25/13 - The Last Moment Ever On Dry Land

Let's get strange. Let's find solace in the odd corners of the world where resistance grows against the streamlining new economy. Let's bin the polished turds and dig for pearls buried deep in fertile dirt.

The Knife - Stay Out Here

How about that growing drone for an introduction? Yes, this week's list will rely on prolonged weirdness. Stay with it, it's quite gorgeous and, dare I say, well-composed. As is this epic, euphorically dystopic track.

Most things we love are open ended 

Stay out here, it will get more frightening 

Lose your way

Earth - Crooked Axis For String Quartet

Let's refuse moving fast. Let's refuse making money. We were not meant to suffer from anxiety or stress. We were meant to roam. Let's hide. Let's not seek. That will teach them. The greedy scumbags.

Soulfly - Karmageddon

Drums. Sometimes all you need is drums. Heavy drums. Visions of big campfires. Savannas. Animals like us.

Ulver - Dressed In Black

Ulver is not like other metal-bands. Ulver sets whole William Blake-eppossen to music. Ulver makes ambient electronic soundtracks. Ulver subverts cliché emo-tropes into questions:

Eternal?

Like hell  

we are 

all dressed in black

Jimi Hendrix - 1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)

To finish off, a soundeffect-laden plan to become aquatic, in order to escape the manmade apocalypse, from one of the most unimpeachable music-albums ever made. If all psychedelia sounded like this I would become a hippie. Amongst many favourite details, Jimi's (Noel did not play on this one) dripping and plopping bass-lines in the second half, the mechanical seagulls and of course the glorious way the melody is brought back into focus at 11.20

As a companion to that finale, watch this disconcerting but gorgeous performance:





...and finally, the best, strangest comics I've seen for a long time. (click image for more bizarre visual jokes)