Mellotronists

Just to touch on Sino/Anglo/American rigamarole for an instant...first
of all, I thought it was only the Japanese who seem to be famous for
exchanging the "R" sound for the "L" sound, and not the Chinese,
Koreans, and others in the area. 

"If you spin someone around and around from the Far East, do they
become disOriented?"

When I think of China these days, I think of the upward urban
skyscraper explosion taking place over there. Incredible modern
skylines, and peppered with nice parks, riparian zones, green areas,
and many times bumped up against farmland with minimal suburban areas
as buffers. It seems they have come to grips with its burgeoning
population and land use issues. They must. What ever happened to the
one child per family birth control ruling? The internal problem now is
their appetite for petroleum.

And as for the bit about the Chinese wanting Hong Kong to drive on the
right side of the road like the rest of the country (Okinawa did it
overnight when the U.S. turned it back over to Japan, but it's a bit
different when instead of 70,000 people, you're dealing with a
population of fifteen million.

I suggest to be less of a shock to the Hong Kong driving public, the
switchover should be implemented in stages. Week One=bicycles, motor
scooters, moped, motorcycles...Week Two=trucks and buses...Week
Three=passenger cars, vans--well, you get the idea.

I came across a CD today, a teaser for an upcoming release on
4AD/Beggars (US) August 9th by Minotaur Shock titled "Maritime".
Minotaur Shock is a one man effort by David Edwards, who also front a
band I have not heard before, Bronze Age Fox.

It's all cerebral instrumental music, cleverly crafted, layered, and
woven together into something the bio sheet claims has a nod to Boards
of Canada, but I think it's overall more along the lines of if Phillip
Glass played with Capitol K with just a dash of Steve Fisk or
Supercollider (the Emigre band, and not the newer band on some other
label). Three of the eleven cuts have nice up-front doses of
Mellotron...icey strings, bassoon, woodwinds, flute, and several male
and female choir mixes. One song "Somebody Once Told Me..." has an
intro that hints of both Simon & Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa" and
Strange Advance's "Worlds Away" kicking off at the same time. Catchy
as all get-out. Something David Edwards did in his living room, and
the kind of stuff I wish I could do with the array of analog gear I
have and a Zoom MRS-1608CD digital recorder...

I'll have to hunt down material by the Bronze Age Fox...

www.minotaurshock.com