So I'm going to take the when in rome attitude and focus on cooking Nyona food - which is to me the pinnackle of Malay cooking.
The locals would disagree in a way - unless they came from that background, they prefer the street foods like nasi lemak (which is a great breakfast)
]]>So have had some free time to look around and kind of like what I see. I am in the cbd district the so called golden triangle. Which is mostly overpriced and western. Checked out Chinatown yesterday it was a giant disappointment. The people are nice though. Vego food is more difficult to find than in say Thailand but still it can be located. The food generally less chilli than Thai but is still good.
Surprised at how moderate they are for a majority Muslim population.
My preferred msic genre - Black Metal is banned though. I guess that ban is as ineffictive as the ban on pornography and pirated DVDs which I saw plenty of in Chinatown yesterday.
Had my birthday drinks with work colleagues on Friday night but realistically I was the only one drinking as the Muslim Malay and Christian Indians don't drink. That left me and one petite Chinese girl who had one drink before taking off leaving me throwing back the beers solo. Not much fun to drink solo really.
The things I have been enjoying the most is real food and Aussie items in the supermarkets.
]]>I was never brought up to listen to or enjoy Reggae, a fact that surprised me when I finally started to dig into this genre and discovered how much seminal music came out of Jamaica during the same period as the supposedly "classic rock" that I was instead raised on.
Recently I have been pounding the 3 CD collection Big Youth - Natty Universal Dread from Blood and Fire who have for many years consistently been reissuing absolute gems many of which never originally received much exposure outside of their native Jamaica.
One of the deepest joys for me in Jamaican music is how the same riddim gets reused, reworked and recycled over and over again. This is the origin of sampling, of rap music and so much more.
One riddim that has really got me going the past week is Strange Things, originally recorded by John Holt. John is more known as a bit of a crooner but this is a real dark gem. The lyrics are thought provoking and the moody sparseness of the riddim is as powerful as it's solid groove.
In his trademark style, Big Youth had too much to say that he could not just version this riddim once. He really works the space and flow of the original in "Miss Lou Ring A Ding" bringing out all the sorrow and beauty into something that is much stronger than it's constituents. Whereas on "Same Something" hand percussion draws out the spacey dub element of the original groove.
I'm keen to hear other re-interpretations of this great riddim, John Holt is better known for his time with rock steady group the Paragons, who are most famous for their very frequently covered "The Tide Is High" but who also originally performed "Wear you to the ball" which was versioned so expertly by U-Roy in 1969.
In my mind this riddim ranks up there with the Fisherman riddim by the Congoes as both a great riddim and an amazing original track.
]]>My needs have been simplified by Norway, I have got used to bad coffee, no vego food options whatsover, bad overpriced beer and cheap drunks on expensive alcohol.
However I have also been educated in "cosy" as an attitude for getting through long cold winters.
Also I better understand the pre Christian concept of Yule and how deeply it informs the Northern European version of Christmas
So keeping all of this in mind helps explain why one who dislikes Christmas so much actually enjoyed strolling through the yule markets in Prague.
We have not done too much touristy things this time around mostly focused on relaxing and enjoying ourselves in a cosy and romantic city.
What Prague had in store for me was romance but at the time that was unbenownst to me.
This time around my perspective is different, now a married man and accustomed to life in Norway.
]]>I have no like for Little Johnny Coward as my father loves to call him, but I have actually spent my entire adult life living in a country run by Howard and the party he represents.
One of the reasons I so strongly dislike Howard is the way he plays this political game, which of course should never be treated like a game at all. To sum it up, he is a canny old bastard.
Take the announcement of an election on a Sunday, one of the things that has confused people - including me about this year's election is that they have changed the laws about the cutoff date for electoral enrolment.
This SMH article states that electoral rolls close the day the election is announced. Yet this time around Howard has announced the election on a Sunday, a non working day. Further confusing the issue.
Looking at the official electoral web site they can't even get it right or advise Howard correctly.
Howard has stated that Weds 17th is the cutoff if you have not yet registered and Mon 22 is the cutoff if you have registered but need to update your details.
However Monday is a full day public holiday in one tiny part of Oz, so the cut off for enrolment updates is actually Tuesday 23rd.
So those of you have have never registered to vote or have dropped off the electoral roll, you have THREE days to fix it!
This is all quite deliberate, by creating confusion, dragging out the announcement of the election, Howard will deny first time voters, overseas voters and also many in their 20s who move house a lot from voting due to the very small time window to enroll or update your enrollment.
These are all groups who might swing things away from Howard, he's very canny and he learns from the bad examples in the US where similar tactics have been used to deny minorities from being able to vote.
The following is all speculation, I don't even live in Oz any more and have no access to polling surveys or anything.
In London there's a huge expat community - many of whom are happy to be out of an Australia screwed up by John Howard. They have a right to vote, and would be more likely to vote labour - but they have to jump through more hoops to actually vote and unlike Australians living in Oz do not get penalised for not voting.
First time voters will have been influenced by their families and have seen how much more of a struggle it is to get started in the workplace under the reforms Howard has introduced, I would guess that they would also vote Labour if given the chance.
Twentysomethings have enjoyed the financial prosperity and me culture that Australia has moved towards progressively over the last decade. However the recent housing crisis has hurt them badly. They are more likely to live in the big cities, but now cannot afford to do so. It is possible they will be locked out of ever owning their own home unless their parents are able to help them out. But their parents are a bit young to be part of the baby boomer generation where all the wealth is concentrated in Australia. So they are likely out of luck. Last election this group mostly voted for Howard, it's possible this time around with they might vote differently.
Howard has made a huge about face on the aboriginal issue this year. However he still won't say sorry.
Also it may be argued that his stance on Aboriginal reconillation and the strongarm approach to the problems that remote Aboriginal communities face is really for the benefit of White voters who want to be reassured that Howard cares about all Australians.
Howard's approach to solving the crises in remote Aboriginal communities is carefully constructed to show immediate success so as to garner votes. It will fail shortly after and then be deliberately underfunded and forgotten.
Of course he will say that the AEC has spent a lot of money advertising the upcoming election and encouraging people to enroll, but in reality - most people don't even bother to take action until the election has actually been called.
Another detail on the timing of the calling of the election, by doing it on Sunday Morning, well after the deadlines for most newspapers that are printed at 10PM on saturday, this news will not be so well publicised till Monday. My sister could not even find a mention of the election announcement on the Canberra times website.
]]>One thing that continues to really piss me off about Norway is the absolutely craptastic service you get wherever you go. Now I get the egalitarian social attitude of this country and mostly agree that it is a good thing. Yet, I think that there is still room for decent service even if everyone is equal.
The problems to me seem to focus around the following, firstly - Norwegians put up with it. In the UK or Oz bad service would be the death of a shop in the long run. Possibly with the exception of Glebe's "Badde Manors", where the name pre-warns customers.
Secondly, the government almost over-protects the workers. It's so opposite to the situation in the US or even under Work Choices employment contracts in Oz. Base salaries are quite high and overtime/weekend salaries can't be removed in some fine print of a contract. In addition, it is much easier to take significant amounts of time off for being burnt out or work related mental illness, and your job will likely be protected until you return.
This makes employees expensive, and means employers can't afford to have 5 staff working a cafe on a sunday when only 2 would still keep the place open.
Thirdly, there is a fundamental problem attitude wise in Norwegian culture, potentially this is because of the egalitarian culture, I'm not sure. Workers will not structure their workflow in such a way as to maximise all customers satisfaction and reduce queues, instead they will rudely focus on serving the first person in the queue even if that is obviously going to cause the queue to ballon to 4 times it's length with quick fix customers. Nor do staff work together to make a more efficient workflow, like one person taking orders and another making coffees. The same person does it all, takes your order, makes your drinks, clears your table. Notice I made no mention of bringing your coffee to you, in Norway you hover around the bar waiting for your coffee to be made so you can carry it to the table. This just further clutters the long queue that inevitably forms at any cafe or service orientated shop.
Today we went out for Pizza to a chain restaurant. We ordered quickly and waited, after 40 minutes we enquired about our pizzas, coming soon they said. Twenty minutes later another enquiry started to bring pizza to the table, but they were stone cold.
Turns out they had made the Pizza, but not told the single girl who was taking orders, bringing food to the tables and then cleaning the tables.
We were adamant that we would not pay full price for cold 1 hour late Pizza, and both Astrid and I made a point of telling this young woman how bad the service was. When I said that I had experienced plenty of bad service in Norway, but this event took the cake, the waitress retreated tears in her eyes.
I later apologised, as it wasn't my intention to upset. However I thought that the proper reaction on being told that the Pizza was cold was, we're very sorry it has been busy tonight and you can have the Pizza for half price/free whatever. Instead they completely screwed up the handling of their customers by ignoring the issue until pressed.
Yes they are young and inexperienced, but when we asked to see the manager, they were off on "mental health leave" due to being burnt out.
Someone needs to remind the Norsk population that the service industry is now the largest of any in the world finally having overtaken Farming for the number one spot. While they are at that it could be good to remind Norwegians they are mostly not farmers any more and that their queuing skills could be vastly improved by studying the mindless mass movements of sheep!
]]>Today the thermometer registered that it was still above 10 degrees but it felt a hell of a lot colder, wind chill factor and all.
The past few weeks, perhaps in subconscious reaction to the coming cold months Astrid has been cooking soups, all have been good and I am glad to see her confidence flower in our own kitchen after she barely tried to cook in the previous rental place, mostly cause of her dislike of gas cooktops.
The soup courtesy of Astrid that I have most enjoyed is that slightly daggy yet great 80s classic French onion soup complete with good bread and melted cheese.
Come this weekend, I find myself with way too much time on my hands due to Astrid juggling a working weekend with a fair social schedule.
Last night I went solo to the opening night of Stardust, one of the rare examples where good fantasy gets properly translated to the screen..
Today I caught up with a gadget loving friend who has imported and hack an iPhone to work here, doubt we will see the real thing for a long time, we are an insignificant market who is already supersaturated by Nokia and Sony Ericsson.
Tonight, noticing the cold was biting more strongly - I kick-started the fire and proceeded to turn the mass of root vegetables I picked up at the town market today into my own trademark soup.
I like to make a rich and flavoursome soup with a base of pale aromatic vegetables kind of melding mirepoix and soffritto which usually features whichever I can obtain of the following: parsnip, fennel, onion, leek, swede, potato, celeriac. The vegetables must be sweated in a little oil or butter for quite a while, it is the key to bringing out all the flavour in the raw ingredients.
I perfected a rich and flavoursome version of this dish back in Oz, with a strong focus on celeriac, fennel and potato sweated generously then simmered in a pressure cooker till very soft then puréed. This was mixed with some fresh herbs, lemon juice and some white miso dissolved through before serving, producing a lovely creamy yet vegan vegetable soup that was bursting with flavour.
Not having access to good quality Fennel in Norway very often I have adapted this again using more of the root vegetable family to great success. This version had carrot, celeriac, potato, swede, parsnip, onion and chickpeas in it. Due to the addition of pulses I didn't bother to purée it. With a dash of white miso it was great and hearty.
With the weather has also come a shift musically, with Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain featuring in the high rotation playlist for the first time in quite a while.
]]>For those who doubt the coincidence of all of this, a screenshot from Movable Type follows.
View imageWith that out of the way, we return to our regularly unscheduled programming.
]]>Three and a third years later, The second volume in their planned Satanic trilogy has arrived. The title translates as "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire" and is a reference to Matthew 25:41 from the King James bible. Never above using orthodox sources for their blasphemous theology, this album focuses on the fall of man to his true place alongside Satan. The lyrics are equal parts insightful, challenging and offensive. This is really powerful and deep stuff. Particularly because even if you don't share their satanic perspective you may be surprised to find by the end of the album you agree with much of what they outline in principle.
Initially, despite my significant exposure to the entire gamut of extreme metal, experimental and art music I must admit I found this album both refreshing and extremely challenging. It is an album that is truly exceptional. The first time I heard it, I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. The music was just consistently subtly atonal and lacking a traditional structure I could really grasp onto as an entry point to this quite crazy chaos.
Gone was the much more approachable structure of satanic Gregorian chanting in Latin interspersed with quality old school black metal. Something fundamental has evolved somewhere in the two odd hours of material released upon EPs, split singles and such between this album and the last.
Through some sort of extended French kinship, DSO may be the first band to truly absorb and integrate the trailblazing technique laid out by Canadian death metal act Gorguts on their also quite impenetrable release Obscura. DSO have taken the riffing and adapted it to their blackened needs. In the process they have stripped the technique and idea back to it's most fundamentally raw underpinnings. Continuing the French influence, DSO inherit from Blut Aus Nord the use of an extremely wide dynamic range where the transition from near silent ambience to a meticulously structured wall of sound in an instant generates another level of dissonance in the listener. This technique obviously draws parallels to that used by classical scores from horror films which create and heighten tension in the audience. However the dynamic and intensity that DSO manage to generate transcends such literal comparisons.
As mentioned previously, what seems on first listen as completely unstructured and deliberately chaotic slowly becomes familiar with repeated exposure and reveals in actuality that the chaos is planned and orchestrated precisely in timing, timbre and structure to form a construct that may indeed be ritual in nature.
Production wise, the sound is amazing, whether barely audible or or a notch away from white noise, each instrument is always clearly discerned in the mix and seemingly cavernous yet not claustrophobic and with a perfect equilibrium between rawness and precision. Possibly prompted by subtle changes in band membership since Si Monumentum Requires Circumspice the drums have a more post punk feel. Whilst the bass is mixed more audibly and mostly comes across as a distinct and purposeful voice as opposed to most black metal where the bass is inaudible and follows the guitar line. The guitar work is gorgeous, balancing chaotic feedback and masterful use of effects with a subtly atonal yet insistent technique.
One of the few accessible anchor points into this artfully obtuse release are the subtle post rock influences and if these guys ever tire of blasting out black metal, they could make an absolutely solid career out of post rock. It is surprising how successfully the the post rock elements are integrated into DSO's work, they should feel so out of place but instead they feel so right. Overall, the melodic sections are absolutely fantastic, ranging from minimalist piano phrases to drawn out unstructured guitar riffs that somehow work.
As a unit, the mysterious members of DSO may have just, unbeknownst to the general metal world redefined the boundaries of what it is we term Metal. Already via their previous full length, they blew away the then mostly true supposition that metal lyrics were not truly intellectual. With Fas Itae, Maledicti in Ignem Aeternum, this intellectual and dare I say it truly post modern approach to metal has been matched musically.
All considered, I still think that this release has it's flaws, particularly in that the introduction and closing segments seem partly superfluous in their extended ambience. The same issue can be seen with Negura Bunget's Om, which overloads the front section of the release with atmospheric and ambient arrangements. I was originally going to list the shorter playing time as a deficiency but have realised this is in actuality an asset as a work this challenging could have been compromised by making it both un-listenable and extremely long.
]]>So instead the guys partook of a late night snag from the Bergen equivalent of Harry's Café de Wheels, which according to Bjørn had the best sausages he'd ever tasted. This seemed to cheer Jens up a bit.
Back at the accommodation, the extent of Jens' drunkenness started to become apparent after he manged to cut himself on the kitchen rangehood whilst pouring a glass of water. As with all head wounds it bled like crazy and I am sure the cleaning staff will have wondered what kind of weird and kinky stuff we were up to having left a pile of bloody towels and toilet paper behind!
The next day I couldn't sleep in and went for a long walk in the rain listening to the new Deathspell Omega, returning to the apartment very wet I didn't want to wake up the others so sat downstairs in the bar/cafe analysing the lyrics to this new DSO and drinking copious amounts of coffee to try and counteract the excesses of the previous night.
When the guys woke up they had a reportedly fantastic breakfast in the same cafe. We spent the day wandering Bergen in a hungover state. More sausages were consumed, and an almost not falafel roll for me. Crappy film decided on to kill some more time, and the sun appeared just as we were going into the darkened cinema.
Finally the time came for our departure from Bergen, via express boat to Stavanger, that still took 4 bloody hours and the boat did not agree with Bjørn or my alcohol punished stomach. Jens however finally achieved a blissfull state of relaxation by sleeping most of the way home.
Overall for me a great weekend, an a good chance to get to know Bjørn and Jens better. I'm disappointed by the organisers lack of respect for it's patrons in terms of the choice of such an overzealous security company. The difference between this and Inferno is amazing, with Inferno being a larger scale event with more bands and probably bigger attendance. Despite all of this, they had friendly and helpful security that did not get in your face at all.
At Hole in the Sky, I was warned off taking pictures with my crappy cameraphone, wheras at Inferno they happily let me use my Prosumer SLR-like digicam to take high quality pics.
At Inferno they let a seriously inebriated 19 year old who was staying in the same hostel room as me into the venue without any issue. Yet at Hole in the Sky, Jens was ejected when he was clearly far more in control of his faculties than the guy at Inferno.
My general experience is that unless there are patrons on harder drugs than alcohol in the crowd, Metal gigs are generally friendly and the aggression inherent in the mosh is more about a safe release than trying to hurt each other.
I've had the harrowing experience of having been in a crowd when someone in the audience was crushed near to death and subsequently died. The main blame factors that evening were poor scheduling which created a mix of worked up aggressive men vying with very young mostly female teenagers for the same space and an idiot behind the microphone who antagonised the crowd rather than carefully worked it.
With that in mind, I found the Hole in the Sky crowd well behaved and quite safe. There was simply no need for the overzealous efforts of the security staff.
]]>Speaking of the it, somewhere before 8pm we wandered off to to find the venue, which I only vaguely remembered how to find (as I had been given a lift there the previous year by my now in-laws). My recollection was mostly right, although it was a bit further along the waterfront than I expected.
We arrived just in time to see an Oz band, Destroyer 666 who ironically I had never bothered to check out in Oz. I kind of enjoyed them, especially from the perspective that this evening was supposed to be mostly all about getting back to the roots of blackened thrash metal.
Next up were Sabbat, who I enjoyed but were not to the taste of my friends at all. I wonder if they knew that Andy Sneap who was having a great time thrashing away on his guitar had been responsible for the production or mixing on some of their favourite recent metal platters.
I did some merch shopping and purchased the new album by Deathspell Omega, which I'd already had on solid rotation on my iPod for a couple of weeks.
Then came the band that had tipped the scales on whether I was going to go to this year's Hole in the Sky or not - Kreator. As almost anyone who grew up listening to thrash in the 80s knows, Kreator were one of the most influential acts from that period. I've always loved the intelligent, thought provoking lyrics of Kreator which have only got better as the band have matured.
To my mind they were fantastic, Petrozza is a great frontman and the sound was pretty good. I was right up the front, dead centre and my only dislike of the show was the realisation that some of the security gurards were seriously overstepping their mark. One guy would stand on some kind of step right in front of me and try to get the attention of people in the mosh who he thought were misbehaving and then stand there and stare them down, a "I'm watching you, don't fuck with me" kind of thing. Really ruined the mood for me every time they did this, and it was a well behaved crowd (as most metal crowds usually are).
Afterwards we chilled at the bar and chatted to various strangers, declining beers from Jens who seemed to have got a lot more friendly, which was a sure sign he was close to having drunk enough.
Bjørn led the way into Immortal, as he and Jens were both dead keen to finally see these Bergen legends live. Due to the chaos of a crowd all intent on the same thing I rapidly lost track of both Bjørn and jens, but found Bjørn again shortly. Immortal's set began and they blew even me away - the improvement since I had seen them in April was astounding. The sound, stage setup, pyrotechnics and of course the actual music were all pretty much as close to perfect as one could desire.
My enjoyment was distracted slightly as I'd texted Jens our location and was surprised when he kept on ringing me, but I couldn't hear a thing over Immortal. Eventually I went to find where he was, and ended up finding him arguing with another security guard. Jens had been ejected because he was too drunk (by my definition he was at the friendly and talkative stage, nowhere near too drunk). I tried to reassure them that he was with us and I would keep an eye on him, but they would not let him back in. Jens did not help by arguing with the guy in Norsk and not letting me, the more sober and rational one sort it out.
So I ended up going back in again, to enjoy the rest of the show. Suddenly Jens appeared next to me, no idea how long he had been standing there before I noticed him, but it was most likely at the beginning of the three song encore. So in the end even Jens got to see some of one of the best Black Metal performances I have ever seen.
]]>Rocking up in Bergen, I had a chat to a very odd young lass from near Chechnya during the 30 minute bus trip into town. We were quite impressed with our accommodation, could have been more impressed if they had let us in at midday, but of course we were too early so had to kill an hour or so at a nearby cafe, where I met 3 Aussie girls up for a long weekend of exploring Norway from their home base of London.
The same cafe also had a 1974 bottle of Ardbeg, which was approx $80 per drink I turned it down mostly because the bottle was almost empty and I had no idea how long it had been sitting on the shelf and whether that would have affected the flavour at all. The waitress wasn't knowledgeable enough to reassure me that this would be money well spent.
Off to the vinmo' to get some grog (in my case Irish Whisky) for the warm up party then on to an incredibly disappointing eating experience (as a vego I cannot appreciate the place that burgers have in a good night out). We partied pretty hard in the vorspiel and had a good time listening to lots of great (mostly norsk) metal. Playlist included Ulver - Bergtatt, Arcturus Aspera Hiems Symfonia, Black Debbath - Tung, Tung Politisk Rock, November's Doom - The Novella Reservoir, Borknagar - Quintessence, Vintersorg - Solens Rötter, Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse, much Iron Maiden, a fair bit of Dimmu Borgir and of course heaps of Immortal. There were definitely many more bands on the playlist that afternoon but at some point the whisky kicked in.
My only disappointment is that although there were obviously others attending hole in the sky no one knocked on or door wanting to join us it would have been great to take over the whole building in one big pre-party.
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