nationalising geothermal resources beneath Iceland. La Pasionaria as an elf. This is a charming pop song. I like it. Where my father's missing eye went he is unsure. I would have kept it as a souvenir. I have photos of my brain. When I had a seizure once they took several photos of my brain. It is unremarkable, as you can ascertain by perusal of this website, but I find it beautiful especially when juxtaposed against the titanium screws and plates in my jaw. It feels as if I have created a Maginot Line, a defense against intruders, a reinforcement of the blood-brain barrier to keep encephalitis out, to keep dementia at bay, to stop CJD cold. Short track now, this may be the third instrumental track, again it reminds of Allen Clapp. I am going to assume this was unintentional and I may be the only one to make that leap. Allen is not sophisticated or European or cool but he is charming and earnest and stripped of the barrier of language these tracks fall gently in line with those descriptors. Last track, gentle, rolling, last track pastoral travelogue, beautiful. he recently played live with Amor De Dias. it must have been a wonderful evening. Orwell in tee shirts and flip flops and Amor De Dias in the rain. Echoey chorus. How is this effect achieved? Dreaded compression? I am going to revert to writing an entry nearly every day, be forewarned. It will be mainly concerning the Spanish Civil War for the next couple of weeks, I am halfway through more than 1000 pages. I can't read when my parents are here, I feel pretentious. Better to be obnoxiously pseudo-literate in private. I have found this to be a universal truth. But when friends ask me about Orwell, if I had any, I will tell them he should be shared in great helpings and his loveliness is but another universal truth.