Greetings loyal patrons, my name’s Duncan, and Mr. Kerrance has very kindly allowed me to post my random scrawlings on his lovely website.

From this day forth I’ll be regularly updating you on which bands and artists have been most recently rocking my world, as well as fondly remembering some golden oldies and unearthing hidden treasures you may have missed.

As far as my musical ‘background’ goes, I’m mainly a rock liker but my tastes span everything from trip-hop to shoegaze, indie to electro, hip-hop to blues. My favourite artists you ask? Well, that would be telling, you’ll just have to find out by reading my future posts!

To kick things off, I’d like to introduce one of my favourite discoveries of 2009; The Antlers. The band was originally a solo vehicle for Peter Silberman, a soulful type who cut himself off from family and friends and moved to New York, emerging after 2 years of social isolation with 2007’s ‘In the Attic of the Universe‘, a stunningly beautiful and inventive (albeit brief) record which attracted critical delight and comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel.

Now a 3 piece, they released the new LP ‘Hospice‘ in March and were met with hysterical praise which I’m not about to contradict; ‘Hospice’ is simply mesmerising. A concept album from the point of view of a man whose lover is terminally ill, it contains some of the most beautiful arrangements and heart-breaking lyrics ever recorded; even the cover art chokes me up.

In particular, the song ‘Two’ has fast become one of my favourite songs of all time. It brought me to the brink of tears on practically the first listen, and then again when I actually listened to the lyrics.

MP3 Download: The Antlers – Two

myspace.com/theantlers

facebook.com/pages/The-Antlers/39685849097

‘Hospice’ is being re-released on the 18th August, and The Antlers will be supporting Passion Pit at Concorde 2 in Brighton on the 7th September.

Just a quick one to let you guys know, we’re on Twitter now, which is pretty cool.

Feel free to ‘follow’ us, but please don’t start following me home from work and watching me sleep. These sort of things take time.

twitter.com/SliceBlog

Wave ‘Hello’ to the third version of the Slice weblog. I’m not going to get all sentimental about it, but she says hi back. Much needed improvements such as a cleaner interface, an Archive feature, several functional improvements (including one unified sidebar!), further cross-browser compatibility as well as some small backstage fixes have been implemented.

I’m so happy Summer is coming, it’s about time I spent a day in doing web design (the real reason is that I messed up my ankle at the weekend, but that’s a different story). Barbeque’s all round!

To celebrate, here’s the new one from Kissy Sell Out. The track’s been dragged, kicking and screaming down that familiar yet dirty, grimey bassline path thanks to Jack Beats. Watch out for this one on the album, coming later in the summer. Woop!

MP3 Download: Kissy Sell Out – The Kiss (Jack Beats Remix)

The vocalist on this track sounds very familiar? Is it the singer from Late of the Pier/Shitdisco/Sunshine Underground/Misc Other Alternative Indie Band ? Answers on a self addressed comment please.

facebook.com/pages/Kissy-Sell-Out/13119195282

facebook.com/pages/Jack-Beats/47633643214

Kissy Sell Out’s Debut album will be released later this Summer, undoubtedly with many a collaboration.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The best thing out of Bolton?

MP3 Download: Blackout Crew – Put A Donk On It

facebook.com/pages/Blackout-Crew/1273264863

Watch the whole five part documentary on VBS.tv.

I’d advise you to stay well away else you might catch something. Take this as a gift from afar alright?

MP3 Download: Boards of Canada – Kid for Today

All we have to do now is lobby to get the entirety of ‘Hadouken’ thrown in there with them and we’ll be able to call an end to this whole ‘new rave’ thing.

Source: Will it Blend?

‘Die Fetten Jahren sind vorbei’ is the original German title of the film, literally ‘The fat years are over’. And they certainly are becoming so for many in the world, of course days of plenty are numbered when you live in a hierarchy, and this is one of the films many fantastic key points.

Released in late 2004 and directed by Hans Weingartner, ‘The Edukators’ is a fun yet meaningful piece which seeks to provide drama and debate in the same instance. Portraying the lives of three young activists, frustrated with the world. The film starts with a display of honesty, a protest about the incorrectness of third world shoe production goes from the street and into a retail store, inevitably bringing about police intervention and punishment. It is from this very early point in the film that Weingartner establishes the feeling of frustration with power and the injustice of those who have it.

When Jule (Julia Jentsch) loses her apartment and job as a waitress in a middle-class restaurant, she moves in with boyfriend Peter (Stipe Erceg) and his friend Jan (Daniel Brühl). Jule at first feels uneasy with Jan but while Peter is on holiday the two develop a close friendship and Jule begins to open up about her feelings of frustration against the capitalist system that they live in. As Jule learns of the secret hobbies and shared frustration of the two men, so to do we as Jan explains the secret lives he and Peter live at night.

The film really kicks into gear as we follow the lives of the infamous Edukators and watch on the edge of our seat as we see the results of their actions. At the mid point in the film, we see a complete change in the speed of the drama. An unplanned kidnapping occurs and the film switches into a completely different gear. The film really comes into its own as we escape from the harsh city life and into the luscious country as the three activists come to terms with the gravity of their situation. As our protagonists find themselves away from the mundane, we are left with a really involving situation where the characters and ourselves as viewers are able to analyse their chains and shackles from a completely different perspective. The abductee Hardenberg has a hugely interesting backstory which really adds depth to the overall experience of the film. Once himself a fighter against oppressed freedom, there is a fantastic scene late in the film where he explains how his dreams of ideals warped  into wish for money and possession, leaving the three activists simply stunned.

‘The Edukators’ offers a fresh and youthful perspective on capitalism and democracy with the sort of energy shared by todays oppressed young activists. Weingartner has managed to make a powerful film with a message, meaningful and memorable enough to also tie together the social relationships needed to really put these arguments into a real life perspective.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Please help me celebrate my twentieth birthday tomorow by playing some cheerful reggae tunes. Supplied is personal favourite, ‘Funky Kingston’ by the timeless Toots and his friendly neighbourhood Maytals.

MP3 Download: Toots & The Maytals – Funky Kingston

Earlier this summer, CIA-owned social networking site and happy meal sugar injection ‘Facebook’ had a clever overhaul. This new look threatens to share even more of your information to friends and those embarrassing photos of you getting intoxicated and trying to hump everything in the room to your work mates and managers. After switching to this new Facebook I’ve been told that my ex girlfriend is already seeing someone else and several of my good friends have gone away on holiday without inviting me, it’s a bit of a bummer really.

Is this new way of sharing information really that great? I wish for the good old days on Myspace where you would have to trawl through endless reels of brightly coloured, seizure inducing profiles and computer lagging amounts of video to find out the latest gossip about that girl your friends, friend embarrassingly had an encounter with at that party last week.

Will the public embrace this new type of soul-sucking network forever or will it simply become a passing fad like all the rest of them? Will data from social networks ever become so tightly integrated that even your doctors and the police will be able to know practically everything about you without your knowledge?

Hundreds of terrible things happen everyday, but this one time in New York…