Ashram return with a new album and new live shows in Portugal

Ashram return with a new album and new live shows in Portugal

After a long break, Ashram are back. Four years after their homonymous debut, the Italian ensemble finally completes their second album, “Shining Silver Skies”, a work which unfolds itself as an exercise in musical bliss and purity, drenched in sweet nostalgia that flickers through memories of aching loss or rapturous passion. The trio is also assisted by guest cellist Leonardo Massa on these recordings, whose contribution brings a discreet additional depth to “Shining Silver Skies”, an album which not only embodies the romantic backdrop of early 1900’s glamour but that also flirts with a slightly naïve Folk spirit occasionally. The album will be released on Digipak CD with booklet via the Portuguese label Equilibrium Music on the 22nd of May 2006. You may pre-order now at Equilibrium Music's site or directly on this site with PayPal on the Discography section. Ashram will be returning to Portugal for the third time to perform live in Lisboa (at Santiago Alquimista) on the 2nd of June 2006 and Famalicão (at Casa das Artes) on the 3rd of June 2006.

Cranes

After being at home coding until late, I was trying to decide if I should or not get out and catch some fresh air (as a matter of fact some 'less hot air', since it's as hot as hell here in Portugal) and get some dinner, or just code until I was tired enough to sleep. I decided the healthy one - eat. I really should stop doing that, or at least stop having dinner near a FNAC. The conclusion is that I came back home with less 100 €, with a 10 € meal being digested, a pack of cigarretes, and two plastic bags full of art.

One of the things I couldn't resist buying was a Cranes CD - a quite rare one. As a matter of fact I only bought it because I wouldn't probably never find it again, since nobody can convince me that this isn't a 2nd-hand CD. Violeta already told me she was having some bad experiences with Oporto's (Sta. Catarina's) FNAC as a matter of quality of preservation of CD's. Well, this was not only exteriorly bad preservated (which I noted as soon as I picked it up from the shelves), but it has been already used - guaranteed. I don't know what new deals/suppliers are they dealing with now, but I'm not liking FNAC's services lately... Oh well.

But, back to the matter, I got home and started to hear the CD. This is an AAD CD, from 1997, still from "dedicated records", and it is called "EP collection volumes 1 & 2". Not that they were ever sold separatedly, but it's a double CD. Since that finding their old material (even in mp3!) is quite difficult, this is a collector's must have, infortunately also not-so-easy findable. It covers Cranes since 1989's "Self Non Self" until 1997's "Population four", covering 12 of their releases in an almost chronologic order.

But Cranes' discography doesn't start there: "Fuse" was Cranes first demo-tape, released in August 1986, but these tapes are considered "lost" even by the members of the band, that say that a re-release of it will never see the light of day. Probably like Mordor's discography until now... After that, a Pre "Self-Non-Self" demo tape was recorded, the usual deal of a band of nothing-yet released that need something to show in order to get some gigs made. This was - so - a 15 copies "or so" release, so forget on having one in your hands... And then, in 1989, Cranes finaly got the way to release "Self Non Self", their first LP, under "Bite Back!"'s lable. In 1992 this LP was re-issued by "Dedicated", with the add of two more songs than the original version. I allways thought that the most in-your-face song of the album was "Fuse", so I was quite surprised to see that the songs chosen to this compilation were "beach mover" and "heaven or bliss". In 1990 they released two more EP's: "Inescapable" and "Espero" already under "Dedicated" lable, in August and November. In 1991 came "Adoration" EP, followed by "Tomorrows Tears" and then "Wings of Joy", this last one re-released in USA in 1997. This was, undoubtly, the most acessible sound they had made so far. The year ended with Alison Shaw (Cranes' vocalist) having a paralel project called "Inrain" with Rudy Tamaba (of A. R. Kane) that released one 7'' single in December. After one year gig'ing this full set of quick released, in 1993 the Cranes are back, releasing "Adrift", an EP, followed by "Clear", a promotional EP with three remixes of the music that can be found in the LP "Forever" that they released at the time, quickly followed by "Jewel" EP. Another release "Forever Remixes" was made, with one mix of "Jewel", four of "Clear" and the well-known Cloudless Thai's Mix. Then, "Everywhere Promo", a single CD, and "A taste of Forever", a rare promo cassete. "Shining Road" made Cranes' entry into 1994, being the EP that, with "Loved Sampler", made "Loved" probably the most successfull Cranes' release. Following the tradition, new singles and EP's followed, with "Lilies Promo", "Beautiful Friend Promo" and a surprising "La Trag�ie d'Oreste et Electre" an LP released in 1996 that is quite different to all that Cranes' did and where, and still felt so right. It is probably my favourite Cranes' CD, and was promoted with the "Ancienne Belgique Promo". "Population Four" and "Can't Get Free" were the two releases left before this compilation "EP Collection - Volumes 1 & 2" was made, "Population Four" being an LP and "Can't Get Free" a single having "Pier Scene", one song composed specially to the soundtrack to the film "Scarborough Ahoy!". Then, they released "'Til the Stars Shine", a lyrics book with all their lyrics, and that is as matter of fact being re-selled at the moment - if you want to catch one copy it's now or never, made in 1998. This book includes lyrics from what is to be 1999's "It's a Beautiful World", but get's then renamed to "Future Songs" - the first CD I ever heard from Cranes, and the first CD they did for Dadaphonic - their own record label they made for Cranes. This Dadaphonic releases must be fairily easy to find, since, even without having a great deal of distributors, they are themselves, and they care to bring to their fans their art. The CD was released in May 2001, and in January 2002 a "Future Songs Sampler" CD was made to try to boost their sells. After that, in April, they did "Submarine", a remixes CD, and "Cranes: Live in Italy" was released in May 2003 showing what can Cranes live be. In 2004 they released a new album "Particles ans Waves", that is now, since 2005, available in a CD+DVD release. On this 2006 they're still touring, but will Cranes reserve to us in the future?

EP Collection, Vols 1 & 2

Disc 1 Beach Mover Heaven or Bliss Inescapable Give Dada 331 I Hope E.G. Shining Cha Cha Escueta Brighter Tomorrow's Tears Casa Blanca Dreamless Underwater Disc 2 Shining Road September Jewel Adoration Beautiful Friend Paris and Rome Lilies Angel Bell Adrift Tangled Up Breeze Au Temple Danse Des Érinnyes Hidden Tracks Slide Starblood - Remix

"The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" on DVD!

FROM CULT AUTHOR JT LEROY’S BEST SELLING NOVEL

THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS

ASIA ARGENTO’S BOLD CINEMATIC ADAPTATION OF THE CONTROVERSIAL STORY OF A MOTHER AND HER SON LIVING HARD AND FAST IN THE DARK FRINGES OF AMERICA

Amid allegations of Warholian-style literary hoaxes and identity scandals involving "JT LeRoy," THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS, adapted from "JT’s" second novel, comes to DVD June 6, 2006.

Seven-year-old Jeremiah (Jimmy Bennett) lived a calm, comfortable life in the care of a loving foster home until the day his birth mother Sarah (Argento) suddenly showed up to reclaim him. Torn from the life he knew, Jeremiah is drawn into his mother’s reckless world of turmoil and depravity, and into a desperate struggle to survive the madness of his surroundings.

JT LeRoy was elevated into national celebrity partly due to the overwhelming power of his heart rending childhood experiences. Following the recent accusations by New York Magazine and The New York Times, which revealed the lengths one woman was willing to go to in order to gain entrance to the literary and celebrity world, THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS reveals with colorful and uncompromising filmmaking, the back-story of one character who rocked the world of literature, fashion, music and film . . . without ever existing. This is the unfathomable story of "JT Leroy."

"However you choose to view the whole affair - cruel, obvious, protracted, selfish - even those who are the angriest will admit that, yes, the whole thing was ingenious. It was an incredible show, and most of the credit goes to a punk-rock mom in San Francisco who wrote porn and did phone sex for a living." - Salon.com

Written and directed by Asia Argento (SCARLET DIVA, XXX, LAND OF THE DEAD), and shot by Eric Alan Edwards (KIDS, MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO), THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS boasts a stunning cast that includes Academy Award® nominee Peter Fonda, Jeremy Renner (NORTH COUNTRY), Michael Pitt (HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, LAST DAYS), Marilyn Manson, John Robinson (ELEPHANT, LORDS OF DOGTOWN), Ben Foster (X MEN 3, ALPHA DOG), and Jimmy Bennett (POSEIDON, POLAR EXPRESS, DADDY DAY CARE) and Cole and Dylan Sprouse as Jeremiah. Featuring music by Hasil Adkins, Sonic Youth, and Subhumans.

The DVD will be released with an exclusive limited edition photography book "Exposing a Hoax: Exclusives, Rarities and Fabrications", featuring pictures by legendary rock ’n roll photographer Mick Rock. The photography will be presented in a high quality, 24-page book inserted inside the DVD jacket and will contain key excerpts from the many newspaper and magazine features on the hoax along with some personal quotes from the filmmakers and, of course, from Mick Rock.

HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Special DVD features include director, Asia Argento and producer, Chris Hanley commentary; Theatrical Premiere featurette; JT LeRoy featurette "JT Undercover" (exclusive and candid video footage of the JT LeRoy camp in action at parties, book readings and interviews); Easter eggs; original US theatrical trailer; links and trailers/previews of Palm Pictures upcoming releases.

News taken from this source.

«Light Against Time»

«Light Against Time» is going to be on "Espaço Juventude@Lisboa", Bairro Alto (Lisbon - Portugal), and will start in the next 26th of May. By Nuno Moreira, this is a photographic exposition showing half a decade of show pictures. In the 24 pieces of concerts, some names are of revelance, like Anthony & The Johnsons, Bernardo Sassetti, Marilyn Manson, Moonspell, Mão Morta or Alice Cooper.
Without the end of selling the exposed products, Nuno Moreira just wants to show the message of a photographer present in the battlefiend between public and artist and grab some attention to the promotion of imagery in the music world.

The author, 24 years old, wants the showcase to be itinerent, promotion the free access to people interested in art and culture.

Wood & Holly

Directed by Alain Xalabarde and with music by Marilyn Manson, Wood & Holly is revolutionizing the world of musicals with its innovative and unique style. It has already been tested and has amazed all kinds of audiences – including those who are not followers of this type of music. A love story told the way it has never been done before.

Watch the trailer here:

Marilyn Manson in Sintra - Portugal

Seems that Marilyn Manson is going to be in Sintra - Portugal to start the recordings of "Phantasmagoria: The Visions Of Lewis Carroll", a movie financed with 4.2 millions of Euro by Wild Bunch. The only actress already confirmed to the cast is Lily Cole who's going to do the part of Alice. Angelina Jolie was contacted to be in a part on the movie.

I don't know what's true in this story since I read it here and there are no references to the source, but yet I hope it is true...

Body of Sin

One another CD I've got was Arcana's "Body of Sin" CD Single. As I've ordered it via internet, I had no idea of what I was going to get - noone at all. This CD has it's value just because the excelent format it comes in. They're no way to describe it, so I suggest you to try to see one for yourself: for real, not by seeing some pictures of it.

This CD single is from 2002 (kind of old, I know), but since I only had previous works from them, it doesn't affect me that much the age of the CD. This work comes after "...The Last Embrace" (2000), and shows a more defined sound, getting closer to Neofolk and thus less Ambient. This is a very good piece of work, although you can't get more than a little taste of it since there are only two tracks... But it definitively made me think on buying "Inner Pale Sun", the CD they've released after this CD-S.

MARILYN MANSON Reunites With Longtime Manager

According to Hits Daily Double, Marilyn Manson has reunited with his longtime manager Tony Ciulla's Posthuman Entertainment firm. He continues being repped legally by Danny Hayes at Davis Shapiro Lewit Montone & Hayes. Manson is currently puting the finishing touches on his sixth LP, tentatively due before the end of the year. Speaking to MTV.com in February, Manson said of the upcoming CD, "I started singing on it, but right now, musically, it's quite complete. I'm trying to find the time to finish doing my part, vocally. It's a different sort of creativity with the band. It's more 'everything goes' at this point. I think everyone will be pleased with the record when it's done. I feel I'm at my most creative at this time — I feel I can do whatever I want." Manson is also preparing for his directorial debut, "Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll", a surreal-horrific look at the life of English writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his "Alice in Wonderland" pseudonym Lewis Carroll. In addition to directing "Phantasmagoria", Manson said he's also composing the film's score. That project, too, is nearly completed, with most of the elements coming from past Manson recording sessions. "It's interesting that we can create scenes around the mood of certain songs," he told MTV.com. "It's working in a different way than you normally would with film. I just started making music that ended up not fitting anywhere on any of the Marilyn Manson albums over the years, and I kind of collected it together. It's much more cinematic."

Thanks to BlabberMouth for the news.

The Pale Hunt Departure

Today I've got the last four CD's I was expecting to get for this April, and I intend to, in time, review them. For now, I'll talk about Novembers Doom latest album "The Pale Hunt Departure".

One of the things I've allways liked in Novembers Doom is that they are quite explicitly conceptual. But even if that is true, their development as a band isn't as nice as it could... A short biography:

Novembers Doom was formed in 1989, but it was only in 1992 that they presented the world to their Doom Metal sound in a two tracks demo, which lead them to 1995's "Amid Its Hallowed Mirth" their first and most recognized conceptual work. After that one EP and two more CD's were released, as well as a tour promotional CD. But all that works aren't seen as art pieces by themselves: they are just complements to the Hallowed Mirth, and a proof that the band was still creating. Only something to remark over that period of time - in 2001 "Amid Its Hallowed Mirth" has seen a great re-release, under Dark Symphonies label.

In the end of 2005 they shook the Doom Metal scene once again, with this "The Pale Hunt Departure". Having lot's of similarities with Amid Its Hallowed Mirth, now they present as an improoved version of their Art - both technicly and conceptualy. An well more defined concept is presented to us and a powerfull blast of emotional Metal. This isn't an "WOW" release, but it's a very good one, that shows us who Novembers Doom really are, what they want to say to us, and, specially, that you must be ready, because they're here to stay, and their future works will be really promissing.

For those who know their previous works, a warning: this time they have no female vocals at all - which is good since they now know they don't need them, and because that made them more defined.

Conceptual Art

"Conceptual Art" or "Idea Art" is all we here at Room 404 are about - talking and dissecting the ideas or concepts behind a piece of art, or (usually) the whole work of an Artist or group of Artists.

The tradicional vision of a piece of art is that the piece is the art itself. In conceptual art, the piece is just an object or representation of the art itself. In this cases, the Art is the concept, the idea, and not the format and representation. This turns to be important to understand why so much conceptualists are not just paintors, musicians, film makers, but do it all and nothing - they just try to spit it out and show their Art/Concept.

Sol Lewitt said:

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes art.

In the sixties, Joseph Kosuth and English Art and Language group discarded the conventional art object in favour an documented critical inquiry into the artist's social, philosophical and psycological status.

Conceptual Art predates that, but the sixties aren't ocasional: the big boom of Conceptual Art was then a reaction against the commodization of art - it attempted, and in our point of view the need of such an attempt urges more than ever, a subversion of the idea that the gallery, the museum, the publishers, the art market in general is what defines, owns and distributes art.

Laurence Weiner said:

Once you know about a work of mine you own it. There's no way I can climb inside somebody's head and remove it.

Many conceptual artists' work can therefore only be known about through documentation which is manifested by it, e.g. photographs, written texts or displayed objects, which are not in themselves the art. It is sometimes (as in the work of Robert Barry, Yoko Ono, and Weiner) reduced to a set of written instructions describing a work, but stopping short of actually making it - emphasising that the idea is more important than the artifact.

Of course that this makes Conceptual Art quite difficult to understand, interpret, dissect. We, here in the 404, can't do more than spice your appetite to find it for yourselves. We'll throw you some tips, but the art is only beautiful if you're the one doing the process of knowing it.

The fact that this kind of art isn't easy understandable makes it quite hated. As a matter of fact, the existence of such a movement created a counter-movement called "Anticonceptual Art".

Conceptual Art made as an explanation or taking as inspiration from the Conceptual Art itself, is often considered as Post-Conceptual Art. Diving into Post-Conceptualists is often a painfully travel amongst art, history, culture and anthropology. Are you ready to walk on room 404, will you close the door behind?

Alternative Freedom

Alternative Freedom is a movie that's being aired all over the world.

While Congress changes our copyright laws under the behests of a few powerful corporations, individuals across the United States are losing their digital rights. Activists are working together to change this oppressive regime and create an alternative of freedom.

Two filmmakers uncover the most important legal battles of our time: Copyright Law and Digital Rights Management. Featuring interviews with DJ Danger Mouse, Lawrence Lessig and more.

Here's the trailer...

Viewing the trailer requires Quicktime. If your browser does not support embedded files you can dowload the .mov directly here.

Room 404

Greetings, and welcome to room 404. This blog was created by Mistress Violeta, that kindly invited me to participate in.

What's room 404? We're here to talk to you about the facts that aren't talked about, in art and showbusiness surrounding it. Since the beggining of Time that true art hides in itself more than it shows. A piece of art enclosures in itself remaints of the artist and the art itself. Are you ready to see what's behind Art?