Some of my favourite people have decided to band together and form a band together. Well two of them were already a band, that’s Alex and Lars from O||O, but they’ve recruited renowned local DJ Bec Paton to play keys and add layers of sound to their already rather lovely blend.

They keep saying there’s a new album on the way (through Groovescooter in Australia, and 12 Apostles elsewhere). Plans are afoot for a tour soon as well.

This week, the show kicked off with spiky indie pop, dropped down tempo to Bristol’s Wild Bunch and wound up with bass heavy garage and dubstep bang.

Indie pop to grime in two hours – as disjointed on radio as it sounds on the computer screen? Maybe!

The Stems – At First Sight
The Earthmen – Whoever’s been using this bed
The Boo Radleys – Reaching out from here
The Clash – Tommy Gun
Sultans of Ping – Where’s me jumper
Menswear – Stardust
Elastica – Vaseline
Elastica – Line Up
Echobelly – Insomniac
Santa Dog – Belle de jour
Sleeper – Lady love your countryside
SMASH – Another Love
Bill – Making you mine
Blur – Pop scene
Bit By Bats – The nature vs effect
Wire – Reuters
Groovescooter feat Quro – My spine is the bassline
Cabaret Voltaire – Bad self
Primitive Calculators – Pumping ugly muscle
Tackhead feat Mark E Smith – Repetition
Time Zone – World Destruction
Gary Clail and the On U Sound System – Human Nature
Massive Attack – Eurochild
Wookie – Battle (full mix)
Kode 9 & Space Ape – Kingstown (vox)
Boxcutter – Sunshine

Steve Cannane from Triple J wrote an opinion piece for the SMH on Friday about Vietnam veterans and The Herd’s gig last week.

The idea is a bit more haphazard. Starting with punk pop, sliding in between ska and the new wave of new wave and ending up with remixes of pop favourites. Well that’s what I’m seeing as I type on Sunday night at any rate.

If you’re around in Sydney on Friday night you should definitely go to Spectrum for the FBI After Party. Levins and I are playing records, plus the marvelous Anna Burns and Alex from Red Riders. I think I’ll be on last, because I’m now the rookie in indie circles. Come!

If the awesome new Ghostface Killah record isn’t good enough for you, what with its on form Ghostface raps, heavy Wu representation and guests like MF Doom, then you might need to check out his action figure. matt fluxblog has a taster of the record if you don’t have it yet.

It seems like ages ago, but the Popfrenzy Afloat phenomenon was a great one. I’ve been outrageously busy since and have only just got around to posting a few pictures (sorry KTC). So here you go. It was all great – Chris, Levins, Tommy and Eli have it locked down as far as fun nights go – but the highlights were definitely The Gossip and Jens. Les Savy Fav were pretty fantastic too. Anyway, it’s too late for chatter, here are some photos.

I occasionally contribute posts to the Media Center blog. They have an editor who suggests weekly themes that I’ve been abominable at sticking to lately. But last week was all about celebrity obsession and what the role they play in society, then there was a second theme about politics and public policy, so I took that intersection to write/rant about something close to my heart – criticising actors/musicians for talking about subjects other than music or films.

It’s easy to cut down rock stars and actors for talking about politics – they’re just bums, right?

It gets trickier when you look at how people get places. How did you end up as a journalist, or business manager, or whatever you happen to be? It was probably a process of attrition, you try out one thing, then another and eventually settled on something that works. It happens all over the place – politicians might have come up through the union movement or after a career in business or even from an arts degree. Musicians, well they’re all over the place. My brother’s in a politically active hip hop band, but he studied advertising at university.

See, people aren’t one-dimensional, and just because you only know someone as a rock star doesn’t mean that’s all they are.

The second case is a little more emotional. Politics and public space. What is politics? Is it a dry, grey thing that’s all about books and comb-overs and government libraries or is it a powerful undercurrent to life. I lean to the latter.

In my experience, politics has an extremely broad definition. It’s about the way we view our bodies, the way we look at the world around us, the way we interact with people in our communities, and the way we regulate our lives, it’s a system of living. And it’s not static.

Of course, being static suits virtually everyone involved in the public debate – media, politicians, business – it makes it that much easier to predict outcomes and understand the dynamics. But the fact is politics affects everyone and everyone should play a part.

That’s all great, but these days it’s not so easy. Democracy seems less welcoming than in the past – politicians’ public profiles are carefully painted by spin doctors, a smokescreen that allows many leading pollies to completely ignore the populace (witness the public outcry against going to war in Iraq, and the subsequent government actions).

Politicians have started talking about the reality based community, our government in Australia says “I don’t recall” in court so often, and, “They can’t prove we knew about it”, until they can, when the news cycle magically works its way forward and onto another story.

People in the public space should speak about things of concern to them. If they don’t care about politics don’t talk about it. But most people are interested in more than just their job, for musicians the world isn’t just about music, and actors more than just their craft.

It suits right wing commentators to paint these people as imbeciles, but the reality is they are more often than not highly engaged people, intelligent, experienced, and most importantly, not beholden to the same commercial or pragmatic interests as federal governments or media.

This week’s show was all about ambience – warm drone rock, sparkly indie electronics and repetitive minimal techno, as well as the original stuff from Eno and Throbbing Gristle – but not all soothing wallpaperish stuff. The thing I like about ambience is the tension between pretty and soft atmospherics and stupid dadaist stuff, disturbing and dissonant, harsh, stupid, compelling.

I might write more when my brain isn’t being crushed into a small mush of jelly.

Primal Scream – Higher Than The Sun (Orb remix)
Kimmo Vennonen – Reality Intrudes
Dot-0-Dot – Sine Intros
Throbbing Gristle – Exotica
Psychic TV – Bliss (Andy Falconer remix)
Ministry – Cold Life Dub
Suicide – Frankie Teardrop
Castings – Electro Disco Weirdo
Brian Eno – Here Come The Weird Jets
The Orb – God Less America/Gorgeous
Kyle Dawkins – Prelude
Sabres of Paradise – Smokebelch II (Beatless mix)
Golden Palaminos – No Skin (Bandalu mix)
Keith Fullerton Whitman – Lisbon
Pimmon – Stumbling
Aki Onda – unknown
Scott Horscroft Ensemble – 11 Guitars
Growing – Cumulusless
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – track 2 from Yanqui UXO
Decoder Ring – Snowflake

This week… on Join The Dots, Tuesday night from 9 til 11… a tumble through the roots of warm drone rock, sparkly indie electronics and the repetitive bliss of minimal techno. It’s all about ambience. For a sound originally designed as sonic wallpaper, what makes ambient music so fascinating is the clash of pretty and disturbing, soft and harsh, stupid, clever, punk reality and conceptual abstraction.

The soundtrack: think Eno, Throbbing Gristle, Pimmon, Scorn, Scott Horscroft, Snog, The Orb, Augustus Pablo, My Bloody Valentine, Oval, and new material from Growing, Keith Fullerton Whitman and maybe even Boards of Canada.

Alright, so I’ve been pretty lame online lately. No posts here, except for radio ones, and none elsewhere. Just got broadband, just got a new place, maybe I’ll have it locked back up again soon. Stick with me and if you’ve got any suggestions for essential links for this week’s show feel free to comment.

The second week of my half theme, and half testing the limits of six-degrees-of-separation tumbling rush of new music and old inspirations (ie radio show on FBI).

Mostly older stuff this week, starting with cut-up beats, off to Chicago for a touch of indie/post-whatever and deep house, down to Canberra for brooding dark techno (is that what it’s called these days) and around Berlin for off kilter electro pop.

The links may be a little tenuous – how did I go from Dave Pajo to Isolee you may ask. Well I was looking for Derrick Carter’s mix of Tortoise, which would have been a much more concrete link to Pajo, but I couldn’t find it and Isolee’s beautiful Beau Mot Plage (originally released on Playhouse) was released in the US on Carter’s Classic label – hopefully you’ll bear with me.

Any feedback? Suggestions for future Join The Dotses? Comment, do it!

Avene – Unwanted
DJ Soup – Brainfood
Mu Mesons – Orgastic Potency
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like
Negativland – U2 Special Radio Mix
Double Dee & Steinski – Lesson 2
Prefuse 73 – Last Night (featuring Sam Prekop)
Sam Prekop – A Cloud To The Back
Archer Prewitt – Way of the Sun
Mandarin Movie – The Green Giraffe
Aerial M – Wedding Song No 3
Isolee – Beau Mot Plage (Freeform Reform)
Mr Fingers – Can U Feel It
Microworld – Exotica
Stalker – Distance
Twotone – Partenze
Hood – Sad Neck
Blastcorp – Wish Fulfilment (Sonic Youth)
Remote Viewer – How Did You Look Me In The Eye
Lali Puna – Micronomic (Boom Bip remix)
Mojave 3 – Bluebird of Happiness (Minotaur Shock remix)
Underground Lovers – I Was Right (Remix)
Other People’s Children – Delete Control

Join The Dots on FBI 94.5 every Tuesday night from 9 ’til 11