PERSONAL GEMS: Pink Floyd - Animals

It’s about time for another classic Will Bamber navel-gaze as I wax fanatical about the albums that I adore, specifically albums that I’ve always adored, over the greater part of my music-worshipping life, particularly those I fell in love with as a dreamy-eyed teenager, and what better place to start than with the most underrated album from the first band I ever truly loved – the band that revealed to me how music could be so much more than pop hooks and catchy choruses. Whether I do any more of these is up in the air, but talking about this particular album has been a long time coming. It’s the dark, the ambitious, the inimitable, the wild, the soaring, the tragically cathartic masterpiece that is Pink Floyd’s Animals.

I’m dropping my usual charade of acting like a music journalist – this blog post is gonna be fast and loose, straight from the heart, of how and why this album captivated me, continues to floor me with every listen, and why you shouldn’t risk going your entire life without at least allowing it a chance to burrow into your soul. It may be cringe, but it’s nothing but the truth.

A Gentle Reminder That Free Speech Doesn't Absolve You

Ricky Gervais has been pissing me off recently, which is disheartening, as I’ve always been a huge fan of the fruits of his now long-historic golden age. The Office is a near-masterpiece in my opinion, and Extras was, if a little mawkish, a self-aware and timely satire. This makes it even more perplexing that the very societal problems that Ricky Gervais mocked and used as the basis of Extras's morality seem to have rotted from his own memory. Remember how Andy Millman’s character was transformed by his sudden fame into a thoughtless, self-centred arsehole and the series closed with him rediscovering his humility? I wonder if the Ricky Gervais I bear witness to on Twitter nowadays, who spends most of his time reminding everyone how clearly enlightened and subversive he is, would be capable of reaching the same moment of clarity.

Made in Abyss and Other Anime Bullshit

I haven’t talked about anime much in a while, but I found a good one this year and therefore I thought hey, why not just do a barely-filtered blog post on all the anime I’ve been watching in general lately? So here we are.

Some Thoughts About Rick and Morty

When the first series of Rick and Morty came out, I was completely smitten. It hit all the right notes: dark humour, cosmic horror, interesting speculative ideas. I liked how it was creative with its position as an animated sitcom, like with its absurd multiple universes and segments built around improvised nonsense. I liked how sharp and merciless the comedy was, and how its episode ideas had this Twilight Zone science-fiction ethos to them. It was like all our weird Christmases had come at once.

Word spread, with me doing lots of the spreading, and when the long-awaited second series arrived, the show was the hottest new thing, riding a hype it well deserved. I was duly excited – after all, in my experience, the first series of any show, particularly sitcoms, often suffers from its position as the starting point, and it’s usually by the second or third series that a show truly finds its footing, and has greater confidence in what it needs to be. Therefore, I figured that the next few series of Rick and Morty would be even better than its impressive beginning.

My Personal Favourite Movie Scenes

Hi, I got bored and started making a list (I'm a bit like Liam Neeson that way), so here it is. It's not gonna be a regular blog post in that I'm gonna go into any sort of loquacious detail about why any of these scenes are amazing or anything, I'm just simply throwing them out there so people can watch (some) of them and see if they agree. There's plenty of films I think are great that didn't make the cut, as these are the best singular scenes that I just adore for whatever fucked-up reason.

Also these are mostly off the top of my head and the order's pretty arbitrary until about the top four. And I'm only gonna give them a little bit of a comment, as really, they all mostly speak for themselves. So anyway, here are my TEN favourite scenes from all the movies I've seen so far.

10. Carrie's First Dance



I was thinking putting the completely insane split-screen denouement in here, y'know, as in the scene from Carrie, but then I thought about it and, apart from that being predictable as fuck, this is really the scene that is Carrie's centrepiece; we all know where the film's going, or at least have the feeling it's not going to end well, and this is the film at its happiest point, almost dreamily happy, so sickly happy that it's loaded with tension, especially as the camera starts spinning deliriously around the end. LOVE IT.

The Blair Witch Project

I find myself deeply depressed at how horror’s reputation has been torn to shreds in the mind of the modern moviegoer. Whenever I suggest watching a horror film to a layman of the genre, they have a tendency to lift their snooty noses and make very clear to me their opinion on how the horror film market is a rancid pool of schlocky detritus that only caters to a demographic of mindless idiots. The problem is, on the whole, they’re generally bang on the money, especially in this day and age. Horror movies have become so drearily manufactured, predictable and commercially superficial that people have practically forgotten how good a really good horror film can be, and how a well-made piece of horror can burrow into your psyche and lurk there for weeks, keeping you up at night and exercising your subconscious like any successful work of art should do. In all fairness, there’s been a rash of acclaimed horror films recently that are starting to fight back against the genre’s PR nosedive, but to me, the last bold, interesting, divisive but strikingly effective horror film to fire-axe its way through the door of pop culture is 1999’s The Blair Witch Project.

For all the adoration I have for it, Blair Witch carries with it a fair amount of baggage. For one thing, people blame it for the ‘found footage’ subgenre of cinematic wankery that followed in its wake, all of which took the original’s unique and interesting concept and chucked away everything good about it, believing repeating Blair Witch’s central premise without any of the craftsmanship would be enough to keep people interested (which, inexplicably, they were kind of right about). There are also a number of complaints that the film is ‘boring’, or that ‘nothing happens’ and ‘nothing gets explained’. I like to use whether or not people identify with any of these statements as a litmus test of their emotional stupidity. See, horror has had a schism lately into two distinct categories: the modern approach, where much of the ‘horror’ comes from cheap, startling jump-scares and O.T.T. sadism – mostly enjoyed by children – and then there’s the true horror, frequently categorised as ‘psychological horror’, which affects you slowly, subtly; getting under your skin rather than shoving entrails in your face. Blair Witch, to me, is a master class in creating something truly haunting, which, believe it or not, was the original objective of the horror genre before it became the equivalent of popping a balloon next to someone’s head while they’re falling asleep.

Blair Witch’s legacy has been overshadowed in popular consciousness by its shrewd marketing campaign, which created, from our modern perspective, a completely bewildering word-of-mouth semi-rumour among idiots that the low-budget film was actual ‘found footage’ documenting the final moments of genuinely missing people. It’s hard to believe that anyone would fall for this, but I can only assume this must’ve been due to the primitive minds of the people of the 1990s, and it was commonly proclaimed that the film’s terror came entirely from the actual belief of actual human beings that what they were seeing was ‘real’, and that this was the driving force of the film’s ability to scare. To me, this is all totally irrelevant. Blair Witch isn’t terrifying because I think what I’m seeing is real, although its realistic qualities are an important part of its effectiveness – it’s terrifying because it’s a straight-up well made, original, and more importantly (my favourite word in the universe): SUBTLE film. No jump-scares, no blood splatters, no ancient demons named ‘Bagul’; just a bare-bones production and some brilliantly-executed set-pieces and attention to detail. Blair Witch is more than its seminal marketing campaign, more than its timely and original gimmick – it’s a fucking great film, and it’s probably one of my favourite films ever made, regardless of how many people look at me every time I say that as if I’ve just announced that I’m a registered sex offender.

In case you don’t know, the story of the film concerns three young, twattish film students setting out to make a documentary on a mysterious figure of local folklore known as the ‘Blair Witch’. They set off into the woods to grab some incidental footage of a few historical murder scenes before quickly becoming lost and finding themselves set upon by an unseen supernatural entity that spends the entire film fucking with them in various ways, pushing them to the brink of insanity before leading them towards an ambiguously sticky ‘end’. The reason that this film works is that it’s never clear what the supposed ‘Blair Witch’ actually is, what it wants, or how it even operates. It’s not a ghost or a ghoul or a literal ‘witch’. You never even catch a glimpse of it. This should go without saying, but the less you explain in a horror film, the better. There’s nothing more frightening than the unknown, and there’s nothing that turns a horror film flaccid faster than having someone explain the precise details of what, why and how everything is happening. Blair Witch takes this to the next level by explaining absolutely nothing. All there is to go on are interviews with the locals at the beginning of the film, who waffle, Fight Club-style, about all the million different rumours they’ve heard, and passing mentions of historical kidnappings and ritualistic murders. Nobody knows what’s out there in the woods, but these accounts still linger in the back of your mind. The occasional clue is left as the story unfolds, and at reaching the point of its weird-ass conclusion, you’re left to fill in the blanks yourself as to what exactly went down.

Too many horror antagonists are things that are recognisable to us – ghosts, for instance, or crazed murderers, or aliens. Sure, these things are inherently ‘scary’, but they’re still familiar. The antagonist of Blair Witch is far more abstract. It’s more like the characters are at the mercy of the setting itself, the austere American woodland, so remote and endless that it begins to feel like the hapless students are trapped in a dream world, wandering in circles, plagued by an overbearing sense of dread, as things go from weird to bad to worse. And the best part is how the characters react to all this; at first they’re bickering with each other, then they’re at each other’s throats regarding their confidence in each other’s map-reading abilities, and soon they’re spiralling into terrified hysteria. There’s something darkly satisfying about watching their miserable descent, night after night. In fact, the film’s not so much about the ‘Blair Witch’ and its spooky designs as the psychology of its characters – witnessing their despair, their hopelessness. The most famous scene of all is Heather’s snot-laden confession to camera, utterly broken, wide-eyed with terror. It’s bare, human fear in the face of total oblivion. And that’s the beauty of the film, in my opinion. There’s no tense orchestral score or special effects. Everything about this movie is so authentically raw. In a world of slickly-produced, ‘oh-no-don’t-go-in-there’ horror movies, Blair Witch is a breath of fresh air; bleak, horrifying air.

The amateurish veneer of the film hides the creativity that went into it. The no-name actors were chosen based on their improvisational skills, ordered in the audition process to react immediately to whatever the directors threw at them; if they hesitated, they were passed over. They were given GPS systems and sent into the woods to film everything themselves, having instructions left for them in milk crates specific to each actor as to what their motivations were, unbeknownst to the others. The actors, basically, had very little idea what was in store for them – Michael C. Williams, for instance, was genuinely frightened by the children’s laughter played to them from a boombox brought out by the directors. They were intentionally starved and deprived of sleep. ‘Taco’ was their safe word for when they wanted to speak out of character. In short, the authenticity of the film was carefully orchestrated, nearly all of the dialogue was improvised, and there were times when the characters genuinely had no idea what was going on and were actually being fucked with by the directors. The fear you witness is, at least in part, real fear. And that’s what gives Blair Witch such an edge, and its achievement of this is undoubtedly what fuelled the water-cooler bullshit about its honest-to-god realism. When most people think of horror, they think of ghouls, vampires and zombies, but Blair Witch strips away the bullshit clichés and presents you with something genuinely, bleakly compelling.

Okay, I’ll admit I might've been a little harsh earlier; as much as I adore it, and I do adore it, The Blair Witch Project may not be for everyone. If you aren’t taken in by the soft touches of characterisation, or the slow pace and the build-up of the first two-thirds of the film, I can see why you might feel like moaning about it, especially if you’ve heard all the hype about how pant-wettingly frightening it’s meant to be. But, in my eyes, it’s just brilliant, and as I said, it’s brilliant because it’s so fucking raw. The creeping finale, especially, is just so nauseously strange, and best of all, left completely ambiguous, as all the most effective works of psychological horror should be. It’s the unanswered questions that keep a movie in your head long after it’s ended. The stripped-down nature of the film, its lightness on visual impact and spectacle, is undoubtedly what turns people off from it. It’s no Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s no Saw. But it is, in my mind, uniquely creepy, gripping, and, having been filmed on a pitiful $30,000, a testament to the power of subtlety and suggestion, a reminder that it’s not what you pack into a movie that makes it great, but what you do with it.

NEW BURIAL: YOUNG DEATH / NIGHTMARKET

As a Burial fan, I have to admit that I’ve been brutally teased by the dark, visionary, beauty-weaving motherfucker for about three years now. The last truly heart-blasting release that he made was around this time back in the ancient epoch of 2013, Rival Dealer, a cross between an EP and a religious experience, taking you down to Hell, up to Heaven and back again. It was more of the same, the same in this case being ‘cathartic genius’, but it was also a change in direction, and there we all were, cans round our heads, wondering the same thing: where the bloody hell is he going to go from here?

Since then, there have actually been a number of Burial appearances, although they’ve been teeny, tiny drops of this, that and the other. Remember ‘Temple Sleeper’? It was an oldschool braid-flinger decorated with the Burial hallmarks, and part of the problem was that that’s exactly what it felt like; a 1992 cut picked up from somebody’s cellar with the thinnest layer of that Burial magic painted over it. A surprise, really, considering his last release practically pulled you up beyond the stars and blew MDMA dust into the face of God. 'Temple Sleeper' was a drop back down to Earth, which was a direction it made sense to travel, in many respects, but I think it left everyone feeling a little ‘egh’, especially now Burial’s been hyped to the point where everything he does is given the same mad reverence as a verse of the New Testament.

Then earlier this year (unless I’m forgetting something), there was ‘Sweetz’, a Burial/Zomby collaboration that I believed, based on the combination alone, had the potential for true greatness, maybe even the same chart-topping success amongst narcotic, pretentious audiophiles as ‘Moth’. But the track was divisively experimental, a real out-there work of atmosphere and repetition that I understand some people enjoyed, but I wasn’t at all taken by. To me, the elements were there, as were the few loops and Burial fingerprints I went along with, but the almost seven-minute study in audial abstraction didn’t leave me truly satisfied. Once again, maybe I was blinded by the hype, but I found the release a strange disappointment, leaving my Burial-balls as painfully big and blue as ever.

And now, we have a new release, a two-track EP: YOUNG DEATH / NIGHTMARKET. Cool, nice, I thought; good names, and an actual auteur EP for the first time since the forgotten days of yore. The first thing I noticed was the shortness of the tracks; together, they came to about thirteen minutes of pure Burial, and all I could scream inside was “MORE! MORE!!”, but something always beats nothing when it comes to being a devout Burial fanboy, and upon listening I was glad to hear in these two tracks what I always truly hope for in any Burial release: a committal to the audial personality that made him a genius – you know, the intakes of breath, the zippo clicks, the track’s pieces bursting into life like rediscovered memories – and an exhibition of bold, new experimentation.

So, are the tracks any good? Obviously this is no opus like Rival Dealer was intended as, and it makes no claims to be. Instead, there are two very different creations here. The first, ‘Young Death’, is Burial in his most comfortable territory – out in the rain, with a synth as a blanket against the cold, and soulful samples guiding you along its roughly-beaten dirt track. The refrain is uplifting, and typically gorgeous, supported with pieces that range from subtle arpeggiated blips to the brief but powerful hammering of piano keys. As usual, the track transforms, and its second act is far colder and mysterious (I have to point out the jarring laugh of the Skull Kid), and brings you down until what could easily be the ‘Teardrop’ beat exits stage left. It’s tried-and-true Burial, but it works. If you want to step into an oil painting and have your heartstrings pulled with all the gentility of a lover’s spirit, then yeah, ‘Young Death’ is a success.

But what’s really worth talking about here is the second half; a longer track, ‘Nightmarket’. Immediately, the sound is radically different – above the clinking background noise, the human sighs, all of that, is an electronic fluttering of bleeps, like alien waves from outer space – a rarely heard sound for Burial, or, rather, a sound rarely heard in such a raw, electronic form; more artificial than his usual organic kind of style. It arrives and vanishes repeatedly, punctuated in between by segments of distant beauty or anxious nothingness, and the track just builds and builds, and its refrain becomes stronger and stronger, the voice turning from indistinct mumblings to graceful piano-like trills up into proud, aggressive synth stabs, with cinematic sampling creating a fucking hell of a buzz. There is no drumbeat – it is nonexistent, or at least it might as well be, and that in itself is a sizeable change of pace. I found it strangely arresting, and very, very interesting as a new droplet from heaven that I see in the work of this mysterious bloke and his weird, creepy tunes.

So is it good? Yes, it’s very good. Of course it bloody is, and it’s just indescribably delightful to hear new Burial that I actually enjoy and don’t find myself straining to enjoy just because I’ve latched onto the name like an entitled little leech. But is it really good? Hmm, well that’s tough to say. It doesn’t break into your life and rearrange the furniture like anything on Rival Dealer, but it’s unfair to expect that. What I do hope is that it’s a sign of things to come, something that will meet my unfairly high expectations and beat my heart into a slab of tenderised meat, but in the meantime I guess I’ll give the verdict as: great if you’re as obsessed with the man as I am, and parts of it, like the denouement of 'Nightmarket', can still smack you around, but there’s very little here that really gives your insides a good, solid kicking.