Hello & Welcome.

Well today represents both my first attempt at blogging and yet another day in the shit storm that Gerard Houllier seems to have created down at Villa Park. I'll deal with the Villa bit first. Welcome to Villa Park Kyle Walker, I'm not sure you know what you've let yourself in for and I'm not a big fan of what you represent but I hope your stay at VP is a success. To me you represent the fact that our club is in decline and unless our manager ships out one of the other two right backs, you also represent to a degree some rather messed up logic but its not personal, I'll support you every time you pull on the shirt and hopefully you'll be a success. Though it'll piss me off no end if you go back to Spurs on the back of that success, they were our rivals only last season, now they seem to be something to look up to.

Today was also the day we took our xmas trees to the recycling point. Good to know they'll be put to use in stabilising the local sand dunes (one of the largest dunes systems in Western Europe) and will help preserve the dunes so we can enjoy them for years to come.

Onto matters more musical, on a recent trip into Liverpool I popped into to my old mates in Probe Records to see if anything took my fancy and came away with an album by Laboratory Noise entitled When Sound Generates Light, an interesting title that grabbed my attention. Well after a few listens it's become a firm favourite on my 5:30am drive into work, how would I describe it? Shoegaze, well yes, ambient & ethereal, most definitely and probably a hint of psychedelia thrown in too. It's like a chilled out version of Loop with a little bit of XX and a smidgen of Slowdive & the Cocteau Twins with a bit of modern electronica thrown in for good measure.

Standout tracks for me.., She Dies Screaming, Tesla, Dream Sequence and I Can Only Give You Everything. The album is dominated by what can I'd describe as swirling atmospherics and understated vocals (mostly) in which the voice is used more of as an instrument than the delivery of a message or story. For me its a great album for that early morning drive with nothing else on the road, can't wait until nature provides its own version of a dry ice machine which no doubt it will very soon, the perfect setting for this album. It took a few listens to get into it but a few listens and I was hooked. The album can be purchased direct from the band on the above link and is a limited edition of 1000.

As a taster theres a version of She Dies Screaming from Soundcloud though its not quite as polished as the album version.

She Dies Screaming by laboratorynoise