Part 5 - Karneval!

When the period of Epiphany rolls around in the UK, the only part of it that we can generally commit to every year is Shrove Tuesday, in which we prepare for the Lent that some of us partake in by eating far too many pancakes. In Germany, things are done slightly differently. Yes, it's Karneval time!

For those of you unfamiliar with this particular festive season in Germany, Cologne carnival is kind of a big deal. People from all over the country head to the Rhineland, totalling over a million spectators lining the streets as floats and performers walk through the city: Rio de Janeiro style, only with slightly more clothes on. The origins are truly primitive: in prehistory, Teutonic tribes engaged in pagan orgies to celebrate the passing of winter, and today little has changed really.

I had hoped to make it to Cologne for at least one day, but it was not to be. The biggest parade happened on Monday, and although school was closed for five days to allow staff and pupils to take in the celebrations, it was just too cold for me to be standing around for six hours watching things go past. I'm not being wet either - temperatures did not rise above freezing all day, and the wind chill meant it felt around -10C.

Pictured: a better man than I.

What I did instead was to join my host family and head to Kirchherten, which is apparently the scene for the second biggest parade in the area on the day. It turned out to be the right decision: three hours in the cold as opposed to the entire day, a lower risk of being crushed to death and car travel to and from the event with the promise of a warm living room at the end of it.

And so the parade began. This particular one was more modest than its big-city counterpart, but made up for it in enthusiasm. The concept is simple enough: each district of the town is allowed a certain amount of money by the council to set up a float, and is given a theme to follow. The people who walk with or ride on the float have to register in the previous year, because if there's one things the Germans love, it's being efficient ahead of time (rail network excluded). Then they all chip in for bags full of sweets, crisps, small toys and flowers that they throw at spectators who shout "Kamelle." Everyone turns up prepared with the German equivalent of a Bag For Life, and as far as I could see, everyone had filled their bag by the end of it. It's also an opportunity for people in the parade to give slightly larger presents to their friends or neighbours - at one point I saw a Pringles can and bouquet of flowers being passed carefully down, and other people stopped off with bottles of spirits for a celebratory shot with friends. Mostly of Waldgeist, which according to Wikipedia is flavoured with the herb woodruff. Not that you'd notice over the burning sensation. The effort put in is impressive, and we witnessed an army of Huns, hippies, punks, and the local film society dressed up as Charlie Chaplins.

Always a brave move going for that moustache in Germany.

Aside from community spirit, these parades serve two other purposes: advertising and satire. The first is straightforward enough: companies faced with employees allowed a day or two off work take the opportunity to enter a float bearing their logo and send those workers to run it. They get an advert seen by everyone present, the employees have fun, everyone gets a good deal.

Sparkasse bank in Kirchherten, for example, displayed a safe bearing the words "Spasskasse" (fun box). I'm still not sure if this is an example of German humour or just proof that bankers the world over don't exactly help their own image.

The satirical side of things is altogether weirder, and judging by the TV coverage I saw of the Cologne and Dusseldorf events, it takes up more than half of the big parades. Both global and national affairs are covered:

Today, it essentially consists of political cartoons rendered in 3D and blown up to huge proportions, but the tradition goes back a long way. In the Middle Ages, people attended mass dressed as animals, reading out prayers in animal noises and thereby subverting the power of religious leaders over their subjects. In the 1820s, Karneval was used as an opportunity to attack Napoleon - little has changed since then. In an interesting twist in 2012, a group of Turkish-Germans released a press package stating they wanted to form a breakaway Karneval based on Muslim values, playing up the fact that Teutonic orgies aren't for everyone.

Overall, my lasting impression of Karneval was that it served to remind me how foreign Germany can seem at times. For the entirety, people in the area were celebrating the fact that they come from the Cologne area, and I just can't imagine that happening in the UK - yes, we do well in terms of national pride, but dedication to regions like that doesn't happen, especially not in the same manner as the friendly rivalry between Cologne and Dusseldorf, for example. Maybe this is a reflection of the fact that Germany has spent too much of its existence as a divided country; forming from a group of states in just 1871 and then being split for most of the lifetime of a lot of its current citizens. Germany as a whole holds no particular meaning to a lot of people, so they resort instead to their area in search of an identity, failed by their national government for too long. As a concept, that's pretty sad. Yet things like Karneval are a reminder that nobody is too bothered. Not bad music either.

TJGreenwood.

Top 10 Albums of 2012

In keeping with last year, it seems that once again I have allowed a fair amount of the new year to roll over before getting around to writing this, and indeed almost didn't. As it happens, 2012 was an exceptionally strong year for albums, so much so that it was hard to formulate a comprehensive top 10. Honourable mentions go to Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean for a pair of darkly mature hip-hop debuts; Green Day, Baroness and The Weekend for some of the least excessive double and even triple albums of all time; Soulfly for making the whole Amazon basin resonate once again with their furious metal riffing; and Xavier Rudd for returning to form in the field of acoustic balladry with just a hint of didgeridoo.

Song of the year goes to Soundgarden for their perfectly-formed album track Halfway There, while video of the year is Odd Future's supremely bizarre Rella:

Onto the list:

10. Avatar - Black Waltz

From the wilds of Sweden comes yet another death metal band purveying brutal riffs, primal vocals and an image straight out of a horror film. This one is different, though - eschewing lyrics about satanism and mutilation in favour of lyrics about, well, not much really. All this on a bedrock of undeniably catchy metal tunes; "groovy" would almost be the word for it, drawing on '70s rock'n'roll more than anything else. It's the kind of music you could dance along to, rather than use as inspiration to summon demons or whatever it is metal fans do nowadays.

9. Infected Mushroom - Army of Mushrooms.

Israel is not a country generally associated with dance music, but Infected Mushroom have been carrying the flag for the Middle East for well over a decade now. Ignore the schlocky album cover, this is a seriously well-honed collection of electronic music, careering between acid house, pulsing dubstep, and even a Foo Fighters cover. Played in its entirety, the album blurs into an ocean of sound, shifting and changing like the sea itself. Seriously professional, and yet never once overproduced or pretentious.

8. Brutality Will Prevail - Scatter the Ashes.

This young metal group hails from South Wales, and their furious debut certainly lives up to their name. Tracks like Second Sight and The Path build sheer walls of sound, assaulting the listener with their power, and yet changing at a moment's notice in favour of new themes and moods. The album opens with dark acoustic twanging and ends with a doom-laden self-eulogy, the work as a whole forming an account of the Black Death outbreak of 1348. It's aggressive, hungry music that would wear itself out given too much room to breathe. The album's running time of just over half an hour means Scatter the Ashes never once becomes boring.

7. Purity Ring: Shrines.

"Beautiful" is a word often applied to music, to the extent that it no longer has much of an effect as an adjective. Shrines, however, is the very definition of the word, a luscious work of sonic art dripping with swelling synths, clicking beats and Megan James' ethereal vocals. It's simultaneously futuristic and timeless: there are plenty of references to the inaugural greats of electronic music like Kraftwerk and Gary Numan, but at the same time it sounds like something that was produced on another planet. Credit must go to programmer Corin Roddick for some of the most technical musical and electronic arrangements of recent years.

6. Django Django: Django Django. 

The Cambridge four-piece were heralded as the saviours of British guitar music, which is odd considering guitars certainly do not take centre stage on their self-titled debut release. What does, however, is lush instrumental arrangement beginning with an Ennio Morricone style introduction and drifting through tuneful, technical indie rock. The most obvious comparison would be alt-j, but where that group's 2012 work lapses into tedium, this album is genuinely interesting to listen to - from acoustic strumming to surf rock to electronic pulsing by way of a 12-bar blues incorporating middle eastern scale cycles. So much indie music nowadays sounds like it was made by a group of students who could barely wake up from their drug-induced coma long enough to strum a chord. Django Django have proven that it doesn't have to be like that.

5. Tenacious D - Rize of the Fenix.

It has been a few years since Jack Black last engaged in serious music production, and apparently no one knew it better than the man himself. His return to his old band became the very subject of this album, beginning with a teaser video in which he and bandmate Kyle Gass train to reach their former status again and culminating in their first studio release since 2006. The album itself is almost too clever, folding back in on itself as a comeback album about making a comeback album and the problems relating to that. Musically, the duo do not put a single foot wrong, bringing in strings, horns, and the ever-exceptional Dave Grohl on drums. It's one thing to proclaim yourself the greatest band of all time, but quite another to become it. Tenacious D are certainly back on the right track.

4. Muse - The 2nd Law.

Muse found themselves in a similar situation to Tenacious D in 2012, having gone a few years since their last, underwhelming release, The Resistance. The 2nd Law made none of the same mistakes as their 2009 effort, which fell back too much on what had gone before. Instead, it positively explodes with creativity, flying out of the gates with a song that wouldn't sound out of place as a Bond theme, an electronic dirge (Madness), grandiose funk, an orchestral arrangement and the Olympic anthem Survival. The second half of the album settles down a little, but still contains enough fresh material to make it Muse's best work yet, from the silky-smooth Animals to the pulsating Isolated System. Not once does it cease to be inventive, and that's what Muse needed to deliver on after previously playing it too safe.

3. Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pandora's Pinata.

Everything you need to know about Diablo Swing Orchestra is evident from their name: an eight-piece (almost an orchestra) metal band playing the devil's music with more than a hint of swing, jazz, tango, and in fact anything else that takes their fancy. Pandora's Pinata is their most ambitious work yet, and by definition also their best, since the more eclectic the group become, the better they sound as a whole. The album opens with Voodoo Mon Amour, something akin to a Parisian cabaret tune played over crunching rock guitars, follows up with a pair of metal songs featuring jagged Mexican trumpet rhythms, before segueing into an Arabic-influenced cello solo and demented Japanese-style pop-rock. By the time it gets to Aurora, a space-age piece of Italian opera, nothing is surprising any more, and so the album winds down in a suitable fashion, blasting through funk, choral music and rabid thrash with Annalouice Loegdlund belting over the top like a Wagnerian soprano. The closing Justice for Saint Mary is truly spectacular, morphing from an acoustic love song into orchestral metal and finally descending into industrial grindcore. Not since Mr. Bungle's 1999 masterpiece California has such wildly incoherent music sounded so good. Two videos here, because the sheer variety of the album cannot be summed up in one song.

2. Die Antwoord - TEN$ION.

The Cape Town trio entered 2012 under a cloud of controversy following them being dropped from their label as a result of what was deemed to be an inappropriate music video. They responded in kind by releasing the video anyway from their newly-created label; it gained over a million views in its first week on YouTube. The subsequent album was just as surprising, abandoning the home-made feel of their debut and heading into an entirely different universe with a truly futuristic aesthetic. Not that it's inaccessible - most of this wouldn't sound out of place in a club, especially the singles I Fink U Freeky and Baby's on Fire. Nor is it perfect - Hey Sexy very quickly begins to grate and the spoken-word interlude Uncle Jimmy is just awful. But the fact remains that there is some hugely inventive music on show here: two tracks entitled Never le Nkemise book-end the album and fuse churning dubstep with Zulu choral music, while Fatty Boom Boom is spurred along by clattering tribal percussion and the breathless rapping of Watkin Jones and Andri du Toit. The mysterious yet fantastically talented DJ Hi-Tek pulls the strings musically, despite no concrete evidence that he even exists, at least as one individual. That banned video? It turned out to be a statement for gay rights in South Africa, twisting a homophobic  Mike Tyson quote into an empowering message, simultaneously highlighting the oversensitivity of label executives and the plight of homosexuals in Africa. And you don't get that from Nicki Minaj.

1. Jack White - Blunderbuss.

With the White Stripes long gone, and the future of side projects The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather looking increasingly uncertain, it was time for Jack White to try his hand at a solo album. Not that there would be anything particularly revolutionary about this - the Detroit-born blues man had clearly been the major creative force behind his previous bands anyway, and was definitely sitting on unreleased material, meaning it was just a matter of getting his ideas down. When he did, the results were staggering - a frank dissection of his recent divorce and relationships in general, Blunderbuss does not pull any punches lyrically, while melding together the best of all of his musical influences to create something akin to a "sound" without being monotonous. Wistful acoustic heartbreak rubs shoulders with cathartic garage rock and old-school blues, culminating in a bit of all three at once in the closing Take Me With You When You Go. Love Interruption is an almost nauseatingly painful ode to the side effects of a breakup, I Guess I Should Go to Sleep is a cheerful piece of country rock, while I'm Shaking warps a Little Willie John blues tune into a frantic garage-gospel mash-up of frightening power. In terms of songwriting, this is comfortably White's best work to date, and while there are no individual future classics in the mould of Seven Nation Army, the album as a whole flows more coherently than anything in his back catalogue. Polished, professional and yet never too far from the ground, Blunderbuss is the standout album in a year of standout albums. Where Jack White goes from here is anybody's guess, but it is safe to say that for now he is set in stone as a musical legend of the 21st Century.

TJGreenwood.

Part 4 - The Aftermath of the Apocalypse

I would like to say that I had been delaying this update in anticipation of the world coming to an end, but the truth of the matter is I simply couldn't be bothered to write it while spending Christmas at home. Having spent three months away, it felt too good to be back to be thinking of my life out here. Not that things had been going badly in the run up to the holidays; far from it in fact...

Dusseldorf

Shortly after my last post, I headed to the state capital of Nordrhein-Westfalen for a British Council-organised meeting for all English language assistants in the Cologne, Detmold and Aachen regions. Sounding initially tedious in its description - a museum visit, a puppet theatre and a tour of the local government building - it more than exceeded expectations. The museum dealt with the Ruhr region: essentially a group of cities that merged into a massive urban sprawl during the industrial revolution, and was built inside a former coal plant. The puppet theatre staged a performance of The Neverending Story, the 1980s children's film, which turns out to be an adaptation of a German book written as a modern fairy tale with political undertones about the dangers of allowing one individual absolute power. It really wasn't as awful as it sounds. The government HQ was about as exciting as you'd expect, although they did give us some good cake in the canteen. There we also got to know some of the American assistants in the area, who did their best to dispel the stereotypes surrounding their nation but not enough to make me prefer them to the Canadians.

Pictured: Not an American language assistant.

It was in fact a three-day excuse to stay off work, with evening entertainment featuring more prominently in most peoples' intentions than the days' activities. We headed to the bar district for traditional German food and beverages. By which I mean we ate at a Mexican restaurant and then went on to an Irish pub to watch Manchester United lose against Galtasaray, play darts, and drink things that aren't usually served in Germany such as purple (a beer-cider-blackcurrant combination and official drink of Warwick University!) I also took the chance to get to know the Cologne assistants better, something I hadn't really been able to do given my location.

Christmas

December rolled around and my first term in Germany was coming to an end, but not before the extremely lengthy and dragged-out ritual that makes up the festive period over here. It begins on the first weekend of December with the first advent and carries on through St. Nicholas' Day (basically a mini Christmas on the 6th), three other advents and the main event itself, which occurs on the 24th. However, since St. Nicholas/Santa has already visited, it is the baby Jesus who visits later, which must lead to a lot of confused children as the prevailing image on TV is still that of der Weihnachtsmann visiting houses to bring presents down the chimney. The school celebrated in a suitably traditional fashion, with food appearing on tables in the staff room and wreaths of candles being lit in the classrooms. A huge health and safety risk, and yet somehow the school didn't even slightly burn down. Meanwhile my parents came out to see the Cologne Christmas Markets, which are spread across the city, and meet my host family. A week later, my girlfriend arrived for much the same reason. This latter visit was not without incident due to the 12 inches of snow that had already fallen with more coming down as I got on the train to meet her at Dusseldorf airport. To the credit of Deutscher Bahn, it was not delayed by a minute - National Rail, all of your excuses are invalid. What didn't work so well was her flight, which was diverted to Cologne once I was already at the airport. My blood pressure rising by the second, I got on another train across the state to finally catch up with her. On the positive side, I got to see Leverkusen in the middle and tick that off my list of German cities visited. All of these visits from home made me feel somewhat homesick, so I have to admit I was glad to be back in time to see in the end of creation at home. So when -  rather anticlimactically I thought - that didn't happen, I realised I still needed to buy presents, so headed to Leamington to combine that with seeing the friends and girlfriend again.

And this fool, who still won't leave us alone for some reason.

Another Christmas came and went, and all too soon it was time to return to Bedburg. Travel was surprisingly painless, and Sunday was spent unpacking and hitting the gym in keeping with the family's new year's fitness drive. I must say this was welcome news given my horrendous overeating at home. I also brought my new phone out with me, which has the capacity to allow me to play Temple Run and thus ruin my life for good, or at least until I beat Justin Bieber's high score of nine million.

If only out of respect to the Canadian president who had to put up with him wearing that.

In other news I came out with 74% on a French essay I submitted before the break, despite not being in France or even being particularly involved in what's going on in that country at the moment. Hopefully this foreshadows a successful start to the new year! Here's a sample of what the kids seem to be into these days in Germany:

And on a more serious note, proof that German satirical pop is still the best there is:

TJGreenwood.

Soundtrack to the Apocalypse

We don't have much time. On December 21st, the world as we know it will end in a catastrophic series of events leading to the downfall of the planet. It's already started: Gangnam Style is about to reach one billion views on YouTube, LeBron James has finally been named the NBA's season MVP, the Twilight Saga has run out of films and the All Blacks lost the other week. Since there's clearly nothing we can do about it, you might as well listen to some music as it happens. Here are a few suggestions:

For People with an Unoriginal Sense of Humour:

AC/DC: Highway to Hell

The most popular funeral song of all time, this might be funny if it weren't such a worn-out idea. Frankly, the idea of listening to Australia's least creative, most generic rock band at the end of it all isn't all that appealing anyway, but that hasn't stopped thousands of people so far.

For Those with a Slightly More Original Sense of Humour

R.E.M.: It's the End of the World as we Know It

The Seattle-based group's environmentalist warning may be slightly preachy in the verses, but the chorus provides an anthem of sorts for people looking to see things out with something resembling a campfire singalong.

Going with a Bang

Skrillex: Kill Everybody

Sonny Moore's pulsating dubstep beats are about as close as music gets to recreating the end of creation. This early track is lyrically appropriate for any post-apocalyptic rave while, if played loud enough, the bass frequencies should tune into the sound of the planet tearing in half.

Going with a Whimper

Sigur Rós: Svefn - G - Englar

A sublime piece of sonic craftsmanship from north of the Arctic Circle. Warm and ethereal, this song is the one to choose if you feel like drifting away rather than exploding.

For Those Who Want to Listen to an Album

Soundgarden: Superunknown

Of all the alternative rock albums released in the '90s, none captured the paranoia and apathy of its generation-X listeners quite like Soundgarden's magnum opus. A devestatingly brutal portrait of a society on the brink of collapse, leading to ultimate self-destruction. Some nice guitar solos too.

In Case Superunknown Finishes Before it's all Over

Massive Attack: Mezzanine

The Bristol trip-hop collective's 1997 work is thematically similar to Superunknown, offering a distinctly British spin on urban decay and rising crime levels in their home city. Don't be fooled by the angelic Teardrop, this is one seriously dark album. Also it's fairly front-weighted so if the end comes unexpectedly early you'll have already heard most of the good stuff.

If It's all Getting a Bit Much

Rabbit J: Happy Things

There's some weighty material on this list, so you may feel the need for a dose of sunny Korean cabaret pop. Or even if you don't, this video is essential viewing for the end of days in that it allows you to forget whatever might be going on at the time by way of sheer charm.

The Disturbing Coincidence

Rebecca Black: Friday

December 21st is a Friday. In this satirical portrayal of a totalitarian, post-apocalyptic society, a young girl finds her daily routine strictly regulated ("gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal"), struggles to fit into the brave new world ("which seat can I take?") and offers a warning to the world in the chorus. "Gotta get down on Friday" clearly refers to taking cover in the midst of a revelatory event. And yet no-one heeded Rebecca Black's words, because they were too busy shredding her video in the YouTube comments section. I'd say she deserved it.

The Song that Caused it All

PSY: Gangnam Style

At this point in time, no video has registered 1,000,000,000 views on YouTube. At the current rate, the Korean dance track might just reach the landmark by the end of the week. According to a 100% genuine Nostradamus prophecy:

"From the calm morning, the end will come, when of the dancing horse, the number of circles will be nine."

"Calm morning" referring to the sun emblem on the South Korean flag, "dancing horse" being PSY's horse-riding dance and "nine circles" matching up to the nine zeros in the view counter.

Yes, this was written retroactively to sound real but the idea is so blatantly ridiculous that no one took it seriously, except for a large part of the internet population. Not much hope for us either way, it would seem.

The Song for all of Humanity

Electric Light Orchestra: Mr. Blue Sky

If, once all of these options are exhausted, the world finds itself in silence, there really is only one song that can be played. Mr. Blue Sky is one of those songs that cannot fail to make anyone who hears it happy. And why not face the last judgement with a smile on your face, remembering the good times you got to have while you were here? This video features clips from David Lynch's Eraserhead, a film that taught us not to fear the end of the world, because in heaven, everything is fine.

See you on the other side!

TJGreenwood.

Part 3: The Best Spy Film of All Time and other Cultural Learnings of Germany

First of all I would like to thank everyone who has been reading so far - from the two people in Ukraine who presumably had no idea what I was on about, to the five who somehow accessed my blog using a Deep Web browser. Sorry, no guns or drugs on sale here...

I wrote my last entry having just spent a week in Berlin and much has happened since then. For the end of the Autumn holiday, I headed home to see the parents and my friends and girlfriend at Warwick.

Also, some guy from the Junior Apprentice

And then, having returned to Bedburg after a 45 minute flight (good work Ryanair), the real teaching began. I felt as though I'd only just got started before the break, so was looking forward to getting into the flow of things now. My conclusion? I'll never be a teacher. Not that I can't pass on knowledge - I taught a class how to start a conversation recently and the group definitely seemed to come away having learned a few phrases. But standing in front of a group of teenagers for 45 minutes at a time, several times a day, is hardly my idea of fun. As it is, I don't have to do that and being a language assistant is, for the most part, fun. This is especially true with older classes, where you can actually discuss things with pupils instead of saying a sentence in English and then having to repeat it in German because half the class didn't understand. Discipline is also an issue in the younger groups. I always found it easy to control kids as a lifeguard when I had a whistle and a clear set of rules defining what was and wasn't allowed, but in a classroom it's just not as clear cut as that. Take for instance, the lad in the front row of one of the classes I teach alone who will not stop talking... in English. Should I tell him to shut up for disrupting the class? I feel as though that would suppress his love and talent - and he is genuinely talented - for speaking and wanting to practice a foreign language. And it feels so mean spirited stopping kids having fun in my lessons. Yesterday, one boy informed me that his friend "likes to look at porn," and rather than telling him off for being inappropriate I couldn't help but laugh and correct him: "no, you watch porn." Similarly, instead of telling another student to take his hat off in class, I took issue with the fact that it promoted the Oakland Raiders.

An actual Raiders fan.

And then told him to take it off.

In short, while I do enjoy teaching at times, it's not the life for me.

In other news, I turned 21 a few days ago, and celebrated with a few friends in Essen before being greeted at school on the day by my mentor teacher with a cake. My host family also came out with a pair of new jumpers and a Thai meal, while even the neighbours chipped in with some small gifts: popcorn Milka may be shockingly unhealthy, but it is also amazing. Ultimately, I felt as though this was a good indication of how well I've settled into life here, although I have to say I would never have thought I'd spend my 21st in small-town Germany teaching English!

Most recently, last weekend was the official opening of the Cologne Karneval - basically an excuse for 100,000 people to descend on the city centre in fancy dress and drink beer all day while some of the most German music ever written is played out on a stage by musicians who have passed into local legend. For the locals, these songs are as ingrained in their culture as the Beatles are in ours, with Viva Colonia being a kind of national anthem of Cologne. For me, it was an excuse to see friends from whom I've felt a bit isolated out here in the sticks and get to know the city a bit better. Apparently the main Karneval in February is ten times the size - ie. a million people attending - so that could well be the highlight of my year.

And so life continues. I've finally made it to the gym and hope to keep that up. The football is improving, and I now have seven goals in four games playing with the teachers, which is as many as Emile Heskey scored in 62 appearances for England. And I have seen what I am sure is the best spy film of this or in fact any year: Agent Ranjid rettet die Welt.

An IMDb rating of 3.3 for this masterpiece is a disgrace.

On top of it all, my German has indeed improved, and I can now watch South Park or Family Guy in German as if they were in English, which had always been my benchmark in terms of listening fluency. Speaking isn't quite at the same level yet, but I've got the whole year for that!

Seriously though, Skyfall  has nothing on this:

TJGreenwood.

The Difficult Second Post

It has been a while since I last posted on here, so a mid-term update seems in order. Much has indeed happened since I arrived in Bedburg, the general nature of which I will now proceed to outline:

Leaving The Bubble

Much like the campus of Warwick University, the town of Bedburg can induce something of a bubble effect on the inhabitant. Faced with all necessary services within walking distance and limited outbound transport options, it can be all too easy to stay in one place, not realising that there is a whole foreign country outside to be exploring. Escape came in the form of an invite to  a birthday party for my coursemate Louise in the north of my state, a mere three-hour train ride away in Recklinghausen. It was definitely worthwhile - after catching up with some people I met at Altenberg over a few drinks, we hit the town to head to a club with a suspect reputation and questionable moral principles. As it turned out, it wasn't that bad - certainly nicer than anything Bedford has to offer - and save for the advances on the female members of our group by some Russian lads, a good night was had by all.

Any club that plays Gangnam Style can't be all bad: simultaneously the best and worst song of all time.

The weekend opened my eyes to the fact that I can get out of Bedburg as long as I make an effort, and I resolved to accept any invitation that came my way.

Shortly after, I was summoned to Cologne by my regional co-ordinator for a meeting between all language assistants in the area. We discussed how things were going, and she gave us advice on how to make the most of our time spent in school. Hearing how others were faring, it seems like I've had a pretty easy run of it - some people were still yet to find long term accommodation or be properly introduced to their colleagues. I decided that living in a small town might not be such a bad thing after all. Anyway, at least the British Council are looking after us, reimbursing our travel costs to Cologne and providing a serious selection of cakes.

After this, life continued as normal. I received my first pay package, sorted out my Erasmus grant and opened my international scoring account at a football session for disadvantaged youths in the area, having tagged along with one of the girls I live with, who is volunteering there for her Abitur.

It looked something like this.

Berlin

So armed with my new frontier mentality, I jumped on the chance to get to Berlin in the first week of my autumn holiday, joining a group of language assistants from Nordrhein-Westfalen who, like me, were looking to get out of their smaller towns.

This introduced me to the bizarre but brilliant world of long-distance car sharing, or Mitfahrgelegenheit, a scheme whereby you pay a stranger to drive you from one place to another. While it might sound like a haven for murderers and kidnappers, it is in fact a legitimate and established scheme, and apparently the norm for travelling cross-country in Germany, often for a quarter of the price of a train. My ride there was Dzelal, a stylish and friendly Balkan who tore up the Autobahn in his black BMW while blasting an excellent range of hip hop from his sound system. He even took me to the front door of my hostel. On the way back I was with Ango, a West African man with a van who seemed to make a living out of car sharing alone, and who paid for my train ticket from Düsseldorf when he decided I would be too late getting home from Cologne. When looking to get around Germany, I can only recommend it.

The drive from east to west is an experience in itself - open fields and industry one minute, until you cross the border into Brandenburg and find yourself in the Soviet Union: dark, cold forest littered with the (literally) concrete reminders that this was a communist bloc nation less than 25 years ago.

Fig. 1: an actual field in West Germany

Fig. 2: Somewhere in East Germany, probably.

We had been told at university that the two halves of the country still faced economic and social divisions, but the reality is amazingly obvious - the former Democratic Republic clearly has a lot of catching up to do.

Berlin itself was as good as I remembered from my previous visit, although the entire population now seems to be Australian for some reason. We took the walking tour, visited the DDR museum and spent a day at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, a truly humbling experience made even more unsettling by the presence of the first ever gas ovens and Dr. Josef Mengele (if you're having a good day so far, DO NOT google that name). We also sampled the Berlin nightlife, on one occasion staying at the Matrix club, located in a disused underground station, until past 5 am. Otherwise guided by our resident Australian Geordie, who had lived in Berlin a few years previously, we sampled local bars and pubs, which were decent despite sometimes wandering around searching in vain for places that had been good a few years previously. I was also rewarded with a new favourite beer, the distinctly non-German Sapporo. All in all, an enjoyable week spent in great company!

In the middle of all of this, I've also taught some kids some English. But that can wait for a later post.

TJGreenwood.

Reviews, September 2012

Red Hot Chili Peppers – ‘Magpies on Fire’, ‘Victorian Machinery’, ‘Strange Man’ and ‘Long Progression’

By Tim Greenwood, published on 12 September 2012 03:57 pm

Fresh off the back of their 2011 album I’m With You, Red Hot Chili Peppers have now announced a string of singles in quick succession, beginning with this pair of double A-sides. The main problem that arises is how to perceive these 18 new tracks – collectively as an album, or one by one as they arrive? Their purpose is equally confused: should they be seen as a bridge to the next album, or (more likely) tunes that didn’t make the cut forI’m With You? Or, indeed, simply an attempt to continue milking the cash cow of a band who are less and less relevant on the grand musical scale? It’s hard not to be cynical when faced with such a move, until you remember that the Chili Peppers used to spend up to five years preparing new releases, mainly as a result of frequent conflicts withing the group. With this new development, perhaps fans could dare to hope for a more prolific band in future.

In any case, they present us here with four tight, neatly-written but ultimately unexciting songs. ‘Victorian Machinery’ begins with a promising clanking percussion line giving way to churning guitar in the kind of time signature that would make the best of drummers feel faint. Yet all too soon it drops into the mellow, jangling guitar-and-vocals sound that have typified pretty much every song on their last three releases. ‘Strange Man’ is more atmospheric but basically reverses the pattern, with a poppier verse followed by a soft chorus. ‘Long Progression’ contains a number of well-structured vocal harmonies but really could be any other song written by the foursome in the past 13 years. ‘Magpies on Fire’, then, stands out from the crowd as the most coherent and soulful tune, with new recruit Josh Klinghoffer‘s chiming guitar sound blending with Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary‘s crawling bassline, almost making up for the departure of John Frusciante. All in all, these are four nice enough tracks, but that’s the problem – at their prime, Red Hot Chili Peppers were, quite simply, the best, combining one of the all-time great rhythm sections with passionate songwriting and hyperactive inventiveness. Sure, they’ve done a lot of growing up since the early 1990s, but at the same time their sound has lost the sense of fun that defined them as a group.

So while these new releases certainly aren’t bad songs, they’re not all that special either; borne of undeniable musical talent but lacking in any real excitement. They carry the band’s trademark sound but do not make any forward progress with it, instead falling back on what has gone before.  It’s a painfully obvious pun to make, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers have definitely lost some of their heat.

6/10

@TimGreenwood2

Slipknot – Antennas to Hell

By Tim Greenwood, published on 18 August 2012 09:47 am

For a band of nameless, faceless Iowans sporting nightmarish masks straight out of a horror film,Slipknot have experienced a surprising level of mainstream success over the course of their career. Notorious for their brutal sound and manic live performances, the group have courted with their fair share of controversy, with lyrics being linked to a fatal school shooting in 2003, to a grave robbing in 2006, and then again to a murder in South Africa in 2008. For their part, the band maintained that their music carried a favourable message, a beacon of hope for disillusioned, isolated youths in the uncaring and unsupporting western world. Antennas to Hell compiles the best of that music, and throughout the progression of its 19 tracks, it is hard to see the positivity supposedly inherent in the music or lyrics. What does become evident, however, is just how revolutionary the group have been over the past decade.

Antennas to Hell encapsulates the evolution of Slipknot – beginning with a collection of sparse, frantic thrash numbers from their self-titled debut, progressing through more coherent metal, and concluding with the songs that made them famous. ‘Duality’, ‘Vermillion’, ‘Psychosocial’ and ‘Before I Forget’ are all present and correct, a string of chart hits that sealed the band’s position among the greats of modern metal. More interesting, however, are the earlier tracks. From the opening ‘(sic)’ to a live recording of ‘The Heretic Anthem’, these tunes provide a voracious bedrock of sound; channelling all the rage and pain that made Slipknot so accessible to millions of moody, repressed teenagers in small-town America. Listening to the desperate howls of vocalist Corey Taylor and the furious drumming of Joey Jordison mixing with Jim Roots‘ twisted guitar riffs, it becomes startlingly clear why a whole generation decided to tap into that sound as a release from the real-world problems that hounded them. It’s tight, it’s fast and it’s fierce: contention over the lyrics aside, Slipknot were an unarguably talented band and while their influence can be heard all over the modern metal scene, it is true that no one else sounds quite like them. Easy listening it isn’t, but that was never the point.

If you are new to Slipknot, or 21st-century metal in general, this greatest hits album is the place to start. If you are a long-time fan of the group, the special edition is worth considering for a live recording of their 2009 Download Festival performance and DVD containing their music video back catalogue.

8/10

Album Review: Noisettes - Contact

by Tim Greenwood
at University of Warwick17th September 2012 12:08:39

  

3/5

It has been three years since the Noisettes stuck gold with hit single Don't Upset the Rhythm. They return with new album, Contact, minus a member and attempting to build on their success with a wider musical palette and the same sense of adventure that has maintained them thus far.

The Noisettes are a classic example of the 'I liked them before they sold out for fame' band. It doesn't seem to be widely known, but their debut came not in 2009 but rather in 2007 with the garage punk album What's the Time Mr. Wolf? It was a magnificent first effort, filled with frantic, thrashing rock tunes and the feral howling of singer Shingai Shoniwa standing out in particular. And no one paid it much attention.

Undeterred, the group attempted a foray into the mainstream two years on and it worked -Don't Upset the Rhythm was so far removed from their earlier work that it sounded like a different band entirely. But the new formula was a success: the single reached number two in the UK chart and the subsequent album Wild Young Hearts itself entered the top 10. Ultimately, though, it felt as though the trio had simply dumbed down their original sounds in favour of something more radio-friendly: Wild Young Hearts was not a particularly strong album.

Their latest release, however, is somewhat better. Having dropped drummer Jamie Morrisson, they are no longer really a band, but rather a songwriting duo who rely more on orchestral arrangements and backing musicians than their own individual skills. This is no bad thing - Contact kicks off with a introduction straight out of a film score before segueing into the '70s disco stomp of I Want You Back, which contains an undeniably catchy, singalong chorus.

From there, we are presented with a veritable collage of sounds, stretching beyond the realm of pop music, seemingly into as many genres as the pair can conceive. This happens often within the same song: Travelling Light begins as a piano ballad and ends with a soft dubstep beat, while Let the Music Play is glittering pop with a motown interlude.

Yet for all their experimentation, the Noisettes sound at their best when being truly coherent. That Girl is a genuinely well-written song that would not have sounded out of place in the 1950s, and the folksy Ragtop Car is perhaps the album's prettiest moment. Which presents a paradox: most of the album's appeal is in its experimental side, but this is in conflict with the duo's attempts to craft smooth, well-rounded pieces of music. The result is unfortunate - too many of the tracks descend into repetitve, mid-tempo disco beats, and it feels as though the work has run its course before its conclusion.

While there are indeed positives here - Shoniwa's voice, in particular, has lost none of its flair - Contact feels like a missed opportunity. If the Noisettes could only ignore mainstream expectations, they have the potential to create some of the most original music of recent times. As it stands, they have offered up a competent but uninspiring work that in the end is a victim of its own self-consciousness.

Album Review: Dan le Sac - Space Between the Words

by Tim Greenwood
at University of Warwick17th August 2012 12:05:44

  

4/5
Space Between the Words is not a cheerful album. From the opening bars of the terse Long Night of Life, as folk singer Merz calls out "life gets tired of living/devoid of light," it is clear that the Essex-based producer is aiming somewhere between the bleak sound of '80s indie and dingy urban electronica.
And to his credit, the mix is just about right. The beats grind away in the background but never quite overpower the sparse, ethereal instrumentation. The largely obscure guest vocalists, including Sarah Williams White, Joshua Idehen and Pete Hefferan, each add their own style to their respective tracks, leading to a vague narrative structure as they reappear at various points.
Musically, Space Between the Words is more accessible than Dan le Sac's previous work, his abrasive keyboard bleeps of former albums replaced by a more fluid sound in the mould of liquid dubstep. Think Magnetic Man, only slightly more introverted.
This, then, is not a dance album for the clubs, but rather one that is intended to be appreciated on a more cerebral level, to be played in full without interruption or distraction and preferably on a well-specced sound system. It's grimy, intense music - not catchy in the slightest, and not at all ashamed of it. For those who enjoy the album, this will its main appeal - it does not fall back on what has gone before, but rather moves on, drawing on its influences and then updating and expanding them.
Highlights include the minimalist Breathing Underwater, an electro-folk dirge featuring Fraser Rowan and a surging string arrangement; Good Time Gang War, a B.Dolan grime collaboration that threatens a dubstep drop but instead teases the listener with lurching house beats; and the glorious closer Cherubs, the standout track on the album, perfectly pitched between late Radiohead and Morrissey's sombre ballads.
Ultimately, while Space Between the Words may lack the brilliantly poetic and philosophical lyrics of Dan le Sac's work with Scroobius Pip, it does make up for this with a subtler musical approach and more polished production values. It's unlikely to be the soundtrack to your summer, but instead will endure as a slick, brooding work of modern electronica.