Be-At

Here’s a tasty morsel that just hit my doormat.

Doves - Kingdom of Rust (Prins Thomas Discomiks Instrumental)

Maybe its something to do with the short days and long nights that they have up there in Norway, but Scandinavian nu-disco don Prins Thomas has been producing some of the most darkly atmospheric beats around for quite some time now. This one is no exception. A re-work of a new Doves single forthcoming on Heavenly Recordings, this takes all of the brooding pop melodies of the original and puts them through the psyched-out disco freakbeat machine, with stunning effect. Enjoy!

So. It’s been a while since, erm, last week’s Hot Topic. My chat with Ebony Bones actually goes back to October now! Which is definitely too long a delay for such a major piece of professional journalism. In fact, we’re getting so professional with these that the ones to follow (with New Young Pony Club and Mystery Jets!) have actually been filmed and some special bits will be included in our monthly video podcasts going through the highlights of the night. But in the meantime, back to Ebony and pachyderms blocking traffic down Camden High Street and packing lipgloss in their trunks…

Would you rather go for a basic grey elephant, mammoth or pink elephant?
E - I’m quite a fan of the woolly mammoth which is obviously a distant relative of common elephants. They have big tusks. And obviously, a great thing with elephants is that they produce ivory, of which I am the opposite: ebony and ivory. That’s why it’s an amazing topic! And I’m named after that godawful song by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, Ebony and Ivory, which was an 80s track. That’s why my parents called me Ebony, believe it or not! Although if you type Ebony in Google, you’ll get lots of porn sites. (laughs)

The mammoth then… I’ve read recently that scientists have found out they can actually recreate a mammoth based on one that’s been frozen for millions of years.
E - From the DNA, they could recreate it… God, can you imagine coming down to Proud Galleries, being really late and going “oh crap, traffic was awful, bloody mammoth in the middle of the road, blocking the way down Camden High Street”! (laughs)

Have you ever seen a real elephant or do you have a memory linked to elephants that you could share with us?
E - No, I haven’t, I’ve only seen them on Youtube, which is really sad actually, there’s animals in the world I’ll never see, not even at the zoo. Actually, that’s a lie, I possibly did at the zoo, as a young child, at the London zoo or something. I was never a fan of zoos, because they always smell of shit and I’m not a fan of that smell. But there was this great show when I was a child called Nellie The Elephant, which was a cartoon, and the song went: (sings) “Nellie The Elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, off she went with the trumpety-trump (claps hands) trump trump trump.” And I was addicted to it!

If you were an elephant, what would you carry in your trunk?
E - It’s funny you say that, I’ve thought of this many a time. My mobile – Blackberry, just in case, you never know who’s gonna try to get hold of you on a safari. A bit of gloss because you might want to pull that night. And my visa debit card because you can’t really get anywhere in life without one of those. I don’t know how elephants do it actually.

So how would you use a Blackberry if you were an elephant?
E - You’d have to kind of spew it out and hope that someone else, like a little Chihuahua would come out and just step on it. You know The Lion King, what’s the little thing called, Pumba? (Pumba is actually the wacky warthog, Ebony was obviously thinking of Timon, his freewheeling meerkat companion). He’d have to do it for you.

Would you rather have the memory of an elephant or the memory of a goldfish?
E - I didn’t know elephants had long memories! So they must really hold grudges! They’d be like “that cunt, he took my ivory tusks”. So maybe a goldfish then… Although I have the brain of a goldfish already, so maybe a longer memory would help. Did you see Finding Nemo? I’m obsessed with this film. Is it Dorothy the fish who’s got a really small memory? I’m a bit like her at times.

Is there a song or an album linked to the topic that you can think of?
E - I got a track called Don’t Fart On My Heart and elephants are quite known for passing bad wind, I hear, particularly in France. In French zoos, all over the place. (laughs) Now that’s official, French zoos stink.

Right, it is not enough that we carry baguettes under our arms, eat frogs and snails, now our zoos stink as well, thank you very much Ebony.
E - Oh… But apart from the smelly zoos, we love France!

Can you pick next week’s Hot Topic?
E - It should be hair extensions.

Now that the hamster has been firmly re-instated back on the wheel of this website, there will be posting-a-plenty for this ‘ere weblog. As you will no doubt have already noticed, there is a wealth of new material being added all the time over on the media page. But here there will be none of that page’s lascivious and seductive display of flashing lights and colours. Just some good old-fashioned, honest, hard-working words for you to read - such as the musings of our favourite indie starlets, who join us every week in a top secret location (it’s the disabled toilet at Proud) to face BE’s famous ‘Hot Topic’ questions from our mystery reporter.

There will also be the occasional sonic treat for all you good boys and girls, the musical equivalent of a favourite Quality Street, handed to you as you come in from a walk on a gloomy winter’s afternoon, all bright and shiny and colourful and that, wrapping papers rustling as you rush to stuff the whole thing into your greedy little gob.

To get the ball rolling, here’s a tasty new offering from our favourite Danish super-group…

WhoMadeWho - The Plot

WhoMadeWho are back with a full album release on Gomma later in 2009. ‘The Plot’ is the second single due to drop in early March, and sure to attract plenty of ‘heat’ and ‘traction’ as they say in showbiz when it does. A low-slung slab of digititronic rock n roll if ever there was one, effortlessly slipping into 4/4 acid electro halfway through. Astounding! We’re deep in negotiations to get the band in for a set at BE next time they’re over, so stay tuned.