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the basement suite gourmet - boules de viande suedoises

2011-04-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

So here's a recipe for an easy peasy dish with swedish meatballs in gravy with broccoli. You know... for those days when you're feeling more lazy than usual.

Here's what you will need:

10-15 frozen meatballs (from you know where)
one tree of broccoli
1/2cup-1cup of gravy (made from a mix from the same place)
1/4cup of water or cream/half & half

Put the gravy in a small saucepan, adding some water or cream (depending on your desired richness)
Put your frozen meatballs in the pan too.
Turn the burner to medium.
One the gravy starts to simmer turn it down to low.
Simmer with the lid on for about 10 minutes.
Stir occasionally, adding a bit of water if it gets too thick.
While it simmers cut the broccoli into smaller mouth-sized trees.
After the 1o minutes have passed throw the broccoli florets in.
Cover with lid and simmer for 3-5 minutes more depending on how you like you brocolli cooked.
Dump into a bowl and enjoy.

Add-ons and substitutions: If you're a fan lingonberry jam is a surprisingly good addition. Broccoli can be substituted with spinach, asparagus, more meatballs... your choice.

fmusic - Album Review: Toro Y Moi's Underneath the Pine

2011-02-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

So, Toro Y Moi (a.k.a. Chazwick Bundick - what a name!) has a new album out, Underneath the Pine (following up his previous and first full LP Causers of This):

Released today, this album is a splendid re-working of a style of music that I thought to be already quite stand-alone (though I did liken it to acts like Telefon Tel Aviv). The album, from the very start, seems more refined and honed down. Bundick seems to defy any sort of genre pigeonhole. A lack of a clear genre is usually what draws me in and makes me appreciate an LP. We definitely get this here. Sure Last.fm can attempt to compare him to others but I do not think it possible.

This is definitely music to "chillax" to, nothing too jarring or electrifying - which in my eyes is pretty refreshing. This album is a little less beat-driven that his previous effort, so we have a changing in style but the music is still capturing. He doesn't go to heavy (like MGMT) or too light (like any low-fi artist) [not to say I don't enjoy those genre's separately!].

I also have to mention the strange cover for the LP. It could either be a pair of lips infected with some sort of STI/STD fungus... or the lips are simply enjoying some sort of citrus fruit in a strange and unusual fashion. Don't be turned off (and if you're turned on I guess that cannot be helped) by the image. What you get inside is pleasing and refreshing, do not judge an album by its cover.

Some of my favourite tracks are Light Black (a good example of Bundick's strange but entrancing vocals), Divina (some great backing instrumentals) and New Beat (which goes disco tacky but not too far in that 1970's dead-disco direction). Overall the album flows together and its contuinity is ...again... refreshing! I just think that word encapsulates this album.

I give it 8/10 (and if I had reviewed it I would give Causers of This around the same score)

(This review is also available on our sister blog Asemica Musical Exchange
)

fmusic - Album Review: Blonde Redhead's Penny Sparkle

2010-11-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

Blonde Redhead's latest album is quite simply a winner. It achieves that fine balance of staying true to the bands much appreciated style but still creating something unfamiliar that waits to be discovered. Kazu Makino is at the top of her vocal game. I have previously and thoroughly enjoyed their other albums Misery is a Butterfly and 23.

I must start by mentioning the song "Spain." It's probably the most amazing song I've heard this year (if not within longer period of time!). So simple yet entrancing, raw and echoing. Kazu's voice is jaw dropping. She is one of the few female vocalists today who can claim a voice so unique and her own, that no other set of pipes can match hers. Sure you have your Joanna Newsoms and your Beth Gibbons, but Kazu is pure standout gold.

In a more stylistic directions, Penny Sparkle has me constantly going back and listening over - the whole album, not just sporadic songs. This band certainly does not try too hard; they have reached a place where they are effortless but while still "packing a punch." "Black Guitar" is a good example of this stylistic individuality. If I hadn't heard the song on CBC Radio's The Signal (awesome show by the way), I probably wouldn't have searched out the album as soon.

"Black Guitar" is especially good with blending the voices of Kazu and a male vocalist. They sing in a sort of exchange where their voices naturally flow in, around, and over each other. The crescendo of the song is pretty great too.

If you're looking for something new this album is a great place to start. Then, I suggest working back through their previous albums (and there are a lot of them!). Great band, great album, good times. Thank YOU 4AD.

Plus the video for not getting there is simply stunning (some awesome equestrian holograms):

Check the band out!

film VIFF: Rubber (2010) - A Review

2010-10-22T22:56:00.000-07:00

***POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT***

I was lucky enough to get a good seat in a relatively small theatre to see Quentin Dupieux's 2010 film Rubber. This particular showing at the Vancouver International Film Festival was extremely popular and it resulted in a winded, highly amused, and highly confused audience leaving the theatre.

It all starts with a group of tourists being plonked in the middle of the desert (Arizona or Nevada I'm guessing). This is not before, however, a monologue given by a local sheriff along the lines of: "Anything that happens in film and movies (sensical or non-) happens for no reason." He belabours the point only to heighten the absurdity of the film.

Now back to the tourists... they sit on a dusty barren hill side with little more than the clothes on their backs and clunky binoculars. It is a unclear as to what exactly their looking for - and seem to have paid to see.

Without going too much into details, the film really inhabits a very recognizable present - the observers (who are essentially an audience for the film within it) constantly comment and bicker as would any modern day subway or metro goers. Up until an abandoned tire up at moves of it's own volition, the film is nothing but the assembly of the usual desert setting with: a requisite retro gas station, virtually vacant motel, and middle of the nowhere pizza parlor - the usual setting suspects for a western or road movie.

If you get to the point in your mind, while you're watching, where you question the purpose or motives of the tire, the filmmaker has achieved a good chunk of what he is aiming for. Apart from that, the film is just a jumbled mess of so many tropes: sexy woman drives through the desert alone, mass murder at a bloody scale, a boy claims to have seen the tire move while his father quickly dismisses his son's claim as "bullshit," a conspiracy theory, a social experiment, etc. etc. etc.

With all these mini "tropes" placed side-by-side, we have a wholly unique, clever, and side-splittingly hilarious "romp." Why are all the characters so flat and/or unchangeable? No reason. Why does a man get shot in the shoulder only to respond by saying that it's all "fake"? No reason. (Why) is this film culturally important? No reason. Why am I constantly responding with "no reason"? There IS a reason.

I won't get into the details of why the preview above shows a crow exploding in blood and feathers (among other "victims"... can someone be called a victim if they are killed by an inanimate object - tele-kenetic or not?) but I will expressly urge you to see this movie. And it's got a brilliant electronic soundtrack (part of which is sampled in the above video) by Mr. Oizo and Sebastien Tellier.

Here's the Site for the movie.

fiction Dental Damnnn... (A Short Story)

2010-10-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

I am lying in the 80s beige chair at my dentist's office. The sunny yet grey sky slips through the partially closed venetian blinds. I can already feel the dizziness come over me - it always happens after an hour in that pleather recliner. The beige-y-pink walls are conducive to neither sleep nor complete alertness. I am overcome by the dull, flat colour scheme. Someone please spill some blood (à la root canal) in this place - anything to focus my eye into a more exciting frame. On my way in I saw the hygienists and dentists all decked out in their gleaming smiles and placed in rigid black picture frames. There names are etched into miniature gold plaques and adhered to the frame.

The hygienist strides in, her blinding smile has escaped that black frame and come to visit me as I lie here with bib and 80s shades (there is unsurprising theme in this office). The inhuman teeth separate and dispense with the usual pleasantries not even worth repeating....

She wheels her beige mini-monolith of scrapers, mirrors, mouth stretchers up beside me. Her voice is muffled through her mandatory mask but I can still hear her enough to know what she's saying: "I can see you're experiencing a great deal of recession and in the most random places." Suddenly my teeth and gums have become the head and hair of 50 year old man.... or worse today's economy. "There's more inflammation than we want to see, you really need to brush and massage your teeth and gums more frequently..."

She's walking a tightrope between a scolding mother and a suggestive flirt. She emphasizes my admitted lack of care and laziness as if to say "You've got to do your own fucking laundry SOMETIME!" But she still says massage in a suggestive enough way for me to hear it in that suggestive way. These are no Jedi mind tricks, these are the things someone says when they've spent 7 hours working within the tiny square footage of the oral cavity - one inhabited by the often unruly tongue. I ignore these thoughts as she begins to hack away at calcified gunk with Captain Hook's "bad" hand (oh how it *gleams* in the florescence) shrunk down to Barbie scale.

Her fingers are in my mouth and though she does this to everyone, they are not here to vouch for that. All this comes very naturally to her (well it is her training shining through) and she must be pleased deep in side to have full control over me. I cannot just think about this in any other way than in the dirty way. Suddenly, she aims the water-jet gun at me. NOW I feel defenseless, at the receiving end of this deceptively harmless tool. Water is growth and destruction - a source of sustenance and a creator of new valleys in solid rock - and the hygienist has it in her manicured grasp. Ohhhh the sheer discomfort of a puddle forming in the back of my throat, it's not pain but the inability to swallow, mouth open, is purely irksome. And worse I cannot speak. She has full control... even if for only a minute or two.

She now might as well be putting mint flavoured sand in my mouth. I may as well just want to taste the Pacific, cigarette butts, plastic bags and all. At this point might as well. She continues unaware of what is running through my immobile mind.

All this time soft rock has been playing in the air. It went from "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (did these people ever leave the decade of Reagan and Thatcher???) to something insipid like N********k. And on the ceiling, beside the speaker that spews the lovely background ambiance, are picturesque images of the grand canyon covered in snow, a pagoda floating in a pond of lotus and lily, the brilliant fall colours of Muskoka country - all a welcome distraction from this near hell I'm experiencing. The thought of any comfort from massage is gone and Nelly Furtado's voice partially blends with the sound of the polishing brushes buzzing, making a sound acceptable enough.

The snow covers canyons and Japanese pond-scapes are all sideways and my eyes have twist and do their best to reorient them properly. They're happy too since they know the teeth are helplessly unclenched in suspension. Oh how such mundane and superficially staged pictures can be a comfort at time like this. She rinses again, like clockwork.

She plucks at my teeth with a mint thread but they make no sound (unless you include the gurgling murmurs in my throat). She plays my teeth like a musical saw, a theremin, an instrument in the very loose sense of the word. She commences the final rinse and I feel cleansed of, if not the immense discomfort, the pasty, gritty, artificially minty goop in my mouth. She removes the bib and glasses and I stand.

The room spins... I am drunk on having not moved or stood for an hour. My head nearly bashes into the light dangling from the ceiling. She has left at this point, so I'm in my own self-centred, tipsy world. I make my way to the tiny sink and rinse with neon green F⁻still feeling plastered off my numb ass. The minute of forced gargling, swishing and swirling ends.

I leave with half my pay cheque gone, among other things, and a sense that I was there to see the Wall fall - AND old enough to remember it crumble.

fmusic Forgiveness Rock Record Review

2010-05-25T17:14:00.001-07:00

[Exported to our sister blog Asemical Musical Exchange]

Forced to Love / All to All: A digital EP that accompanied pre-orders of FRR.

Today I finally received my Forgiveness Rock Record (FRR) 2 LP by Broken Social Scene (BSS) in the mail. This occasion calls for a review (maybe even an attempt to convert naysayers and new fans).

First off I'd like to admit I approached the album with a combination of two main feelings. Firstly, I approached the new album as a devoted BSS fan, and an Arts & Crafts (their label) devotee. Secondly, I had high expectations because; a) they had a lot to live up to when their past albums are considered and, b) it had been about five years since their self-titled album was released in October of 2005. That was the album of theirs I first came across then I went backwards to the amazing You Forgot it in People (YFIIP) (2002), and my all time favourite Feel Good Lost (FGL) (2001).

What is first most noticeable about the record - even shocking to some - is how light and airy Forgiveness Rock Record (FRR) is. (As a side note I thought the idea that "forgiveness" meant the band was asking for forgiveness for taking so long to record FRR was too simple and obvious - deeper meanings ensue.) If you're used to their last two albums your expectations would obviously be aimed in a completely different direction than FRR goes in. In my opinion this is utterly refreshing but at the same time the band still stays true to a lot their original forms and vocals. They use beats and hooks that made me fall in love with the band in the first place. The voices of Emily Haines, Kevin Drew, and Andre Whiteman especially are powerful anchors that show us that FRR is still a BSS release and BSS is still uniquely BSS - and far from generic.

Don't get me wrong, it no where near follows a logical path which proceeds YFIP and FGL, and that for me is what makes this LP yet another winning release from a cornerstone of the Canadian "indie music" scene (as much as I hate that label).

The world's a pretty rough place these days, technology making it even rougher a lot of the time. We are often weighed down by the media, conspiracy theories, and general negativity. FRR is an album to chill to and forget about and stop worrying about the shit that gets shoved in our faces. It would be easy to list the many obvious, and not so obvious, things that are corrupting our society but we really just have to brush a lot of them off - and enjoy the music.

And at one point rumours - however lucid they were - were swirling around saying that BSS would not get back together ever. Despite the (in)validity of these messages it's great to see a larger group of people able to organize and create some tasty new music. It's cliché but it's what makes the "super group" BSS what it is.

Some of my favourites tracks are: Sentimental X's- Emily Haines of Metric does a bang up vocal job; World Sick - the single that was released before the actual album was release, a perfect rock track; All to All - a breath of fresh summery musical air; Sweetest Kill - splendidly effortless and uniquely Kevin Drew; to name a few.

Critics are/were quick to pick the album apart and slap a label -"boring" or "annonymous" or "generic" - on it but this album is something I personally I don't think I'd hear from another band. Sure it is to the point and simple, but that is what makes it so new and eye opening. Predictability is not something BSS find themselves falling into - its multiple members ensuring this.

Give the album a listen and let me know what you think. Do you like their "effortless" and simple sound? Would you rather them produce something like YFIIP? FGL? or the Self-Titled? Are you disappointed by the new album? Maybe what you look for or ask from BSS is different that what those who like/love it look for and expect?

Though I won't give this album a rating I will say that it has a great deal of merit and I see it lasting a long time as a "new classic" in indie rock.

new aphex twin track!!! (legitimacy confirmed!)

2010-05-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted (Deluxe and Reduxe)

2010-05-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Toro Y Moi - Causers of This

2010-05-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

after much time in academic wastelands

2010-04-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Why do you vex me Google? Not only do you have make me feel horrible about either my typing or spelling skills - or BOTH! - but you have to be so forward as to put my mistakes in bold, italic AND underline them.

The italics were the final straw for me, the straw that broke the fucking iCamel's back! Unlike you, Google, I have feelings, ones that are beyond fragile. Maybe the reason you don't have any actual flesh-friends is because you are just so god-damned arrogant about your spelling prowess - and your ability to 'read minds,' or make 'friendly' suggestions.

I am tired and weary from typing page after page of academic writing and want to be sloppy and lazy. If I don't meet your standards maybe Bing or Ask (Jeeves) will, but we will NEVER work out - no matter how hard you try to impress me.

Insincerely yours,

nosknarf

2010-03-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

Four Tet -There Is Love in You

2010-01-20T22:59:00.000-08:00

film review: Sherlock Holmes

2010-01-19T13:04:00.001-08:00

So I went to see Sherlock in theatres, and I came into the theatre with many preconceptions and ideas. Those preconceived notions were in addition to the fact that I'd been fighting a nasty common cold for a few days previous. After leaving the theatre I found that I couldn't wholly hate nor love the film. In my eyes the film achieved neither status, and I will explain to some degree why.

I may as well start with why I disliked the film:

First and foremost I find him (Robert Downey Jr.) to be such a tool. Having escaped the shackles of addiction to hard drugs and alcohol he has found himself trapped within the addiction to ego. I know this criticism has no relation to the film's own merit but this gives you an idea of what I had in my head as the opening sequence began.

However my opinion of R.D.Jr. does pertain to his appropriateness for the role. Firstly, and in the most shallow vein, he is not English. Secondly, his fame overshadows the brilliance of the character himself and I feel as if people will be saying something like "Robert Downey Junior was such a bad ass Sherlock Holmes, he's a LEGENDARY actor because of it," as they exit the theatre. (On the topic of ego and merit: I have not seen Iron Man but, in my snobbery, I can assume that his acting in that film is by no means comparable to his role as Sherlock.)

Secondly I don't remember as much violence reading the stories and I don't like how the excess in fight scenes were injected to make the film a "blockbuster." (Also I do not appreciate the propensity to label a film a "blockbuster" before it has even been released!)

On the good side of the things the visuals and aesthetic of the film were very well done. They stayed within being historically accurate in terms of how London looked, and how Londoners looked and dressed. Aside from looking beautifully dark and gloomy.

The plot line was well done and just as well done was the focus on Sherlock cleverness and genial nature. (Ignoring that fact that he is being played by the arrogant R.D.Jr.) I could have done with more disguises from him though.

So to sum up: Robert Downey Jr was a horrible choice for the roll and should have been replaced by an English actor who would probably have been just as if not more sexy; the film looks damn good and the plot is highly clever.

I don't think Sherlock Holmes should be a character for the blockbuster genre. He is meant to be a character who is stealthy and somewhat of a recluse, one who doesn't always want to be centre of attention. I always found him to be the antithesis to all those characters of the Victorian era who with their dramatic lives demanded mass attention and fame, but Sherlock is not one of those.... the Holmes of this film was.

Grimes - Geidi Primes

2010-01-14T14:16:00.000-08:00

Arbutus Records

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

2010-01-13T21:40:00.000-08:00

On January 15th: Listening party and advanced pre-order.

The Magnetic Fields - Realism

2010-01-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

Moderat - Moderat

2010-01-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

frightened and fearful for the future of (mainstream) film

2010-01-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

So in recent weeks the trend towards 3D movie viewing experiences has slowly been gaining ground. Like fifty years earlier, 3D is becoming a marketing ploy, it's effectiveness this time around has yet to be decided (apart from the millions of tickets sold for Avatar). It is admittedly exciting that film is taking this step (and applying these new technologies) but at the same time there are equally as many drawbacks. Film seems to becoming more spectacle, and less art. [Art being defined as not only something that possesses beauty but that also inspires a great amount of thought and consideration, etc etc etc.]

ERRRMMM Tin Tin in 3D???... dear lord...

Apart from 3D film there is the increasing popularity of films based on novels, musicals, pieces of art (basically anything that has already been created and appreciated as skillful and beautiful art). The downside of this is that it can often reveal a certain amount of laziness or lack of creativity by producers and writers. It seems that the success of a novel is assumed to equate to the success of its film counterpart. Sure there are still a great deal of films that are essentially started "from scratch," but I've noticed more and more that films have some other non-filmic work that they are based on.

I feel that relying on a previously created, and adulated, work not only shows a lack of inventiveness (for most cases, but not all) but also shows the decline in appreciation for these great novels and plays themselves. Literature holds so many unique qualities that film cannot replicate, no matter how advanced film "technology" becomes. There are parts and aspects of a written novel that are eternal (as least as long as printed novels remain somewhat popular, and the abominable Kindle stays in the periphery of the world of literature and non-fiction) and the bounds of the imagination far surpass the bounds of film.

Adaptations can be done extremely well (Watchmen (controversially), A Single Man, etc.) and I do acknowledge that there have been great films made from great novels. The film version's success is also largely dictated by the audiences appreciation (such as the LOTR trilogy). Sadly, film (mainstream) is as much a money gaining venture as anything else in this capitalist world.

This trend may be due to the increased boredom of the audience as they have become more and more used to and easily recognize the tropes used in film since the 1940s and earlier. This, however, should push film executives to hire writers with a little more a spark and a quirkiness in their style. Taking risks is important (i.e. not risks within the cartoon world, i.e. Toy Story to UP). The studios still seem to have a fair amount of money (though I know the amount of people heading out to theatres is declining rapidly) to be able to take these risks.

From what I've heard and seen Avatar is visually stunning and highly involving (thanks to the glasses) but its plot is eerily similar to Pocahontas. Film does not and will not evolve if plot becomes glued to usual structures and tropes. Of course the movie is visually stunning but, believe it or not, people do go to the movies for intriguing plot twists and shockers, more than they do to see something pretty.

My closing point is that film is an extremely important cultural medium, but it is one that should mainly exist independently of the worlds of literature and theatre. Of course these three all fall under the umbrella of "the arts," but we certainly do not want them to become each other (slapdash novels based on films, horrible theatre adaptations of films, etc) unless it is a smooth transition that does not eliminate important aspects that audiences might end up complaining about later on.

Of course all of this cultural "intermarriage" could just be the natural progression and growth of film, literature, theatre, television, etc. If this is the case, then this argument is essentially unimportant and useless, but you can't say I didn't try!

(I am also indirectly stating the desire for independent film to gain ground, and I am highly confident that it will.)

the deepest depths of human desperation

2010-01-06T23:51:00.000-08:00

I have nothing against the world of cosplay (sp?) and anime conventions, but boy do they attract bizarre people...

Alamaailman Vasarat - Huuro Kolkko

2010-01-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

forget backstabbing...

2009-12-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

Man walks into diner with 5-inch knife in his chest, calls for ambulance, then orders coffee

A 52-year-old man complained only about the cold weather before walking into a diner with a five-inch knife sticking out of his chest. The unnamed man called a Warren 911 operator on Sunday night to ask that an ambulance be sent to Bray's, an eatery in neighboring Hazel Park. He said he had been stabbed during a robbery attempt half a mile away, then walked to the restaurant and called 911 from a pay phone.

On a recording of the call, the man gives a vague description of his attacker before saying, "I'm gonna sit down at Bray's 'cause they got a chair and it's cold out here."

Restaurant employee George Mirdita told The Detroit News the man calmly ordered coffee.

Police said Tuesday that the man is recovering.

(Source)

old horse, new tricks

2009-12-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

Dungen - Ta Det Lugnt

2009-12-23T12:56:00.000-08:00

Kelley Polar - I Need You to Hold on While the Sky is Falling

2009-12-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

The Russian Futurists - Let's Get Ready to Crumble

2009-12-19T11:43:00.000-08:00