Ex_Machina

I've just been to see Ex_Machina, the Alex Garland film about a cyborg, which is played by Alicia Vikander (Who also took centre stage in the recent 'Testament of Youth').

Coincidentally, I re-watched Jonathan Glazer's 'Under the Skin' a few days ago (it's free on Amazon Prime at the moment), where Scarlett Johansson plays a kind of alien 'Woman who fell to earth', set in Scotland.

There's similarities in some of the ideas around empathy and adaptation. Without spoilers, Ex Machina explores whether a created AI can pass the Turing Test, where another human considers it indistinguishable from a human in terms of its responses.

After the jolly opening scenes, the movie is mainly a closed-world three-hander showing the interplay between the off-key billionaire software developer (Oscar Isaac - who played Llewyn Davis in the film of the same name), the unwitting software guy being used to conduct the test (Domhnall Gleeson) and the initially somewhat transparent cyborg played by Alicia Vikander. As you'd expect, the tension ratchets in the closed surroundings.

Probably the last proper gag in the movie is in the first 20 minutes, when Gleeson gets his pass into the billionaire's science hideout.

After that, it's all set in a secluded high-tech designer-cool secure laboratory in a lush wilderness of mountains and streams. There's a strong storyline that certainly had me thinking about the themes.

Garland previously adapted the Ishiguro story 'Never Let Me Go' which I though was a superbly haunting movie, and there are some similarly big questions in this one. I can't really say much more without spoiling the plot, but it's one I enjoyed and will probably watch again.

(sorry if you need to skip a particularly long youtube BMW supermodel advert before the trailer starts)

Subliminal photo taken after reading The Humans by @matthaig1

I was staring out of the window towards the emerging daylight. I could see a trace across the sky, probably a plane inbound to Heathrow. The moon lurked below the tree-line and some kind of satellite was twinkling towards me. Kind of "that's all you'll get with this amount of street lighting around".

I took a picture anyway, and then later I noted a similarity with the cover of a book I've just been reading. Just finished actually. The Humans, by Matt Haig.

It's an enjoyable and humorously written narrative about a killer alien sent to earth to tidy up some loose ends associated with recent prime number theory discoveries. They are the sort of discoveries that could give the earth extra powers.

If it sounds too much like a Doctor Who and the Daleks plotline, it is much more a story of alienation and then the discovery of love.

Our narrator, who assumes we are also from another world, gives us his perceptions of the strange planet earth, whilst he matter-of-factly goes about his amoral mission to remove the solution of the Riemann Hypothesis. He's been made into a surrogate of a Cambridge Professor - the one who'd originally solved the Riemann Hypothesis. If you are wondering, Riemann came up with the zeta function for predicting the incidence of primes in a defined integer number space. Something we all need, apparently.

As well as the moon and stars, the book's cover has a picture of a dog and a squirrel. If the math above sounds like dog-speak, the story still works with many discoveries relayed to the reader as simple observations:

An early one:

“I picked up these books and realised they both said ‘£8.99’ on the back. The interpolation of the entire language I had done with the aid of Cosmopolitan meant I knew this was the price of the books, but I did not have any money. So I waited until no one was looking (a long time) and then I ran very fast out of the shop."

A little later:

“Humans, I was discovering, believed they were in control of their own lives, and so they were in awe of questions and tests, as these made them feel like they had a certain mastery over other people, who had failed in their choices, and who had not worked hard enough on the right answers.”

Of course, things develop as our narrator becomes fascinated with the human condition - no more or I'll start to spoil it.

And I'm still wondering how the cover art became something I emulated in a photograph the next day, without realising the connection?

the impossible girl - kim boekbinder

I first ran into Kim Boekbinder's music when she & her sister Zoe were singing a song with Amanda Palmer that subsequently appeared on the "Who Killed" album.

Then Kim produced daily a string of 31 different lyrics during January 2009, which became a kind of spur for me during February 2010 to have a bash at the February Album Writing Month.

In Kim's case the writing process was shared via her blog as she managed to put up a treatment for each song pretty much on the day. From day one it was interesting and the lyrics had twists, like the watery predicament in the love-struck "Underwater" and the quirkyness of the Hell's Diner.

Later came a more lengthy project to produce a full album, but by using the Web as a funding source and some of us pitched in a few dollars of encouragement to see what wonders would emerge.

And the songs started appearing, far from daily, but this time in blocks of around three, spread over a longer period during 2010.

Then Lo, by mid December in America - or with postal delays to the UK - by mid January, the sparkly album has appeared in a shower of fairy dust small pink glittery stars and hearts.

"Tell the world!" said the little note included, and yes, that's what I'm doing.

From the first claps in the intro to track one, to the shimmery last chords of the poppy Tinkerbell, it's an enjoyable album (My theory is there's an earlier ending to the main album, by the way).

What I also like is that it really plays through as an album with a few tracks that directly link and sections of a narrative that lace through most of the album.

There's also some very hook-based tunes included yet a sparseness in places that is very reminiscent of the earlier songwriting. A range of musical styles, with a core consistency that holds it all together.

I also really like the stripped down style which keeps direct personality that can sometimes gets glossed over in other peoples' productions. The lyrics are also smart and the twists that were apparent in the "31" still apply in a Sex, Drugs and Nuclear Physics with maybe a quantum fiddle kind of way.

So even if she does show up with 23 friends in the middle of the night, I'll know the irony of being captured by someone impossible.

Anna Calvi

Anna Calvi - Jezebel (Live)
I can understand the feedback from someone I attended a gig with recently who said "I'm not sure what I've just seen!" at the end of it. It's a bit like that for me with Anna Calvi.

I've been listening to her album for a couple of weeks and it's a classily engineered production with quite a bit of space in the mix. Guitar sounds that evoke a kind of Jeff Buckley live session and some jagged lyrics with occasional reminders of something that would fit within a Twin Peaks soundtrack.

The reason I think I'm struggling is because I listen for a while and then feel the need to flip to something slightly more conventional - Paloma Faith or Imelda May. And I don't think I'm easily phased by new things. This is just somehow isn't quite clicking.

On paper it ticks the boxes. Singer/songwriter. Interesting background. Musicality. Performance skills. I'm just not quite engaging with the performance. I understand its supposed to be challenging, that Brian Eno has helped out, that its supposed to push some boundaries. Normally these would all be pluses for me. But I'm just not sure with this one.

I've added it to the iPod now, so I can listen in the car.

The trouble is, Paloma and PJ are waiting.

blue eyed boy bait

I try to work out if the Vodka Girls are on a different tier from the Beer Ladies. Their attire seems about the same, although I'm not wearing sun-shades this time. I can hear Jeff Mangum's voice and the chair scrape that is really a guitar being unplugged. Yusef may think his map covers my whole mind, but I know India's eye-needle forcefulness can control the sun.

Maybe the tight bassline trails the backbeat in the Lucky Strike smoke, but I'm remembering that thigh squeak on the car bonnet whilst she was telling me about the shotgun. It's magnet abuse whilst they teach me to palm the apricots and avocados, but I'll use the beer can ice fragments to cool me in this desert.

This may not be exactly the blue eyed boy bait, but it's close enough without advertising.

Low Anthem from sofa at the Slaughtered Lamb

Attending a gig at the Slaughtered Lamb in Farringdon is a little like being in a big room in someone's house with some favourite musicians playing within arms' reach. We sat on sofas and comfortable chairs to hear The Low Anthem and their excellent support act Ohbijou.

The pub above the venue is wide and spacious, with lively chatter spilling out onto the pavement and then down the stairway at the back is the small door to the performance area where around 100 of us watched the bands perform.

Delightful.

Kicking off with the multi-talented Ohbijou, who played and passed the instruments around almost at will. Canadian, from the other London, a seven piece mini orchestra of sounds, from violins, guitars, mandolins, ukuleles, banjos, synths and pretty much anything else they could lay their hands on. A worthy band in their own right, my only criticism would be that their CDs were not available at the end when I would have just bought one.

A short pause to recharge our glasses (Red Stripe seems to be the indie venue beer, same as at Union Chapel) and then The Low Anthem came to the floor, easing their way into "Cage the Songbird" whilst the sound system adjusted.

I've had their 'Oh My God, Charlie Darwin' album for a couple of months and its frequently on my play list, so it was a treat to hear several numbers from this and also from their older and more dusty cattle herding 'What the Crow Brings'. Mysteriously they referred to their more recent album as the one due to be released in June, but I gather they've got a different distribution deal now. They are, indeed, to hold a launch gig in Union Chapel around June 23rd for the CD which they described as gospel with science.

rashbre phonecam

The Providence, Rhode Island band is a three piece, with talented musicians who each are able to play multiple instruments. The highly animated bassist Jeff Prystowsky can also fire out great drum patterns and pedals a cool pump organ (pub chat suggests this was an eBay purchase?), the lead singer Ben Knox-Miller is a guitarist who has a superb voice and vocal range and the saxophonist Jocie Adams can also NASA blast a mean bass riff and counterpoint the rocky and bluesy numbers with real grit and gusto.

The little gang of us that attended sat in arms length of the band, enjoying every minute. As we left we briefly complemented the band in the bar, before hitting the interweb to ensure we have tix for the CD launch.

Recommended.

And here's something to the Ghosts who write History Books.
p.s. They are at Koko tonight, supporting Ben Kweller.
oh, and were at the London Eye