Early Christmas

Guy Fawkes Day is cancelled. At least in Beijing. No fireworks allowed except during Chinese New Year. Not that anyone beyond the 3,473 Brits living in Beijing would know what it is. Nevermind, Starbucks have just put up the Christmas decorations.

Early Snow

It snowed last night. At 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning, the girls insisted that I come down with them before it turned to slush. It was not one of those nice, winter-wonderland-set-off-by-blue-sky type experiences. It was grey and windy. A tree had keeled over. It was also raining. Yuk.

Vronsky Beat

In the taxi, on the way to see The Monster in the Hall, a co-production by National Theatre of Scotland & Citizens Theatre, we got a call saying that the lead actress had been struck down by food poisoning and it was cancelled. Shame - we'd been looking forward to it. 
So we went to the cinema instead - to see Tom Stoppard and Joe Wright's new version of Anna Karenina. Interesting take on the Tolstoy classic: very theatrical - in fact set mostly in a theatre, even the scenes that were supposed to be outside. Very stylised and choreographed - a sort of musical without the songs, with wonderful sets, tons of jewellery and acres of fur. Keira Knightley very good as Anna, Jude Law ditto as her stiff husband, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson doesn't quite cut it as Vronsky. 

MFH review

Nice review of the MFH compilation in Volcanic Tongues mail order site:

Excellent compilation of a bunch of underground cassettes released during the post-Industrial cassette ‘boom’ in the early 80s by the duo of Andrew Cox and David Elliott: MFH turned up on Dave Henderson’s infamous The Elephant Table compilation while Elliott is possibly best known for his fanzine Neumusik and his championing of new music in Sounds. 
They were also the brains behind one of the most enigmatic of cassette labels, York House Recordings, YHR, which released tapes by Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler, MB, Asmus Tietchens and more. YHR also released the bulk of the MFH recordings and the best are compiled here from the time period of 1980-1985. 
The sounds are glorious, there are lonely synth and shortwave works that capture perfectly the circumstances of their creation – in bedrooms and campus laboratories in the middle of the night – odd minimal drone works, repeat keyboard fantasias that are as spooky and otherworldly as anything on John Fothergill’s wing of United Dairies (think Two Daughters et al), hazy shortwave constructs that relocate Europe Endless to the view from a Cornish cottage, TG-influenced distant tape work and cracked beats... something about the atmosphere of these recordings sits just right, with a teenage apocalyptic vibe that is pure science class. 
This is a major unearthing of Hidden Reverse proportions and a must for fans of the way that austere Krautrock and avant garde music was mis-translated by obsessive bedroom geeks in the early 80s. Can’t stop spinning this one – highly recommended.

Was that us?!

iWhatever

After the highs of yesterday, it was back to earth with a bump: stressful work, a hacking cough, computer gremlins and homework tantrums from Naomi. We got an Apple expert to come round to try to sort out a few things on our iMac. He managed some but not all. It still doesn't recognize my iPod and we couldn't get iPlayer to install. But at least we now have what seems to be a more reliable VPN and I now 'get' iPhoto, iCloud and RSS feeds. Enough of MacSpeak. iGotobednow. 

Entity

Getting near the end of the festival now... one month to go. Tonight was the last of our events at The Egg, and the last dance event in Beijing : Random Dance Company. They did Entity - an hour long piece without a break. Great use of projection from three sides and from above, and excellent, powerful music by Joby Talbot and Jon Hopkins. 
As ever, the music is vital. If I don't like the music, I probably won't like the show. Talbot and Hopkins are both classically trained composers but have both branched out to embrace contemporary & electronic production. (And both were born in Wimbledon, funnily enough). Talbot has worked with the Divine Comedy, wrote the music for TV's The League of Gentlemen (which, incidentally - and this is difficult to believe - I've never seen), scored a couple of films (including Son of Rambow - see post), and lots of other stuff. Hopkins has worked with Imogen Heap and King Creosote (both of whom we recently brought to China), Eno and Coldplay, and has also scored films, including Monsters.  
But back to Entity... which was abstract, hard, techy, almost scientific - and quite demanding of the audience (which was a sell-out by the way), but involving & emotional enough to work on many levels. Good on-stage after-show talk with the dancers, continually stretching their limbs and adjusting posture so as not to seize up, and confirming they were indeed regular human beings.

The Table Revisited

A day off - doing normal things. Making pancakes, homework & rollerblading with the girls, taking them to dance class, stuff around the flat... Although couldn't resist seeing The Table again, this time with Liz and Joanna & her daughter. As funny as three days ago.