Lil' Ainjil

In the spirit of myself, I picked up some pretty old-school comics collections. And I'm talking daily comics: Modesty Blaise and Krazy Kat. I've been into Modesty awhile in book form ever since accidentally discovering her presence in Pulp Fiction. The comic looks so far like it'll be a little fluffier than the books, but should be pretty enjoyable anyway. I've been telling people left and right that Modesty is like James Bond only way cooler. Fleming had nothing on Peter O'Donnell. 

Krazy Kat meanwhile is indeed krazy. Absolutely insane. If it has a plot it's pretty simple: the cat is in love with the mouse, the mouse likes to throw bricks at the cat, the dog (cop) likes to catch the mouse in the act and throw him in jail. It is basically an excuse for the most bizarre sense of humor (and language), trippy landscapes and open-ended pacing of about any comic strip I've read. Watterson said this was a big influence on him; I'm not sure how, since it's much more work to read than Calvin, but whatever! It's friggin' cool. 

Musics: Back into Fantastic Damage for the first time in a long while. Really liking the post-apocalyptic hip hop these days. While summer is great for reggae and lollipops and whatnot, the heat can also make you fiend for something loud that has something to say. Exactly what El-P has to say is hard to know, since his voice is still drowned in the wall of sound, but the FanDam Plus instrumentals definitely feel like they're missing something. 

Then there's the Sly & Robbie comp Funky Nassau, which I've been wanting to get for months and finally tracked down. Very compressed productions somewhere between the Ark and the 1980 Downtown scene. ESG meets Junior Mervin. For the most part very cool and kind of oddball. And the first track from Remain in Light is on there, so kudos to that for probably my favorite synth solo ever (not counting my owns). 

Also picked up another producer comp (more and more of these): Mizell which is 70s Blue-Note cheese. Probably not respected when it came out, and if I play it around some people I know it still won't be respected, but there's definitely some funk on there. I also noticed sample sources for Black Moon, Organized Konfusion and Madlib and I'm sure there are more in there too. 

Fucking have to get Pro Tools, can't cope with just M-Audio, so I'm going for LE. We'll see how big a hole that makes in my shrinking pocket. Shame that this comes right when Arturia's doing a 2-for-1 deal. 

Ledger's on the edger; so I hear. Can't wait. And on Tuesday: Rydia and Cecil. So much to live for.