MARGARET

I am very tempted to write a list of records and movies that I liked or loved but I'm gonna be severe on indulging my pleasures. However, Melancholia has some terrific sequences, the metaphor is potent and Margaret features such an incredible performance by Anna Paquin that I'm frightened to remember it. Jeannie Berlin-where has she been since The Heartbreak Kid?- vital. Also, there is an excruciating scene early on in the film which reminds me of the closing moments of Au Revoir Les Enfants. Scorsese's documentary on Harrison was charming, witty and inevitably, deeply moving.

THE HOWLING HEX

He struggled down the cobbled staircase, on crutches, to the basement bar. Him and his friend sat close to the stage, watching the blues band jam with fresh electricity. They shared a beer while the crazed-faced singer belted and ran through a berserk set list, toxic memorabilia, it made your fingers want to tap on the silver table.

When they returned home, after a yellow glow walk, she greeted them with a smile, then a blush. They felt bashful, as they were more acquainted with her familiar disposition to a soft, glimmering seriousness. She resumed work on a fragmented puzzle.

He retreated to his room, opened a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and put on Hagerty's Wilson Semiconductors. Of late NMH had been quiet, taking a vacation after Earth Junk's Marble Giants ride to the States. Found sometime anyhow to update his wonderfully strange Howling Hex blog, with it's confounding, truly unfathomable and always inspired ruminations on everything from basketball games to the latest television serials. So what is this? Cowboy rodeo with swarms of guitar knots and reverberation, Texas by way of New Mexico, not really linked to the past or the future, refusing to be tuned into the current. His voice, tuneful and persistent, hovering over the cheerful, stark spaces.

Next up, maybe, Royal Jen, Rad Times.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

He knocked on the door and there was no answer, so he walked into his friend's slim room with the concluding bathroom. The clothes, they were slumped about, heavy potions were pretending to be aperitifs, a stereo whispered Fleetwood Mac from the empty park. Upon the round table was a journal, he read an entry from a month before. His friend had been writing some sort of review on Lynne Ramsay, he compared her to Alfred Hitchcock, that cold clarity, the outsider's insight into a seemingly steady world, images cackling with a tough, dark humour. He knew that he was right and yet he decided to set fire to the notebook, watch paper disintegrate while a Left Bank brass band smuggled up and cried out from the window. Yes, he heard the call, and then all was silent.

The evidence was gone.

THE TREE OF LIFE

The seal sat on a rock looking at the sea. He was afraid of the waves, he slowly embarked upon the stones. I went up to him, to check there was no blood. Slightly fearful, I asked him what did he think of The Tree of Life? Well, he said, when I was at the cinema, people laughed at the end. They mentioned David Attenborough. Guess they were nervous, I replied. You know, modern folks become nervous when they are brought so close to nature, so close to our existence, the fug of childhood and it's pain and beauty, those half-glimpses of revelation, maybe they want to reject it. They may recoil from dinosaurs, sweet talk and Christianity, but for me there was nothing else like it; immense, perturbing your very soul.

The seal nodded, then he set off swimming, lapping up all that water, never saw him again, never did. But I can still recall his black eyes. Sleepy hopeless but warm, the summer ended with roll-up's and stares at the broken horizon. Today it was the army, tomorrow revolution.

SMOKE DECEPTION

Hi there,

Taking a break from Four Nights of a Dreamer

Thank you all for reading

Finishing my film Smoke Deception

And putting together some songs and jams

http://www.gepettosongs.com/

See ya, Chris

KATE BUSH

The cheap flight landed. Someone beside him had been served a rancid burger by a caked-up hostess. Fighting past hectic customs and passport regulations, he shrugged at officials, swaggered lightly, saw those guys with signs and placards at arrivals, tilted his black hat and said, 'Bonjour, bonjour' before boarding the train.

Slouching down he thought about Kate Bush. He definitely remembered Sensual World and Red Shoes being played in the family home. Recently he'd watched some old footage of her, admiring the distance between her modest, dimpled interviews and the towering theatricality of her acted persona. It sucked the viewer into her intricate, imaginative cosmos, you were never sure if it were Kate, Cathy or Babooshka singing, fantastical soul-bearing, not close to the bone but a circle of sirens, witch-dancing, wearing glowing necklaces from different ages.

The dark-haired woman wore a white hat to protect her from sunburn, smiled and dipped her daughter's little feet into the emerald-blue sea. The beach was a land of baked bodies, frisbee throws and ice cold showers. He sipped on American coffee from a French cup. The hotel he was staying at had been overtaken by a fashion show.

Locked out of easy security he let himself be lured into Kate Bush's smooth, jazz-calmed reinventions of her songbook. Strange touches shone through restrained consideration, her son's chewed electronic chorals, hollered religious imagery, pure shrieks taking off from a shaded, funk base. Though what really spoke to him was the revealing night memories of This Woman's Work and Moments Of Pleasure. These were pared-down, private recollections, looking at the skyline, lovelorn or free-associating at a piano, allowing the tender details of her life to flood back into focus. And he was relieved she hadn't thought to improve upon the dynamic, distressed glory of Big Stripey Lie.

GANG GANG DANCE

And the gang invited the crowd to join them on stage, gave over their microphones and instruments, until the whole room was at one. A sense of warmth pervaded the club, smirks and sweat, much laughter and delight.

On record they construct a more ordered version of that same unpredictability. Striking a collapsing point, the music spreading outwards from a middle-eastern dub anchorage to futuristic and fluttering highs. Lizzi Bougatsos knows exactly when to enter, so her lilting, happy, winsomely explosive voice always feels like an event. Renewing the wobbly, lopsided rhythms with her flirtatious embrace of some optimistic, reachable unknown. Melodies ricochet, bass plunges deep, synth-stylistics glitter gold, Eye Contact is singular in it's pursuit of a chaotic paradise.

PANDA BEAR

The customer lay on his front, head and back covered in sharp little needles. He breathed through the hole, the acupuncturist said goodbye. Listening to muzak from the Himalayans, he flexed the mind to Slow Motion. How many times had he played that song? The weightless key changes, basic beats and lulling chorus of it's counting, counting, counting mesmerised him. Something so elemental, so cleanly imagined, yet impenetrable, beyond specific meaning. A distant thought, babble language lost in harmony. An arch, a fall, stridency rising to the surface, overtaken by splintered submergence into repetition.

The patient lay on his back. A blond medical student smiled and inspected his stomach. Her legs were strained from hockey injury. Amongst the palpitations and percussion he could hear Scheherazade. Through clouds, a rainy shoreline, a building imprint of architecture, a frightened moan, as if the hand gently reached into the heart, throb of memory, shriek of dissonance. 'Now I'm going to check how you move,' she said with a wink. Tiptoes, heel to toe, then one foot in front of the other he walked out of the room.

ELIZABETH TAYLOR 1932-2011

Exceptionally beautiful and an exciting, emotionally charged actress; A Place In The Sun, Suddenly Last Summer, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, Secret Ceremony.

THE STROKES

When your a bit down at the mouth it's always a good idea to put on Room On Fire. What Ever Happened is medicinal, makes you wanna dance, makes you feel anything is possible. Is This It has maybe been overplayed, First Impressions Of Earth is slightly bloated, but Room On Fire is still pretty fun. That tight angularity, Casablancas' drop-dead 'doing you a favour' delivery, a sense of casual decadence. Today I've been playing Angles which follows on from Casablancas' underrated, 80's new-wave indebted Phrazes For The Young. There ain't many killer songs, though it sustains a playful spirit of glacial intrigue. Blondie here, sweet Jesus, Thin Lizzy there. Steve Miller baby. Chiselled, densely woven, fine-tuned, everything defined with upmost care. And there's an intimate, delicately structured ballad, Call Me Back, which fractures the ebullient mood. Outside my window I can see the early bloom of spring.

MARIANNE FAITHFULL

Marianne Faithfull is a sharp cookie these days. Writing frank memoirs, refusing to share bottles of wine with interviewers, she's well-aware of her iconic status. Though it wasn't always like this. In the sixties she was determined to live as recklessly as the boys and was punished by the outdated system. So this lovely-looking, searching young woman turned to self-destruction. Her Ophelia is perfect; narcissistic, vulnerable and grimly compliant in her own downfall. The comeback was legendary, Broken English and Strange Weather remain haunting and emotive albums, she was croaky and cool, singing words of defiance and hurt regret.

With classic artists, we permanently hope that they'll come back and show us some new tricks or at least demonstrate how it's really done, according to them. Horses And High Heels doesn't branch off into different directions and there is no equivalent of Sister Morphine or Times Square to trouble the soul with naked desolation. Yet it is heartfelt and ultimately good-natured. Faithfull relishes Hal Willner's lush, bluesy arrangements with a stately, shadowy warmth. Why Did We Have to Part has a gritty urgency. King and Goffin's Goin' Back is reinvented, innocent, youthful optimism subsided by knowing experience. Then, guess what, Lou Reed pops in with one of his precise, metallic solos that begs the tantalising question, what if the two of them joined up for a robust, melancholic collection of songs?

SONIC YOUTH

I was talking to a wonderful painter. While ago. Playing an SYR in the background. He said, 'Ah, this reminds me of Stockhausen.' As an art teacher he'd played Stockhausen for the schoolchildren in his class and their work had gained freedom and courage. Lines became more spontaneous, colours more daring.

SYR 4 found Sonic Youth engaged in the experimental notational scores of several modern classical 20th century composers. They left their own distinctive fingerprints while respecting the original intentions of the graphic compositions. Some rock fans were angered, some serious music buffs were taken aback. Rules and restrictions still seemed to apply. But not for this open-minded group. Other SYR records focused on those guitars; jagged, enveloping textures of eerie, threatening sound. Sometimes, Kim Gordon would sing, moving from a breathy hush to a challenging howl, continually sensual and disconcerting. This latest SYR record is a soundtrack to a French movie titled 'Simon Werner a Disparu.' It is subtly beautiful and idiosyncratic. Splashes, clicks, scratches disturb the reassuring, reflective flow. High frequencies, pianos, was that the cold blue rumblings of the ocean I heard or the gleaming drift of a night drive through Paris. Spaced-out and contemplative, they pick up electric speed and rhythm then float back into slow echoing chords. A beguiling episode in a fascinating series.

TRISH KEENAN 1968-2011

Her voice was clear as water, elegant as a swan. Her lyrics were enticing and enigmatic, spellbound by hidden meaning; Tender Buttons, Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age.