The End of 2018 is Near

2018 is coming to an end and so it's time for Antichrisis' musical review of the year — and these are the 20 albums that have thrilled us the most in the last twelve months (in alphabetical order):

The Beths - Future Me Hates Me
Brandi Carlile - By The Way, I Forgive You
Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen on Broadway
Cock Sparrer - Forever
Idles – Joy As An Act of Resistance
Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer
Let’s Eat Grandma – I’m All Ears
Lord Huron - Vide Noir
Low – Double Negative
Manic Street Preachers - Resistance Is Futile
Marianne Faithful - Negative Capability
Muse – Simulation Theory
Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers
Shame – Songs of Praise
She Drew The Gun - Revolution Of The Mind
Snail Mail – Lush
Spiritualized – And Nothing Hurt
Suede - The Blue Hour
Tracey Thorn – Record
U.S. Girls - In a Poem Unlimited



We wish you all the best — and stay tuned for the new Antichrisis album "Foxfire" in 2019.

Thank You for Your Songs, Pete!

When I read in the press that Pete Shelley had died on December 6, 2018, I was immediately thinking back to 1978 when I first heard of the Buzzcocks, whose singer, guitarist and main songwriter Pete Shelley was.

To be honest, the Buzzcocks initially puzzled me: My favourite bands at that time were the likes of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam or the Ramones - and despite the Buzzcocks also playing fast and awesome songs, they were completely lacking the anger and the fury of many of these 1st Generation Punk bands.

Pete Shelley did not shout in rage but sang in a clear and somehow innocent voice of relationship issues and the problems with the opposite sex occurring for adolescent male teens while struggling with insecurity, anxiety and inexperience — and he also wrote some great instrumentals!

But that was exactly what set the Buzzcocks apart from all other Punk bands — and over time I discovered that behind all the speed and impetuosity, Pete Shelley's compositions were in fact dead catchy, intriguing and alluring pop anthems.

As a tribute to the fantastic songwriter that the late Pete Shelley was I put together a playlist of my 20 favourite songs by the Buzzcocks.



The central core of her artistic work definitely consists of her first 3 albums „Another Music in a Different Kitchen“, „Love Bites“ and „A Different Kind of Tension“: neither the band nor Pete Shelley solo ever achieved the outstanding class of these works again in later years. Nevertheless these 3 albums are nowadays considered quite rightfully as milestones in rock history because the Buzzcocks were in terms of innovation light years ahead of other bands of that time; that said they were much closer to an experimental band like Wire than to more „traditional“ bands like the Sex Pistols or Chelsea.

Sid's Favourite Producers

When I started as your typical DIY-producer back in 1995 I usually mixed by trial and error and therefore made lots of mistakes — and I really mean LOTS!

It was only when we started recording Antichrisis’ 2nd album „A Legacy of Love“ at former Blue House Studios in Meerane in 1998 that I learned proper recording and mixing techniques from Jens Bachmann and Tilo Rockstroh, and from this time on I put a lot of attention to production when I listend to records of my favourite bands and artists: why did some records sound interesting, whereas others sounded dull and boring although the songs itself where not that bad? Soon I found out that not a small share of that certain something that made an outstanding song or album was due to the fact that a certain producer or engineer was in charge of the mixing console.

I realised that there quite a few producers with a very unique trademark sound that I really loved. Their work really inspired me and gave me ideas on how to produce Antichrisis — and here’s a list of those producers that became somehow musical godfathers to me:

Adrian Sherwood
Brian Eno
Chris Thomas
Conny Plank
Daniel Lanois
Daniel Miller
Gareth Jones
George Martin
Giorgio Moroder
Jerry Wexler
Joe Meek
Martin Hannett
Michael Gira
Paul Epworth
Phil Spector
Sam Phillips
Steve Lillywhite
Todd Rundgren
Tony Visconti
Trevor Horn


I would never dare to say that I’ve even come close to the abilities and skills of these legendary mixing wizards, but they are nevertheless artists that still guide me on my way as an ambitious DIY-producer.

I’ve had it up to here...

...with Facebook and Twitter!

First of all, I’ve never been much of a fan of Facebook: confusing settings, ugly interface, dodgy terms of conditions etc. That’s why I never used Facebook regularly except for a few postings when a new Antichrisis-album got released.

But now with Facebook’s most recent enmeshment with Cambridge Analytica, I think it’s finally time to leave — and for that reason I have deleted Antichrisis’ Facebook-page, as I don’t want to participate in such devious games (see for example this article for more information).

Andrew_Lewis

And then there’s also Twitter, a social media platform that I quite like and which I’m using on a daily basis - but not through their website or Twitter’s official ugly-as-hell-client, but with third-party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific, as they are much clearer and more comfortable to use providing well-arranged and accurate timelines as well as offering very pleasant user interfaces. To cut a long story short: Twitter without third-party clients simply is unusable to me.

Lately Twitter announced that after June 19th, 2018, Twitter’s streaming services will be removed This means two things for third-party apps that push notifications will no longer arrive and that their timelines won’t refresh automatically. For anyone using third-party apps like Talon, Tweetbot, Tweetings, or Twitterrific, there is no way for its developer to fix these issues. (see here for more information).

I’m definitely not a freeloader, hence I would gladly pay for Twitter if they’d enable third-party app-usage and make it ad-free for paying customers — but as Twitter doesn’t offer any payment model like this, it seems that I have to say "Sayonara“ to Twitter, too; at least from June 19th on.

So goodbye to Twitter and Facebook: it was fun while it lasted (although Facebook was in fact more misery than fun ton me), but as you won’t let me pay for proper services, I’ll have to say "Tempting, but no thanks“.