Yard Hippie

Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut. Literally only just started it so can't say much other than I loved 'Breakfast of Champions' so hopefully, since this is his most reknowned, it'll be fantastic.

You know just as well as the rest of us that the smoke monster (since it's one of the most interesting mysteries in the show) won't be fully explained until the final final final finale

'Perfect Blue' all the way

You will hate Solar Fields with a vengeance. Have you tried early Eat Static stuff? It's not chillout as such but they have produced some fantastic slower tracks on albums like 'implant'. If not then perhaps some dub inspired albums? They often have a lot more kick than much chillout (though they're not really anything like the goa-ambiant obviously). Try Killowatts 'Ground State' and Nagual Sound Experiment's 'Invisible Movements' maybe? Oh, and Opus Iridium (second disk)

Last book I read was Joe Haldeman's 'The Forever War'. It was quite a cool lil sci fi about a future war between man and a mysterious race of fascinating alien types but it's not really about the war itself; more the effects on soldiers and morale as the time dilation caused travelling between stars means hundreds of real time years to go by for every percieved year the soldiers themselves experience. Advances in technology and civilization in general take quantum leaps and they never quite know what the hell's going on. Just curious, has anyone read the sequel, 'Forever Free'? Or anything else by Haldeman for that matter.

@Goa Head & Kai-Q Thanks guys, this is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for back when I originally posted the topic The pads that seem to stick over the top of the teeth look particularly promising; have you ever given them a try? @Needle Ninja Yeah but jewel cases are a thousand times easier to fix than digipacks. Unless they're special coloured cases or whatever.

This is a longshot but I was at a party recently and in the chillout room a very long sample was thrown into the mix. It was a story about a woodpecker and if I remember correctly the narrator had some sort of reggae accent. It was a cool little interlude and I'm wondering if it rings any bells. I can barely remember the specifics now but it was something along the lines of the woodpecker going about it's merry little life with no concerns.

I think that is really the only solution. I can just see myself making a bad situation worse with the whole 'warming up' part. I guess even with a spare insert you'd still have to overcome the whole removal of the broken insert step. Still, the chances of me actually getting round to doing that are reasonably slim. I suspect the cd wil just remain to be treated with extreme caution until eventually something does go wrong. Damn digipacks.

Lifeforms didn't do anything for me for a long time; then I listened to it through good speakers in a dark room at the dead of night and everything clicked. Great stuff. Amorpheus androgynous is similar like Rotwang says. I read somewhere that tales of ephidra is basically a compilation of the tracks they worked on during lifeforms but never actually included in the end product. Again though, I have to agree, not quite as atmospherically untouchable.

Some are better than others. The last one they did was totally dead... hopefully this time the crowd will be back on form again and actually manage to show up In any case I'm very much looking forward to seeing Tetchi and Atomgrinder playing again. Both acts are just absolutely fantastic. In fact Tetchi just totally and utterly blow me away every time.

Yesterday I was playing some Eat Static and some guy exclaimed 'You'd have to be fucked to listen to this'. He didn't mean it in a nasty way or anything, just sortof trying to find kinship in drug use, but it really, really annoys me when people do that. Perhaps even more so than the previous example where people complain that the 'song' hasn't started yet (though I get that one a lot as well). I mean they're basically saying that the only way to enjoy the music is whilst high and as soon as they get that attitude in their heads you just know that they're going to put up their defences and not bother attempting to listen to it properly. They do the same thing around these parts when anything vaguely Eastern washes into the melody as well. It's true to an extent what Murphy said though, at least with me it is. I don't give the time of day to sit down and actually listen deep to classical or rock. Guess I should change that.

I understand what he's getting at. The first psy I listened to properly was Infected Mushroom's Vicious Delicious and back then I thought it was gold. It was something totally new to me and I worshipped the album... now, after a while longer listening to far better (subjectively) psy I can honestly say I cringe at finding the album so bloody fantastic. Saying that though my initial feelings still hold some sway with it as the title track still manages to send a shiver of pure energy down my spine when it climaxes.

Well I've been following psy for close on two years now and still I get very, very confused as to why goa is called goa and other, newer acts are not. There are certain sounds that I associate with goa but the term is applied so loosely to some albums that it can get difficult to understand. I'm guessing that once I have listened to more and more of the older goa sounds then it will eventually click and things will fall into place but it's like you said, us newer guys just don't have the same knowledge as those who have lived through it/with it for longer. I guess it's the same with any of the genre labels we stick on these things.

OOOD - Free Range Voice of Cod - Gone fission X-Dream - Radio Eat Static - De-Classified Astral Projection - Trust in Trance OTT - Blumenkraft Pan Electric & Ishq - About Time Tetrahedron - Crop Circles Listened to Crop circles last night and it took my breath away. Listened to Blumenkraft this morning and everything turned soft and fuzzy. Listening to Radio now and I'm realising I still have many more hours of pleasure stretched ahead. Life is blissfull

Says on the inside sleeve it was "written, produced, mastered by Vince Le Barde @ Electrypnose Labs Switzerland" What sort of awesome name is that? It also states it was 'ADES encoded' which supposedly improves the audio experience from the master disk in such a way as copies are lesser quality. Never heard of this before funked up though so no idea if it's not some sort of clever way to reduce piracy. Anyone else ever come across ADES encoding? For all I know it comes as standard

Spiral Empire is one of the few releases that I just never seem to tire of. Fantastic news.

I got this yesterday and so far it's fantastic. I can see why people are already claiming it's spot in the annual best of list I love getting packages from Ultimae. They always have that distinct smell because of the incence and the postcards with the notes they write on them and whathaveyou. It just feels like it makes the purchase more meaningful somehow. Gotta say that magnus' learing face hidden behind the booklet creeps me out a little in this one though

This year is going to be musical bliss

It is odd but I think it has to be more than just conditioning. With the weather it's known that the sun actually chemically creates euphoria within the body to an extent, so sunny days are going to be seen as happier than rainy days, which instinctually we wouldn't want to be frollicking around in in case we caught hypothermia etc. Our bodies are remarkably good at ensuring we don't do things that would be harmful to us in these ways. With music though.. I'm not sure. I guess I'm thinking that strong and fast beats would be seen as energetic and gleeful because when we are energetic and gleeful we often run around and our hearts beat faster. Or something. I'm clutching at straws really I guess though because when you get down to specifics like why certain downbeat music sounds melancholy and some serene it gets much more complicated. Still to my mind it has to be something to do with specific brain region/synapse interactions in combination with, as you say, social conditioning. *shrugs*

Whilst the books I have mention that music can be emotional they don't bother to explore why they believe this is the case, so no luck there. One does cite an amusing study done in an American wine store where they played either country music or classical music and found that people bought more expensive wine when classical music was played

Yeah VALIS It was when Locke has Ben locked locked up in the cellar of the encampment. He gives him the book to read so he has something to do and he says he'd already read it. It was interesting because it was the same episode where you find out about Daniel's experiment with the mouse in which he fires down a pink beam that effectively dislodges it in time.

I remember when I was doing psychology at Uni there was a module you could choose to do on music. Have no idea whether it was just about beat and rythm since I (stupidly) never took it, but there has to be research into this. I'll go thumb through some old textbooks and see if I can find anything.

I think it's a bit of a mix. He's too far in there, not able to get out anymore but doesn't trust Ben enough to take orders from him any longer. In my mind he's become a bit of a wildcard. If Ben wants to use him now he'll have to you his friend's leverage. What about Sun though? What's going on there? Surely she has enough resentment towards Widmore as well for her to be playing him here. It's his fault after all that the Frieghter and explosives existed at all

I thought the same but after trying to put my finger on what was so damn good about that episode I just couldn't. Must be the sign of genius work.