Posted by Max

The Daily Blot: Tesco – Every little (handout) helps

Imagine the scenario: you walk into a job interview at Tesco. It’s not your ideal job, but in a pretty dire economy this is the best you can do. It turns out they’re impressed with your ability to stack shelves, protect frozen goods and trip up shoplifters. They offer you a job and you think “Great! Now I can finally get off the dole!” You’re then told they’re only going to pay you the amount that the job centre would normally pay you every couple of weeks and the odd bus fare to and from work.

Now, you might be sitting there reading this thinking that a company that earns as much money as Tesco does never do such a thing in a million years. It can afford to pay all its employees, right?

Read the rest of this at The Daily Blot.

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Charlie Brooker: The Daily Mail deserves its voice

It’s hard to cheer when a newspaper closes. Even one you’re slightly scared of, like the Daily Mail.

Yet despite being a malevolent ink-and-paper succubus that will devour your firstborn – seriously, chuck a baby at a copy of the Mail, and watch as the paper roll its eyes back and swallows it whole – the Mail deserves its voice. At the Leveson inquiry, when seething Daily Mail orchestrator Paul Dacre was quizzed about Jan Moir’s notorious column on the death of Stephen Gateley, he acknowledged that she’d possibly gone too far, but added that he “would die in a ditch” to defend a columnist’s freedom of speech. Whatever you think of Dacre, that’s a brave and noble thing to say, although disappointingly he failed to indicate precisely when he was planning on doing it.

(That’s a joke, so please don’t be offended on his behalf, especially because it’s precisely the kind of robust commentary on death he’s dying in that ditch to defend.)

Charlie Brooker’s column this week is excellent.

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Artrocker: M83 at Shepherds Bush Empire

Photo courtesy of MnGyver on Flickr

It was only two months ago that M83 were last in London, performing at Heaven – yet demand has seen them return to a larger and grander venue tonight, in the form of Shepherds Bush Empire.

In the past Anthony Gonzalez and co have never really looked capable of complimenting their expansive sound with a stellar live show to match, but they’ve finally done it. Now that Gonzalez is backed by a full band as well as an array of piercing lights, he looks far more confident and enthusiastic than at any other point in his career.

Read the rest of this at Artrocker.

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MusicOMH: The Ting Tings – Sounds from Nowheresville

Where to begin with the story of Sounds From Nowheresville, the long-time-in-coming second LP from Salford duo The Ting Tings? Well, let’s start from the very top, in case you’ve forgotten all about them altogether. They went from bottom-of-the-bill band on the NME Awards tour to selling more than 600,000 copies of debut release We Started Nothing four years ago. After many months in Berlin in 2010, they were all set to release Kunst, a title they later claimed was nothing more than a joke, in early 2011, with Hands as the lead single.

Except that never actually happened. The plug was pulled on that plan, and they moved to Spain, where they began work all over again. A year on, and finally an end product drops. Hands, once the fanfare for Kunst, is now nothing more than a stand-alone single that will appear on a deluxe edition of this album. It all adds to something that sounds rather confused.

Read the rest of this review at MusicOMH.

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For Folk’s Sake: Perfume Genius – Put Your Back N 2 It

Perfume Genius seemed to emerge from nowhere in June 2010 as debut LP Learning made a quiet but marked impact on those who heard it. Mike Hadreas’ stark and revealing lyrics came from an unsettling, dark place, and were coupled with a home-recorded feel in production, making for a record that lingered long in the memory.

This sophomore effort, Put Your Back N 2 It, is a massive step up in production values – in the sense that it was recorded with proper equipment – and it has also brought with that a collection of songs that have a considerably different feel.

Read the rest of this at For Folk’s Sake.

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