Plutonic Rainbows

Perfect Life.

The Caretaker has abandoned darker and hard to grasp memories in favour of an altogether warmer journey which upon exposure invades the very core of your being. This is a very personal album for the listener, pre-soul music from a bygone era which will attack your senses in a way both comfortable and uncomfortable all at once.

Available from Bandcamp.

Cal Cashin:

It took Kevin Parker five years of reclusive writing before The Slow Rush was ready for human consumption. His group Tame Impala started off at the dawn of the 2010s as a charming psych-revival curiosity, but second and third albums Lonerism and Currents saw the group slowly mutate into something far bigger; an escapist pop act capable of headlining festivals.

Notoriously, Parker is one of these musicians that spends literal years labouring over fine details to ensure everything is the best it can be. He rigorously considers every single drum sound, piano loop, and vocal texture, and pours unimaginable quantities of energy into the signature Tame Impala sound. Parker is clearly a talented producer, and has shown in the past that his musical graft often reaps satisfying melodies. It is this perfectionism that defines 2015’s smooth-but-insubstantial Currents, and new LP The Slow Rush is certainly cut from the same cloth.

So that begs the question; if Parker is such a perfectionist, how come all of his songs are fucking terrible?

Tame Impala frustrate throughout The Slow Rush. Whilst Parker’s talents as a producer certainly flicker throughout, his limitations as a songwriter prevent any songs on the record from really catching light at any point. The Slow Rush is background music, it’s supposed to bring good vibes but it dims every room that it is played in.

Picked a new album from Sign Libra - channelling that mid-80s Laurie Anderson vibe. Also some dark ambience from Radere. These two albums are really polar opposites. Also managed to get a nice discount on the new Tom Ford Beau De Jour - a clean, lavender fragrance that will be great in the coming months. I'm about halfway through the new William Gibson novel, Agency but I haven't (so far) found it particularly engaging compared to The Peripheral.

I've been using some Bluetooth peripherals lately which has meant I've been charging my phone two or three times a week. Consequently, Peak Performance has now dropped to 95%. I suppose that's still pretty good for sixteen months. Also, I need to keep the following in mind:

• Apple claims a 20% for 500 cycles.
• Assuming I charge about 50 cycles in 60 days (two months).
• That's roughly a 2% loss for 2 months usage.

I'm nowhere near that so I think the battery is still doing fine.

Nick @ Rough Type:

If Instagram showed us what a world without art looks like, TikTok shows us what a world without shame looks like. The old virtues of restraint — modesty, discretion, taste — are gone. There is only one virtue: to be seen. The future has arrived, but you don’t get fifteen minutes of fame. You get fifteen seconds.

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Happy new year to everyone. Lots of new books and music are due this year.

Peak capacity drops another point to 97%. Still pretty good for fourteen months in. Still charges to 100% from 10% in 1hr & 45 mins.

All of Doctor Who Classic has landed on BritBox from today, bringing a whole host of Time Lord adventures, documentaries and more to the streaming service.

Launched this winter, the joint venture between BBC and ITV offers British TV box sets to subscribers for £4.99 a month in a bid to take on Netflix. With lots of the Beeb and ITV archives still on BBC iPlayer and Netflix, though, BritBox needs exclusive content to stand out from the crowd – and it doesn’t come more impressive than the biggest Doctor Who Classic collection ever streamed in the UK.

27 pieces of Doctor Who Classic content are available on the service, comprising episodes, spin-offs, documentaries, telesnaps and more and many rarely-seen treasures. 129 complete stories, which totals 558 episodes spanning the first eight Doctors from William Hartnell to Paul McGann, form the backbone of the collection.

Reemah Sakaan, Group Director ITV SVOD:

BritBox becoming the first complete digital home of Doctor Who Classic creates a special opportunity for fans and streamers across the UK. We are looking forward to expanding the collection even further by working with the show creators to lovingly restore lost and previously unavailable episodes in the months to come and offering a truly exclusive experience.

Sally de St Croix, Franchise Director for Doctor Who at BBC Studios adds:

It’s thrilling to partner with BritBox and see all this amazing Doctor Who Classic content congregate in one place where subscribers can stream to their hearts’ content – some experiencing the show for the first time whilst others will simply be enjoying it all over again.

The arrival of Doctor Who comes just as BritBox expands its reach: subscribers are now able to access the service on Chromecast, as well as via web, mobile, tablet and select connected TVs.