Music is my beach house

After a well-deserved summer break (because French people are VERY serious, well only when it comes to holidays, coffee and croissants...), I was very excited to start working on the music reviews for this issue of RMM. So I happily contacted the editor who told me that the theme for this issue was “green / eco-friendly”... OK that’s a tough one
I (briefly) contemplated talking about happy songs with forest noises and birds chirping or disserting on the merits of Enya vast discography, I decided to go for a more oblique approach. My friend Carlos always tells me “every problem can become an opportunity” but I prefer to say “when  facing a problem, pretend that you did not understand and that it doesn’t exist”
So it’s time for me to write the GREEN reviews (a.k.a. Reviews of my favourite songs with GREEN in the title). Since I feel a little bit guilty about my stunt I have devised an “eco-friendly index” to see how green these songs really are.

New Order – Everything’s gone green (from Substance)
This was originally the B-side to New Order’s first single Ceremony but our friends in Belgium were lucky enough to be able to buy this as a single. This marks really the moment where New Order stops being Joy Division without Ian Curtis and become a band on their own terms. While the lyrics remain dour and Barney is still mimicking Ian’s vocal delivery, the addictive bass line and bright melody pave the way for a happier, poppier and dancier New order...
Eco-friendly index : 2/10 – New order’s first song electronic computer-based sound. With the launch of this trend, just look at a graph showing the electricity consumption after 1981... Dramatic!  

Tom Vek – Nothing but green lights (from We have sound)
On the best track on his debut album, Tom Vek really tried to make his point that less is more. No chorus, a spare bouncy bass line and a lazy drawl in place of any real singing. But Tom’s optimism and the simple groove are so infectious that we need nothing else. If you need more convincing, youtube the video. Where on paper the idea of a gangly Napoleon dynamite skating on a dark empty ring doesn’t sound like a good idea, it’s strangely effect. When the vocals drop, Tom Vek disappears and is replaced by nothing but green light, this is a strangely beautiful moment.
Eco-friendly index : 8/10 There are no better way to convince people to stop using their cars and only move on skates...

Matias Aguayo – The green and the red  (from Are you really lost?)
Ex-Closer Musik Matias Aguayo released his album on critics’ favourite label (well at least two years ago) Kompakt. But don’t look for any minimal techno there as it is indeed a carefully fashioned electropop affair. The green and the red  mixes some plaintive chants with clicky acoustic guitar patterns and an anaemic synth line. But the rhythm always seem out of balance, the song ready to fall and the playful and simplistic lyrics always make me crack a smile – Matias success to infuse some playfulness and sense of fun sometimes lacking in the minimal scene.
Eco-friendly index : 0/10 According to the lyrics, “the red was joking, the green was smoking” How can you be green and smoke, smoking is a terrible sin, don’t you know?

M83 - On a white lake, near a green mountain (from Dead cities, red seas and lost ghosts)
On one of the emptiest, sparest track on the album that revealed them overseas, M83 show exactly where they stand – at the middle point between contemplative spacey music and hard aggressive beats and sounds. It all starts very sigur-rosey with quiet majestic synth lines (I also seem to hear a waterfall at the beginning?) but a menacing beat is soon summoned to bring the track back to earth. There are stronger, more interesting tracks on M83 albums but with this really shows where the attraction of M83 albums and live shows come from : a perpetual fight between aerial inspirations and earthy constraints.
Eco-friendly index : 5/10 – This seems the logical score for this nature vs. machine schizophrenic track.

Blossom deary - Long daddy green (from Love,)
I have to admit I know nothing about Blossom deary and this kind of jazzy loungey swingy music is not what I usually listen to. But thanks to the good people at La troisieme note  who handcrafted the really delicious compilation Love, I succumbed to the obvious charm of this song. A soft almost out of breath voice bounces around, surrounded by gentle pianos, brass and a playful bass – to me this song portrays innocence but not naivety. The singer seems young and fragile but I am sure she is a slightly dangerous seductress. Anyway, if anyone knows more about Blossom deary and if the rest of their output is as good as this, let me know!
Eco-friendly index : 9/10 this is the perfect soundtrack for a lazy day frolicking in the fields

This text is my submission for the music reviews section in Ready Made Magazine (RMM). Records reviewed may or may not be available at kapok  (www.ka-pok.com) – notwithstanding we love them all!

No this blog is not on hold (not yet, but given my legendary laziness, it might get on hold ANYTIME SOON).
While my job is fun 90% of the time, there is one part that i kind of hate. We need to import a lot from Europe and then resell all over Asia.
This means that i get to deal with a lot of logistics and transportation company - and they can sometimes act totally retarded (dear phantom reader working in logistics, don't be offended!)

For example, last week I had a shipment to prepare for Indonesia. The customer made some changes so i asked my warehouse to put the shipment ON HOLD. And to my surprise this morning, I saw from my Fedex statement that the shipment had been sent already...

Why, why, why, you may ask... Well a quick look at the bill showed that the package was delivered to Mr. (or Mrs.) ON HOLD.... I enjoy he/she will enjoy their new diaries...
I guess it could be funny (is it? really?) but not when it happens every other day - i guess they are now used at my angry fits and ketchup throwing accident (why ketchup you may ask - this is another story)

A couple of weeks ago, we went to this TPK restaurant to say goodbye to our friend Mariko who is going back to England...
TPK is a Chinese restaurant specialising in western dishes (i know,  strange concept). The food is OK, but the deco is just amazing, i felt back in the earlyn 70's.
Every table around us ordered that GIGANORMOUS souffle so we had to try:

This was really impressive and we had to find a souffle-cutting specialist to prepare everyone's portion... We could have guessed that they focused on the visual aspect as unfortunately, the souffle tasted like a semi-sweet omelette...
This left me wanting to try a decent souffle. Any recommendations in Hong Kong, please hit the comments box...