I just gots back to HK from a lil’ weekend trip to Malaysia with famslice Rafik, y’all. I think I slept like only 2 hours (on the plane), so don’t be mad if I sound slightly confused.
We didn’t even spend full 48 hours in Kuala Lumpur, but I gotta say that I’m positively surprised by the Muddy City. You pretty much get the full package of the South East Asian vibe, minus the convenience and sterility of Singapore, and minus the grimy- and roughness of Indonesia. Also good to finally actually see the Petronas Towers, an amazing piece of architecture I’ve always been admiring.
The thing about Malaysia that amazed me the most though, was, by far, the edibles. An infinite variety of a fusion of Malay, Indian, Thai and Chinese cuisine. I pretty much ate till it hurt during my entire stay, let me break down some highlights. Lay your eyeslots upon this fried Stingray, served on a banana leaf:
A more or less common, but definitely not average veggie curry:
Leng Chi Kang for dessert, quail egg in the middle:
If you ain’t hungry as a vulture right now, there might be something wrong with you. Hm. Then again, you probably don’t give a fuck about what I’ve been nourishing on. Wanna see retro-oriental-looking railway stations instead?
Nah, you probably wanna see Rafik and me tearing the club up. Check out the dude’s back. Mad sweaty. The fucker keeps on nagging me to go out there to grab some food, as I am writing this. Leo + leo is a tough, tough combination, as much as I love the chap.
h8 u s0 much, early flights. But every cloud has a silver lining: South East Asian sunrise!
Many, many thanks to Alex Lee and Ray Rox, who treated us like family out there. Highly fucking appreciated.
Spooky vision of what Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor might look like in the near future (poster spotted in the streets of Mong Kok the other day). These days, there is still quite a decent amount of water between Kowloon and the north shore of HK island. However, land reclamation and harbor shrinkage will of course steadily continue to provide more flat land to build on.
Didya know that Hong Kong’s original Victoria Harbor coastline once ran along what is now Queen’s Road East? Fucking eerie.
Hong Kong’s “relationship with the waterfront was always an awkward thing,” says Richard Marshall, an urban design director for the planning firm EDAW, who led a Harvard University study of the harbor in 2000. “It’s surprising, given the identity the waterfront has with Hong Kong.” - Time Magazine
Learn more about what Rafik is bumping on his iPod during long, intercontinental flights, sleeplessly molding away on an inappropriate middle seat, watching vintage episodes of Sex And The City, trying hard to oppress his morning wood while choking on Lufthansa’s wonky aeroplane breakfast.
Is Yao really blaring Krautrock from the 70s while snuggling Heidi™ pillows and sipping on chamomile tea, dreaming about having some pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream but deciding to thoroughly floss his permanent grill instead?
Is Enso really a faithful, trustworthy subscriber to NOW TV’s Baby Channel™? And where the hell can he rent a few babies for their free photoshoot?
Does Kid Fresh secretly prefer cats over humans? Are those ridiculous tattoos of his really really real? Does he really have the “shining” sometimes, just like Danny Torrance?
What did he have for dinner last night? Does it never snow in the jungle? Why can’t spiders talk? Do men cheat? Can you pause toast? Do fish really have fingers? Why do molecules diffuse?
Random FYIizm: the latter candidate is going to be dwelling behind swedish curtains for 1 year, starting on March 2. Apparently, his sentencing got delayed due to dental surgery, without any further comment. Am I really the only one here to figure out that it’s probably not exactly an Einstein-type move to show up in the bastille with a permanent grill in your mouth with the value of a halfway decent luxury car? Ts.
It’s a lousy-ass 160kbps bootleg version, but you wouldn’t dare to look a gift horse in the iced out mouth, would ya. Please buy the album on iChoons or sumfin when it’s out (March 30). Btw, looking at the numbers of views of my blog, and looking at the number of downloads in comparison, I reckon that only 10% of you are realizing that there are actually downloadable mp3s behind those bold-ass song titles I’m posting! Which is good, I guess! Every cloud has a silver lining. Ya dig?
Have you ever wondered lately what happened to Christina Aguilera aka Genie In A Bottle aka Xtina?! If you haven’t, then close this tab now. If you have, keep on reading. My feelings about this are slightly mixed. First of all, let me get rid of my only negative comment about her new, oh so mysterious project: I find it a bit audacious to help oneself digging so deep in the same pot that The Knife‘s better half, Karin Dreijer Andersson aka Fever Ray cooked up a while ago (I wonder if she’s mad about it). Yet, I ain’t mad. I ain’t mad at all! Quite frankly, this whole thing gets me almost as excited as the young, male barely-post-teenager jacking off to the MV of Genie In A Bottle a decade ago. I stumbled upon this today:
I can’t stop watching it. The production is quite unfuckwithable (word on the streets is it might be laced by your favorite producer’s favorite producer Dave Taylor aka Switch aka Solid Groove aka 1/2 Major Lazer), the visual work is effing amazing (apparently, rumors in Israeli newspapers state that they might’ve hired Parisian fashion photographer extraordinaire Alix Malka for the job), Xtina’s vocal abilities have always been outstanding- so what else is left to hate on?! Ya, ok, maybe the slight corniness of jumping on the Fever Ray bandwagon. But you know what? My 2 cents: let it be forgiven.
Btw, other rumors state, that Aguilera has been working with the likes of Diplo, Santigold, Ladytron, Le Tigre, Linda Perry and Goldfrapp in the recent past. Interesting.
Major props to the mastermind behind this annoyingly addictive, extremely zeitgeisty viral campaign. You’re doing a good fucking job.
-”This is 100% Christina Aguilera. Why are people still playing guessing games? Don’t let that fisheye lens fuck with your eyes. Compare the bottom teeth in the above video with “Beautiful”. You don’t need to be an orthodontist to recognize those crooked ass teeth. Plus, the production on 13.1.14.4.18.1.7.15.18.1.1110 sounds like it could be Switch who we know Aguilera was working with…”
-”So these videos have been popping up and people have been claiming that it’s promo for Goldfrapp but considering that her new album seems to be going in a completely colorful and less nature and more 80’s aesthetic I would say probably not. Then rumors of Gaga maybe, to which probably not because she just released more tracks for the Fame Monster. So we have Christina Aguilera left and anyone else thats a blond, I think I’ll go with the first choice for fun.”
-”If you add up all of the numbers before a decimal and attach a letter to its corresponding number (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.) you’ll notice that each video has a distinct message:
Prelude 699130082.451322 = (38.17) = (CH.AG) = CH. AG.
9.1.13.669321018 = I. A. M. CH.
9.20.19.13.5.723378 = I.T.S.M.E.C.”
-”Because really, if there is something like a collective memory, what these sorts of things prove is that our communal external hard drive is full to capacity. We’ve stopped gathering knowledge and started defragmenting data instead. Because knowing whether it’s Aguilera or Gaga really doesn’t matter when the actual question is why? And if the ‘why’ is simply to get people to associate subversion and excitement with a CD then maybe we’re kind of fucked as a civilization. Probably. Perhaps.”
I feel a bit “Dirrty” now for being a victim of this viral campaign marketing plan, and for being so fascinated, and for wasting so much of my precious time and attention playing Sherlock Holmes, and for writing this long-ass blog post….. But I have to admit: I am feeling this shit 100%, because it is fucking brilliant. 8.1.20.5.13.5.14.15.23.
EDIT: apparently this is NOT Xtina but Swedish singer/songwriter Jonna Lee. Seems like we all got completely fooled, including myself. Nevertheless, those vids and the tunes are DOPE.
Word on ze streets: Diplo & Switch aka Major Lazer are dropping a new EP in April. First sneak peek is this brand nu choon featuring M.I.A. and Busy Signal.
I fucking heart spending time with my computer aka the extension of my brain, but yesterday was one of those days where the plopping sound of an incoming email would make me choke. Sky wasn’t exactly clear, but not too soupy either, and the air felt quite summery. Also, Lion Rock’s just around my corner, so I decided to hop on bus # 72 to finally explore those mountainy regions in my close neighborhood for a bit. After a good 2 hours of hiking through the woods, my heart was racing like Jerry The Race Car Driver and I was dripping with Truck Sweat, so I was happy to finally reach the slopes of Golden Hill Rd to relax a bit, guzzle some water, enjoy the view and hang out with a bunch of wild monkeys.
There’s hundreds of them, just doing their monkey-type-thang; eating, sleeping, fucking, fighting, delousing each other, taking care of their families etc.
I was quite an eye-opener to observe those motherfuckers for a while. Makes me ponder about the universe, and, like, evolution and shit. Ya dig? There’s all kinds of different personalities in the monkey world. Some of them are shy, some of them are rowdy, some of them seem smart, some of them seem stupid, some of them are social, some of them are not. You’re not supposed to have eye-contact, as some of them feel provoked quite easily. Like these two.
I’ve had a proper adrenaline rush when one of the older boss-type dudes suddenly stood up in front of me while I was taking pictures of his fam, screeching with his gnarly-ass jaw wide open, looking into my eyes, stating he’s ready to rumble. Trust me, the last thing I thought of in that moment was to take a picture of the nominee. Especially because I was unarmed, unlike some of the hikers I ran across in that area, carrying man-sized woodblocks. I wonder what one is supposed to do? Just beat it like MJ? Run for your life? Are his clan-members going to interfere? I’m not too keen to find out.
Nuff monkey-bizness. I got enough of that shit for now. Chinese New Year is about to begin, shops and restaurants are closing for the holidays, summertime is back and I’m feeling jolly. Might need to turn on the aircon tonight.
Oh and btw, I’m kinda feeling this newish band from San Francisco by the illustrous name of oOoOO right here:
Above fire safety plan spangled the door of my Shanghai hotel room last Friday. Jeez, last weekend was one of those oh so irksome ones again, despite all the awesomeness that comes along with DJing 3 nights in a row in different countries. Maybe I shall just ditch the booze a bit and watch my nutrition. But I’m not gonna annoy you with any whinage today. Too busy being busy and productive, having coffee on top of my roof and giving neck massages to my neighbour’s chubby cats. The original of I Blame Coco‘s “Caesar” gives me the shivers a bit, but the remixes laced by Diplo (posted earlier) and Miike Snow make me wanna pop n lock on my Kowloon rooftop with those aforementioned pudgy felines from 5 doors down.
As one of the rather underrated producers of California’s Bay Area, Roche has been pumping out signature tunes under the Solos records umbrella for quite a while now. This one right here I am particularly in love with these days. You might have heard it before in my part of The Private Lives Vol 1.
