the chinese invasion

liberty's got an AMAZING window display right now featuring mountains of retro trinket toys - in one viewing i spotted trolls and power rangers and miniature soldiers. They've been built into a monstrous frame to highlight the plight (?) of the chinese factory workers who made them. made me think of that bit in concise dictionary 4 lovers when z gets a vibrator for her birthday and reads 'MADE IN CHINA' on the back.

found a couple of flickr pics which give snaphots of the mega-ness.

OMG ELLEN ALLIEN #4. IS TERRIFYING//THE CITY IS MINE

Formidable record label head, casual fashion designer and full-on disc mistress Ellen Allien might be my hero for ever, but even the loyalty (and patience) of her biggest fans will be tested by this relentlessly sparse trip with her into the Berlin state of mind. During opening track 'Einsteigen' (enter), we glide into the incidental buzz of the city. As bustle crackles over a single note tapped out over and over again, a voice over a loudspeaker announces that the train's arrived at Alexanderplatz station, which is where we begin our journey.

This Berlinette, this Stadtkind has made a record (her fourth solo stretch) that's borne of mornings becoming afternoons behind the tinted windows at Ostbahnhof minimal institution Berghain. SOOL was dragged out of a stupor, its dot-to-dot skeleton etched like clouds onto the dawn and viewed from the banks of the Spree at parties where the phrase 'don't forget to go home' was invented. It is now and always has been the city (and what else?) that pulses through her veins, while on the outside her skin's baked in a glaze of last night's (or was it the night before?) sweat.

If Ms Allien's last solo LP Thrills was a celebratory but patchy, loved-up and danced out session, and that faultless Apparat collaboration Orchestra of Bubbles set the emo-techno standard, SOOL is a severing and a step beyond. With the help of east German sound re-structuralist (and guest producer) AGF, she racks out the electronic test tubes for some intense sonic experimentalism, to once again redefine the boundaries of her shifting soundscape. So 'Elphine' climbs to a spooky crescendo with whistles (human and tin) and the brassy thrum of trumpets and oboes; the brooding minimal of 'Its' is pinned down with a Jaws bassline and 'Bim' throbs with a blood-in-your-ears heartbeat.

Where there are vocals, they're chopped up to reverberate around the beats, as if the bones of the album have been left half bare, those clipped voices trapped in an echo chamber. 'Sprung' makes tentative, paranoid steps towards the dance floor, with an acid-deep beat and haunting fragments of a memory of a party that might have happened some time before strung out across five deliriously lost minutes.

'Frieda', then, interrupts the blissed out blips nine tracks in – it’s a swoony, semi-pastoral ballad which Ellen tenderly addresses (in English) to her 'sun', making me wonder whether she expected anyone to actually make it to the end of the album. For whoever braves it that far, closing track 'Out' is slashed through with the metallic-sounding swishes of a sword to the drip-drip rhythm of a broken tap. It's hard to recognise Ellen here at all: you have to roll back your head, switch to that rattled, addled, empty six o'clock in the morning brain and allow yourself to slip in between the sounds, contract and expand when she tells you to.

IN THE SHADE IN THE SHADE

body language > in white rooms > control me /charlotte.

booka shade

GLOVES UP

i knew that boxing was back.

sack the stylist

special men's fashion issue of STstyle today, featuring a pic of WILL YOUNG!! wearing this! t-shirt in jessica brinton's column! SHOCK! yes i'm in shock. it looks like an orchestra of bubbles/bpitch design, so wondering how will got his hands on it. didn't know he was berlin techno, how sweet. i can see him going down a treat at panorama bar, strike a pose!

GOOD RIDDANCE YEH

grim west end hellhole the astoria has received it's bulldozing orders (almost) from mayor ken. demollition has been mooted for years, but something to do with the crossrail scheme has finally been confirmed i think, which means it's - PRAISE BE - about to be razed to the ground. the intersection of tottenham court/charing x/oxford st roads is one of my least favourite places in london. let it be damned.

NEW GIRL ON THE BLOCK

trust jahcoozi to find me another electrobootyshouty laptop girl to love... they previewed their latest album in true old school hiphop style with the blitz'n'ass mixtape in late 07, showcasing their own tracks next to the klaxons (it works), dizzee and 50cent. 18 minutes in, after snoop&jfoxx's 'psst' the syncopated beats and clipped rhymes of 'tricky' drop. it's got that kind of 'brrrr' very last year drill sound, but with a broken housey girl vocal over the top - that's ELLE P (not el-p), berlin experimental artist and new best thing ever. she lists her influences as 'clic clac, art, up and down' which works for me.

more hot germans for plan b under the dizzying influence of red wine

MIT - Coda
Confession: I am a total Germanic-maniac. I don't drink lattes, I sup milchkaffees. I don't do London, ich liebe Berlin. So, naturally, I snoozed to brooding Cologne electro-minstrels MIT on my headphones in some Kreuzberg hotel and drifted into bliss.

MIT are one of those acts who think they have to pretend to be an indie band just because once upon a time they learned to play some instruments. However, thanks to the still-evolving indie-dance crossover legacy of DFA, they needn't worry - no one has to feign band-ness anymore. Instead of letting the frontman sing then, I wish they'd no lyrics at all - who needs 'songs'?

The finest tracks on Coda are the post-Jeans Team almost-instrumentals (Coda, Park and Deispiel) showcasing oi-techno which pulses with zippy beats worth at least one Soulwax edit and echoing with the masters of electroclash - a bit of T. Rauschmiere here, Kittin there and Tiga all over.

owww my ears/this week's coolest coldest headgear

ok, all the geek boys will have their own opinion on which 'noise excluding lughole plugpods' you should buy because, you know they're the major noise-draft excluders. HOWEVER i accidentally discovered these sony headphones when my friend zoe gave me a bunch that she'd nicked from her dad/office a few years ago. the sound is far superior to lil free ipod earphones because they're uh headphones and they're not bulky enough to upset the stuff-space ratio in your bag when you're not using them. the only reason i say this is cos when i was on the 38 bus from angel (not officially the trendiest route in london, but up there nonetheless) this morning, as i took a shifty glance from behind my fringe around at my fellow passengers, no less than 3 within eyeshot were using said peripherals. trend? i think so.

STELLA WAS A DIVER

That try-hard trend accidental experiment in full then...
btw all those paparazzi pics of amy wino in the papers everyday bother me not because of whatever disheveled state she was in at the courthouse-drugdealer-petrolstationcourtyard this morning, but because she never ever has a coat on, just a raggedy lace vest or a skimpy fred perry polo t. i'm so jealous! i hate wearing coats too - i'd much rather just throw on a lil leather jacquette or cape thing, but it's been too cold. how can she get away with it? is her ex-cabbie dad now her on-staff chauffeur or something? that would be so convenient, you'd never need to worry about your stupid heavy coat matching everything else again, never mind the whole cloakroom issue.