Beck

In an old episode of Futurama, Bender confesses to Beck "I always dreamed of being a musician-poet who transcends genres even as he reinvents them, just like you."

Bang on.  But that makes the musician-poet's inclusion here a wee bit tricksy.  Which Beck are we talking about?  The lo-fi grunge country fuck-up from Mellow Gold?  Maybe the channelling-the-spirit-of-Prince funk goblin from Midnite Vultures?  Or perhaps the trash-hop noise-pop freakazoid from Odelay?

Mostly, it's none of the above.  Despite the recent rediscovery of a SNES sending me back to a time of swearing at tiny TVs, not revising for GCSE exams and listening to Mellow Gold on a permanent loop, it's the more recent Sea Change that has burrowed into my brain.  Delicate, haunting isolation forms the backdrop for swelling strings, lilting country twangs and Beck's lonesome grumbling.

And Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997.  That song rules.







Website: http://www.beck.com/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/beck
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Beck
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck

Sleigh Bells

I maintain a healthy amount of distrust of television advertising. Perhaps it's just a function of my inherent British cynicism, but I figure that if someone is trying to make me want to buy their product, then there must be be something wrong with it.

Of course this doesn't mean that advertising has no effect; merely that it has a different effect. I refuse to buy Haribo sweets until they make an advert that doesn't make me want to throw my beercan at the telly. And I'm fairly certain that the Compare The Market adverts have done more to increase the sales of meerkat-related junk than they have to promote use of their own service. Baby product adverts make me want to buy condoms. Bank adverts make me want to withdraw all my money and keep it in a sack under the bed. Aftershave adverts make me want to buy a cricket bat and some nails.

And this advert for some kind of appalling wanker phone made me buy Treats by Sleigh Bells. The bright flashing lights and spiralling images of internet connectivity didn't do much to set my consumer glands throbbing, but the thirty seconds of "Infinity Guitars" playing in the background sure did get my feets a tappin'.

Turns out that Sleigh Bells is mostly Derek E Miller, one time guitarist with Floridian screamo types Poison The Well. Which seems odd, as the experimental hardcore of his old outfit is about a million miles from the obnoxious noise-pop of his current day job. But what the hell do I know? I'm pretty sure that if they'd made a TV advert for the Sleigh Bells record, I'd loathe and despise it as much as everyone else seems to.

Also, I'd probably have a shiny new wanker phone.

Website: http://www.infinitybells.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/sleighbellsmusic

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleigh_Bells