I'm not entirely sure why I love a band like The Detroit Cobras - I just know that I do. I can't help but stamp my feet or tap my hand or nod my head or sing along though when I hear that sound and I eagerly anticipate each scarce album that they release.

The Cobras' 2004 release Seven Easy Pieces, like their previous releases, is made up entirely of their versions of older soul/rock songs but I couldn't ask for anything more from them. Call it garage rock. Call it retro. The songs sound great so you can call me satisfied. The sound will put you back in time to the sixties when you could get down by merely flailing your limbs like a madman. I was born in 1976 so I can't really confirm the music's authenticity but I can sure give it high marks for trying.

This album is a bit more restrained in its pacing until the sixth song, which is not to say that it is slow by any means but I am saying it is short. This album will only get your party started and then you will have to throw on something else from the band or perhaps even The Dirtbombs to keep it going. To my ears this is the perfect dance music. Twist, bop and shout while you can though because Seven Easy Pieces is unforunately only seven songs long and that is a tease if ever there was one.

For the first time in a half-decade Stephin Merritt and his band of merri men + lady made their way to Toronto. The venue was Trinity St. Paul Church on Bloor, and the lineup was around the block, 300 strong.
The show opener was Andrew Bird, who made some beautiful interesting music with a violin, guitar, xylophone and a sequencer. He's kind of classical-folk-funk with a wry sense of humour to his somewhat personal lyrics. I liked most of his set, but I wasn't to big on his whistling, which he did frequently (and capably).
The church was hot, perhaps not as hot as the bowels of hades but the humidex was well above 40... stuffy and drear-inducing.
The Magnetic quartet (comprised of Stephin on ukelele and vocals, Claudia on piano and vocals, Sam on cello and John on guitar) emerged on stage once all of Bird's equipment was removed, all four lined horizontally in a row so that none too center stage. The heat was acknowledged and Stephin mentioned that they would be playing a quiet, low-lit set to keep the temperature down (I spotted a drum kit behind the stage which would require way too much stamina to use in that temperature).
The set comprised primarily of singles from the new album "i", with a smattering of songs from "69 Love Songs" and the odd track from one of Stephin's other efforts.
My favourite moment saw Claudia stand up and take the vocal duties (which Stephin clutched hold of for most of the evening) on "Reno Dakota", while Stephin left the stage and brought back a fan which he and Sam set up between then, and then stood and stared at it in proud accomplishment while Claudia finished the song. The surreal moment would be repeated when Stephin left the stage for water, and, upon returning, proceeded to hydrate the crowd even moreso than himself.

The encore evoked the biggest response when Stephin and Cladia sang the duet "Yeah! Oh Yeah!", a Punch-and-Judy song about an unhappily married couple, brilliantly emoted by both parties.
I may have enjoyed the evening more if the venue wasn't so stifling, however, the quality of entertainment, well, there's nothing like it. It's hard to have an intimate set with 700 people, but they managed quite nicely, and the church acoustics were astounding, perfect for such a low key performance.

The problem with laptop music is ironic: there's too much freedom to make music. As a result, the ability to finetune samples, cut'n paste loops and micromanage the music to the point that the performance is lost and somehow, the songs all sound the same if they don't outright suck. Maybe everyone's using the same software or they're trying to copy or outdo other people's sound.

For well over ten years, the Finnish duo Pan sonic (which I will still call Panasonic to the very end) have been going ultra analogue yet insanely hifi. Using handbuilt instruments, Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen turn their dials and fade their switches to make their music live. No keyboards, no loops, no dropped beats. The closest thing you could label it would be "experimental techno" but that doesn't even begin to describe how utterly alien their songs are. Although they recently moved to Berlin from their recent base in Barcelona, their sounds always bring to mind the splendid desolation of the Finnish winter and the pent-up frustration of vicious loneliness.

Their latest release is Kesto which is Finnish for permanence or something that lasts a long time. Kesto consists of 4 full albums, each coming in its own cardboard slipcase and each with its own style. This is like no multi-album release you've run into before, unless you happen to find a cheap used box set somewhere. Kesto lives up to the alternate definitions: endurance, strength, quantity.

The first disc's got the heavy beats. Massive square sound waves against distorted percussion lead the way, hammering the senses like a construction site planted in your skull. This harkens back to their days organizing raves, doing the pure techno beat. Then again, they never really cut the wax live, preferring to punish the floor with unrelenting sounds. Listeners beware: listening to any of Pan Sonic's music at high volumes will cause ear and stereo damage. Listening to their music live may cause bowel disruption. (Seriously — I've seen them live twice and I've been thankful I had earplugs, based on what happens to those in the audience who forgot.) At the same time, this is Pan Sonic at its most conventional where the two layers of sound guide each other, moving through section with slow monumental buildups.

Disc two is less intense, although it maintains its industrial roots with the first disc. The melodies are clearer and less distorted, adding some serenity with the constant menace. It's occasionally as pastoral as Boards of Canada, although there's no nostalgia involved. At times, there's a charm harkening back to the early sound pioneers Throbbing Gristle, who get their own dedication on this disc. Pan Sonic is fairly aloof although they rightly manage to get themselves out of the way of their music and leave the explanations elsewhere. All the song names are blunt and carry no sentimental attachment: even in its original Finnish language, the words are technical in nature ("distance", "current transformer", "telemites", etc.). Still, the songs have their own internal logic and build up their drama accordingly.

The odd disc out is the third one. This disc is an abstract tease; it starts off with a processed noise, then a toilet flush before spending the next few minutes in very quiet static that often leaps out with a different mood before going somewhere else. The entire disc sounds like an art installation soundtrack with its random moments of sound. There are moments of apparent silence and volume changes are more extreme. As opposed to the other parts of Kesto, this disc requires the most conentration. If you don't have the patience, yet somehow got this far, it might be wise to skip to the last disc. Once you have the time, listening to CD 3 allows for some startling mood swings.

The fourth and final disc consists of a single hour track (Säteily or Radiation) which sounds like crystal glass slowly being rubbed together in a monstrous cavern. If you ever heard Aphex Twin's slower works or Brian Eno's ambient music, imagine slowing them down past a glacial speed and freeze time to its most languid pace. Turn out the lights, close your eyes and lean back when listening and you could almost feel your body hurtling through space or submerged thousands of metres under the water. From the hearts of tubes and wires comes a whalesong piercing through the stillness.

It had been three years since Pan Sonic released an album, but they've come back in a large way. The way they strip a song or arrangement down to its complete minimal essence without ditching the meaning is unparalleled. Based on the sheer size and scope of the project, newcomers may be overwhelmed by the four plus hours of music here. However, if you want to listen to what music in another dimension sounds like, brace yourself for what the other planets may be hearing in their dreams.

Mixing the raw feel of rock'n roll with the heathen vibe of dance shouldn't be thought of mixing two completely different tastes together. It may sound crazy but people used to dance nonstop to a live band playing hedonistic tunes. Somewhere along the way, a line was drawn in the sand and rock dropped the roll and strove for authenticity, so the head could bang and the angst could thrash.

At least, that's how the generalization goes. Don't bore us, just get to the chorus. The hips and the butt got spurned so they went to the discotheques and warehouses to find the beat.

I forget where I'm going with this.

!!! (try running "chk chk chk" through your preferred search engine) are a wily octopus of a band where the tools of your favourite live band fit into a James Brown style, where each instrument fits a certain rhythmic role and they play against each other, providing their own tension. There are no verses; each song charts its own course, leading a path through different acts.

When the big mess works, it lets loose. When the going gets tough, the tought get karazzee starts off the album with the wooziest bassline hook that you'll have injected to your booty and then glides through deranged guitars and disco drums. Pardon my freedom kicks the dance floor with warped steel drums at the beginning, sinister bongos at the end and a potty mouth throughout.

And it goes without saying, the epic dance single from last year: Me and Giuliani down by the school yard (a true story), nine minutes of top notch, floor filling action. If you have not heard this song, this should be compelling enough for you to pick up the album. Both Graig and I considered it one of the best songs from 2003, so it stands as a high water mark for the rest of the album.

However, there are patches of shoddiness. Occasionally, the inane lyrics often cripple some of the songs. Sometimes, they lay low and punctuate the polyrhythmic wonderment, but the odd phrase sounds dopey and really yanks you out. Shit scheisse merde is perilously close to prog wankery with the textures sloppily piled together and every bad 1980s new wave cliché put on display. Like leg warmers over your parachute pants in the pantheon of bad taste. An awkward piece, considering you get two parts and an instrumental reprise, but maybe they're just anticipating the next wave.

You can tell that their reputation for being all dancepunk is wearing heavy, so they could be making their first tentative steps towards a new sound. The few short pieces interspersed throughout the album suggest some further outtakes where they run wild far from their dance roots and somewhere more cinematic.

As breakout albums go, Louden up now passes the grade, but maybe the club band lost something along the way from club land. Or the tectonics are shifting already and it's time to hit new heights. Somehow, your butt must get moved.

There's a prison planet in the Chronicles of Riddick called Crematoria, where the side facing the sun is 700 degrees Celcius, and the dark side of the planet is -300 degrees Celcius (the prison is situated 29KM down towards the planet's core). The sunrise, as they say, is killer, burning you to ashes in an flash... that is, of course, unless you're hiding in the shade somewhere, at which point all you do is steam a little.
The Riddick character, a murderer and rogue of the highest sort (played by Vin Deisel), first appeared in the Film Pitch black, which was a small (less than ten actors altogether), taut sci-fi thriller with complex characters and a fantastic production design. At the end of that film, Riddick escaped a lightless, monster infested planet with two others in tow. One was the girl-dressed-as-boy Jack, who reappears in this film - set five years later - as quite a woman - an angry and viscious woman at that - who has aged well beyond 5 years. Faulty science wins out in favour of a sexy actress.

The plot of the film is huge, trying to keep up with the marvels of the Lord of the Rings or the Matrix, but the film only really works in the sideline story that takes place on the prison planet. The Necromongers are a religion that seek to destroy the universe one planet at a time. Their massive transforming (and architecturally stunning) ships embed themselves into the planet and release thousands of ships into the amosphere and hundreds of thousands of soldiers onto the ground. Within 24 hours they've taken over the planet, and offer the survivors and ultimatum: trade up your worship - become Necromonger - or die. They seem like an unbeatable foe... but a being from a race of elementals, Aereon (Judi Dench) has experience with the Necromongers (which is never really explained), and she knows that the only thing they fear are an extinct/appropriated race of warriors called Furions...of which, naturally, Riddick is of the last survivors.

Riddick, brought back from his exile to defeat the Necromongers, isn't easily swayed by his profound destiny to destroy their Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), and seems more intent on doing his own thing, in this case tracking down Jack.

The bulk of the film takes and unbelieveably drastic divergence from the main plot to the aformentioned Crematoria, where the bounty hunters, prison guards, prisoners, and lava dogs all have their own agendas. This all changes of course when the Necromongers show up to kill Riddick and a whole series of unbelievable and unexplainable events occur (how come only six prisoners decided to make an escape???).

Approaching hour two, there's a definite "to be continued" moment, which is ignored to return to the main plot and wrap up the insanely large opening story in a scant 20 minutes. The climactic fight sequence, more than reminiscent of David Lynch's Dune, brings the film home, but it's not quite satisfying.

The film suffers from severe overachiever syndrome, not unlike Battlefield Earth or the lesser of the Matrix models, and the timing within the film shoud seem like it spans weeks if not months, yet seems more like a half day of frollicking about.

And despite all this I enjoyed it. Immensely.
The film stayed true to the Riddick character, a man whose motivations are his own. Is he going to kill you or save you, you're never really sure. Why is he letting you slow him down, what's his game plan?
He's a tremedously fun anti-hero, and he's not a one-liner though his dry sense of humour shines through. It's a shame the film isn't better, because this is a character that should live on... Indiana Jones meets Hannibal Lecter, in space.

The film also contains some simply amazing visuals, the production design and graphics modellers completely outdid themselves. The only thing limiting the vision was a lack of time to explore it all.

I can't recommend this film to most viewers, because really, it has way too many faults. What I can do is enjoy it for my own reasons. Shut your brain off for two hours and have fun.