The Null Device

From a Guardian piece on Massive Attack's artwork, this interesting fact:

"We can't use any of the Heligoland artwork I've painted for the posters on London Underground. They won't allow anything on the tube that looks like 'street art'. They want us to remove all drips and fuzz from it so it doesn't look like it's been spray-painted, which is fucking ridiculous. It's the most absurd censorship I've ever seen. "

¶ censorship culture london london underground massive attack music street art uk 0

This just in: Robert "3D" Del Naja is not a paedophile. (Though the timing of the charges he was cleared of is suspicious; I wonder whether it was in fact all planned to put the frighteners on celebrity anti-war campaigners.)

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Massive Attack frontman Robert "3D" Del Naja arrested for child pornography, as part of the same sting which netted Pete Townshend. Del Naja denied having downloaded child pornography; interestingly enough, the Graun article pointed out his involvement with the antiwar movement, as if to suggest that the arrest may be politically motivated.

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I just got a copy of the US pressing of Massive Attack's 100th Window (thanks, Lisa; I hope you're enjoying the Ninetynine CD). Why the US release? Well, the main thing that distinguishes it from the Australian release is no copy-denial mechanisms; i.e., it's a Red Book CD which plays and rips in any drive.

(Yes, I know that some people have successfully ripped the Australian "Copy Controlled" release. However, it's the principle that's at stake; and I'm sure that if people swallow this imperfect "copy controlled" disc, EMI will attempt to iron the bugs out of future releases (such as, say, the upcoming Morrissey album, and the next Radiohead album). However, if EMI's beancounters (who largely run things at major labels these days) notice that sales are higher in unrestricted territories, that may make them stop treating customers as potential criminals.)

(Does anybody know what the economics of the "copy control" technology are; i.e., how much does EMI pay to cripple a title, and do they pay per CD, per title, or outright? If they pay a percentage of the CD price per disc, then the tide may turn sooner against copy-denial, unless it actually makes people buy more CDs. Of course, the suits in charge would want to hold on despite losses until there are no unencumbered copies available in any territory. Though how long they hold on after people start MP3ing their CDs through the analogue outputs of their CD players is uncertain. Eliminating sound cards without built-in watermark detectors with anything less than a perfectly efficient global police state would be impossible; as far as audio goes, the "analog hole" is here to stay.)

Anyway, back to 100th Window. The album differs from the, umm, prerelease slightly (they've chopped a second or two off the start of Future Proof, and padded the space after the last track with some sort of filtered arpeggio texture). The artwork is also quite nice. Anyway, if you're in Australia and wish to buy an unrestricted copy, places like Amazon will sell you the US release. Or just find a US penpal and offer to trade them something from here. Think of it as globalisation for the people.

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I wandered down to PolyEster this afternoon, and saw the new Massive Attack CD. Nice packaging; though pity it's not available on a CD (only on one of those copy-restricted non-Red-Book-compliant CD-like things). Bugger that then.

(The label on the packaging says that it works with Windows, presumably in some "secure" DRM mechanism. I can understand us Linux-using nonpersons being snubbed by the recording racket ("get a copy of Windows, you bum!"), but EMI's big fuck-you to the Macintosh-using audience, especially on a Massive Attack disc, is harder to justify. Let's hope they change their minds before releasing the next Morrissey record.)

(Btw, is 100th Window released in Red Book-compliant, non-"copy controlled" CD format in any other territories?)

I did, however, pick up the new Architecture in Helsinki album, Fingers Crossed. The packaging is very cool, and on first listen (six tracks in), it sounds pretty good, in a garage-indie-pop-meets-electronica vein. Some of the tracks sound a bit unpolished (though that's probably deliberate), though there are some real gems; especially Scissors Paper Rock; expect to hear that in one of my DJ sets, possibly next to some Stereolab or something.

(Btw, what is it about Casio-wielding indie bands naming songs after games? You had Lacto-Ovo's Bingo, Ninetynine's Cluedo and Uno, and now AIH have joined the trend.)

I also picked up Stereolab's Cobra and Phases Group... while I was there. With that, my Stereolab collection has doubled in size over the past week.

¶ architecture in helsinki drm indie indiepop lacto-ovo massive attack ninetynine stereolab trends 7

A somewhat iffy review of the new Massive Attack album in the Graun. To be honest, I'd agree with much of it; a lot of the songs go on for too long and yet somehow seem somewhat flat, at least compared to Mezzanine. Though it's not all that bad an effort.

Indeed, on the only occasion when 100th Window props itself up and makes a point, you wish it had stayed supine. A Prayer for England concerns child abduction and murder - an issue virtually ignored by the media in recent years and thus in desperate need of the boost in profile that only a protest song on a chill-out album can deliver. It's certainly difficult to argue with the thesis - infanticide is a bad thing - but a point this facile hardly warrants O'Connor's finger-wagging fire-and-brimstone routine. By the second verse, she is addressing God as "Jah", an affectation that recalls a wackily hatted student reaching for his bong. At this point, one's thoughts do turn to murder, but not quite in the way the song intends.

(Is 100th Window the 18 to Mezzanine's Play? Discuss.)

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Thank "Bob", I'm well clear of the Dido demographic, the latest lucrative market segment (which seems to be essentially smug, superficially fashionable thirtysomethings who consider themselves much more hip and with-it than they actually are, and/or are in denial about their comfortably bourgeois, alt-MOR tastes).

20 Protection by Masssive Attack Yes, you know that Blue Lines is really the one to have, but you got this because you've heard of Tracey Thorn. You wanted something edgy and hip hop but with the reassuring Marks and Spenceryness that was Everything But The Girl. And you got it!

Anyway, I've got only three titles from the list (Dummy by Portishead, Play by Moby (which I have since found too bland to be worth listening to, and which is probably a candidate for the next CD-liquidation sweep), and OK Computer by Radiohead (though I think that Kid A and Amnesiac are doovy)).

¶ chill-out conformism culture dido everything but the girl mainstream marks and spencer massive attack middle-class smug uk 2