Blog — Page 82 of 275

The Formative Years – Black Sabbath and Righteous Riffage

If one was to compile a list with the greatest riffs ever written, no doubt Black Sabbath would occupy quite a few spots at the more formidable end of the spectrum. Sometimes a band and their emissions are so great and prolific, that even epigones channelling their essence can appear attractive instantaneously by mere association or citing them as an influence.

Enter stoner rock and doom.

It was through cover versions of “Paranoid” by German punk bands in the late 1980s that I was first introduced to Toni Iommi idiosyncratic way of songwriting and it took not long to delve into Black Sabbath’s back catalogue and fall in love head over heels, without any vestige of my passion subsiding any time soon.

Over time, I was exposed to bands like Grief , Sleep and Eyehategod – bands that took the DNA Black Sabbath and created an ever more dirgy, powerful concoction that is immensely conducive to blazing up one’s mind, i.e. what is commonly classified as “doom” and constitutes one of the most powerful genres of underground music with its slowly building, crushing tsunamis of delightful heaviness.

I have always found it funny, how doom and dirge bands were perceived to be aggressive in nature by some of my comrades, when I found the listening experience to be immensely relaxing and satisfying, like a warm bath while under the influence of codeine.

It was through the Swiss label Off the Disk records, who released the first Infest 12” with the H.R. Giger cover, ABC Diabolo’s first 7” and other delicacies as Morbid Angel’s demo from the early 1990s on, that I was first exposed to Sleep and their tribute to Black Sabbath.

Their album Dopesmoker followed – not merely a telling title but a close to seventy minutes long exercise in meditation on heavy, drawn out riffing based on the essence of Black Sabbath but infusing it with their own style. Expertly executed and unrivalled to this day. Needless to say, any band or project a member of Sleep touched thereafter, did not let down either and it was fantastic to see Matt Pike incarnate in the third dimension with his current band High on Fire a few years ago.

Over time, some bands perfectioned their approach to a level that became borderline pornographic in term of auditory pleasure, with an example par excellence being Electric Wizard – a band that borderlines tectonic shifting doom glam.

If music carried calories, listening to Electric Wizard’s album “Funerapolis” would be the musical equivalent to having a cheese-laden lasagne with cookie dough ice-cream as desert.

An experience that does not waver to excite, hypnotize, and calm me down in equal measure.

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – Green Beacon TDH OC IIPA

I am in love.

While I have tried and enjoyed the  fantastic and award decorated core range of one of the stalwarts of the ever evolving Australian craft beer scene, i.e. Green Beacon, founders Marc Christmas and Adrian Slaughter have created a brew to celebrate their eight anniversary and it won me over instantaneously.

Their previous IPAs and special releases from barrel aged variants to fruit sours have been a delight and just when I thought that Green Beacon having become part of Asahi might have dampened their experimental endeavours to push the envelope, they release a monster that goes by the moniker TDH OC IIPA.

Despite clocking in a 9% ABV, this babyh  is smooth and velvety and while the bitterness is subdued (15 IBU), the fact that it is a hybrid of four different cryo hop-varietals, i.e. El Dorado, Azacca, Idaho 7, & Mosaic, results in an extravagant  tour de force of hazy deliciousness with tropical highlights.

As the royally indulgent name suggests (“Triple Dry Hopped Oat Cream Double India Pale Ale”), there is a whole lot going on with this brew and each sips brings on a wave of new flavours, playing the claviature from creamy oaty nuances via a dominant pineapple streak, resting on a piny, resiny backbone and a slightly herbaceous aroma.

Golden amber in colour with a soft white head and soft carbonation, toffee and caramel weave in with a big dankness and a zesty, stonefruity punch, culminating in a warm, desserty crescendo with the finish, which has me go for seconds.

I paired the TDH OC IIPA with a dram of Ardbeg’s Corrywreckan, which resulted in my better half telling me of as she got annoyed  that I stopped engaging in a conversation as I kept swirling endlessly and only had lip-smacking to contribute.

If this brew was to celebrate Green Beacon’s eight anniversary, then I cannot wait to see how they channel their alchemy for the tenth.

Kicking It Old School – Beats, Hoops and Kicks Through the Ages

For anyone who straddled the better parts of the 1980s, there is a borderline romantic concept of the joyous aspects and contexts of basketball. Cue urban environs, “back to school” jams, boomboxes, rap, rhymes, poetry, emceeing, graffiti and turntabling – hip hop culture was inextricably linked with basketball.

Basketball, not unlike hip hop , was perceived to be more than sports - an expression, refined to become an art form with fashion high on the agenda.

No, I am not necessarily referring to “Shaq Diesel”, i.e. Shaquille O’Neal’s own hip hop album as the highlight of this symbiosis, but for a mainstream audience especially the early 2000s presented a new level of the fusion of both scenes, with streetball tours being televised live on ESPN and Lil Wayne teaming up with Kobe Bryant for a song on a mixtape probably being some of the more prominent endeavours before jamming hip hop songs as warm-up music before basketball events became ubiquitous.

While there are sports brands that over the last three decades have become almost synonymous with basketball culture at large and them riding the bonanza with exclusive endorsement deals, I found Puma’s recently released Black Fives Collection as taking a fresh take on an old school approach.

Teaming up with the Black Fives Foundation - a non-profit whose mission is to research, preserve, showcase, teach and honour the pre-NBA history of African Americans in basketball - is in essence an homage to a period harking back to the first five decades of the twentieth century, which is when the NBA signed its first black players.

Puma’s Black Fives collection is a credible tribute to that era, with the focus firmly put on not merely signifying a fad in a retro-chic manner but honouring the original materials, colours, logos, dyes based on the Black Fives credo, i.e. to “make history now”. In times of BLM, how much more timely could it be?

What makes the Black Fives collection special  with the special edition high tops is that Puma subtly pays tribute to its own past by a reimagining of its trademark silhouette with a cool chenille fabric Form strip, washed rubber sole (however, the washed effect takes it a notch too far as it would have naturally happened within a few rounds of hoops on concrete) and vintage style leather upper with suede overlays. The initiative also see Puma supporting the Black History education reform and the Foundation’s preservation efforts through specifically designed activations, some of which can be checked out online, which makes the Black Fives drop a well-rounded, engaging and stylish initiative.

Now, let’s fast forward to the 1990s, shall we, an era where shoes where infused with technological advancements, some of which established themselves firmly on the fashion front while others thankfully never managed to find a more than temporary audience.

In early 1990, Puma embarked into the realm of lace-less sneakers with its innovative Hoops disc system, only to double down with a Double Disc system not longer after the original launch.

What Puma pioneered was a system of wires and a retractable wheel on either the tongue or heel to tighten the shoes, replacing a standard lacing system entirely.

Sounds technical?

Yup, it even looks that way, resulting in a tad less eye candy than the Black Fives collection, however, it offers a new level of support and comfort with its full length ProFoam mid-sole.

2021 sees Puma revisit basketball not merely with the Black Fives collection but with a revival of their adjustable, lace-less sneakers on the fly, with a disc on the front and one in the back to customize the most flexible and stable fit for your feet.

While the Double Discs look very “space jam-ey” and with some colour combos not having looked out of place on the feet of the respective cartoon characters, having taken the more conservatively coloured black and white version  for a few test runs on the court, they proved to be one of the better experiences in term of support and agility.

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images courtesy of Puma

Water of Life - Dewar’s

With our Water of Life series, we have covered a large array of distilleries, independent bottles and everything in between related to whisky.

Every now and then one becomes acutely aware that there are some uncharted corners with some major players that have gone uncovered so far.

Case in point: The empire which was first incepted by one John Dewar in the mid of  the nineteenth century, which evolved to the founding of Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery smack bang in the midst of Highland Perthshire, along with the highly successful brand of blended whisky, which shall be the focus of this instalment.

Let’s start by shedding light on Dewar’s widely available, affordable 12 year old bottling, which especially in the new world is ubiquitous on supermarket shelves and an accessible gateway to their range.

The butterscotch coloured drop tickles the nostrils with a melange of honeyed toffee, grapes and grain infused orange notes. On the roof of the mouth, those nuances are further accentuated, with a mid-length finish bookmarking the experience with grain notes making a more dominant appearance.

Summa summarum, a nice and enjoyable mellow expression, especially given its price point.

Dewar’s 15 Year Old Scotch takes things up a notch, both in terms of the lightness of its brass-like copper colour as well as far as the aromas that materialize on the nose are concerned, i.e. a welcome dose of subtle smokiness weaving in with oaky, honeyed fruit notes.

The soft creaminess that hits the palate could be best described as having a fruity and floral flavour profile, with nuances of vanilla and oak shining through.

Not unlike the 12 year old expression, the 15 year is quite affordable and for its price range one of the better options when it comes to quality blends.

Not unlike I anticipated, things got more complex and interesting with the 18 year old.

Aroma-wise, things are expanding beyond toffee and honey notes as roasted almonds, citrussy highlights, sweet grainy barley and spicy oaky flavours interweave to create a nice bouquet, set against a backbone of a nice push and pull between spicy- and brown sugary sweetness.

What I instantaneously liked about the flavours, is that apart from vanilla, caramel, marzipan and almonds, there is a welcome infusion of smoke rounded out by charred oak flavours, which seamlessly transition into a mid-length creamy finish offering a nice counterpoint as things get spiced up (think Cinnamon and Cardamon having a dance) and the characteristic of the grain alcohol playing an interesting role in the mix.

On to the 25 Dewar’s  25 Years Old.

Expectations were high as Dewar’s makes a point of its meticulous research of the cask inventory, with each cask selected for the 25 expression having been individually vetted and sampled by the in-house blending luminary, i.e. Stephanie MacLeod.

Following MacLeod’s selection, blending occurred before then filling the result into carefully selected oak casks for an additional stint of maturation, which is the much fabled about “double aging” process Dewar’s has become known and appreciated for.

What the double aging allows for, is in essence the interactions of the disparate characters of the malts and grains to create a unified, balanced whole before being further refined in Royal Brackla casks.

The results is – how could it be different – an exercise in rich and harmonious extravagance, with multiple layers unveiling complex flavours of sherried fruits, floral notes, flavoursome wildflower honey, dark chocolate and just the faintest hint of oaky smoke to round things out with a subtle bang. I specifically like the briny aroma, set against sherry cask and smoke.

While blends are often looked down upon by whisky snobs, Dewar’s 25 year old offers a flavour profile that demonstrates that the age statement is more than a mere promotional gimmick but an example par excellence for time-honoured taste.

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image from company website

Synaesthesia and Marrying the Best of the Analogue with the Merits of the Digital World

I have always loved the concept of synaesthesia, ever since I learned about it in school when we listened to The Beatles’ “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”. Even before, music had played a role for me in terms of inspiration and contributing to a unity of senses and multi-sensory perception of colour and music. I saw colours when I listened to music and tried to capture them with lines, shapes and colours to create the visual  equivalent to an auditory experience.

Drawing to music has eventually turned to drawing for music, e.g. for creating art to accompany recordings of friends’ bands or my own, but still interacting with the music – listening, responding, revising, editing, et cetera.

The gear and tools in terms of pencils are literally the instruments that enhance the experience and I am glad to have found ones that have become trusted companions over the years in different contexts.

Staedtler was founded almost two hundred years ago in Nuremberg, Germany with the aim to create high-quality, crafted pencils and has since established itself firmly on the firmament of art utensil producers by turning ideas into products.

What I like about Staedtler’s gear is that it is a symbiosis of tradition and innovation with specifically their Design Journey range providing vibrantly coloured fibre-tip pens, pigment fineliners in a range of sizes and my favourite, i.e. metallic markers for both the artistic voyage of the creative pro as well as the uninitiated for drawing, colouring, illustrating and writing.

For more technical drawing endeavours, Staedtler’s DIN A 3 sized drawing board has become a permanent fixture on my desk as its parallel drafting arm the convenient single-hand double locking mechanism make it idea to lock in accurately any position on the rail. The ruler runs smoothly along neat features like a scale with needle hole for precise compass radius setting contribute to facilitating precise work.

Now, with pretty much everything have gone digital, in some areas innovative solutions are incepted to recreate the original feel and Staedtler’s Noris digital does exactly that: Looking and feeling exactly like a normal pencil, it serves as a stylus for tablets, smartphones and notebooks to be used on displays. In other words, a digital pencil using an electromagnetic field generated by the display of the device to interact with it inductively.

Ergonomically shaped and made of wood based materials, it reacts sensitively to pressure and feels like an analogue pencil, including a soft digital eraser, which makes it ideal for old school digital artists – the epitome of marrying the merits of the analogue world with the benefits of digitization.