One of my favourite sites The Silent Ballet has released the next volume of their excellent online compilation albums, showcasing some of the finest post-rock, ambient and instrumentally orientated music around.  Whats more is its free!  I’ve found quite a few new artists thanks to these compilations, so I’m sure this one will be as good as the rest.

Check it out here.

Back when I was a little nipper, the first computer we ever had in our house was a ZX Spectrum 128 (I’m pretty sure it was the 128 model anyway). I loved the system, played a lot of the games (probably played them better than I could now-a-days) and generally was quite addicted to it. The system was sold a few years later, along with all the games.

About a year ago I took the notion of going back to my childhood days and started buying Spectrum games from eBay. They are great items for collecting since [a] they provide a great sense of nostalgia, and [b] they’re cheap. Anyway, recently I joined the Retro Gamer forum, and, even more recently, spotted someone selling a good old Speccy +2 System (yes, its an Amstrad, but I’m not a purist so don’t really care) with a few games for a smashing price. I couldn’t resist. So here it is in all its 8-bit glory (hooked up to a high definition TV, no less, haha).

…and here’s my rather small collection so far! (though I accidentally forgot to include 3 other Dizzy games I have, d’oh)

Apologies for the lateness of this week’s band, and the non-existance of last week’s (I was rather ill, still kinda am, but not as bad!). Anyway, onward:

Genre: Acoustic / classical.
Top Albums: Both the self-titled and “River Arms” are excellent.

Its not often bands which incorporate heavy classical influences would interest me, but the beauty and simplicity of both their recent releases has been gracing my ears many times over the last 2 months. The first release, the self-titled “Balmorhea”, features little more than a piano and an acoustic guitar, often features alone not together, thrown in with a slight reverb, and sometimes the soothing sounds of a typewriter. The production of the album isn’t the best you’ve ever heard, but that does little to hamper the listening experience. The second album feels a lot more solidly produced, yet still maintaining its simplistic majesty. If you don’t want to take my word for it, just check The Silent Ballet’s reviews of both Balmorhea and River Arms and you’ll see my sentiments echoed (in much better ways).

Check out their myspace page or their official site for more information and music streams.

This looks fantastic! Its a freeview viewer which allows for Sky+ type features such as pause, record, rewind, etc. Whats best about it is that its coming to Europe first! :)

Today was rather great weather-wise for a winters day: clear blue skies, warm sunshine, dry ground. Its got me completely in the mood for summer sunshine, and craving those sweet 2 weeks in the summer where nothing really matters. God knows if the weather will actually be good during those 2 weeks though. It also got me in the mood to flick through some of my photos on Flickr, reminding me that, as much as I usually loathe my local surroundings, there are parts that can be pretty damn beautiful in the right light. Bring on the sunshine!

PS. The images look some of their crispness in the blog-conversion process.  Click the images for better quality and larger versions.

Derry/Londonderry quay

Harvey’s Point, Donegal

Altahullion Wind Farm, Limavady

Enjoying flying a kite on Benone beach

More photos on my Flickr page.

So I finally got around to putting a proper video up for Sky Surfer. It pretty much runs through most of the levels (except for the ones at the end which I can no longer finish since I’m rusty!). Check it out…

Edit: Just added a second shorter video.

Some people obviously have plenty of time of their hands, but I have utmost respect for this, as I’d love to spend my time with such interesting ventures. Anyway, Toni Westbrook has developed the Shredz64 project, a game which interfaces the Guitar Hero Playstation guitar controller through a Commodore 64 allowing for potentially the most awesome nuskool-to-oldskool port I’ve ever seen.

Just seen this on a friend’s blog and laughed my head off. Gifted, eh?

Last night I got the chance to see David Ford live in Belfast, at a rather lovely intimate bar called Auntie Annie’s Porterhouse. Ford is the former frontman of Easyworld, now turned solo singer/songwriter. Having been a huge fan of Easyworld, and loving both his solo albums (I Sincerely Apologise For All The Trouble I Have Caused, and Songs For The Road) I couldn’t wait to see him live for the first time. Prior to the gig commencing, we sat in the downstairs bar having a few pre-gig drinks. It was pretty obvious that the gig was a lot more popular than I initially thought it would be, considering the number of people who were in the bar already. It wasn’t long before the man himself walked past us (getting stopped along the way by a few keen fans for photos). It was great to see a man only too happy to oblige his fans.

We moved upstairs to await the start of the show, and spotted Dave sitting with Duke Special at a table as if he were just another guy there for the gig. Again, great to see such a “man of the people” spirit. Anyway, on to the show…

David kicked off with State of the Union, a rather angry song about the government, religion, life and love. Having never watched David perform this song before, I was amazed at his technique: playing a few bars of the song on each instrument and looping that bar through the wonders of technology, gradually building his own haunting one man band complete with self harmonising. Breathtaking, and immense, to say the least. Another highlight of the show was Cheer Up (You Miserable Fuck), where Duke Special joined to play piano, along with some great atmospheric audience participation.

Overall my expectations were totally exceeded, the whole vibe of the gig just blew me away – it felt so homely and intimate, yet so powerful. To top it all off I got to meet him at the end (see the second photo below), where he was only too happy to sign my Songs for the Road CD. He was also enquiring as to the meaning of “the craics 90″ – “Why not 100, wouldn’t that be better?”. Heh.

If you ever have the chance to see this guy live, don’t miss it.

Why the hell are they so big?  I just went to play Super Stardust HD and I have to update the latest version in order to play it, and the update is a whopping 111mb!  For people who don’t own an Xbox 360 that maybe doesn’t sound too bad, but typically on the 360 updates would be no bigger than a couple of megabytes.  Seems with the PS3 I pretty much have to download the entire game again all for a few minor changes.

Thank God I changed ISP recently, otherwise this would take about 3 hours to update, rather than 5 minutes.