Kulture

Stayed up last night and watched Snow Cake (2006) in which Sigourney Weaver plays a high functioning autistic woman whom Alan Rickman befriends after a tragic accident. A touching, well acted film, only spoilt by the presence of the Stereophonics during parts of the soundtrack / plot.

Fortunately, as an antidote, I'd earlier found Jazzflora - Scandinavian Aspect Of Jazz a compilation of brilliant contemporary Nordic jazz, some of which I've heard Gilles Peterson broadcast before, especially the marvellous Kuusumun Profeetta.

Being Sunday, later on the ubiquitous Stuart Maconie will be broadcasting his Freak Zone on BBC 6 Music, featuring Professor Justin Spear's University Of The Strange, which is always a better option than the Top 40 or Songs Of Praise.

Also got my head around The Bug - London Zoo which has half a million hits on MySpace and comes high on lists for last year's best albums, but had passed me by. I probably wasn't looking that way after everyone ranted about Burial the year before, which I found undynamic and dull.

Much less paranoid and more chilled and meditative are Swod whose album 'Sekunden' on the City Centre Offices label I got hold of lately. I've been listening to loads of ambient / drone during the last year and like the stuff with treated acoustic piano, although if it's the glitchy type, which sounds as if maybe the CD / mp3 is skipping, it's just annoying.