Posts for Music

Friday, 1 Aug 2025 8:00 pm

I need jungle I'm afraid

Here is a story about how I got into jungle music.
It started in January 2024. University Challenge was back from the Christmas break and Sheffield was up against Aberdeen, who fielded the now-famous question:
“What name is given to the genre of dance music that developed in the UK in the early 1990s out of the rave scene and reggae soundsystem culture, associated with acts such as A Guy Called Gerald and Goldie?”
Aberdeen pauses. The captain looks back and forth. She guesses: “Drum & bass?”
Amol Rajan, without looking up: “I can’t accept drum & bass; we need jungle, I’m afraid.”
(As a side note slash brag: I did actually get that one at the time.)
Anyway, the internet went wild with jungle remixes of Rajan saying, “we need jungle, I’m afraid”, e.g:
These remixes sounded vaguely familiar to me. Other than an experimental stab at Venetian Snares in uni, I’ve never been particularly into drum & bass.
What was resonating with me?
The answer emerged only months later, when I found Klang’s Ethnography of Jungle and DnB in 90s/00s Video Games. A subset of very Japanese early-3d video games on the Nintendo 64 (and Playstation, but we didn’t have one of those) soundtracked my childhood. I’ll never forget the fake strings of Super Mario 64’s “Castle Theme”, nor the tinkling beads of Ocarina of Time’s torches, nor, it turns out, the hyperspeed snares of Bomberman Hero’s “redial”.
The Ethnography sent me down a rabbit hole of old video games we rented from Blockbuster once or twice but whose soundtracks have stuck with me, like Wave Racer 64 or F1 Pole Position or the better parts of Phantom Crash:
In due time, YouTube noticed that I was listening to a bunch of jungle music all of a sudden and spun up its Charles has a new obsession algorithm and started serving me all sorts of jungle-adjacent Content, including this live drum cover of “redial” from Bomberman Hero:
And, to bring us full circle, this drum cover of Venjent’s original “we need jungle I’m afraid”:
So am I into jungle music? I think maybe I’m more into being 9 years old in the final years of the 20th century. But that wouldn’t have been a very good opening line.

Music
Friday, 7 Mar 2025 10:47 pm

The Hazards of Love

Once upon a time a buddy of mine and me (well, mostly a buddy of mine) staged the Decemberists' The Hazards of Love. This was 2011-2012. We'd originally tried to stage it in 2010 but Players' Theatre was like, "You have no book, you have no actors, you have no plan, so uh no."
So over the winter of 2010-2011 my buddy and I squirrelled ourselves away in his office on the 5th floor of the Arts Building and wrote a book to connect up all of the songs, acting out the romance and the drama between us with the janitors walking up and down the halls and the student protests crashed like waves on the shields of the riot police. And we went back to Players' Theatre in August 2011 and brought them the book and brought them evidence of the performance rights and brought them the album and brought them a Plan and they said, "Oh cool, let's do it."
So we staged auditions and we wandered all over campus holding auditions in the student union building and the lobby of the music school and friends' basements and I think on the street, perhaps, at one point; and we drove up to the garment district to purchase burlap in bulk; and we spent two days painting leaves on the floor of the black box we were staging the thing in; and at one point I got kicked in the face and took an abortive trip to A&E; and then before we knew it, it was Showtime and the Gazette was there.
Anyway, 13 years have gone by and I don't listen to the album much anymore because it was such a Moment in my life and I feel a sort of reverence about it, and no one seems to mention it, or mention the Decemberists at all really, anymore. They're still putting out music and I still listen to it but not with the wide-eyed wonder of hearing Picaresque or Hazards for the first time.
But Jeremy Keith mentioned it recently in the context of Brad Frost's Cold Album Drumming project and it reminded me of a good old day when we dared, and when we won, and when we got our name on Wikipedia and citation-ed up so heavily that they can never take it off.

University Montreal Music
Sunday, 12 Jan 2025 6:04 pm

Now: 6 - 12 January 2025
It was pretty cold this week, so we took advantage of everything being frozen over to spend a bunch of time outside. The Met Office says that the weather is going to turn this next week, reaching balmy highs of like 14 degrees and turning the country into a massive mud pit.
Reading
I liked Sam Valenti IV’s review of pop music in 2024, where he basically argues that modern pop music is so multimedia that musicians no longer get anywhere without a big social media campaign and tie-ins with e.g. presidential candidates, even if the music on its own is critically acclaimed. Also some navel gazing about quite how much new music there is to listen to. Which, yep.
Also got back into reading Scott Galloway, whom I broadly agree with and who writes things that make me feel like a real smart guy for reading them. Typical of a Brand Guy to have a good brand.
Finished Yuzuki’s Butter as well, but I haven’t written that book review yet. I’ll probably give it
Listening
- MK.gee - ROCKMAN | I really like this sort of hearkening pop music. I can’t exactly put my finger on who it sounds like (probably because it doesn’t sound quite like anyone else), but it almost feels like it inherits some of the conventions of Yacht Rock in just the catchiest way.
- MIZU - 4 | 2 | 3 | Speaking of heavy music, this feels like the heavy music that I’m allowed to listen to: headphone-oriented, vaguely intellectual, extremely crushing.
- Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk - Plain fun. It feels like they’re never going to run out of ways to make fun synth pop. I especially like the way that singer Mica Tenenbaum takes like three or four syllables to say the word much on “Vampire in the Corner”.
At home
The “check engine” light came on early in the week but seems to have sorted itself out. The car continues to get pretty miserable mileage compared to what it should do, but started without trouble on even the coldest mornings.
Inside, some combination of grease and shoe mud plugged up the sink in the kitchen, so I got the plunger out and plunged the heck out of the pipes. After two or three good plunges the whole house made a noise like a dog throwing up and everything instantly got sucked down the drain with the explosive force of an airplane toilet. So uh I think I’d call that Problem Solved.
I also spent a couple of hours finishing off the grout in the office downstairs. Next up: washing it, sealing it, washing it again, installing skirting boards. Probably washing it again when Ghyll comes in from the garden with dirty paws and an eye to eat the cat's poo. Projects continue anon.
Outside
Back on a running plan, but not taking it too seriously. My Garmin is getting whiplash from my Training Load going up so precipitously. It’s like “please lay off for a day Charles” so I’m going to take Monday off.
Lots of lemonade made from the lemons of this cold weather we’ve had for the last week: Sam and I took Ghyll out for a walk to the nearby fishing pond, which had frozen over and which we were able to walk out onto; we headed down to Yorkshire to visit the Piercebridge Roman Bridge (much more impressive in person than in pictures) and for a good old-fashioned pub meal; I ran the Commondale Clart fell race on Sunday.
Watching
Started watching Small Brained American on YouTube; judging by his follower count I’m the last one to the party. I like his approach to experiences in foreign countries, which is basically “say yes to everything and don’t worry about it too much”. I think that there’s probably a little bit of international-friction-smoothing-over that happens off-camera, and I’m prepared to discover that he (along with probably like 95% of Travel YouTube) is Problematic. Oh well, it’s fun to fall asleep to.
now Music Reading YouTube Running
Sunday, 5 Jan 2025 6:30 pm

Now
Twenty twenty-five is the year I get my blogging groove back.
Listening
- Hell - Live at Roadburn, 2018, Dopesmoker - Sleep | Both of these are pretty “heavy” albums that I appreciate from an aesthetic point of view but which also I feel like I haven’t quite “earned” in that I’m listening to them on wired iPod earbuds from 2019 while at my remote deskwork job. Via The Verge.
- Inverse Field Vol. 1 - Inishowen | Airy ambient music from Ireland, apparently recorded on location in the Great Outdoors. Listened to this one with Ghyll on Saturday evening; the recording conceit probably comes across better when listening on headphones. Via Simon Collison.
Watching
Finished Wolf Hall. I feel a great sense of superiority at having read the books before I was even aware of the television programme, but not so great a sense of superiority that I forget that I read them after the first two were awarded the Booker Prize. So it’s not like I’m a champion of obscure literature or whatever. Anyway, the television series was terrific, elevating Mark Rylance to National Treasure status, perhaps.
Reading
Still working through Butter. It’s enjoyable but it’s not propulsive. It gives the impression of one of those video games with episodic quests. The characters all pop off the page, which is fun—except for the main character, who feels weirdly flat. Maybe it’s a reader-projection thing.
Catching up on end-of-year review posts from Simon Collison and Phil Gyford, the latter of which linked me to this interesting YouTube video about splitting a year into quarters to make life/work goals more manageable.
Outside
Ran a 5k in 19:57 on Tuesday, the culmination of a long process of training. Now I guess I need to figure out how to do this for 10k straight. Then I didn't run again until Sunday, nor felt any desire to: which is maybe a sign of something or maybe not a sign.
Spent a lovely night with Sam and Ghyll in Kielder at Flittingford bothy. On the plus side we brought in plenty of fuel for a toasty fire and we got to see an aurora, plus a skyful of stars; on the negative side Ghyll did eat human poo. I left a stern word in the overflowing bothy book.
On Saturday night it snowed heaps but was started melting before we even got up. Pottered about doing errands for most of the day, getting thoroughly cold and wet in some persistent sleet that fell all day. It's 9pm on Sunday now and my trousers are only just starting to dry out. A smarter man would have just changed trousers.
Inside
Trying to continue wrapping up projects from last year: installing a lattice above the garage door for storing e.g. plywood; finishing up the last of the grout in the back office. We will get there someday ok!
now Music Television Reading Running
Sunday, 21 Apr 2024 12:18 am

Bibō no aozora

Probably the single greatest balm to the weird internal weariness I've been feeling for the first half of this year is the song "Bibō no aozora"by Ryuichi Sakamoto, performed by him and Taeko Ōnuki on 2010's Utau. I put it on in the morning, in a state of semi-consciousness; I put it on after lunch, when I need space to regroup, and I put it on in the evening, when Ghyll curls up on the sofa and (finally) decides to stop moving for the day. If when I die my head is split open For Science they will find the first five notes—Manazashi wo—written in the folds of my brain.
I think it's one of those songs that either speaks to you, or doesn't. I'm not particularly moved by the lyrics, either, about the end of a relationship on a clear blue day, which Sakamoto and co-writer Masao Urino apparently belaboured and which are characteristically purple.
The song was originally released, performed by Sakamoto himself, on 1995's Smoochy, as a sort of minor-key 90s pop/electronic/classical crossover-type thing, and which is interesting but doesn't quite click.
The following year, Sakamoto rearranged the song for piano, violin, and cello for 1996's 1996. This version of the song was later used in the soundtrack to the movie Babel (2006) and is (I think) the most popular version of the song, drawing widespread acclaim among classical/soundtrack enthusiasts. The YouTube comments section is full of people saying things like "This song and the entire Babel soundtrack defines my life for the past 15 years." I think this version layers on the drama a bit too much. Ōnuki's singing has a certain stoic quality that I much prefer to layered strings.
Sakamoto himself obviously liked the song because he included different variations on it on other records throughout the 2000s. I read somewhere at one point that he regularly included it on concert setlists, but now I can't find wherever it was that I read it.

Music