Welcome to Clockwork Shorts – allow me to wish you a joyous, fruitful and relaxing holiday season, wherever you are.  When you find that you have a bit of time to kill, please bookmark and come back here to enjoy my round up of movies & music from 2011..

After a couple of weeks of fairly intensive blogging, it’s time to wave a fond farewell to this year and count down the days until Armageddon (Friday 21st December 2012, just in case you weren’t sure).
I thought it would only be sensible to provide a page with links to all the other posts to ease your navigation & my organisation, so here we all are!

Firstly, and most importantly:

THE CLOCKWORK SHORTS XMAS “BEST OF 2011″ MIX CAN BE FOUND HERE

Please have a listen – you may even be pleasantly surprised, who knows? I think I’ve managed to largely keep the bagpipe techno and Navajo nose flute whistling to only a few tunes this year, so perhaps the rest is vaguely tolerable.

Whilst we’re on the mixing theme, let’s count the rest of them down:

MIXES

12: House, Funky, Minimal & Techno

11: Wobble Bass Hip Hop

10: Ghoststep II – Chilled Dubstep & Future Garage

9: Banging Rave & Wobble Mix

8: Heads Down Percussive Funky & Tropical

7: Heavy Dubstep & Brostep Mix

6: Classic Chill Out & Trip Hop Mix

5: 100bpm Lounge & Bass Mix

4: Bliss Drone Ambient Chill Mix

3: Acid House & Techno Mix

2: Chilled Dubstep Mix

1: Bass & Rave, Juke & Jungle Mix

Staying on the topic of music, we should next tackle my choices for Top Ten Albums of 2011.  I tend to prefer to just mix music and let it speak for itself than write about it normally, so this was a bit of an experiment for me.  I hope they were of adequate quality to your delectation..

THE ALBUMS OF 2011

10: Vanilla – High Life

9: James Blake – James Blake

8: Lanu – Her Twelve Faces

7: Gatto Fritto – Gatto Fritto

6: Sun Glitters – Everything Could Be Fine

5: Africa Hitech – 93 Million Miles

4: Rustie – Glass Swords

3: Kuedo – Severant

2: Machinderum – Room(s)

1: Amon Tobin – ISAM

oh, and of course, Bjork’s Biophilia was my chosen Stinker of the Year .

Last but by no means least is my selection of the Top Ten Films of the Year, quite a hard list to choose, I Must say:

THE FILMS OF 2011

10: BUNRAKU

9: The Woman

8: Hesher

7: Hanna

6: Marwencol

5: Take Shelter

4: Rango

3: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2: Submarine

1: Tree Of Life

Transformers 3D was my chosen Stinker of the Year and in actual fact I got so worked up about it that I accidentally typed out a 2,000 word essay on the matter.. So, that should kill a lunch break when you’re bored, I reckon.

I feel I should make a disclaimer of sorts – there are many films that might well have made the list that I am still keen to see but have as yet failed to do so: Drive, Tinker Tailor, Kill List, The Ides of March, Contagion and War Horse are just a handful that spring to mind. Still circumstance can prevent these things from happening sometimes, and anyway, what the hell’s the point in my wittering on about a film that you know and like already?

In actual fact, if you’re morbidly curious, you can see a complete chronological list of films I’ve watched in 2011 HERE .  Yes, there IS an awful lot of dreck, isn’t there?

A considerable amount of time effort and energy has been put into getting all of this content onto Clockwork Shorts, so I genuinely do hope that you find the time and the inclination to read at least one or two articles, dip your ears in one of the mixes, hey maybe even share the links with other people you think might enjoy a good read, dance, or even a meditation tape.

Please come back in 2012 when I will do my damndest to get some more movie reviews written, along with the regular(-ish) monthly mixes and perhaps some exciting surprises (woo!)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you – may your loved ones remain happy and healthy, and let us all snuggle together as we watch the gradual crumbling of society and civilised behaviour whilst Armageddon looms ahead.. Only twelve months to go, let’s make the most of it, or failing that, at least get to see Batman in the IMAX.

ta ta for now.

Duncan Orangewarrior

Well, here we are – a mix for your delectation and Christmas relaxation – the tracklist is made largely of tunes or artists that have featured in the Clockwork Shorts Albums of The Year Top Ten list.

Tracklist / Info:

00:16 Ltj Bukem / Phillip D Kick – Horizons (Phillip D Kick’s footwork jungle edit)
01:11 Machinedrum – Now U Know The Deal 4 Real
05:11 Ital Tek – Pixel Haze
08:00 The Weeknd – High_For_This (NastyNasty Remix)
12:14 Kuedo – Reality Drift
14:46 Delilah – Go
18:23 Sun Glitters x Halls – Sun Glitters – too much to lose (Halls Remix)
20:03 Sun Glitters – Time (Better Not Stop)
24:43 Com Truise – Cathode Girls
27:58 Om Unit – Swimming Dragon
33:01 Silent Dust – The Giant (Om Unit Remix)
35:24 Korallreven – Sa Sa Samoa
39:47 Washed Out – A Dedication
44:09 James Blake – I Never Learnt To Share
48:42 M83 – Midnight City
50:19 Gatto Fritto – Hex
54:23 Nicolas Jaar – Too Many Kids Finding Rain In The Dust
1:01:14 The Chemical Brothers – Hanna’s theme

Duration 1hr 5mins
File size : 150Mb , 320kbps

You can download the file from HERE
or Stream it on Mixcloud HERE.

Please Enjoy, feel free to share, and have a Merry Christmas!

Inevitably there were some rotten films in 2011. Some, I was alert enough to avoid like the plague and spare myself the harm: Twilight for example, or Mars Needs Moms, or Hop, or Apollo 18. Others, I somehow managed to subject myself to: Russel Brand’s Arthur springs to mind. Brand’s charmless pasquinade of English eccentricity coming off as a mentally subnormal Mick Jagger lookalike managed to push Anti-UK xenophobia back another century and smashed up the Batmobile in the process. Still, I can’t quite muster the energy to rattle off a full Bottom Ten of terrible films. I’m sure you saw the ones you hated the most.

That being said however, I have a particular axe to grind, and whilst I may as well be bellowing into the abyss, I may as well as get it off my chest.

Let’s go back, let’s go way back.. Let’s go all the way back to 1984, Surrey, England. A rather excitable carrot-topped 7 year old is to be found sat in front of the sitting room telly in his tartan pyjamas and dressing gown. Wacaday’s been and gone and He-Man’s just finished, so it’s not long before it’ll be time to turn over to Saturday Superstore, but just then before he gets up to press the big “1″ button, something quite magical happens.. This:

Of course the little ginge was me, and as I sat there entranced by these cars and planes that could magically turn into fighting robots with axes and chain maces for hands, I instantly fell in love.

Now, it could well be that you’re sat there in the 21st Century sneering at the judgement of a small child from 30-odd years ago, but so it goes sometimes. Other kids had Star Wars (remember that?) but My Thing was Transformers. Yea, Bandai tried to con us with Gobots, but you can’t just tell kids that a windscreen is a face, where are the eyes for starters?? Don’t even get me started on Rock Lords. . . I would save up all of my pocket money to get my hands on the little toy blighters (not Bumblebee though – he was rubbish). I dutifully went to see the cartoon film in ’85 and wept as Optimus died (spoilers!); I even recall co-ordinating one birthday party’s presents, Cartman-like, so that I might hope to have all of the Arialbots to combine into Superion.
For several years I would get the Marvel comic delivered with my parents’ newspapers – woe betide the paperboy if a Friday breakfast was Transformers-light. Little did I realise it at such a tender age, but on a weekly basis, I was enjoying some of the finest science fiction / pulp storytelling and mythology building, courtesy of the inestimable Simon Furman. Yes, the cartoons were just glorified toy commercials, but Furman’s work rounded the Autobots and Decepticons into fallible personalities, just as nuanced as their human counterparts.

There does of course come a time to put away childish things, and once Transformers UK reached its 200th issue in early ’89 I decided it was time to cancel my subscription and give away all the comic books. After all, Warhammer 40,000 looked Far more grown up (tragic isn’t it?) Still, that intense five year first love affair had left an indelible mark – one that still has me getting irrationally excited by anything with a fearsome looking robot in it: be it an album cover, a work of art (graffiti normally) or, would you believe, a multi-million dollar movie franchise that boasts some of the biggest explosions recorded on film.

So yes, I’ve wasted all of your time up until now with my Harry Knowles-style confessional autobiography to establish one vital, important fact. I bloody LOVE Transformers.

Which of course brings us to the Paramount / Dreamworks / Hasbro car-wreck (literally) that is Michael Bay’s Transformers.
The first one was pretty good in retrospect, it seemed to be in keeping with the stories from the 80s, cosmetic adjustments aside. We got to see the Cybertronian War come to Earth and we got to see giant robots punch each other in the head for a couple of hours, so that was a result. Whilst slight and brainless, it also felt like it was laying the groundwork for a larger, epic storyline that would be delivered in the sequel.. Transformers 2 though, oh my, what a mess, what a disappointment! I wrote a review at the time which you can find on this site, and I desperately tried to convince myself that it was not that bad, choosing to enjoy the effects and ignore the flaws, but really the film was an affront to pretty much everyone who went to see it – I mean, the trailers had made it look like a fantastically epic adventure, but instead we got lazy racism, bad humour, and giant clanking robot testicles.
Audiences continued to flock to the spectacle but were equally vocal about what a hollow, trashy, and offensive film it was.

When the inevitable threequel was announced, Michael Bay, Shia TheBeef and many others went to great pains to proclaim that this time it would be different – there had been a writer’s strike last time; this one would go much deeper into the Transformers mythology; the crap humour and racism had been excised; we’d concentrate on the robots more than the humans. It’s be this, it’d be that, it’d be everything you wanted from a film called Transformers.
It Would Be Awesome.

Trailers can often be misleading, and Bay’s team have a disturbing knack of putting exciting ones together. It would take a cold heart to deny that this looks like a fun time is to be had in the cinema:

3 hours of robot carnage – of interplanetary war, of Cybertronian Armageddon: cool fight scenes, human peril and robots in disguise.
Sadly however, the truth was quite another story altogether.

First off, Shia’s character Sam is the most hateable human being in the entirety of cinema’s existence – whining about how he only got a medal for “saving the world” and resenting his rent-free unemployed residence in the home of a sexually adventurous lingerie model. Sympathetic protagonist or relatable hero he ain’t, and from the first scene of his bile spewing rhetoric, you can’t wait for him to get crushed underfoot by a malevolent mechanoid.
The other humans don’t fare so well either – said aforementioned model seemingly lacks the ability to say words in her mother tongue, the tedious unfunny parents are back, the shouty US Marines are more of a cypher than actual characters, and indie alumni like John Malkovich & Frances McDormand really have no excuse whatsoever.

As if the dead eyed human tedium wasn’t bad enough, there is a full NINETY minutes of seemingly interminable mugging to camera before anything remotely of interest happens. When it eventually does, none of it makes any sense, and nobody cares. The film can’t even be bothered to follow it’s own internal logic, just blindly stumbling from one incomprehensible blender-fart of a set piece to the next without any regard for the laws of, say, storytelling, basic physics, audience interest, or entertainment.

One pleasant side effect of the (near-inscrutable) 3D stereoscopic presentation of this film was that it HAD to slow down the action to give people’s brains time to process exactly what was happening on screen – for several moments in the film, you can indeed work out vaguely what is supposed to be going on, but Michael Bay just can’t help himself and the next flash frame we’re off up some girl’s skirt, laughing at a tiny robot making sex /fart jokes, or just happily dribbling out the sides of our mouths. If this is indeed “Fucking The Frame” then maybe Bay should try taking the frame for dinner first, lighting some candles, putting on some Alexander O’Neal, and taking his time for once, rather than rutting away innefectively like an ADD-afflicted teenager dry humping a puddle of motor oil whilst listening to Nu Metal cds.

What is possibly the most offensive aspect of the entire franchise to this lifelong Transformers fan is just how completely and utterly fucking dickless the Autobots are. Admittedly, they’ve taken a pasting in the past, and one had put it down to narrative tension, but this is the third (and supposedly final..until the B.O. receipts came in) installment, so it should be their time to shine. But no as ever, Optimus and his gang are just as ineffective as ever, paying fealty to their draconian human overlords and perpetually apologising for their own existence.

The Big Hero Moment of the film was teased in the trailers and it was a shot that every Transformers fan wanted to see – Optimus riding into town with a jetpack on his back and flaming swords in each hand: taking names, chopping limbs and cracking skulls… But in the actual film, that isn’t the end of the story, no he keeps on flying along like Frank Spencer on rollerskates, totally out of control and ending up tangled in a mess of wires, mumbling apologies and thank yous as some nameless droids cut him free and the grown ups get on with the important business of saving the world. Seriously, if you can’t allow the Hero of the film to behave like a hero, then why are we even here? Give the guy some dignity for chrissakes.

Although disappointed by the film when led by the nose to see it in IMAX 3D over the Summer, I figured I could have just been having a bad day and decided to give it a second shot when the bluray came out. It was about an hour into the film that a “hilariously” orange spray-tanned John Malkovich could be seen threatening Bumblebee with karate chops. Like everything else in this film, it was stupid, pointless, devoid of any logic or narrative, and basically quite boring. It was at this point that the wife & I decided to turn it off and watch Spooks instead.

So, Congratulations Michael Bay, over the course of three films you have manage to make me hate the things I loved – I would rather watch an over-wrought British facsimile of 24 than endure another minute of your mindless dreck. I’m sure you couldn’t care less, and will happily rest easy in your mansion built entirely out of dollar bills and bikini thongs, but it is a sad day indeed for an individual such as I who was once so passionate and enthusiastic about the ongoing exploits of our Cybertronian allies.

Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon is without a doubt the worst film of the year. Avoid it at all costs.

First things first, I’ve chosen my words very carefully in the title above and feel like perhaps I should clarify myself. I don’t think it would be fair to label Biophilia as “The Worst Album of The Year” by any stretch of the imagination, but perhaps it is the most disappointing, and that disappointment stinks.

I am a big fan of Bjork’s music – I recall seeing The Sugarcubes perform “Hit” on The Word and rushing out to the shops the next day to buy the CD single. Debut was hugely hyped upon release but has aged very well, Post was much more than just “It’s Oh So Quiet,” thankfully. It was with Homogenic though that Bjork’s music reached stratospheric heights and has pretty much there stayed ever since. I’ll be the first to admit that her music is not for everyone, and indeed it’s her unrelenting quest for sonic experimentation and innovation that continues to give her the edge over other “out there” vocalists & performers.

You can imagine then that the news of a new Bjork album in 2011 was greeted with boundless enthusiasm and excitement. My “bucket list” of performers to see live pretty much has only her left on it (assuming Mad Ragga Jon isn’t staging a comeback any time soon) so that was something to look forward to. Also, whilst 2007′s Volta album was pretty darned good, one couldn’t help but feel that maybe it wasn’t Bjork using her full potential – yeah, there were some cracking tunes, and the remix packages were largely excellent (particularly Modeselektor’s remix of Dull Flame of Desire) but nothing on there truly felt like it had that alchemical blend of the wildly esoteric and anthemic that earlier songs of hers still have to this day.

Irrationally high hopes were raised for some sort of masterpiece from Biophilia – something fittingly kooky, unique, striking and timeless. When the video promo for Crystalline arrived, signs continued to be strong – especially after what happens 3 minutes into the tune:

Ludicrous outfits, hyper-energetic visuals, crap dancing, and a terrifying wall of drums that hinted at the promise of a full album of similarly bombastic and schizophrenic music. Brilliant.

This is the point at which we discuss the app..

Biophilia’s USP was that it was not only a concept album of ten songs, but that collectively we were kicking down technological boundaries: this album was INTERACTIVE! Yes, Biophilia arrived on a tsunami of techno-babbled hype about how it would transcend physical formats (CDs? Sod off Grandad!) and be a piece of touch screen interactive software.. an App, if you will. Looking at the video above, you may agree that it looks like a hugely engaging & entertaining way to explore the music and the “universe” that had been woven around it. However, what did not become apparent until very late in the day was that this app (and as a direct result the full album experience) was exclusively available on iTunes for Mac users. When pressed in interviews about catering to alternative platforms, say Windows or Android, Bjork herself was kind of flippant & dismissive, saying something like “Oh, I hear that apps are quite easy to rip – I’m sure someone out there will rip it for those others.” Well, I guess it’s only 2 and a half months since the release date but in technology terms that’s a lifetime, and as far as my googling powers can tell, there still isn’t an Android format available – either legally or otherwise.

You may have guessed from the previous paragraph – I myself am a Windows and Android user. My reasons for being so are multiform and far too convoluted to go into detail here, but one that bears mentioning is the hegemony of a near-religious fanaticisim of a designer toy, and the subsequent monopoly over creativity & expression. I’m not quite wearing my tin foil hat just yet, but I think there should always be room for consumers to choose a viable alternative in a competitive market place. By choosing to neglect that alternative, Bjork effectively made a political statement (however slight) and demonstrated that she was only interested in catering to Apple fans. To many such as myself, it felt like a bit of a two fingered salute.

Listening to Biophilia itself (on mp3), it’s pleasant enough I suppose, but two main resounding thoughts constantly spring to mind. Firstly, it’s so spacious and languid, eschewing “traditional” song structures in preference of abstracted sonic landscapes and Bjork’s trademark ee.nun.see.haaaaay.shun, well I have to say, it’s a little bit boring. Secondly though, one can’t help but listen to it and imagine all the fun those Apple users are having, watching the visuals, playing with musical nodes as the melodies tinkle away. It would be overly harsh to say that Biophilia is a video game soundtrack, but it is the musical layer of a multi-sensory experience as envisioned by the creative mind behind it. To merely “listen” to Biophilia is just as incomplete an experience as to watch a film with the sound down.

Never mind, I thought to myself, so the album is a lost cause – at least I can get to see Bjork live at last, experience that amazing voice of hers, gasp in awe at the Tesla coil instrumentation, the ostentatious set dressing & livery, and all other bonkers sorts of affectations befitting an entertainer of her stature. But no, the live show never toured the country – Bjork had a short term residency in the Manchester International Festival for about 3 weeks- tickets were like gold dust, most sold out within minutes, and then the usual ridiculous ebay ticket pricing scams ensued. Not entirely Bjork’s fault, admittedly, but I can’t have been the only member of her legion of fans who was crossing their fingers and waiting for the “inevitable” tour dates to be announced, only to be left wanting. A second two fingered salute in the space of one album’s promotion.

So, in summary – Biophilia – not a bad album, not a great one either, but ultimately it felt like a rather private party to which only certain fans were invited. It’s hard for a fan to enthuse about an artist when they don’t seem particularly interested in allowing the audience to enjoy the art they have created.

Exclusivity stinks I’m afraid, and so too does Biophilia. You Apple lot are welcome to it.

As soon as I started to write these end of year blogs, I knew exactly what would sit proudly at the top. Amon Tobin’s ISAM album is his seventh for Ninjatune records in 15 years (not including Solid Steel Mixes) but this is his first that is completely and utterly peerless.

Tobin’s body of work has evolved over the years: his mid 90′s album as Cujo could be described as trip-hop; Bricolage and Permutation were beefed up forays into drum’n'bass and heavy hip hop, then Supermodified refined this sound more accessibly into a shape that can now be heard soundtracking most Top Gear montages. His next album began to incorporate visual elements and was also exemplary in the way the tunes segued together. Foley Room then saw Tobin eschew traditional samples, instead composing tunes entirely out of self-sourced field recordings. ISAM has amalgamated all of these developments, then inevitably pushed the artistry even further.

Sonically obtuse yet somehow accessible, ISAM can only really be explained in wildly hyperbolic metaphor. . . It is the sound of an army of skyscraper-sized Gundam mechanoids waging war inside a haunted Victorian dolls house; it is a Cybertronian lullaby performed in an insect’s dream; it’s the sound of a Galaxian spacecraft rotting away whilst inextricably being sucked into a supernova. That enough twaddle? Good.

Like I say – kind of hard to describe.. What I can say is that Tobin has delivered an hour of unbelievably detailed abstract music. It has no repetitive beats but will still make you want to dance; it has fat slabs of deep, angry bass that would have dubstep producers like Skrillex running for cover, dappled with playful nursery melodies and jingles that will lodge inside your head for days; it has plaintive sing-song vocals that can sound both innocent and ominous at once. No one track sounds remotely incongruous, in fact the album is far more effective when listened to as a continuous whole rather than cherry-picked individual tunes on your ipod. Whilst hard to explain what it may be, there is a distinct feeling of a narrative thread that pulls it all together. Put it on your headphones and you will struggle to find a more three dimensional soundscape to immerse yourself in, play it in the car and the bass will have your dentures rattling.

So far, I’ve only concentrated on what you might find on the CD, but it’s at this point I’ll advise you to click here and watch this illuminating video clip:

The Creators Project: Amon Tobin

(It doesn’t want to embed it seems, so please remember to pop back here once you’re done!)

Now take a peek at this one too:

You back? Jolly Good . . As you can see, ISAM has evolved into a wildly ambitious (and successful) live show – I was lucky enough to see a performance this year and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like it (or, well, what I Could see, beyond an ocean of tall people holding camera phones in the air). Such as the tracks are woven inextricably together, so the music is now entwined with the visuals on show. A fantastic achievement by all involved, and a level of technical proficiency that has yet to be matched by any other live audio/visual production.

The thing is, Tobin is not just without rival in his production skills, but he inspires a level of excellence in designers and creatives who have been exposed to his music. The top video above shows artist Tessa Farmer’s unsettling & imaginative sculptural work that she created to accompany the album, and I have a smattering of short video clips which you have to see: each of them both excellently & lovingly crafted, whilst also using Tobin’s music as a inspiration & starting block..

This is from Jim Jam Graphics and XYZee Design:

This is by Daniel Schwarz:

..and this final clip is from BLR FX using elements of Tobin’s remix of Noisia’s Machine Gun:

I think you get the general idea!

For about twenty years I have always held the Aphex Twin as the best electronic musician of my generation, but it has taken until ISAM for me to realise that his throne has been usurped: Amon Tobin is the reigning king of electronic production, pushing sonics in ways that the rest of us mere mortals cannot even begin to imagine or understand. Long may he continue to do so.

ISAM is available now from Ninjatune records. I can’t wait to get my hands on the DVD of the live show, surfacing some time in the New Year.

The full Clockwork Shorts 2011 retrospective of Movies, Music & Mixes can be browsed for your pleasure right HERE
Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2012!

Well, after 2 weeks of intense Christmas counting-down, here we are with the final mix in the series of Clockwork Shorts’ 2011 retrospective.. Please make sure to come back on Monday 19th December to grab a free download of my Xmas 2001 Mix.

Undoubtedly the dj-ing highlight of my year, I was extremely proud to have this mix featured on the Ninjatune Solid Steel Radio show and unleash a frenetic hour of Bass & Rave music on an unsuspecting public…

Clocking in at just over an hour, it’s a heavy mix of BASS and Rave music, guaranteed to kick off your weekend with a bang.

Starting off with some speaker shredding juke & footwork, the mix slides into some old skool jungle action before ramping up into dancehall, drum and bass, jump up, and drumstep.  Matta brings some filthy dubstep, ably assisted by 16Bit and Noisia, before we take it back to some rave-flavoured ardkore. Punching through with MJ Cole’s techno & percussive brand of funky house, things change tempo with a moombahton flavoured finale and one last old skool hip hop favourite to wind down with.

You can visit the Solid Steel Website for further info,

or just jump straight to their Soundcloud page to stream/download the mix.

Tracklisting / Info:

Should you be interested, you can check out my previous Solid Steel mix from 2009 here .

And of course, poke around the site here and download any mixes that take your fancy – there’s bound to be something to cater to nearly all electronic music tastes.

The Orangewarrior Xmas 2011 Mix will be posted on Monday 19th December.

Please come back then to grab a free download.

The Clockwork Shorts 2011 retrospective can be browsed for your pleasure right HERE

You didn’t honestly think it’d be anything else, did you?

I was lucky enough to attend an early preview for the Tree Of Life and was so fit-to-bursting with superlatives that I swiftly dashed home and laid out my thoughts. You can of course still read that initial review HERE.

Having seen the film twice now, and with a bit of time to consider & compile my thoughts, I must say there is little from that initial review that I would change. What has been fascinating to me has been the public profile & evolution of the film’s acceptance. Returning triumphant from Cannes, it quickly became a bit of a media dahlink’s curate’s egg. That initial screening split the audience: some lachrymose in awe, others booing and jeering at what a load of soppy old codswallop it all was. Indeed that pretty much set the bar for public reception when it came out. It might seem a bit harsh to say, but it’s definitely one of those films that either you Get or you Don’t – it’s cinematic Marmite. However, if you’re one of the ones that didn’t like it, that doesn’t mean you need to be derisive or mocking to those that do (of which I am one, of course).

I particularly enjoyed just how such an obtuse film could draw such large audiences, and yet invoke widescale bafflement and walkouts. Case in point, this sign that was put up at The Avon Theater – an “arthouse” cinema in Stamford, USA:
Just. Brilliant.

Strangely enough, it is the prolonged “birth of life” sequence that has received the most flack – I suppose showing dinosaurs onscreen is setting oneself up for being an easy target. Truth is, that breathtaking Douglas Trumbull sequence is definitely my favourite part of the film – it looks beautiful, it tells a vast, incomprehensible story that slowly explains itself like a budding flower; and it sets up the rest of the film perfectly. Perhaps one’s enjoyment or appreciation of that sequence is the key to how you’ll get on with the rest of the film. Someone very close to me joked that she was waiting for David Attenborough to start a voice over, which is quite a valid reaction. Mind you, if you sat in a cinema watching alternate scenes from Frozen Planet and Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe, perhaps you would be just as awe-smitten. … Who am I to judge?

Anyway, if you haven’t had the pleasure, allow me to direct you towards the Tree Of Life trailer:

An outstanding work of cinema, there was no way this could be anything but my personal choice for Film of the Year. Give it a chance.

Postscript:

The reason I wanted to do this Top Ten list for 2011 was that I’ve noticed a disturbing trend of critical and blogger pessimism that inevitably filters through to public opinion. We often mourn the death of the film industry, new innovations like Real-3D are rapidly spun into cynical cash cow franchises without any creative insight on how best to use the new tool at one’s disposal, and a seeming dearth of risk-taking or originality means that nearly everything is a sequel, a remake, a reboot, or some other exploitation of already over-familiar material.  People seem to accept less and less from their entertainment, but still gobble it up with consistent and ever-increasing voracious appetite.

Audiences are welcome to their Twilight Sagas, to their “Alvin and the Chipmunks 3″, and any other disposable flimsy excuse for a distraction that may flit into sight (Lord knows I’m just as guilty of getting over-excited about anything Batman or robot-related), but when we look back at our experiences, maybe those should not be the only things that are remembered.. “Everything Sucks” is a popular sentiment, but it is an erroneous one.  Perhaps, just perhaps, we can enjoy a bit of fibre & nutrition before just launching into the sticky toffee pudding.

Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life is a film that dared to ask audiences to bother to engage, to put down their iPhones for 2 whole hours in a dark room, to pay attention, stop talking, and appreciate the art crafted by a man who is a master of his chosen discipline. Perhaps it didn’t gel with you, perhaps it did and you’ve since sat others down to see what they make of it. We as a global audience have a responsibility to support and encourage a film like this (or others like it). If it’s flawed then you can still celebrate its ambition, its overt attempts to rewrite the vocabulary of cinema and how the viewer engages or interacts with that.
If we’re not careful, the window for new creative talent to be experienced will continue to narrow, and before you know it, there won’t be anything on at the cinema except kids’ books adaptations, gritty re-imaginings of fairy tales, and anaemic romantic comedies based on calendar dates.

I hope that you have enjoyed counting down this list with me. Have a Merry Christmas, and try and see a film this holiday season that doesn’t have a number in the title.

The full Clockwork Shorts 2011 retrospective of Movies, Music & Mixes can be browsed for your pleasure right HERE
Merry Christmas and a Happy New 2012!

It would seem that Travis Stewart, aka Machinedrum, has been putting out music for over a decade, so I’ve clearly been remiss that he hasn’t appeared on my radar until the last 12 months or so. Admittedly this isn’t my choice for #1 album of the year, but I can honestly say it’s definitely the one I’ve listened to most of all since it came out in the middle of the Summer.

Earlier works under the Machinedrum moniker, or even in his collaborative guise as half of Sepalcure appear to be very much rooted in dubstep or abstract hip-hop flavoured bass experiments, but Room(s) is an altogether different sound. Clocking in at around 150bpm, it’s significantly faster and fleet-footed. Someone of my long-toothed age can remember the time when hardcore rave music started getting a bit faster and eventually morphed into jungle: a similar parallel could be drawn here as the dubstep influenced sounds have accelerated into the sphere of what is known as Juke. In all honesty, up to this point I had abhorred any juke music that I’d heard – stripped down frenetic syncopated percussion with little melodic or musical merit, it sounded to these ears like somebody had accidentally played the Chicago house records of Dancemania and Relief records at the wrong speed. Much vaunted artists’ output like that of DJ Rashad (ironically also released on Planet Mu) was simply not doing it for me. Room(s) however is something hugely evolved, and I think a hugely significant point in that electronic music historians will look back upon as a turning point for not only the Juke sound, but dance music for the next 4 or 5 years.

As spartan and coarse as Chicago juke & footwurk sounds are, Machinedrum’s album is just as warm, layered, and eminently listenable. Bringing perhaps a more “overground” musical sensibility to the template, some writers have even been so bold as to accuse Machinedrum of making a Pop Album. Pop it ain’t, but accessible it certainly is. Aggression is replaced by a slightly mournful aesthetic- nearly every tune features looped samples of hauntingly distant and tender vocal refrains.

It is a cliche of sorts, but there’s no other way to say it – Machinedrum has “done a Burial.” What does that mean, I hear you ask? Well, dubstep music was almost uniformly entrenched in sonic impact and dancefloor momentum – then Burial came along and came up with something that was almost the polar opposite: a requiem for hazy half-forgotten memories that were haunted by echoes of ravey refrains. Interenet wags quickly came to joke about how it was music for “nightbuses in the rain, on the way home from Fabric, hood up and headphones on.” The Burial sound was so profoundly unique that entire genres of music have evolved from that one seed: indeed, I’ve posted several of my own mixes on this here blog under the tag “Ghoststep” – evidently its a sound I’m quite the fan of. Getting back on point – the magic of both Burial and Machinedrum’s music has been that whilst these tunes are perfect to wind down & relax to, they can just as easily be deployed in the club environment and smash the crowd to pieces.

I’m blithering on really, and there shouldn’t have been this much to say. Upon first listen it reminded me of some one trying (and not quite succeeding) to make old school hardcore, by the curious second listen I was appreciating the texture and depth below the surface, by my third I was emailing and tweeting to anyone who’s attention I could get that they really had to track down and listen to this album.

Machinedrum – Room(s) is an outstanding and unprecedented work of beauty & energy whilst similarly conveying a mature, profound sense of emotion & loss. Luckily enough, you can listen to it in it’s entirety on the Planet Mu website.

No track could be accused of being better than the rest on this album, but you may enjoy listening to She Died Here:

Tomorrow I shall unveil the Clockwork Shorts Album of the Year 2011. Cool yer boots until then.

The Clockwork Shorts 2011 retrospective can be browsed for your pleasure right HERE

Every weekday I shall be counting down to Christmas (as I already explained HERE).

Today’s mix is the penultimate in this series: mellow vibes with just over an hour of laid back beats & bass – bubbling away but never quite tipping over into the dancefloor area, clocking in at about 140bpm.

This was originally envisioned as my 3rd in a series of chilled dubstep mixes which i had coined the name “Ghoststep.”

Ambient blog Headphone Commute were kind enough to pick up on this mix, which to date has had over 4,000 hits on Mixcloud – an extremely heartening reaction for a “bedroom dj” like myself.

If you have already listened to the mix, then I thank you for your attention.  If you haven’t, well now’s your chance!

Tracklisting / Info:

Stream from Mixcloud HERE

Download from Rapidshare HERE

Please listen, enjoy, share, download, and pop back tomorrow for another slice of 2011.

The Clockwork Shorts 2011 retrospective can be browsed for your pleasure right HERE

In 2011, a fondly regarded and greatly admired British television comedian made his debut feature film, wowing critics and audiences alike and instantly making his name as a talented chap who clearly has a very bright directing future ahead of him. Yes indeed, Joe Cornish’s Attack The Block is a brilliant & kinetic piece of fun, escapist cinema: indeed one of the best films of the year. Personally, I think AtB is just outside my Top Ten though, still love ya Cornballs.

You may have noticed my “hilarious” misdirection at the top there, but one could bestow all of those plaudits upon Richard Ayoade. Most TV audiences will know him as the hapless geek Moss in the IT Crowd; some may remember him as Dean Learner in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, but it may come as some surprise that he has quietly been forging a parallel career as a director: after music videos for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Arctic Monkeys, Submarine is his first foray onto the silver screen.

Based on a novel by Joe Dunthorne, Submarine is the tale of awkward Welsh teenager Oliver (Craig Roberts – previously seen as an awkward Vampire teenager in Being Human) and his attempts to avail himself of his virginity, whilst simultaneously disrupting his mother’s extra-marital affair. Told in snippets of Oliver’s internal monologue and diary entries, this Unreliable Narrator’s story is one that feels autobiographical, is frequently hilarious, and openly mocks its own verbose pomposity. Oliver is convinced that he is an utter genius, that the other kids all admire his brilliance, and that one day his exploits are of such magnificent importance there will be a film made of them. Clearly he is wrong on the first 2 counts.

Ayoade’s film takes great pleasure in toying with the storytelling format and twanging the edges of the fourth wall. As Community’s Abed might say, it’s all very Meta. One particular gag about a tracking shot and how Oliver imagines the film to play is particularly pointed & hilarious. The ingenuity on screen is exciting and without par this year, almost making the film at times feel like a sequence of very clever music videos that just happen to be stitched together by a narrative. A flicker-book sequence of polaroid photos might be one scene, a bullet-timey frozen moment in time the next.

Admittedly I would have been a few years younger than Oliver was in the 1986 setting, but there are numerous heartwarming (and sometimes groan inducing) moments of nostalgia for a childhood in 1980′s Britain – nothing feels forced or crass like a Peter Kay routine, just very subtle and pleasingly familiar. Oliver’s self-referential attitudes, his delusions of grandeur, his teenaged gawkiness, his enthusiastic and misplaced affections : all resonated extremely strongly with my own experiences, and I could not help but identify hugely with him, imagining myself in his shoes (parental indiscretions aside, I must point out). It was empathy for Oliver that had me falling madly in love with this film upon first watching, and happily watching a subsequent three times in the next week.

I should also mention that there’s a wealth of talent from the adults too – Brit favourites Sally Hawkins and Paddy Considine both having fun with their roles, Noah Taylor delivering a huggably pathetic cuckold of a father. Arctic Monkey Alex Turner delivers a jaunty soundtrack that never feels out of place.

So yes, effectively feeling like a hand-crafted love letter to my own adolescence, Submarine is a hugely enjoyable, unpretentious & fun film. I can only wait for news of Ayoade’s next film, and meanwhile applaud the fact that he went on to direct one of the most touching & tender episodes of TV’s current best comedy: Community. Have a watch of the trailer and get your hands on the film as quickly as you can:

Tomorrow I shall unveil the Clockwork Shorts Film of the Year 2011. Bet you can’t wait, eh?

The Clockwork Shorts 2011 retrospective can be browsed for your pleasure right HERE