Pip Freaks Out

Thirty-something guy in Birmingham interested in music, politics, running and photography. This page is mainly about my photos with the occasional blog post and repost thrown in.

[pipfreak]

Albums of 2016

My albums of 2016, not exactly in order of preference:

Blackstar - David Bowie 

One of the first albums released in the year just preceding Bowie’s death by a few days. I had listened briefly to the album before Bowie died and at that point, I was already astonished that Bowie could still turn out something as epic, weird and uplifting as the song Blackstar. It’s a great start to what is an incredibly strong album even by Bowie’s standards. Other songs, like Lazarus and, my favourite, the poignant I Can’t Give Everything Away, gained increased impact in the context that he was dying as he made them. The album reminds me of Bowie’s Hours from 1999, which also saw him reflecting back on his life and mortality. Both albums are favourites of mine, even if not the happiest songs of his career.

Prospect of Skelmersdale - The Magnetic North

Never heard of these until recommended to me, I think , as being like a folk-orientated Saint Etienne. The comparison is a good one. It holds together thematically, with the whole album being inspired by Skelmersdale, reminiscent again of Saint Etienne, who have written so many albums and songs about London. It’s hard to describe as an album -it sounds retro, at times like it was recorded in the 60s which adds a nostalgic feel. The sound is full with sweet melodic vocals and notes of orchestral music throughout. Well worth seeking out. 

The Hope Six Demoitiolon Project - PJ Harvey

Whilst this feels very much like a companion to Let England Shake sonically, it doesn’t quite seem to feel as coherent as an album. Im not trying to put it down too much - Let England Shake was a Mercury Music prize-winning masterpiece, after all. It has a few more straight forward rock songs with The Community of Hope and The Wheel feeling like more obvious single material than anything off recent PJ albums. Both songs are highlights, but it’s the end of side one (on vinyl at least), that it reaches its high point with the beautiful River Anacostia and I can see why PJ chose that song to end her 2016 live performances which I was lucky enough to catch in Wolverhampton after iPlayer-ing her Glastonbury performance to death.

Choreography - Bright Light Bright Light

I love the first two albums by Bright Light Bright Light and had high expectations of this. What hit me about this is the 80s stylings, which sort of made sense once I read that it had been inspired by Rod Thomas's favourite dance scenes from 80s movies. After listening a bit more to the album, I think some of the tracks are the greatest he has written so far. Into the Night is probably his most uplifting pop song since the epic Disco Moment on his first album and songs like Where is the Heartache and Symmetry of Two Hearts Are just perfect pop single material.

Wild Things - Ladyhawke

I loved Ladyhawke's debut album, but I seemed to give up with her second album after a couple of listens. Having caught hearing A Love Song once, I pre-ordered on the strength of that track alone (so Facebook advertising does work sometimes). The album is full of incredibly catchy songs and I’m amazed it hasn’t spawned a hit yet. A Love Song, The River, Wild Things or Golden Girl all seem perfect chart material, she deserves more success with this.

Take Her Up To Monto - Roisin Murphy

Ten Miles High has to be the best thing Murphy has released since the Overpowered album (it’s not quite as good as Movie Star, but not many songs are!) This album is wonderfully weird, and it does take some work. It’s not that far removed from Hairless Toys, but the song structures are looser in places. It is ultimately a very rewarding album blending danceable electronics like Mastermind with a range of more melancholy offerings such as Thoughts Wasted and Whatever.

Girl At The End Of The World - James

Since reforming in 2008, James haven’t put out a bad album and this is no different. There are the obvious soon to be James classics like Nothing But Love, but I love this album for songs like Surfers Song and the stand out Attention which remind me of their earlier epic songs like Sound and Born of Frustration. I’m sure Attention could have been dragged out another few minutes as it ends far too soon.

Joanne - Lady Gaga

After reading the early reviews, I had very low expectations for this. I think she’s had fairly harsh treatment as, in my opinion, this is far better than the car crash that was PopArt, which had a couple of good singles and the missed hit opportunity of standout track Gypsy. Joanne is just a consistently good pop album. It’s not *that* country either; yeah, Just Another Day is a bit Shania Twain, but only as much as You and I was. The album really isn’t that much of departure as reviews have made out - A-YO is single material that could have been on the Fame Monster and the title track, Joanne, and Angel Down are strong ballads compete in quality with earlier ballads like Speechless and Brown Eyes. PopArt took itself so seriously that I couldn’t listen to it much. This is so much more fun.

Swan Song Series - Tanya Donelly

I’d missed Tanya Donelly, having loved the Throwing Muses, The Breeders and most of all, Belly, in my teen years. Her solo output has been strong but too intermittent which is perhaps why she started releasing a series EPs on and off from 2013 onwards, which this album really just collects together. It does feel like a collection of songs rather than one album recorded at the same time, using a variety of collaborators and styles. Tu y Yo almost sounds like it’s reaching back to her time with the Breeders, although my favourite are the songs that sound most like was she was producing on her more recently solo albums; Mass Ave, Blame the Muse and Meteor Shower.

Chaleur Humaine - Christine and the Queens

I think everything that could be said about this album has already been said, although contrary to what most reviewers have said, I don’t love every track. However, its full of well crafted pop and electronica. Just about everybody loves Tilted and rightfully so, but I also think Saint Claude and Paradis Perdus stand out.

 There are plenty of albums that just missed the list for 2016 including On Dead Waves which is great, albeit possibly too melancholy for lots of repeat listening! M83’s Junk  and Wendy James’s is The Price of the Ticket were also just outside the list. If I’d had Woman by Justice or the recent Nouvelle Vague album for longer, they might have been pushing in, but it’s early days of both so I haven’t had time to listen to either much yet.

I should also say that I tend to skip live albums in these lists although whilst Kate Bush’s Before the Dawn is a fantastic album and recording of the concerts, I actually haven’t listened to it that much. The first CD has been played plenty but the two set pieces of The Ninth Wave and A Sky of Honey just end up making me ache to see the visuals from the concert again. Bizarrely it’s made me miss not having a DVD of the show more rather than less.

Anyway, looking forward to plenty of new music in 2017, spurred on by hearing Goldfrapp are releasing a new album. Cannot wait.

[pipfreak]

David Bowie RIP

I never understood or got David Bowie until my teen years when I heard Ashes to Ashes, Space Oddity and most notably, Life on Mars. As a result of hearing that track, in 1993, I got his 37 track Singles Collection for Xmas and by the time he realeased Earthling, I was obsessed.

I went back and explored a lot of his back catalogue, but I still seem to have the most love for his albums from Outside to Heathen and I managed to see him live in 2003 and that end of that period. 

In London today, Bowie was being played everywhere and the colleagues and external people I was with all described how touched they were by his genius and his death today. I don’t think there will be another artist like him and certainly no other popular artist has reinvented themselves to the extent he did.

I planned to share a video and thinking about my favourite Bowie songs, I assumed it would be either Ashes to Ashes, Sorrow, Young Americans or maybe Everyone Says Hi or Heathen. Only when I looked at my iTunes playlist did I see that I’ve played the original version of this more than any other Bowie song (48 plays compared to The Next Day and The Hearts Filthy Lesson both on 35 each). This live version is beautifully sung and the subject too fitting. RIP

http://youtu.be/4mHj-DeJ7-A

Note the video isn’t HD, but the audio is excellent.

[pipfreak]

Why I voted Jeremy Corbyn

After much agonising, I have voted Jeremy Corbyn 1 and Yvette Cooper 2 in the Labour Leadership race.

Ultimately it came down to 2 things for me; the narrative I want the Labour party to have and the chance any particular leader has of winning.

The first point naturally directed me towards Jeremy Corbyn. Since Tony Blair's leadership I have grown tired of Labour party policies that appear to aim to appease a right-leaning narrative, whether accepting that private companies can make a profit from running public sector services (i.e from taxpayers) to not providing vociferous opposition to cuts in services for the most vulnerable in society. I think Jeremy Corbyn has the potential to provide a very different narrative. I don't agree with everything he says but I don't agree with all that any of the candidates stand for.

In terms of his chance in winning an election, I was concerned that the media stories could be true and that he could make the party unelectable for decades. This directed me towards Yvette Cooper, who I like and has policies I broadly agree with. I've seen her speak and she is much more charismatic than she is portrayed, but I think she has struggled to get her message across between Corbyn and Burnham in this campaign. I also believe she has the most chance of avoiding serious damage from a Labour-hostile media. They may try to pitch her as Mrs Balls or a Brownite, but I actually don't think most of the normal voting public would care or see this as a particularly bad thing.

I think Andy Burnham would face much more damaging criticism from the press over his supposed negligence with Stafford hospital (not that I agree he was to blame), and he is likely to be portrayed as left wing and derided for being a scouser. Clearly that last point should be irrelevant, but lets not forget that Ed Miliband was berated so blatantly for being geeky and faced with vaguely anti-Semitic headlines about bacon sandwiches. The media did such a thorough job on him that most of the voting public felt more connection to a millionaire Etonian to understand the realities of their lives.

Anyway, whoever becomes leader, the Murdoch media will have a strategy for undermining their credibility. And on reflection I think Jeremy Corbyn has as much chance of winning as any of them. I think many people are tired of trained politicians who appear to rarely answer a direct question. More importantly, and I don't mean to sound defeatist here, I think the Labour Party has seriously got their work cut out to have a chance of succeeding in 2020.

Following the surge of the SNP in Scotland, there needs to be some radical change in the political landscape. Whilst I agree there were many flaws in the Labour Party campaign led by Ed Miliband, the accusation that he was too left-wing and not centrist enough doesn't hold for me. It's worth remembering that nearly as many people voted for the Labour Party in 2015 as they did in 2005 when they formed a majority government, but in 2015 this translated to over 120 fewer MPs because of where the votes were cast and the changes in the Scottish political landscape.

The two best ways of Labour winning in 2020 is to win back seats in Scotland or to engage with the millions of disaffected people who do not vote at all, often because they think all the parties are the same. On both of these counts, I think Jeremy Corbyn is best placed to make change. The surge in his popularity amongst young people demonstrates this for me and some of the more centrist candidates are unlikely to resonate in Scotland against the SNP in my opinion.

Well I've been wrong before on leadership candidates and I am particularly concerned that if Corbyn wins, there will be many attempts to undermine and destroy him from the outset. However, even if he does not last until the next election, I am hopeful that we will have an opposition leader who will manage to reframe some of the debates we are currently having in society.

Hope all Labour colleagues can unite by whoever does get it. A fractured party will serve no one.

Oh and for deputy leader, I voted Angela Eagle 1, Tom Watson 2 and Stella Creasy 3 in case you were interested.

[pipfreak]

Top 10 singles of 2014

A fairly eclectic mix of the tracks I loved last year. Click the titles to listen.

Living for Love - Madonna

*If* I had listened to those leaked tracks against Madge's wishes, I might have already have been a but over-excited about Madonna's forthcoming release. Yes, er, well...

The 6 unannounced tracks are very promising and whilst I thought MdNA was a step in the right direction after Hard Candy (possibly the only Madonna album I don't really like), these tracks are the strongest for  while. Living for Love really deserves to be a hit and I hope the press can lay off her being 'past it' for maybe just 5 minutes in 2015.

Gravitonas (Feat. Army of the Lovers) - People are Lonely 

Yeah I have always been an Army of Lovers fan, but this isn’t just about that. This is a lovely melancholy piece of europop with a fantastic video that manages to land somewhere between camp and terrifying. Well worth clicking the link to watch the video. It also got me into Gravitonas that I hadn’t really given time to before. He has a great voice -  if you like this, check out the track Religious for a good place to start .

All About That Bass - Meghan Trainor

Yeah this is a bit naff and I'll never listen to it again after 2015 passes, but this was fun and one of the most recognisable singles of the year. I didn't understand the allegations of hypocrisy and I liked the sentiment which read to me as against body fascism.

Into the Blue - Kylie

Kylie's lead singles are always amazing. Whilst nothing has quite topped All The Lovers, this is brilliant and filled the floor in every party or bar I went to.

Do it Again – Royksopp and Robyn

The mini-album was good and the title track and Monument were the standout tracks for me.  As an album/EP, it did OK in the charts, but as can be the case with EPs, this lead single didn't even make the top 40 in the UK, which seems very unfair for what is an excellent 5 minutes of euphoric electro-pop.

Our Time - Lily Allen

Whilst none of the singles off Sheezus quite reached the heights of The Fear, it's a good album in my opinion and I really don't think she deserves the stick she gets. Hard Out Here was clearly feminist in intent and the track Sheezus was clearly tongue-in-cheek, yet I read an article where Lily was described as threatening other female pop stars with the line 'Give me that crown bitch'.  Seriously?!

Anyway, this is a lovely happy pop song which reminds me so much of how I spent most of my weekends a decade or so ago.

Everything I Ever Wanted - Bright Light Bright Light

This is my favourite track off Life is Easy by some way and it counts as a single as it was a special World Aids Day release with the Pink Singers. Whilst the original already sounded epic, the choir add a little sparkle to it. Life is Easy is a great album, but I think his first one still stands a little higher for the number of songs that, like this one, manage to blend heartfelt lyrics and dance beats.

Four EP - 'Little Movements' – Charlotte Church

I probably would have picked Entanglement or Love as the best tracks off this EP, but neither has a video so I've linked to the equally lovely 'Little Movements' which does have a charming video of people dancing around. Like all of her new tracks, it builds as it goes on.

I discovered that Charlotte Church we doing these experimental EPs last year and she's quickly become one of my most played artists in those two years. Each EP in this series sounds different from the others and this fourth one has a slightly more happy feel that suited summer. There are a lot of indecipherable lyrics and if you're not yet acquainted with quite how experimental Charlotte has become, watch some of her 2014 live show that begins with the lead track off this EP, Entanglement.

Happy - Marina and the Diamonds

I wasn't sure about the first of her newly released tracks, Froot, as it sounded like it was leading another concept album. However, I love this second promo from the album which is a tender ballad about being happy and is more reminiscent of her first album, the Family Jewels, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I loved Electra Heart, but I loved the strangely structured and bizarre early releases even more.

Uptight Downtown - La Roux

As well as being from one of my albums of the year, this was one of my favourite tracks of the year. No idea what it's about (along with the rest of the album), but it's catchy.

Hovering around the top 10 were loads of others and the following almost made it; Bang Bang - Jessie J, Ghost -Ella Henderson, Fancy - Iggy Azelea and Heroine from the new Business Pleasure EP by Little Boots.

[pipfreak]

Top 10 albums of 2015

Trouble In Paradise - La Roux

Five years was a long an gap between albums and whilst I’d liked the debut, I wasn’t really awaiting the follow up. Thankfully I bought it on release as it’s an amazing 9 tracks of incredibly catchy electro pop. The first track to be released was Let Me Down Gently, perhaps the darkest and most emotional track. Uptight Downtown is a great opener (and a single of the year for me) and Kiss and Not Tell was the most obvious single choice on an album full of potential singles.

After playing this to death, its actually Paradise is You and Sexotheque that are now my favourites, but to be fair, Tropical Chancer is the only one I skip, mainly because it just gets caught too deeply in my head after hearing it.

St Vincent – St Vincent

I’d come across St Vincent before but never given her a good listen, despite finding out she originally started in the Polyphonic Spree.  After this was awarded multiple platitudes during the year, I decided to dip in. For some reason, I’d expected electronica, but it’s actually a very eclectic mix of indie rock and pop, as much driven by guitars as synths. The softer tracks (I Prefer Your Love and Severed Crossed Fingers) are my favourites and in some parts, reminiscent of Goldfrapp in their electro period, as is the excellent Psychopath, which really should have been a single.

Ghosts of Download  - Blondie

I’ve always been a Blondie fan, but for me, this is their most consistent album since their 90s comeback No Exit. I’ve enjoyed all those in-between, but there aren’t any major missteps here. I’m not sure what caused the delays in releasing this, but the new material was played live from mid 2013 and the release was apparently ready shortly afterwards. This lead to a slightly bungled promo campaign where the package was sold with the nice but totally unnecessary re-recorded greatest hits Redux.

Had it been promoted more coherently with the totally amazing Rave as the lead single (surely the best potential for number one they’ve recorded since Maria?) and followed up with the Beth Ditto duet Rose by Any Name, it could have been huge. Anyway, it’s a great album including the aforementioned pop songs, the melancholy pop of Winter and dance-orientated tracks like Mile High and a fair whack of reggae-pop. The cover of Relax, whilst initially great, did become my track to skip later on though.

I’m not Bossy I’m the Boss  -Sinead O’Connor

Proving that 2012’s How About I be me (And You Be You)? wasn’t a one-off return to form, Sinead produced a similar-styled album, albeit with a harsher edge in places (Harbour being the angriest songs she’s recorded since her early days). The first single Take Me to Church was a great choice to lead the album, managing to sound like a song that constantly builds without never quite reaching the zenith (and that’s not intended as a criticism).  There was also a few more songs that were very radio worthy, from the pop/rock Where Have You Been? to my favourite, the sublime love song, How About I Be Me?

Unrepentant Geraldines – Tori Amos

I don’t think Tori has done a bad album. Since she left Atlantic Records, they have tended to be overlong and would all benefit from shorter track lists. However, there have still many genius moments in those years; Scarlet’s Walk, American Doll Posse and now Unrepentant Geraldines can be added to the list. When lead promo Trouble’s Lament had the same vibe as the classic A Sorta Fairytale, it was a good sign. This album is the nearest Tori has returned to her roots for some time, playing with electronics on tracks such as the excellent earworm 16 Shades of Blue and then returning to more piano based solos than previous on songs such as Selkie and Oysters that hark back to her lightly structured early b-sides such as Thoughts. The deluxe bonus track Forest of Glass is by far my favourite track and, I suspect, something that didn’t make the final cut of The Light Princess. Even The Promise is tender where it could feel saccharine, but I really could have done without the Giants Rolling Pin!

Le Petite Mort - James

Classic James, and like the last full length album (2008’s Hey Ma), it is full of heartfelt pop gems that seem to speak to men in their 30s and 40s. No idea why, but go to a James concert and watch the grown men weep to see what I mean. Curse Curse about sleeping next door to a coital couple is a highlight, as is Moving On.

Power - The Fryars

I found it very hard to enjoy the pre-release tracks, primarily as the sound is such a departure from what Benjamin Garrett did on the first Fryars album; Dark Young Hearts. Whilst it was a very inaccurate comparison, some press compared him to Mika back then. This second album is such a departure from anything resembling that. What most threw me is the vocal is so different, with only China Voyage and Thing of Beauty sounding anything like he did previously. Once I got the album at the tail-end of the year, I put aside the differences and actually found that it is great. His voice is now layered and the tracks sit somewhere nearer to the sound of the Scissor Sisters with a cinematic edge, helped along by the weird spoken word interludes. The ballad On Your Own is the standout for me, but he’s also doing some very interesting dance music like Cool Like Me.

Strange Tales - The Humans

Yes I am a huge Toyah fan, but aside from that, this collection of 8 songs written and performed by Toyah with two rock guitarists is one of her best new works for a while. Not much available to link to video wise, but just listen to the tracks on the official site here, then buy it.

Kiss Me Once - Kylie

This wasn’t as strong as her last few albums for me but after a long period of not listening to it, I revisited and it grew on me. It was helped by seeing many of the tracks performed live on the Kiss Me Once tour. Into the Blue is pretty much as strong as her other lead singles and the album also contains classic such as Kiss Me Once, I Was Gonna Cancel and Les Sex. The bonus track Sleeping with the Enemy and Fine were also favourites, but I still don’t think I get Sexercise and Sexy Love to be frank.

24 Karat Gold - Stevie Nicks

I understand that these were all re-recordings of songs and demos from earlier in Stevie’s career. That makes sense as it doesn’t always feel like a coherent album (where as In Your Dreams did) and there are some weaker tracks. However, when it’s good, the album compares to some of her best work in my opinion. The Dealer is an excellent choice of single, Starshine, Blue Water, Carousel and others standout and I think that Lady might be her best ballad since Landslide.

There has been a lot of great music this year, but in my opinion, consistency has been the issue when putting this together. The Night is Young by the 2 Bears is excellent, with the drop in opening track Get Out nearly being good enough to force the album into the top 10, but there are some much more mediocre tracks too. Ultraviolence by Lana Del Rey was great, but lacked the same number of standout tracks as her debut. The Primitives’ Spinorama, Bright Light Bright Light’s Life is Easy, Nina Persson’s solo debut (well billed solo anyway), Erasure’s Violet Flame and Royksopp’s final album were all hovering around the top 10.

The reissue of the year had to be Nightclubbing by Grace Jones, remastered and added to with multiple remixes and two amazing lost tracks  - check Me I Disconnect from You. Maybe this might finally pave the way for reissues of her whole back catalogue? The live album of the year was John Grant with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, which was released just as I saw his orchestral tour at the Birmingham Town Hall.

[pipfreak]

Kate Bush - Before the Dawn

As Kate Bush finished the last of her tour dates, I found myself reflecting a lot on Before the Dawn as I was lucky enough to see it more than once. Having avoided virtually all spoilers, I was unprepared for what I saw. I knew she didn’t cover the first four albums and that she would recreate the Ninth Wave, but nothing more.

It started off with a fairly standard set up of band and singer performing a set of hits and fan favourites. Lily, as the opener, was perhaps chosen deliberately to set the scene as it tells the story of a spell of protection being cast on Kate. Hounds of Love is one of my favourite ever Kate Bush singles and it launched the momentum of the concert as the second song, even more effective on my final visit where they had added the opening “It’s in the trees, it’s coming!” from one of the backing singers. The remainder of the opening segment was fantastic in itself, the vocal on Top of the City was a highlight of the concert, and whilst Kate had already recreated the emotionally intense vocal of the original on the Directors Cut album, she sung it even more beautifully live. I found Joanni one of the slower points of the concert and personally, it’s the one song of the night I might have shuffled out, but I am being extremely picky and critical, I accept.

King of the Mountain, performed live, built to a greater crescendo that the original track, starting the storm that was to become the Ninth Wave. Not really sure what can be said about the performance of the Ninth Wave, probably the cycle of songs that had the most impact on me in my teenage years. The interpretation involved video scenes of Kate afloat and lost at sea, multiple recreations of waves and water, astonishing 3D sound, creepy fish people, a seemingly underwater living room where a ghostly Kate watched her family without her and the final scenes of Kate’s rescue and rebirth into the morning. In hindsight, the imagery was fairly faithful to the music, telling the story in a literal way, but with so much surrealism and drama that it was beyond anything I’ve ever seen created on stage. Hello Earth was the standout moment for me and to follow with a celebratory acoustic version of The Morning Fog left many people around me quite emotional.

I really hadn’t prepared for the second half and whilst The Ninth Wave has always been once of my favourite pieces of music ever, it is the second that keeps haunting me. When I first saw the show, I gasped rather loudly and embarrassingly when I realised she was performing A Sky of Honey in its entirety. This act was, for me, interpreted more loosely and more abstract. The story is simpler, telling of 24 hours of a summers day and the movement of the birds and the actions of a painter. I assume the wooden puppet that appeared represented the child figure (originally voiced by Kate’s son Bertie) constantly in wonder at what was going on, well at least initially. It was also visually very simple yet effective, mainly involving various visual effects of a sky progressing through the elements of a day and the birds that flew across the video projections.

The momentum of A Sky of Honey built much more steadily than The Ninth Wave, although it was mixed up a little, with the end of the Prologue bursting into a new bridge of church bells, choral ‘Ding Dongs’ and a refrain of ‘Shake it Up!’ that reappeared much darker at a later point in the segment. What really worked in this cycle is that the band and singers were also the actors and always part of the action. The Prologue with Kate on the piano, was just a group of musicians joyously playing together whilst the backing vocalists danced around the stage singing amongst falling feathers. I love the song An Architects Dream, and the slow motion choreography added to the sense of a building momentum, brought to a high by the flamenco finish of Sunset, which brought the audience to a standing ovation.

The second act seemed to move much quicker than the first, with night falling quickly, the addition of Bertie singing of the tawny moon (a welcome addition) and then suddenly turning even darker than the first act. Nocturn, one of my favourite songs originally, was more haunting sung by torchlight with swooping birds flying past, carried by singers, reminiscent of Kate’s early mime work on the Tour of Life. There were numerous moments that linked the two acts, having opened with the ‘over here’ vocal from the Jig of Life, here the resinging of the ‘Help this blackbird’ refrain during Nocturn, and earlier they had introduced the blackbird wings during Waking the Witch whilst Kate sunk under the ice - I hadn’t quite realised the amount of references to birds across the two albums.

Aerial was something else completely, opening with flaming archers, the innocent and childlike wooden boy driven to killing and eating a white dove (I have no idea why) before Kate ventured out, growing feathers, whilst shrieking about wanting to get up on the roof. In a number of places, the concert highlighted just how prog rock Kate’s music can be, never more so that when she danced around the stage with the bone-masked guitarist, building a cacophony of noise as the band and singers also donned bird skull masks. After the first visit, my heart pounded during this song on my next visit, even more powerful when you anticipate the events; the wooden boy running away from his puppeteer, trees crashing through the ceiling and through the piano for that final moment when giant wooden doors opened to see Kate, metamorphosed into a blackbird taking off into the sky. No wonder I had feverish dreams after that level of intensity.

The encore was beautiful, Kate alone at the piano for an emotional and completely silent rendition of Among Angels and the then the uplifting crowd singalong of Cloudbusting.

It was a concert unlike any other, creating spectacle with video, props and using the band and vocal performers rather than ‘dancers’ or simple visual tricks or lighting as most current artists do (to great effect I might add - that’s not meant as a criticism).

Added to all that was a venue where you could see Kate’s face pretty much wherever you sat, a gig where no one was waving phone cameras in front of you, fantastic merchandise and an audience where the vast majority, like me, had spent many years aching to see their idol, but never believing something so good was gonna happen.

Go on Kate, tour again, please….

[pipfreak]

Scottish Independence. Yes or no?

I think a yes vote in Scotland is worse for us in England. From a selfish starting point, it leaves us a greater chance of a Tory administration across England and Wales.

I’m nervous of the potential for any split to be predicated on nationalist politics. That doesn’t sit well with my views where I’d rather see borders between countries broken down and in general would prefer greater unity in the working between the states in the UK and Europe.

However, for those in Scotland, I’m not so sure a yes vote is best. I’d be unhappy with the Westminster administration that I hadn’t elected and I think I’d vote yes if I lived in Scotland. They largely vote left and have ended up with a right of centre administration. However I do note that there is no guarantee of left of centre administrations in Scotland in future. For a start, the SNP tax policy is hardly socialist by cutting corporation tax.

As a backdrop to the these issues, personally, I long for something to upset the status quo of Westminster politics; a largely unaccountable bunch of party politicians with increasingly less connection to their local voters, obsessed with capturing the votes of middle England and with no reason to actually address the disenfranchisement of millions of non-voters.

I also believe in more local democracy and smaller units of governance. A long time ago, I flirted with anarchist and non-heirachical systems of governance and whilst I now struggle to see how they could work, I still believe in a much stronger system of local governance and this would be one step towards that.

Both campaigns have played dirty at times; the yes campaign refuse to answer some difficult questions, such as entry to Europe and the currency issue, and I abhor the scare tactics used by the no campaign against the people of Scotland. The fact that some banks and businesses may, (I say may as it’s disputed), move south of the border is no surprise. Business interests are well served by a capitalist system held up by successive Westminster governments and their scare-mongering should be expected.

So where do I stand? It’s tricky as we are increasingly going to be stuck with dodgy right wing administrations if they vote yes, but could a yes vote really change the status quo? In my view, only for them. For England and Wales, it would soon go back to business as usual. Ultimately, independence is an issue for the Scottish people. Either way, from watching the debates and seeing the coverage, it appears he younger generation in Scotland are definitely saying Yes, therefore if the outcome is a no vote, this issue may only grow and may still achieve the same end point.

[pipfreak]

Palm tree Ian: Ian walking the beach doubled with a palm tree - July 2012 (by pipfreak on Lomography)

[forsakenblog33333-blog]

im pretty sure bromance is the perfect example of how embarrassingly fragile masculinity is. you know what a female bromance is called? a friendship 

[pipfreak]

Peaky blinders or Peaky benders?

[pipfreak]

Arrecife beach: Looking down from the top floor of the Gran Hotel onto Arrecife. July 2013 (by pipfreak on Lomography)

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Plane descending: Plane coming in to land. Lanzarote airport, July 2013 (by pipfreak on Lomography)

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End of the Discotheque?: A closed down disco in Arrecife - July 2013 (by pipfreak on Lomography)

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Canary not Spain: Graffiti in Arrecife - July 2013 (by pipfreak on Lomography)

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Armless doll: A broken doll as I found him on the beach - July 2013 (by pipfreak on Lomography)

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Tightrope on the beach: Amateur gymnast waking the tightrope in Arrecife - July 2013 (by pipfreak on Lomography)

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The bin said to the coffee pot...: Photo taken in Lanzarote - July 2013 (by pipfreak on Lomography)