triptic
Futureshock experimental melodies is a kitchen sink drama set in space starring Elisha Unleashed that tells the story of a girl that became a mother and femme fatale before reaching her 18th birthday and how she fought and won an epic battle against the raging man machine info war conspiracy that saved the world from the great robot insurgency. An urban legend, a prophetess, was she real or was she AI? That’s for you to decide.
Elisha Unleashed swallowed the blue pill and has not been seen or heard of since.
Futureshock experimental melodies
If you don’t understand it you’re too old
Let’s trip the light fantastic
Electric sheep
Soul mining
Do you know how you make me feel
Infant sorrow
Big Dogs
Beauty and the Beast
Slippery Slopes
Private Lives
Baghdad Zeitgeist
Most people want to stop the fighting
Life’s a Beach
Rendezvous
Fine Line
Futureshock
Let’s trip the light fantastic
Dance the night away
Let’s trip the light fantastic
Let him kiss me
Let him touch me
Let him kiss me with his lips
Let him touch me with fingertips
Let’s trip the light fantastic
Love moves forward
Or else it dies
I can show you
A better time
Dance the night away
Let’s trip the light fantastic
Nano second speed of sound
Love makes the world turn around
Electric sheep
Half awake half asleep
Dreaming of electric sheep
Soul mining
Forbidden fruit tastes sweeter
In my secret garden
Soul mining
I’m looking for you
Come and see the northern lights
Twinkle in the southern skies
East of Eden, Westward bound
Paradise in rapture found
Say you believe
Waiting for Eve
Say you believe
Do you know how you make me feel
It was fun innocence
Starting off as good friends
But I knew in the end
We were too young
I was never that keen
Just turned seventeen
I forgot to remember
I was somebody’s dream
Do you know how you make me feel
Rose tinted lenses
Broke down my defences
Woke up to resent this
Came to my senses
I’ve got no regrets
It’s as good as it gets
Can you forgive me
So I can forget
Do you know how you make me feel
Dance cheek to cheek
There’s no need to speak
I will love you
Seven days of the week
What’s done is done
And fades from view
The only thing he left me was you
Do you know how you make me feel
To keep you safe from harm
I’d beg, borrow or steal
Forgotten voices bygone times
They still whisper through
The windmills of my mind
Infant sorrow
Infant sorrow that I bear
Look upon ye mighty and despair
Big Dogs
Beware of the Dog
Big Dogs are chasing me
Big Dogs want me to undress
Big Dogs they want to possess
Dangerous Dogs are on the loose
Have broke out from the cage
Big Dogs you never can tell
If Dangerous Dogs are the hounds of Hell
Big Dogs are the masters
And their world is a stage
Dangerous Dogs incandescent with Rage
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Beauty and the beast
Know Thyself
Statement of fact
Opposites attract
Truth is stranger
Than science fiction
Glance at the sun
See the moon and the stars
Gaze at the beauty
Of the earth
Slippery Slopes
Slippery Slopes
I don’t wanna lose you
Ever felt you were spitting in the rain
That all your love’s in vain
What’s the point of a broken home
If we both end up alone
Slippery slopes boo hurrah
Building barricades
Was never my plan
I didn’t mean for you to seek solace
With somebody else
Servant and master
Betrayed with a kiss
I can’t believe
I reduced you to this
No one deserves pity
If they hold on to their sins
No slave can cry freedom
When the liberty bell rings
Emotional minefield
Where danger is fraught
Are you only sorry
Because you were caught
Mistakes that I made lay the blame on me
Mistakes that you made make our misery
Inside I feel so broken
Like something has awoken
Making each day seem a little longer
Heartbreak only makes you stronger
Slippery slopes boo hurrah
Once around the block
We’ve both been around
A thief in the night
Must make no sound
Deep down I’m scared
With tangible fear
Dreaming of swan song
On Hornsea mere
My word I will keep, my promise and vow
I loved you then, I still love you now
Neither can claim the moral high ground
What was once lost, has now been found
Private Lives
Private lives the truth denies
Love moves forward or else it dies
Baghdad Zeitgeist
Infidel believers
Desert storm shock and awe
Petrol war deadhead sticker on a cadillac
I saw the stars I saw the stripes
I saw the crescent Baghdad zeitgeist
Finders and the keepers
I believe you and me
Are mercenary Shia luxury
I believe in drones and scuds
Boyz in the hood
Gold oil and drugs
Thrill seekers sunni dreamers
Tigris river flows between us
Hajjis Arabian knights
I saw 2 worlds collide
GI Joes swapping blows
I saw 2 worlds collide
Baghdad zeitgeist
Most people want to stop the fighting
Look beyond the dream
Things ain’t what they seem
Most people want to stop the fighting
But they don’t care to stop
Life’s a Beach
Life’s a beach and then you die
Let’s reach out and touch the sky
Sunshine ultra violet rays
Starshine a million miles away
Ride on tide see how we sway
Feeling fine its time to play
Lifes a beach and then you die
Let’s reach out and touch the sky
On the land we left the sea
Are we condemned to be free
Secret of eternity
I have got a brand new key
Feel the need inside of me
You are my sunshine
Wake up every morning
The first thing I see is you
The sun sets in my window
Panoramic view
Feel the warmth inside of me
You make me feel brand new
Might as well enjoy ourselves
We’re only passing through
Sun tan lotion sunglasses on
Let’s have our day in the sun
Life’s a beach and then you die
Let’s reach out and touch the sky
Rendezvous
Rendezvous it takes two
Don’t think of my dilemma
Don’t think of your distress
Kitchen sink dramas
Leave only emptiness
Let’s talk about our school days
Family and friends
Talk about the messages that we send
let’s go out tonight
Let’s meet up and have a good time
Break on thru to the other side
Rendezvous it takes two
Play make believe
There’s nothing to hide
The grass is always greener
On the other side
At the corn exchange
Where vagrants parade
And girls of a type
Sing sweet serenade
Let’s go out tonight
Let’s meet up and have a good time
Break on through to the other side
Millennium square county arcade
Victoria quarter made in the shade
Reading star signs of future days
Smell the roses along the way
Broadcasting place valentine fair
Barrel of laughter Dortmund square
Honest and open full of suprise
Let’s go out in the city tonight
Fine Line
As it is these remain
Faith hope and love 3 of them
And the greatest of them all is love
Our little hands were never meant
To tear each others eyes
Anything goes, fingers and toes
Spite yourself, cut off your nose
Memory bliss, descending red mist
The greatest lie told, is that I don’t exist
Fine line, love and hate
Make your peace, why hesitate
And eye for an eye for an eye
Everybody ends up blind
Fruit of they womb, shame was my loom
Wolf in sheep clothing, filled with self loathing
No woman no cry, never say goodbye
There is a God shaped hole, etched upon my soul
Fine line, love and hate
Make your peace, why hesitate
And eye for an eye for an eye
Everybody ends up blind
Some things I do regret, I am forever in your debt
There is an elephant in my room, I made my move too soon
Hubris and pride, all empires will fall
The words of the Prophet are written on my walls
We’ve lost our L.O.V.I.N.G.
We lost our love in animosity
Futureshock
On behalf of the future
We ask you of the past
To leave us alone
Take me back home again
Take me to Andromeda
Information streams nightmares and dreams
Hard wired love snags my genes
Pilots and seers monolithic gears
Play for me the music of the spheres
Flick that switch and turn me on
Switch that glitch and turn me on
Futureshock
Star ship mutinous crew
Like a volcano she blew
Neutrino split in two
Ooh yeah up she rises
Take me back home again
Take me to Andromeda
Ecstasy in my soul
Cosmic egg wormhole
E la morte non avra dominio
Space junk gamma ray burst
Colonise and disperse
The rise of the robots
Seeding the universe
Flick that switch and turn me on
Switch that glitch and turn me on
At the tipping point we change
Protect the planet
Love will prevail
There are no answers only choices
Futures studies (also called futurology) is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and parallel to the field of history. In the same way that history studies the past, futures studies considers the future. Futures studies (colloquially called “futures” by many of the field’s practitioners) seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends.[1] Unlike the physical sciences where a narrower, more specified system is studied, futures studies concerns a much bigger and more complex world system. The methodology and knowledge are much less proven as compared to natural science or even social science like sociology, economics, and political science.
Existentialism is generally considered to be the philosophical and cultural movement which holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the individual and the experiences of the individual, that moral thinking and scientific thinking together do not suffice to understand human existence, and, therefore, that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to understand human existence.[1][2][3] (Authenticity, in the context of existentialism, is being true to one’s own personality, spirit, orcharacter.)[4]
Existentialism began in the mid-19th century as a reaction against then-dominant systematic philosophies, with Søren Kierkegaardgenerally considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.[3][5][6] Opposed to Hegelianism and Kantianism,[3][6] Kierkegaard posited that it is the individual who is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and for living life passionately and sincerely.[7][8] Existentialism became popular in the years following World War II and influenced a range of disciplines besides philosophy, including theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology.[9]
Existentialists generally regard traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.[10][11] Scholars generally consider the views of existentialist philosophers to be profoundly different from one another relative to those of other philosophies.[3][12][13] Criticisms of existentialist philosophers include the assertions that they confuse their use of terminology and contradict themselves.[14][15][16]
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
The film depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered organic robots called replicants—visually indistinguishable from adult humans—are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as by other “mega–manufacturers” around the world. Their use on Earth is banned and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial or leisure work on off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and “retired” by police special operatives known as “Blade Runners”. The plot focuses on a brutal and cunning group of recently escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the burnt out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.
Blade Runner initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The film performed poorly in North American theaters but has since become a cult film.[2] The film has been hailed for its production design, depicting a “retrofitted” future,[3] and remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre.[4] It brought the work of Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood and several later films were based on his work.[5] Ridley Scott regards Blade Runner as “probably” his most complete and personal film.[6][7] In 1993 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Seven versions of the film have been shown for various markets as a result of controversial changes made by film executives. A rushedDirector’s Cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to workprint screenings. This, in conjunction with its popularity as a video rental, made it one of the first films released on DVD, resulting in a basic disc with mediocre video and audio quality.[8] In 2007 Warner Bros. released The Final Cut, a 25th anniversary digitally remastered version by Scott in selected theaters, and subsequently on DVD,HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc.[9]
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare’s most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.
Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painterin 1582. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but, to expand the plot, developed supporting characters, particularly Mercutio andParis. Believed written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. This text was of poor quality, and later editions corrected it, bringing it more in line with Shakespeare’s original.
Shakespeare’s use of dramatic structure, especially effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of sub-plots to embellish the story, has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play.
Romeo and Juliet has been adapted numerous times for stage, film, musical and opera. During the English Restoration, it was revived and heavily revised by William Davenant. David Garrick‘s 18th-century version also modified several scenes, removing material then considered indecent, and Georg Benda‘s operatic adaptation omitted much of the action and added a happy ending. Performances in the 19th century, including Charlotte Cushman‘s, restored the original text, and focused on greater realism. John Gielgud‘s 1935 version kept very close to Shakespeare’s text, and used Elizabethan costumes and staging to enhance the drama. In the 20th century the play has been adapted in versions as diverse as George Cukor‘s multi-Oscar-nominated 1936 production, Franco Zeffirelli‘s 1968 version, and Baz Luhrmann‘s 1996 MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet.
West Side Story is an American musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and conception and choreography by Jerome Robbins. It was inspired by William Shakespeare‘s play Romeo and Juliet.
The story is set in the West 50s and West 60s of the Upper West Side neighborhood in New York City in the mid-1950s, an ethnic,blue-collar neighborhood. (In the early 1960s much of the neighborhood would be cleared in an urban renewal project for Lincoln Center, changing the neighborhood character.)[1][2] The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangsof different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks from Puerto Rico are taunted by the Jets, a white working-class group.[3]The young protagonist, Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in American musical theatre. Bernstein’s score for the musical includes “Something’s Coming”, “Maria“, “America“, “Somewhere“, “Tonight“, “Jet Song”, “I Feel Pretty”, “A Boy Like That“, “One Hand, One Heart“, “Gee, Officer Krupke”, and “Cool“.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, marked Sondheim’s Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for fiveTony Awards including Best Musical in 1957, but the award for Best Musical went to Meredith Willson‘s The Music Man; it won a Tony Award for Robbins’ choreography. The show had an even longer-running London production, a number of revivals and international productions. The play spawned an innovative 1961 musical film of the same name, directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starringNatalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn. The film won ten Academy Awards out of eleven nominations, including Best Picture.
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (/?s?rtr?/; French pronunciation: [sa?t?]; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French existentialistphilosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism, and one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Marxism. His work, in addition to being influential to existentialism, Marxist political theory and French literature, has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.
He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature and refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that, “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.”[2]
The Garden of Eden (Hebrew ???? ?????, Gan ?Edhen), is the biblical “garden of God”, described most notably in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 2-3), but also mentioned, directly or indirectly, in Ezekiel, Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament.[1]In the past the favoured derivation of the name “Eden” was from the Akkadian edinnu, itself derived from a Sumerian word meaning “plain” or “steppe”, but it is now believed to be more closely related to an Aramaic root meaning “fruitful, well-watered.”[1]
The text of the Genesis garden-story is surrounded by uncertainties. Notable among them are: (1) whether the word “eden” means a steppe or plain, or instead means “delight” or some similar term; (2) whether the garden was in the east of Eden, or Eden itself was in the east, or whether “east” is not the correct word at all and the Hebrew means the garden was “of old”; (3) whether the river in Genesis 2:10 “follows from” or “rises in” Eden, and the relationship, if any, of the four rivers to each other; and (4) whether Cush, where one of the four rivers flows, means Ethiopia (in Africa) or Elam (just east of Mesopotamia).[2]
The Eden of Genesis has been variously located at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates in northern Iraq, in Africa, and in the Persian Gulf. The Eden in Ezekiel, however, is unequivocally located in Lebanon. For many medieval writers, the image of the Garden of Eden also creates a location for human love and sexuality, often associated with the classic and medieval trope of the locus amoenus.[3]
The Northern School of Contemporary Dance is a modern conservatoire dance school with its origins in the Leeds dance education of the 1970s and 80s. Two years after the founding of the school in 1985, it moved to its current home in Chapeltown in 1987. The Riley Theatre was built in the former synagogue, and over the next ten years a number of new dance studios were created on the site and the Brandsby Lodge was renovated. Today the school is recognised as a world-class contemporary dance institution with nearly 200 students.[20]
The Northern School of Contemporary Dance is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organization devoted to promoting excellence in contemporary dance, ballet, acting, technical theatre and circus arts.[21
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (
/?p?rsi ?b?? ???li/;[2] 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats andLord Byron. The novelist Mary Shelley (née Godwin) was his second wife.
He is most famous for such classic anthology verse works as “Ozymandias“, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy, which are among the most popular and critically acclaimed poems in the English language. His major works, however, are long visionary poems which included Queen Mab (later reworked as The Daemon of the World), Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Adonaïs and the unfinished work The Triumph of Life. The Cenci (1819) and Prometheus Unbound (1820) were dramatic plays in five and four acts respectively. Although he has typically been figured as a “reluctant dramatist”, he was passionate about the theatre, and his plays continue to be performed today. He wrote the Gothic novels Zastrozzi(1810) and St. Irvyne (1811) and the short prose works “The Assassins” (1814), “The Coliseum” (1817) and “Una Favola” (1819). In 2008, he was credited as the co-author of the novel Frankenstein (1818) in a new edition by the Bodleian Library in Oxford and Random House in the U.S. entitled The Original Frankenstein, edited by Charles E. Robinson.[3][4][5]
Shelley’s unconventional life, alongside a common perception of his thought as uncompromising idealism,[6][7] combined with his strong disapproving voice, made him a marginalized figure during his life, important in a fairly small circle of admirers, and opened him to criticism as well as praise afterward. Long after Shelley’s death, Mark Twain took particular aim at Shelley in In Defense of Harriet Shelley, where he lambasted the 22-year-old Shelley for abandoning his pregnant 18-year-old wife and child to run off with the 16-year-old Mary Godwin.[8] Shelley never lived to see the extent of his success and influence; although some of his works were published, they were often suppressed upon publication.
He became an idol of the next three or four generations of poets, including important Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite poets. He was admired by Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, William Butler Yeats, Upton Sinclair andIsadora Duncan.[9] Henry David Thoreau‘s civil disobedience and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi‘s passive resistance were apparently influenced and inspired by Shelley’s non-violence in protest and political action, although Gandhi does not include him in his list of mentors.[10]
The Green Zone (Arabic: ??????? ???????) is the most common name for the International Zone of Baghdad. It is a 10 square kilometers (3.9 sq mi) area of central Baghdad, Iraq, that was the governmental center of the Coalition Provisional Authority and remains the center of the international presence in the city. Its official name beginning under the Iraqi Interim Government is the International Zone, though Green Zone remains the most commonly used term. The contrasting Red Zone refers to parts of Baghdad immediately outside the perimeter, but was also loosely applied to all unsecured areas outside the off-site military posts. Both terms originated as military designations.
Infant Sorrow
“My mother groan’d! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt.
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Struggling in my father’s hands,
Striving against my swaddling bands;
Bound and weary I thought best
To sulk upon my mother’s breast.”
One thing that generally goes unnoticed in this poem is the use of the past tense to describe this birth. The speaker is no longer a baby: he has had some experience of the dangerous world and he turns back to see the dreadful moment when – like a fiend, not like an angel – he came to life. The verb leapt suggests his exhausted mother’s last push after a painful labour, with no tender arms to take and cuddle this creature. The baby found itself half stifled with the poor bandage wrapped around its tiny body and its father’s hands to hold him tight. He tried to free himself, as hard as he could, but his attempt was vain and in the end he could only surrender and “sulk upon … mother’s breast”. The struggle is symbolical of any attempt of contrasting tyrannical oppressive power (the father, the institutions, the church itself…) and the final moment of surrender is the negative acceptance of one’s destiny.
Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a traditional fairy tale. The first published version of the fairy tale was a rendition byGabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740.[1] The best-known written version was an abridgement of her work published in 1756 by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, in Magasin des enfants, ou dialogues entre une sage gouvernante et plusieurs de ses élèves; an English translation appeared in 1757.[2]
Variants of the tale are known across Europe.[3] In France, for example, Zémire et Azor is an operatic version of the story of Beauty and the Beast written by Marmontel and composed by Grétry in 1771. It had enormous success well into the 19th century.[4] It is based on the second version of the tale.
Amour pour amour, by Nivelle de la Chaussée, is a 1742 play based on Villeneuve’s version.
Slippery slope – In debate or rhetoric, a slippery slope (also known as thin end of the wedge – or sometimes “edge” in US English – or the camel’s nose) is a classic form of argument, arguably an informal fallacy. A slippery slope argument states that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant effect, much like an object given a small push over the edge of a slope sliding all the way to the bottom.[1] The strength of such an argument depends on the warrant, i.e. whether or not one can demonstrate a process which leads to the significant effect. The fallacious sense of “slippery slope” is often used synonymously with continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. Modern usage avoids the fallacy by acknowledging the possibility of this middle ground.
Kitchen sink realism (or kitchen sink drama) is a term coined to describe a British cultural movement which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels,film and television plays, whose ‘heroes’ usually could be described as angry young men. It used a style of social realism, which often depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons living in rented accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore social issues and political controversies.
The films, plays, and novels employing this style are set frequently in poorer industrial areas in the North of England, and use the rough-hewn speaking accents and slang heard in those regions. The film It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) is a precursor of the genre, and the John Osborne play Look Back in Anger (1956) is thought of as the first of the idiom. Another important writer in the movement is Paddy Chayefsky.
The gritty love-triangle of Look Back in Anger, for example, takes place in a cramped, one-room flat in the English Midlands. The conventions of the genre have continued into the 2000s, finding expression in such television shows as Coronation Street and EastEnders.[1]
In art, “Kitchen Sink School” was a term used by critic David Sylvester to describe painters who depicted social realist-type scenes of domestic life.[2]
Futureshock : Experimental Melodies
Reviewed:
Imagine creating an album which carries the slogan ‘music to piss off old people and scare small children’.
You’d have a doomed teenage mother for a vocalist and a furious male adolescent, at war with his world, acting as chief machine gunner (AKA the guy who came up with the techno bassline loops). Then add to the chaos a talented and highly skilled composing duo known as ‘No Ego’ put them through a raging machine, turn up the volume and with an explosion of light, colour and sound …… you have the album; Futureshock : Experimental Melodies.
Mad, bad, brilliant and dangerous. It’s not techno and it’s not bassline, but without a shadow of a doubt, this album stands as the debut for a new musical genre known conveniently as ‘Futureshock’.
The lyrics are mainly written as streams of consciousness; they’re not quite as random or bizarre as Lady Gaga’s, and they’re more structured and subject related than Nirvana. The songs are great to move to but they’re also good to think to.
I couldn’t go any further without mentioning Elisha Unleashed, the album’s artist. She’s beautiful, cocky and very cool. Her voice is not to everyone’s taste; not being particularly varied and carrying an obvious Leeds accent – but it works.
There is no-one who could pull this off better than Elisha, her voice becomes increasingly spooky the further you venture down the track listings, and she most definitely has edge.
The modern way of singing seems to be all about pushing the voice to its full potential and showing it off to the point of self-indulgence. This girl’s far more concerned with what she’s saying and the point she’s making than the technicalities of her voice. Elisha Unleashed would rather create an awesome racket than a nice noise.
There are no ‘ooh’s’ or yeah’s’ in this album, it’s a seamless collection of situations and experiences in which a young girl battles with the machine, or the major obstacles she encounters in life. It’s theatrical there are definite urban stories told here.
Kicking off with Let’s Trip the Light Fantastic, this track dances and flirts with the machine and is really made to move to.
We then progress to her feelings over a flawed and finished teenage romance. Songs such as Do You Know How You Make Me Feel? and Slippery Slopes have more than an air of melancholy to them and portray deeper, more heartfelt, messages.
Then come the epic fights with the machine, Big Dogs and Beauty and Beast, these are darker, dirtier and altogether harsher songs.
Taking a short break from the fight, wider issues are examined in Baghdad Zeitgeist and a very short connecting track named Most People Want to Stop the Fighting. These address some of the issues surrounding the war on terror and differing attitudes towards modern times.
Back to the battle, where Elisha is ignoring the machine and learning to smell the roses along the way in Life’s a Beach and Then You Die. This ironically titled song is a real feel-good summer track, but in typical No Ego style, disguises deeper moral messages.
Rendezvous is a memorable track, not least because of the quirky references to locations in Leeds, but also because of the Mozart style piano solo, which is a really charming asset to the album.
The two ending songs are true masterworks. Fineline begins with a very short Bible passage; in any other voice but Elisha’s this, along with the rest of the album, would sound like preaching. The track builds up to a huge sound that quotes the likes of Kahlil Gibran and Ghandi.
Futureshock is an epic. Opening with: “ On behalf of the future, we ask you of the past, to leave us alone”. Through a series of striking one-liner’s the song builds in to an immense electronic guitar solo, which is almost arcade game-like. Here, Elisha is at one with the machine. The album concludes with the haunting words; “there are no answers; only choices”.
I should also add that ‘Futureshock : Experimental Melodies’ is a seamless album. The tracks blend easily into each other, a technique famously developed by the Beatles on tracks such as A Day in the Life and more recently used on Kate Bush’s album Ariel.
To further advance the melt-in effect, No Ego has created four miniature tracks, which declare a short statement, before becoming the next song.
Futureshock marks the end of Generation X, the beginning of Generation Y, and the coming Age of Aquarius. Take from it what you will, but remember that it is an album from a new genre of music that tells the stories of the time in which we live. It is an album of youth, so regardless of whether you love it or hate it, don’t miss the point of it, because in the words of its creator “if you don’t understand it – you’re too old”.
Emily Rain (aged 15)
