December 2011
3 posts
DKF TOP 10 FILMS OF 2011
1) Take Shelter
Utterly devestating and essential treatise on mental illness and the apocalypse. Michael Shannon managed to accuraetly capture the essence of illness itself being both an observer and participant in his own collapse.
2) 13 Assassins
Beautifully presented with images of shocking brutality contrasted with lush stillness. Leading to a climax that stands alone as one of the greatest...
1 tag
DKF TOP 20 OF 2011 + REVIEW XX
It’s always hard to define and construct a list. Each entry represents a cycle of listening and experience, and always things are omitted that slip the mind. Each list is a work of art. Each list pertains to represent the outside world yet is somehow trapped inside it’s own listology. Masters of the list: Kurt Cobain, Basquiet and Paul Morley knew/ know this..the list refers to itself...
November 2011
2 posts
WatchHot free dancefloor action on Eyeless!!
Lulu. Why the critics are wrong.
I always distrust common consensus. Especially when it comes from the critics. Metallica and Lou Reed’s album Lulu has been absolutely panned from everyone from the Gaurdian to Pitchfork to The Quietus. It has been dubbed ‘the worst album ever made’ in some quarters. At this point I’d like us to recall that Lou Reed is no stranger to courting controversy. Berlin and Metal...
October 2011
2 posts
September 2011
1 post
Metal
” Sure, there are longtime USBM diehards like Inquisition, Absu, and Averse Sefira, groups who’ve been there for decades, and who will keep releasing strong albums without showing up on your non-metal friend’s iPod.”
Brandon Stosuy, Pitchfork 23/09/11
I think it’s the statement “without showing up on your non-metal friends ipod” which really offends...
May 2011
2 posts
top 10 albums so far..mid year (ish)
In no order:
Chain And The Gang: Music’s Not For Everyone Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring For My Halo Low: C’mon Buffalo Tom: Skins Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi Thao & Mirah: Thao & Mirah James Blake: S/T Earth: Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light Lila Ices: Grown Unknown Seefeel: Seefeel
Maximum Knowledge
We all know now that ala Bjork lauching her website ‘Biophelia’ is the result of our move away from product based to experience based consumption. For bands as big as Liars, Bjork, Tyler or Radiohead this has been exploited to it’s fullest with huge amounts of firepower. But what of the nobodies? As a career nobody I am going to embark on an album making experience of my own. I...
March 2011
1 post
Custom Blue- EP 3 Review.
When I first encountered Custom Blue I was in total awe. They were signed to Island, were tipped for awards and counted Max Tundra as one of their members in an early incarnation. What was not to love? When I first heard ‘Structures’ from their 1st album I was gobsmacked at it’s eerie yet symphonic beauty. Here was a band able to be experimental, emotive and totally in love with...
January 2011
1 post
DKf's Film Top 10 of 2010
1) Bad Leuitenant: Port of Call New Orleans Zen like film making from German master. 2) Kick Ass Deliriously violent and funny American debut for Matthew Vaughan. 3) Predators Near perfect genre stuff, a robust, sparkling and inspired entrance into the Predators hall of fame. 4) Lovely Bones Under-rated but deeply moving and quite spectacular. 5) Chico & Rita Gentle jazzy and...
December 2010
1 post
The Criteria 8
Welcome to the final Criteria of the year. The American was one of those films that drew you in tight and never let go, it took about 5mins to become convinced that George Clooney could play a troubled hitman. The simmering tension throughout the film never let up..it looked beautiful and reminded me in tone of Limits Of Control. This one was a (****). I then saw Hiroshima at the Brighton Cnecity...
November 2010
3 posts
The Criteria 7
Welcome to what will likely be the penultimate installment of my Criteria film reviews for the year. These reviews are ‘emotional ashtray’ reviews..I weep, holler, shiver howl and die laughing, over every four films I see, and rate them out of 5. Burke & Hare, this low key release somewhat sneaked out considering the calibre involved..the production design was handsome, the...
Top Ten 2010 right now:
In no order:
Art Of Burning Water- The Tempest. Britains most daring violent hard rock bands. They pysch out, sure, but always with focus and determination and dazzling musicianship. Brutal. DJ Roc- The Crack Capone. Low end science and baffling hyper-programming…but lots of space and capable of great feats of aching beauty. Janelle Monae- Archandroid. Total epic pop. Touches everywhere...
Olanzapine
Two days without my Olanzapine. Strange things are happening, I feel incredibly powerful and sexy, I can’t focus on people’s words and all I could think when the salesman at Jessops waxxed lyrical about the artistry of Crank 2 was : ‘I wish I hadn’t chucked my meds’ I had a powerful encounter with some casual acquantance from the coffee shop, then a radiant...
September 2010
1 post
The Criteria 6
The Criteria Movie Reviews is back!! Every 4 movies I review (that I’ve seen on the big screen) I bring pen to paper, or finger to typing board..and go TOTALLY emotive on the films I have witnessed/ worshipped/ despised and been horrified by. Inception. Inception, Inception, Inception, hmmmm..what is it about Chris Nolan that appeals to me so much? He’s a pioneer of the...
July 2010
2 posts
Criteria 6
This round up includes 5 films as one I saw at the cinema which has been only released straight to dvd. But I saw it in the cinema…so in it goes. Here you will find the right brain review (is that the right side?)..total subjective emotionally manipulated honesty..my stars are out of 5. I’ll start with Four Lions, which belongs in the great tradition of contemporary British comedy...
June 2010
3 posts
2010 top 10 so far:
1) Thou- Baton Rouge (slayingly heavy and up there with the best!) 2) Laura Veirs- July Flame (eyes closed, drifting, gently rocking) 3) Actress- Splaszh (next-level electronic funk) 4) Melvins- The Bride Screamed Murder (Inventive, exuberent and crushing) 5) Autechre- Oversteps (we all new their 10th would blow minds, and it did) 6) Mesh Alive- 3 (unreleased sludgey noise expression from Eyeless...
Current 10 (blowing my mind)
Verve -Storm In Heaven (has it really been 17 years since its release? Simply staggering.) Melvins- The Bride Screamed Murder (where they finally prove they are better than Led Zeppelin…GOD LIKE!) Autechre- Mover Over Ten (unfathomably complex, beautiful and soulful in this their late period..) Low- Things We Lost In The Fire (it’s like a warm bath for depression to dissolve in) Hey...
top ten albums of present moment:
1. Daniel Higgs- Say God (it’s like listening and praying all at the same time..magical.) 2. Custom Blue- All Will Be Well (the more I understand it the more it astonishes me.) 3. Codeine- The White Birch (probably in my top 5 albums ever) 4. Ikonika- Contact, Want, Love, Have (what a gift of melody she has! wicked beats too) 5. Peace For Old Ghosts- Between (total musical genius gets cdr...
May 2010
2 posts
The Criteria 5
Back to my right-brain (or left?) review column. O.K. After Bright Star my next film was Kick Ass..this was one the brightest, most exuberant and casually brutal action films I’ve seen since Kill Bill..it was also extremely funny. I can say no more except it was without doubt a (*****) experience, the set pieces were fiendishly inventive, the narrative tight and it had moments of genuine...
6 tags
In defense of Pop-Metal
As we wait the imminent arrival of Deftones ‘Diamond Eyes’, and bearing in mind its rich collision of mostrous riffs and polished choruses, I am becoming mindful of that dirty concept…’heavy pop.’ Heavy pop is an exercise often utilised by hard rock/metal bands who tire of the template that they created, be it noise-rock, grunge, stoner-rock, grind and begin to iron...
April 2010
1 post
The Criteria 4
Welcome to my film review blog. Every 4 films I review it with a star rating out of 5. I try to capture the feeling I felt when credits rolled up, before my point of view was enhanced/ corrupted by post-match discussion. The Lovely Bones…torn apart by everyone, depsite my goodwill towards all film I went in expecting some kind of misfire from Sir Jackson. What I didn’t expect to be was...
March 2010
1 post
The Criteria 3
Here is part 3 of my film reviews series where every 4 films I give a rating out of 5 stars. This is my honest opinion and I’ve tried to stay as true as possible to that 1st vibe that hits me as the credits roll up. I am going to review every film I see this year. Youth In Revolt was a smart, fun and catchy film that played to Michael’s Cera’s strengths by inventing a new persona...
February 2010
1 post
The Criteria 2
This is part 2 of my film review series where every 4 films i see at the cinema I give my HONEST opinion of films in question followed by rating out of 5 stars in brackets. Sex And Drugs And Rock n Roll was an energetic, enthusiastic if not entirely groundbreaking rockopic. Andy Serkis was on fine form and it left me wanting to hear more of Ian Dury + The Blockheads music. The film didn’t...
January 2010
2 posts
The Criteria
Here is a new occasional series on film. These are the 1st 4 films I’ve seen at the cinema this decade. I will give my HONEST opinions with a bracketed star rating out of 5. Sherlock Holmes, I thought this film was going to belong to Mark Strong, but unsurprsingly it belonged Robert Downey Jnr. It was ludicrous but I found alot of fun to be had in it. I was impressed with the decor and feel...
35 then...
Maybe because …I have no idea what to expect from this year, because 35 feels like ‘half-way’…because I’m fed up with being Bi-Polar, because it’s my Birthday and I feel a little sadness…(who doesn’t?) because my ambition far out-weighs my reach… Maybe because there are hundreds of stories to write, hundreds of albums to make, comics to draw, I...
December 2009
1 post
Top Ten of the DECADE
I debated whether to do a list this year. Lists usually imply some kind of knowledge or deeper understanding of culture made by critics who have to keep some kind of status quo for the publication. A decade where I became increasingly sceptical that there was in fact ‘good’ or ‘bad’ music, just response and feeling. Where any album can make you feel so alive and good. A...
November 2009
1 post
Todd/ Scout Niblett/ Shit and Shine/ Monotonix/
SCALA: 25/11/09
Todd: masculine, theatrical, grind-rock. Heavier-than-thou poured off the stage, but they were electrifying and in places really connected.
Black Heart Procession: Great on record…the alternative U2 on stage. Plodding but ‘nice’.
Shit And Shine: deeply smug, cliquey anti-metal…they think they are gods and it shows..
Monotonix: asshole-mic...
October 2009
1 post
Friday/16/10/09
UP 3D as a cultural experience kicked off the beginning of my new look series on random cultural apparati new or old that I feel need to be talked about again. This series reflects on comics, music, film and usually recounts a days or nights activity. It is not overly fussed about newness. Like Wall-E, UP was a deeply moving, simultaneously funny and sad account of loss and discovery set against...
August 2009
1 post
It takes years...
Some flash in the pan stuff is so gone and forgotten yet so trendy at the time it doesn’t register. Real power comes through time, real artisitic endeavour and commitment isn’t frightened off by the ripple of favour, the fear of failure…rolling the dice and taking a risk can be tripl-y rewarding. I believe Custom Blue’s ‘All Will Be Well’ is their greatest...
May 2009
1 post
Why do some make it and others don't?
Within the interconnected outposts of various magazines there is a deeply entrenched disdain for the middle classes. These music magazines barely conceal their prurient disgust by attempting to out do the reader by creating the impression that however much you know, they know more…how ever much you have felt…they felt it first and consequently that these writers are privy to a deeper...
March 2009
3 posts
Brothers Of The Sonic Cloth- Demo 2009
It has allways alluded me as to why Tad never really went nuclear. Listening back to Tad’s decade long career I hear a band who sound like nothing else on earth. I’ve allways maintained that they were a rock band, with all the magnificence and drama the word implies accompanied by a near mythic line in unhinged slow motion agression, unexpected pop hooks, serating metal and feedback...
Clara Kindle 'Moors ep'
Sometimes music sounds like the packaging. And I mean this in the most beautiful way because rarely have I received such an interesting, lovingly and inspirational package as this. A folded over card, with a button holding the cd, a folded piece of paper, a photograph within this contained all the reasons why underground cdr/cassette culture can evoke such connections in the audience. The music...
In defence of stadium
It’s not about good or bad stadium, or even acceptable and unnacceptable, or even stadium it’s o.k. to like and stadium it’s not o.k. to like. It’s about are you in or out?
I’m so fuckin’ in it’s unreal…I just love the ridiculously high production values (oh my GOD they are amazing!), the huge inflated egos, the preposterous concept albums. I can listen to and have as much an emotional charge...
February 2009
1 post
Face-ometer, Humans Are Amazing, Foetus 502, Gappy...
Face-o-meter, big in spirit and wordplay, deft with guitar and playful with the tiny audience, tonights so-called ‘cursed’ gig could have fallen apart if it were not for three young men who through a concoction of originality, big-heartedness and out-right ingenuity made the gig utterly memorable. Face-o-meter’s warm and engaging performance included lyrical brilliance in the...
January 2009
1 post
A few thoughts on d.i.y.
At the beginning of the year I had the obsession to go professional with my label Eyeless, that would be an aim with ideas about pressing ‘official’ formats such as vinyl and cds. I started to think about how to condense 10 of my most presentable trx with the purpose of putting them onto an album. I thought about compilations, fantasised about who I could release, obsessively...
December 2008
1 post
Official Eyeless website →
This where you’ll find lots of fun…
November 2008
1 post
Hollow live:
Hollow, the new outfit featuring David K Frampton and Zahra Tahini from Baby Gravy will be making or breaking it at Oxfords Jericho Tavern on 13th/14th Dec. as part of the Winter Warmer fest. and on the 21st at the Oxford Academy on a bill with Hreda, Pete & The Pirates and The Young Knives. We are on early, much more to come! Very busy at Eyeless office. Process Archive Vol. 001 and Foetus...
October 2008
3 posts
Peace For Old Ghosts - Symmetry. This track from...
The Core
My first mini-comic series ‘The Core’ about a reluctant hitman is out now. Issues #1 and #2 are available. A limited number of #2 are at Videosyncratic in Oxford, now. They are free if you pick them up in the shop or £1 at shows or through me at Eyeless HQ: davidkframpton@yahoo.com
September 2008
5 posts
This is Cutterblade ‘Serpents’. It...
Eyeless Discography
Ess001. David K Frampton ‘A Snapshot Of Dying Slowly’ (cdr x30). Reverb drenched melancholia.
Ess002. David K Frampton ‘Rock’ (cdr x10). Head shattering crunch n’ roll.
Ess003. David K Frampton ‘A Ten Corners’ (cdr x15/unavail.) Face melting drift.
Ess004. David K Frampton ‘Prayer/36’ (cdr x36) Strange, complex, sprawling.
Ess005. David K...
This is a rare track from 2006’s A Snapshot...
