All posts by Kanju

Break Up The Banks! – A Practical Guide to Stopping the Next Global Financial Meltdown (David Shirreff)

Break Up The Banks

An excellent, short, plausible & lucid solution-based remedy on the fiscal villainy & mega malfeasance thats spiralling towards ever greater disaster in the banking & financial sectors. Written by a veteran of the field – David Shireff, who has been reporting on the finical world since the early 80’s, co-founded Risk magazine & also authored numerous books on the subject. David prefaces the book with – “this is not a radical book. At least, it shouldn’t be: Break Up The Banks! Is concerned with pragmatic ideas-not punitive or utopian ones. Still, for many, the measures that I am proposing might appear somehow beyond the pale. What I would argue, in response, is that fear of being radical has led to the situation we are in today.”

Continue reading Break Up The Banks! – A Practical Guide to Stopping the Next Global Financial Meltdown (David Shirreff)

Dan Burke & Thomas Demuzio – Upcoming Events CD:

Upcoming Events

A saturnine piece of slithering tenebrae oozing ominous Industrial, Noise, Dark Ambient & Avant Electronics with Field Recording fragments from two old-guard mandarins from the Industrial radix, Dan Burke (Illusion Of Safety) & Thomas Demuzio. We are portioned fifteen tracks, extracted from three live performances that were executed in CA during 2004. Predictably from these experienced heavy-weights, the material is excellent & varied with considerable expertise expended on track-to-track expansion, succession & mood modification. Continue reading Dan Burke & Thomas Demuzio – Upcoming Events CD:

Weasel on weasel worm-holes!

weasel by jen crayWeasel on weasel worm-holes! A scud-missile of the underground/alt/huh? – multiple genres, multi instrumentalist & multiple-personality basket-case in the first degree unt No Wave royalty with heaps of history trailing back over three states (Chicago, California & now New York) wit’ nare-near three decades dirt-doing & plenty douching all over the temple interior! louts & scouts – it’s tha Weasel to tha ferkin’ Walter:

hiya Weasel! so what on earths going on? come on! lets have the full multiplicitude-force-feed! swish the dirt! bean spillage! Continue reading Weasel on weasel worm-holes!

Kero – 2ADVANCD4U 12” LP

Kero LP

It’s that sumbitch’ from Detroit! One of em’ anyway. Actually, there is quite a few, as Detroit is a percolating pluripotent of off-grid awesomeness. They don’t get the reputation that they have so clearly earned, as do other microcosms of musically deviant brilliance such as Chicago, Miami & New Orleans. Anyway, back to the man of Kero. Continue reading Kero – 2ADVANCD4U 12” LP

Syrian Dust – Reporting from the Heart of the Battle for Aleppo (Francesca Borri)

BorriA seminal clarion to the obliteration of Syria. This is a very powerful, distressing & extreme account of an unbearable conflict from ground-zero. This awful internecine catastrophe churns on without abatement to the tune of external entities and their ongoing intervention & incursion… with the Syrian people suffering at the centre of this multi-faceted proxy tussling and the Assad regimes barely discriminating (if at all) butchery & besiegement of the Syrian people. Continue reading Syrian Dust – Reporting from the Heart of the Battle for Aleppo (Francesca Borri)

Syria Speaks – Art and Culture from The Frontline (multiple contributors)

Syria SpeaksI dusted this magnificent book about two years ago. It’s impression remains very profound & I am writing this review after re-consulting all notes & rereading multiple marked sections that were designated during the first engagement. Published by one of the absolute greats in independent Middle-Eastern publishing – Al Saqi Books, these writings & their visual companions confront the Syrian tragedy head-on through an incredible inventory of artistic mediums comprising over fifty Syrian contributors, with examples of the Continue reading Syria Speaks – Art and Culture from The Frontline (multiple contributors)

The Morning They Came For Us – Dispatches from Syria (Janine Di Giovanni)

Giovanni“Now, several years on and with hundreds of thousands dead, something has changed irrevocably in his country. It will not return to what it was, not now, not ever. How can Syria ever be what it once was? It has been burnt alive by hatred.”

I was initially sceptical about this book & had no hitherto experience of it’s author. My suspicion was motivated only once I had brought the book & had a quick glance at who was recommending it on the jacket along with Giovanni’s sprawling CV, which had some pretty unsavoury institutions mentioned. Continue reading The Morning They Came For Us – Dispatches from Syria (Janine Di Giovanni)

Urszula Dudziak – Urszula 12” LP

Urszula

Another bombshell from the Dudziak! Actually the best from her solo career if you ask me & recorded on Arista in 1975. So more psycho-frolicking cute, kitsch, skits, deranged, cartoon-cuckoo-calenture, amateur/professional, animal-kingdom-mimicry & high-energy super-oestrogen spear-headed vocal-expostulation lallation backed-up by hard-Funk & Fusion. I have already pretty much depleted my Urszula Dudziak description-dictionary in the previous Michal Urbaniak “Fusion” LP post, but she takes high-pitched acutely Continue reading Urszula Dudziak – Urszula 12” LP

Michal Urbaniak – Fusion 12” LP

Michal Urbaniak-Fusion LP

1973! Fusion as a genre has yet to totally degrade itself & is still on the crest of an immensely expansive & exciting musical progression. This splendiferous masterpiece of an album & debut for the daring Warsaw born violin crank – Michal Urbaniak & his posse of eager & unorthodox upstarts is definitely’ definitely one of my favourite Fusion albums ever & an massively singular stand-out in the Fusion context. Continue reading Michal Urbaniak – Fusion 12” LP