Lush tune by Lepumpernic.

A few of us at Pirata recently went to see Chris Cunningham’s live audio and video show at the Roundhouse. For the most part it was predictably challenging and entertainingly unsettling, and all in all a brilliant show.

However the highlight for me was the above video / remix of the late Gil Scott Heron’s New York Is Killing Me which was (like the rest of the show) projected across three screens and formed the intro to the show. Don’t watch it here, pop over to YouTube and watch it full screen in HD.

I friend of mine recently went to see this live. I gather it was pretty amazing.

I just got back from a week away “in the sun”, as they say, which was incredibly relaxing and refreshing and all that. I even had time to read a whole book, something I’ve not managed to do in under a week for a few years. Normally the only reading slot I have in my schedule is nine minutes standing up on a train each morning. Often the train is so crowded that reading at all is actually physically impractical. And—at best in that environment—I find it hard to concentrate long enough not to have to re-read every other paragraph, especially since my noise-cancelling headphones stopped cancelling noise.

Currently the prospect of diving back into the white water rapids of my London work-life on Tuesday is almost daunting.

A few days before going away, I saw my brother play at ’Round Midnight in Islington. I should point out here that I make no excuses for regularly abusing social media channels to promote his gigs and stuff. He deserves a bigger audience. And he’s my brother.

Anyway, at that gig the trio played a jazzy adaptation of Fall-N-Love from Fantastic, Vol. 2 by Slum Village. Al has since recorded a solo piano version and posted it to SoundCloud. Here it is, courtesy of SoundCloud’s Share button:

Symbiosis by Jonny L

A sublime slice of drum and bass history. Thanks to my bro for sharing on FB.

Microcosmos by Re-Drum

Soundcloud keeps on delivering. Loving this dub techno track by Léo Urriolabeitia.

This is a video of my brother Al playing with his trio at Matt & Phreds in Manchester on Monday night. Sadly I couldn’t be there.