The Sound of Camden

I've always been a fan of ex-Sugababe, Mutya Buena. She always seemed to have a lot of problems with the media while being part of the girl band, and after the Sugababes seized to exist, I kind of lost track of her for a while.

However, her vocals were always very impressive, and even with the Sugababes pop profile, songs like "Lost in You" impressed me a lot. Later she came out with songs like "This is Not Real Love" in a duet with George Michael which showed that her range was impressive.

She is out with a new album which covers many songs of the 90's. The album is called The Sound of Camden. I really like her spin on the songs, and I reaaaally like her voice. There is something very attractive about it. I was very excited when I saw that she covered Rolling Stones' "Anybody Seen My Baby" because it is possibly my most favorite Rolling Stones song, and I was real interested to see what she would do with the song.

I really like it, but, please, judge for yourself. You can listen to the song here.

ZINESWAP

A really cool website that started out with people being able to publish their own work. Now, ZINESWAP is a big deal with a lot of projects and even an iPhone and iPad application that allows you to buy different “zines” by different people. I think it’s a cool concept and it’s again one of those “why didn’t I come up with this?” internet ideas.

I knew about ZINESWAP for a while now, but never really spent much time on the site (because, unfortunately, I didn’t have much to share, nor, after seeing the high level of work, did I want to look like a cheesy third grader writing a “How I Spent my Summer” paper). Anyway, regardless, I came across ZINESWAP again while reading an article in Dazed & Confused. They wrote about a real awesome zine called Dead Ends by Theo Simpson, which consists of photographs of different discarded job applications. I’m not always a big fan of huge movements that take place in the art world when something big happens globally. I feel like many times, instead of getting creative, work sometimes becomes redundant. From time to time this is the case with the current underlying subject of pretty much everything – the economic crisis and everything that comes with it. Nevertheless, in my opinion, Dead Ends is an exception. On top of that, anyone who can take the single least creative object, a job application (a blank one that is, because the filled out ones can get real original), and turn it into a piece of art, deserves to be checked out.

Visit the website of the project here, and, if you ever have a minute, or have something to share for that matter, check the ZINESWAP website out: (www.zineswap.com)

On a totally different note, but no less creative, tomorrow is El Clasico!!! I am a die-hard FC Barcelona fan, so I will be nervous and giddy all day long. VISCA BARCA!

Carriers

I was never a big fun of horror movies, and the reason for that is very simple - I get easily scared by ghosts,zombies and other similar shit. At the same time, I am a big fun of post-apocalyptic movies and since post apocalyptic and horror genres often intertwine, sometimes I watch horror-apocalyptic movies.

I was scrolling through different movies on Wednesday night and I realized that Chris Pine(the actor I recently watch all the movies with ) has a main part in the movie Carriers. So I gave it a try, regardless the horror genre it had written in the description.

The premise of the movie is simple: some kind of flue pandemic spread around the globe, killing mostly everybody.The only survivals try to avoid big cities and coming in contact with other people; since the virus is highly contagious and its often very hard to tell if someone has it or not. The idea is simple and is very real(we did have an epidemic in Mexico about a year ago). Throughout the movie, our protagonists have to make a series of difficult moral decisions in order to survive. What makes this movie exciting is that you can't but constantly relate to the main characters and keep on questioning your self, wondering what would you do, being in their shoes. Overall it was an OK "horror" movie with pretty good and very convincing acting from Chris Pine. If you have an extra evening to waste and you are in the mood for a semi scary post apocalyptic film, Carriers is the way to go.



Boy in Plaid

NUJABES

I started listening to Nujabes about 3 years ago and instantly fell in love with it.
A hip-hop producer and a DJ from Japan, Nujabes died at the age of 36 this February. His music, very ambient and beautiful, will make anybody happy and free minded.

Nujabes - Modal Soul - download http://www.mediafire.com/?yzvmwkmz2yz
and a tribute by a collaboration of different musicians - http://www.mediafire.com/?qbgzb5qh3q83os7

Boy in Plaid

Johnny Flynn

A Larum by Johnny Flynn is traditional American blues and English folk blended together.I rarely keep the whole album but had to, with this one.


http://www.mediafire.com/?tmly03tyq4z - download

http://www.amazon.com/Larum-Johnny-Flynn/dp/B0013KJAQ6 - buy


+ here is a cover for The Wrote & The Writ by Laura Marling



Boy in Plaid

Mark Ronson

I am possibly the millionth person to talk about Mark Ronson’s latest album that came out about a month and a half ago, but I am going to do it anyway. The album called Record Collection is by Ronson and The Business Intl plus a dozen other artists ranging form Boy George to D’Angelo (!).

I heard a lot about the album for while before it finally hit store shelves from the hip I-don’t-listen-to-radio-hits crowd. I thought I would wait and see for myself.

Honestly, I thought that the highly anticipated album was doomed to suffer the inevitable – self-implode. The huge number of serious artists on the album, most of whom you can hardly call commecial, Ronson’s stint as designer of super exclusive custom kicks for Gucci, and his great style when it comes to… well, anything, all served as reason. To be frank, being the musical-fashion obsessive that I am, it seemed too good to be true. But guess what, it is true. The album is fresh, unlike anything else I heard in a while, it has Ronson’s stamp and style on it, and the guests performers seem to have been picked out perfectly for every single track. All the different music blended together to create a complete album. Surprisingly, it was also very unpretentious, which is not always the case when it comes to the I-don’t-listen-to-radio-hits crowd.

I can’t tell if it’s Mark Ronson’s unstoppable growth and progress, his innate talent when it comes to sound, or his new hair, but the album is definitely worth a listen.

Chatroom

I came across a movie called Chatroom the other day. “Surprisingly”, it deals with a chatroom… The movie is not long, and it jumps right into the story from minute one. To summarize the film in a sentence or two, it is about a group of teens that meet in a chatroom, and get to know each other. However, very soon, we come to learn that all the teens in the new chatroom have secrets that they are hiding and maybe… oh my gosh, wait for it… ulterior motives!

Anyway, the film is a fast-paced thriller and an easy watch. I especially liked how they created an imaginary cyberspace with all the characters in it instead of filming everyone endlessly typing away on their computer. There are many cyber chat instances in the film that are portrayed in a very real and artistic way. The film has some obvious weaknesses that many others pointed out, such as the underdevelopment of about half of the characters that partake in the story. It also seems to stretch reality a bit too many times for my liking. The reason I decided to comment on this film however, is because I was reading my beloved GQ about two months ago. I don’t know how you call it when you first hear about something that you have never heard about before in your life, and ever since then it starts appearing everywhere you go. Well, that is what happened to me while I was reading an article in GQ that spoke about assisted suicide online, if you can call it that. I have never had any idea that something like this existed, but apparently, there are websites out there that serve as a place for suicidal people to come and either seek support or get advice on the best way to end life. It seems really creepy, but these are legitimate boards, which have a lot of visitors.

I guess like every board online, there is good and bad that comes from it. On the one hand, there is a big support system that helps some people who are struggling to cope. On the other hand, however, there is that other side. The side that GQ wrote about, and that Chatroom touched upon as well. That side consists of people that sort of get off on the act of talking someone into killing themself. Sometimes they even get to watch it happen, since many ask for moral support while taking their last journey and switch their webcam on to create the illusion of having someone there to help them through it.

GQ talked about a story of a man disguising himself as a young nurse that talked to troubled kids about the benefits of dying by hanging. This man is currently on trial, but, as the article points out, it does not seem like anything can really be done at the end of the day. First of all, talking to someone is not a crime, especially when it is done on the internet, where everyone lies and pretends. Secondly, these people made a choice to die, and if someone assisted them in providing helpful information in doing it the easiest way possible, on a website devised specifically for that purpose, well, it’s hard to find crime in that as well.

Nonetheless, it is very scary once you think about the situation and the poor youngsters that had the bad fortune of running into this “nurse” online instead of a person that could have maybe shined a light on their situation and talked them out of doing the irreversible. Chatroom is precisely about that. Maybe if I were to not read GQ before seeing this film, I would’ve thought it was highly improbable that someone could talk someone else into committing suicide online, and would’ve thought the movie went overboard on that storyline as well. However, I’m glad it didn’t go that way, because while there are very few teens that religiously read GQ, there are many more that might want to watch this film because of its good looking and young cast (with Kickass star Aaron Johnson as the lead), and who knows, maybe it'll save a cyber life or two.