Pastaklubben - Asperger, (Phantom Channel 2009)

Pastaklubben is an exquisite corpse of music. A joyful depression. A vivid tranquility and a painful pleasure. Formed in Copenhagen in 2007, these 4 young Cyber-Punks, armed with an array of effects units, guitars and laptops have a penchant for creating live and improvised dark, emotional and atmospheric sounds.
In a constant flux of development, no two Pastaklubben performances are ever cloned. ‘Asperger’, recorded in just one take, paints a fascinating, futuristic world, mirroring that of Ridley Scott’s bleak, dystopian vision of Los Angeles, in his outstanding Bladerunner motion picture.
A dizzying amalgam of pitch-black ambience, dismembered electronics and static-drenched, particle-sized beats, ‘Asperger’ is a must for fans of Murcof, Autechre and, of course the Vangelis score that so enhanced Scott’s film. ‘Asperger’ is spacious yet claustrophobic, an alchemy of contradictions, much like its creators. Please listen to the uncut, uncensored facts.

More web releases from Phantom Channel
HERE

Antiwar Activists Reawaken as Obama Weighs Afghanistan Strategy

Sitting in the front row at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, directly in sight of committee Chairman John Kerry, two women discreetly held up two pink cardboard signs that read "U.S. War = Terrorism" and "Drone Attacks Kill Civilians." The women, Toby Blome and Martha Hubert, are part of Code Pink, a nationwide antiwar group that formed in 2002. They were quietly protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as former CIA agent Robert Grenier testified that a significant increase in troops is required to fend off al-Qaida in the latter country. Since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, Code Pink protesters had been a common, often colorful, presence on Capitol Hill.

@'Politics Daily'

Abdullah to make run-off decision

President Hamid Karzai's rival in the second round of the Afghan presidential poll says he will announce on Sunday whether he intends to quit the race.
Dr Abdullah Abdullah called for the resignation of key election officials and others as a way to mitigate fraud and corruption in the vote.
But those demands were rejected earlier in the week in talks with Mr Karzai.
A senior adviser said that in talks on Friday, Mr Abdullah's team decided he should not take part in the poll.
But Mr Adbullah's campaign said on Saturday that no final decision had been made, and that the former foreign minister would announce his next move on Sunday.
The BBC's Ian Pannell in Kabul says that if he withdraws it will raise serious questions about the credibility of the election.
However, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said a runoff with only one candidate would not necessarily threaten the legitimacy of the process.
"We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward," Mrs Clinton told reporters in the United Arab Emirates.
@'BBC'

US warily leans to new Iran sanctions over nukes

Frustrated by Iran's continued defiance of demands to come clean on its nuclear program, the Obama administration is leaning toward imposing new sanctions, even it must act alone.
Administration officials acknowledged growing concern that there may not be international consensus to expand the existing U.N. sanctions, despite Tehran's apparent rejection of a confidence-building measure proposed by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog in hopes of making progress on the nuclear issue.
To that end, the administration is quietly supporting legislation in Congress that would give President Barack Obama a broad new array of authority to target Iran's energy sector by penalizing foreign firms that sell and ship refined petroleum products to Iran. The regime is heavily dependent on gasoline, kerosene and propane imports.
The legislation would also allow the administration to go after insurance and reinsurance concerns that cover oil tankers and their cargo. And the U.S. could also target companies that provide Iran with covert technology used to crack down on protesters and democracy advocates as it did during demonstrations this summer after a disputed national election.
U.S. officials took a neutral public stance on the legislation when it cleared two key congressional panels this week. They were anxious not to endanger ongoing negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Tehran over a deal that would see most of Iran's low enriched uranium shipped out of the country for reprocessing, handicapping its ability to use the uranium for weapons instead of energy.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview with CNN on Friday that the administration wants to let the negotiating process "play out."
But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs expressed limited patience with Iraq. "The president's time is not unlimited," he said when asked whether it was time to pursue tougher sanctions.
And privately, officials said they welcomed approval of the bills by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration planning.
"We have to be prepared to act and we are not going to let this drag out forever," said one administration official.
@'Antiwar'

Doodling a hand drawn logo for the local radio station...

Covers by Panni (Charrington) Bahrti for The Woodentops

PANNI  BAHRTI
(Still have my copy of this wonderful little book)

The Woodentops - Love Train (Roskilde 1987)

Hope it went brilliant Rolo!
Lots of Woodentop's music
HERE
(I was really lucky to catch the sixth gig by The Woodentops & the original bass player James moved in to our house in Peckham. Rolo gave me a copy of their first demo tapes and well, well etc...Wish that I could have been there in London the other night)

Indian engineer 'builds' new glaciers to stop global warming

Chewang Norphel, 76, has "built" 12 new glaciers already and is racing to create five more before he dies. By then he hopes he will have trained enough new "icemen" to continue his work and save the world's "third icecap" from being transformed into rivers.

His race against time is shared by Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister who called on the region's Himalayan nations, including China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, to form a united front to tackle glacial melting.
The great Himalayan glaciers, including Kashmir's Siachen glacier, feed the region's most important rivers, which irrigate farm land in Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh and throughout the Indian sub-continent. The apparent acceleration in glacial melting has been blamed for the increase in floods which have destroyed homes and crops.
Chewang Norphel, the "Iceman of Ladakh", however believes he has an answer. By diverting meltwater through a network of pipes into artificial lakes in the shaded side of mountain valleys, he says he has created new glacier.
@'The Telegraph'

HA!

Moggieboy's pumpkin!

Bonus:Audio
XTC - Peter Pumpkinhead

Maverick Minimalist: How Bill Laswell Takes Bass Into the Future—One Dub Ostinato at a Time (2002)

“I don’t want to know what music is. I’d rather be intuitive and take my time.”

If there is a border that bass will not cross, Bill laswell doesn’t know it. Since his breakout moment on Herbie Hancock’s 1983 mega-hit “Rockit,” the New York visionary has lent his production, remix, and conception skills to nearly 1,000 albums across a dizzying array of labels and categories. More than any other icon in the short history of the electric bass, Laswell has developed a subgenre all his own: bass-heavy musical cross-pollinations on the cutting edge of turntable, ambient, dub, world music, and drum-n-bass innovations.

HERE

RePost - Grateful Dead - Dark Star (Halloween 1991)

Here is the Grateful Dead with 'Dark Star>Jam>
Drums>Space>Dark Star' followed by a version of the Stone's 'The Last Time' from the 31st of October 1991 at the Oakland - Almeda Coliseum.
More 'Dark Stars' here, there and everywhere.

Strangers Family Band EP

Formed in Orlando, FL in the summer of 2007, Strangers Family Band--a five-piece consisting of members in their early twenties--gained recognition and a following from their intense live shows and unique take on psychedelia. The experience transports the listener from ominous vaudevillian progressions ('Beware The Autumn People') to ukulele strummed pop a'la Sgt. Pepper ('No One Sees Her') to North Indian raga-influenced drone ('Strange Transmission') like an uninterrupted stream of consciousness. A full sensory experience is characteristic of their live performances, which include cascading oil and water projections and the frequent accompaniment of a horn section. The influence of Ashbury-Haight's acid rock, NYC's Factory heyday, and the British psych explosion are evident in their sound. These comparisons do not hold the band down to the limitations of throw-back 'retrodelia' however; instead, the band expounds upon the influence of its predecessors, establishing themselves as new, modern innovators rather than mere revisionists. Comparisons to Syd Barrett, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Doors, and the Beatles have been made as reference points. They have also been compared to The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Angels, and The Entrance Band.
1.
Girl I've Been Taken 04:23
2.
Wooden Hands 03:55
3.
No One Sees Her 04:28
4.
Strange Transmission 07:03
5.
Tangerine 01:58
6.
Beware The Autumn People 04:43
Get it
HERE

Cannabis row drugs adviser sacked

The UK's chief drugs adviser has been sacked by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, after criticising government policies.

Professor David Nutt, head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis to Class B from C.

He accused ministers of devaluing and distorting evidence and said drugs classification was being politicised.

The home secretary said he had "lost confidence" in his advice and asked him to step down.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is the UK's official drugs advisory body.

Following his sacking, Prof Nutt told the BBC he stood by his claim that cannabis should not be a Class B drug, based on its effects.

He described his sacking as a "serious challenge to the value of science in relation to the government".
And he denied that he had been trying to undermine the government's policies on drugs.

"I am disappointed because, to be honest, all I was trying to do was help. I wasn't challenging the government," said the former adviser.

"We can help them. We can give them very good advice, and it would be much more simpler if they took that advice rather than getting tangled up in other sorts of messages which frankly really do confuse the public."

Prof Nutt said he was not prepared to "mislead" the public about the effects of drugs in order to convey a moral "message" on the government's behalf.

Earlier this week Prof Nutt used a lecture at King's College, London, to attack what he called the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from illegal drugs.

The professor said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness.

Phil Willis MP, chairman of the science and technology select committee, said he would write to the home secretary to ask for clarification as to why Prof David Nutt had been sacked "at a time when independent scientific advice to government is essential".

"It is disturbing if an independent scientist should be removed for reporting sound scientific advice," he said.

Public concern over the links between high-strength cannabis, known as skunk, and mental illness led the government to reclassify cannabis to Class B last year.

In the past, Prof Nutt has also claimed that taking ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse.

In a letter, the home secretary wrote: "I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy and have therefore lost confidence in your ability to advise me as chair of the ACMD.

"I would therefore ask you to step down from the Council with immediate effect."

In his reply, Prof Nutt said he was "disappointed" by the sentiments expressed by Mr Johnson.

He added: "Whilst I accept that there is a distinction between scientific advice and government policy there is clearly a degree of overlap.

"If scientists are not allowed to engage in the debate at this interface then you devalue their contribution to policy making and undermine a major source of carefully considered and evidence-based advice."

'Disgraceful' decision

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said the sacking had been "an inevitable decision" after Prof Nutt's "latest ill-judged contribution to the debate".

But Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said the decision to sack the adviser had been "disgraceful".

"What is the point of having independent scientific advice if as soon as you get some advice that you don't like, you sack the person who has given it to you?" he said.

Mr Huhne said if the government did not want to take expert scientific advice, it might as well have "a committee of tabloid newspaper editors to advise on drugs policy".

Similarly, Claudia Rubin from Release - a national centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law - said the expert should not have been penalised.

Cannabis reclassification

"It's a real shame and a real indictment of the government's refusal to take any proper advice on this subject," she said.

And Prof Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at Oxford University and former chief executive of the Medical Research Council, said the government could not expect experts who serve on its independent committees not to voice their concern if the advice they give is rejected.

"I worry that the dismissal of Prof Nutt will discourage academic and clinical experts from offering their knowledge and time to help the government in the future," he said.

Possession of Class B drugs carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail while possession of Class C drugs carries a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment.

In 2004, then Home Secretary David Blunkett had approved the reclassification of cannabis from Class B - which it had been since 1971 - to Class C.

But in 2008, Jacqui Smith announced that she would reverse the 2004 decision and put cannabis back into category B.

The decision was taken despite official advisers recommending against the change.

Ministers said they wanted to make the move as a precautionary measure.

@'BBC'

The Cat With Hands