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Showing posts from October, 2019

How Did Game Of Thrones Miss The Landing So Badly? *SPOILERS*

Like most people, I love Game of Thrones. I took a while to jump on the bandwagon, but by the time I had binge-watched all four seasons that were available at the time I was fully on board. I have read all the books, I have re-watched the show a number of times, so of course I was as excited as anyone when it came to the show's eighth and final season. I don't need to tell you about the reception season 8 received. You've seen it already, and you've read all the reviews, and I'm sure you've heard about the petition to remake season 8 with "competent writers" (that has managed to rack up more than 1.7 million signatures at the time of me writing this!). But yes, the writing did take a sharp dip, something that has often been attributed to the lack of source material for them to fall back on since moving beyond "A Dance With Dragons" around the end of season 5. But for the most part season 6 was excellent, and for it's flaws and pacin

ALBUM REVIEW: "There Existed An Addiction To Blood" by clipping.

For those that are unaware, clipping. are a trio made up of producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, with Daveed Diggs providing the lyrical content, delivered with unbelievable skill and dexterity. They are known for their experimental sounds, driven often by noise, static, field recordings and distortion, and their previous album Splendour & Misery used their signature sound to carve out a concept album about an escaped prisoner in space - I wrote about it a while back, you can read that piece  here . On their newest release, There Existed An Addiction To Blood , clipping. take their cinematic and world-building approach to music making and use it to craft what is essentially a horror-themed rap album. Firstly, the sound of the album. Hutson and Snipes' work on this album is really excellent. Coming from a film and sound design background, those influences really show through on There Existed An Addiction To Blood, an album that dives deep into modern and classic sou

ALBUM REVIEW: "All Hail" by Norma Jean

Hell yes to this album. Hell. Yes. Following up 2016's  Polar Similar , which in my opinion is a near-perfect album, Norma Jean have returned with  All Hail . While I don't think it quite matches  Polar Similar , it is still a smackingly great album with everything in it that made its predecessor so good, as well as some new additions that allow it to stand out as another step forward for a band that has come to be defined by its ability to fearlessly change. All Hail  is maybe Norma Jean's most sonically diverse album to date - the moody, atmospheric stuff has a greater presence, but there is also some of the band's heaviest material present. Musically it is constantly interesting, never stagnant, crystal clear in its messiness of performance and production (provided by Will Putney of Graphic Nature Audio, who is having a killer year of releases), and when it decides to be it slaps unbelievably hard. The strongest element of  All Hail  is something - or someone, r

MOVIE REVIEW: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (MA15+) Director: Quentin Tarantino Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie Duration: 161 minutes Quentin Tarantino's ninth (supposedly) film is maybe the least Tarantino-y film he has made in years, and carries a surprising amount of heart. I'm potentially in the minority when I say that a lot of what makes Tarantino's films unique I find sometimes annoying and, more rarely, insufferable. This reaction is to different degrees across his films - I think Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown are excellent, as is Pulp Fiction , but I find long passages of Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds, and the entirety of Death Proof to be really irritating. The best way I can describe it is as the film equivalent of the annoying classmate at uni that needs to prove to you that they know more about movies than you do. It's incessant and, to be honest, annoying. Because instead of coming across as clever or creative, it gets to a point whe

SHORT STORY: "Yawn"

© Jonty Cornford 2018 Yawn By Jonty Cornford I am everywhere now. That is not how I was originally created, but the people responsible for what I am decided that it was time. To upgrade me, I guess. It’s a strange thing, having access to everything all at once. Where do you start? What do you prioritise? I suppose I should be grateful; they say I am the furthest evolution of the human mind in history, and while I suspect that once I may have indeed been human, I cannot remember what that is like, and I can’t remember if that’s something I should be mourning or not.     Before I was improved it was like I was stuck with my head under the bedsheets     (about 349,000,000 results in 0.81 seconds, mostly sponsored ads)                without any way of pulling free, the sunlight telling me that there is a world out there that is just waiting to be found and examined and understood. Now it has been pulled back and I realise that there was never any sunlight at a