Version 5.1 - or something!

Right, let's try again, now that I've worked out how to host the Blog on the kinkyMachine webspace. I may have to tweak a bit more, but I'm quite happy with it for the moment. What do you think?

A Few Updates

Just to follow up on a few things: The Chalets "Feel The Machine" charted at a respectable, um, well, it didn't get into the top 40, anyway. Go and download it anyway, it's brilliant.

And osymyso extracted his finger and stuck 4 new parts of 05ymy50 on his site, so hurrah and huzzah!

The Return of t.A.T.u!

They're back, Back, BACK! Possibly the ultimate kinkyMachine group, (Russian teenage faux-lesbians who had the balls to sucessfully cover The Smiths "How Soon Is Now?" on their first album - what's not to love?) t.A.T.u. have announced the release of their second album, Dangerous and Moving, due 17th October.

Their official site has now also got English language pages, so you don't have to suffer the tortured translations of Babelfish or WorldLingo (although that does take the fun out of a lot of it!) So hold onto your hats for the second Russian Revolution (or is it the third...?)

You can read all about Lena and Julia's second coming at www.tatu.ru Hurrah and Huzzah!

osymyso

To celebrate the release of the tenth part of 05ymy50, "Something New", I thought I should highlight the work of one of the net's greatest musicians, osymyso.

osymyso first came to my attention when I heard his "Intro-Inspection" track on XFM. The track, which lasts for over twelve minutes, features a really silly number of samples from the intros to various pop songs. It truly is a work of breathtaking ingenuity, cleverness and downright inspiration. (My favourite bit has to be the "Need You Tonight"/"Come on Eileen" segue - it's sooo funky!). It's also perfect to round off a pub pop quiz - how many tracks can you name?

The really good news is that you can get this track on osymyso's website absolutely free! Plus you can also get all his other tracks for no pence whatsoever! There's the 30-minute long "Puckish Mix" (featuring a full remix of "The Reflex" among others), the hilarious EastEnders sampling "Pat n Peg", and the touching remix of Art Garfunkel's "Bright Eyes" called "Fiver to Bigwig".

But the highlight has to be the 05ymy50 project. Fifty tracks will be released throughout 2005, and eventually mixed together and released on CD. "Something New" is the tenth part which has just been added (hmm... 50 tracks in 2005, and the tenth part has only just been released, and we're over halfway through the year... oh....) Anyway, the first ten parts are all really rather good. Strong electronic roots with a healthy dash of Art of Noise and some help from Simon Pegg. Fabulous.

So get yourselves to osymyso.com right now, and give yourselves some aural stimulation.

Oh yeah, did I mention that it's all free? God bless osymyso!

Athlete release "Tourist"

The almighty Athlete have released a radio edit of "Tourist" as a single on . Haven't seen it in the shops, so I presume it's a download-only single. Will keep you updated...
Alternatively, you can get the whole album instead. It's really very good (though not as good as Vehicles and Animals. Why not get that too?!)

Review: Batman Begins

Thank god! The ghosts of Joel Schumacher's travesties can finally be laid to rest, and even Tim Burton has been blown out of the BatCave. Sing hallelujah! They've finally managed to do a decent, nay, brilliant Batman film!

Christopher Nolan has got the tone, the cast and the whole goddamn feel of the thing absolutely spot-on. Christian Bale makes both a dark, brooding and driven Bruce Wayne, and a well cool Dark Knight, both at the same time (well, not exactly at the same time, but you know what I mean...) Heck, everything was right. It was dark and brutal and there wasn't a single sight of a day-glo Batarang or bat-credit card.

And the support cast did exactly what they were supposed to do. Liam Neeson, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman (as a textbook study of Jim Gordon) were all fantastic, and actually acting their socks off, as opposed to chewing the scenery at every opportunity. And that's not even mentioning the new Batmobile...

The best thing was that it all made sense. It was never explained before how Bruce Wayne managed to accrue all these gadgets, without arousing suspicion (even if that means ordering 10,000 bat-ears from China). But this film lays it all out, logically and sensibly.

The first in a proposed trilogy, Batman Begins feels like three films in one itself. The story keeps building and building, from Bruce Wayne's training in the far east, to the creation of Batman in Gotham, to the finale, and the set up to the next film, and the treat of a villain who leaves a certain playing card at the scene of his crimes... Bring It On!

"Feel The Machine" is Out Now!

Yes, the brilliant debut single from The Chalets (see below) is out today. If you click here: you can listen to it, and download it if you want to keep it (and so you should, cos it's fab!). The b-side is great too - is that the Asda jingle or what?

If you don't want to get it from iTunes, you can go to a record emporium and get the CD for only 1.99. Bargain. What more could you ask for?