The Kautokeino Rebellion

Kautokeino opprøret is a Norwegian movie based on a XIX century event in northern Norway, when a conflict between the Sami people and the Norwegian government representatives occurred. It all starts from the first appearance of alcohol, and a powerful merchant’s self-interest. It is an excellent movie, with superb acting and a pleasure to see the to me unknown landscapes and life, although the shameless pact between the church and local authorities has made me quite angry before half of the movie has been through.

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Beck – Modern Guilt

Dunno why I never posted about this; I often return to it these days. It’s such a juicy beat box with psyched vocals and vintage collage sounds. Yet it’s all very modern. It often happens with Beck, but I haven’t been into none of his albums this much. The important factor this time must be the album’s length – about half an hour, just right for each idea to have its own time and leave space for another, all equally good. Catchy and thoughtful at the same time.

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Edit: this torrent’s track 6 can’t be played, it has a virus it seems. Somethign more awesome can be found on Demonoid, a vinyl rip.

Blue Break Beats

I have most of the Maestro Blue Note compilations (Sunrise/Sunset, Gettin’ Up/Gettin’ Down etc), and they’re all really nice. So I was looking for some more Blue Note stuff like that and found this. All these are not the “classical” jazz compilations, as you might expect given that Blue Note is the most famous jazz label. Rather they are a collection of tunes from artists who focus more on the beats and emphasise the funky side as opposed to the usual approach in jazz, the improvisation. Songs like these eventually gave birth to various fusion styles and even hip-hop.

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Fucked Up – The Chemistry of Common Life

Now this is one great album. I never thought hardcore could go this far in wooing me on first sight. From the opening of Son the Father, the numerous layers of slightly washed away distorted guitars, I knew that this has to be something, and Fucked Up have really done it well. I don’t know what’s so special and punching about it. Maybe the 80s indie style guitar overdubs on all tracks and a shouting voice that’s actually not annoying floating above them. I feel like I must race to that sun pictured on the album cover.

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AC/DC – Black Ice

There’s a new AC/DC album! I wasn’t even aware that they’re still supposed to be making them. Anyway, I’m not a big authority here, hearing a lot but owning only Back In Black, but it does feel pretty solid – songs like Stormy May Day, Rock’n'Roll Train, Black Ice are as good as AC/DC can get AFAIK. There are two more songs featuring “rock’n'roll” in their title so that must be a good sign, eh? Well I personally always only enjoy a couple of their songs and then switch to something else cuz it’s all too simple unless they’re not really rocking. Here, they occasionally are.

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Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note: The Complete Recordings

This has to be the most valuable music set that I found recently. Keith Jarrett, for me the greatest living jazz pianist, with his pals Peacock and DeJohnette plays six live sets at Blue Note. This is a set of standards so transposed, wonderfully expanded into unusual and beautiful that’s just pure joy to listen.

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Ryan Adams & The Cardinals – Cardinology

Ryan Adams, who seems to have become a writer as well, returns with his Cardinals once again with a new recording. By now you probably have a formed opinion of his ctrl.alt.country; I personally liked Heartbreaker and Love is Hell a lot, but the rest, including this one, don’t move me. Still, this album does have a few gems towards the end: Natural Ghost, Sink Ships and Evergreen.

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album site

Ibrahim Ferrer – Mi Sueno

The last recordings of Ibrahim Ferrer, made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club film and album series, singing lovely Cuban bolero songs in elegant arrangements played by his fellows.

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Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren – Mare Nostrum

With wishful curiousity I approached these 15 tracks, and they have won me immediately. I heard Paolo Fresu quite a few times in various collaborations through the CDs that come with the Italian Musica Jazz magazine, and I saw Richard Galliano in concert this spring, while I hear Lundgren for the first time. All three instruments (trumpet, accordion and piano – a rare combination) flow naturally together, letting one occasionally expand, play around and return to the comfortable company. Highly recommended.

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Zeitgeist: Addendum

Zeitgeist: Addendum is a sequel to ‘Zeitgeist, the Movie’, a documentary exposing the mythology that predates Christianity, the 9/11 hoax and its motives, the U.S. Federal Bank, the system of central banks in general, and generally the not very wide known information about the social institutions that determine our lives, however indirectly. I found it completely by accident about six months ago while browsing through popular documentaries on Mininova.

While I was already familiar with most of the views presented in the first, the second film blew me away. I’d even say that these two together are the most important documentary movies in the recent history.

It is worth watching the film just for the clear explanation at the beginning of how money is being made in the monetary system. It is absolutely critical to understand this for our own good, and while I got a hint from Money As Debt just a few days ago, some things about further credit circulation were not clear to me as they are now.

But the goal of the film is deeper than that, to discover and present stories of economic hitmen, or any scenario in modern slavery governed by a global corporatocracy, or in a word, globalization. It goes on to identify the causes of corruption and instability in all social behaviour, from any institution to the individuals that form them – the money (aka debt, infinite profit) driven society, in which no one, but a very small majority in the banking elite that run the game, is free. It warns for the destructive consequences of present social constructions, proposes a new form of society, sustainable and connected with the nature – views largely influenced by the Venus Project and the so called resource based economy – and finally calls for a number of acts which we as people can take in order to help the current system ultimately fail.

Ground-breaking and compulsory work; well done.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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