Alphaxone & Dronny Darko - Forsaken

Cryo Chamber: 2017

I thought this would be it. After many, many, many months, almost seven deep into our current calendar year, I'd finally (finally!) get out my first review of a 2018 release. I mean, there's precedent for it, my last couple years of critic-blogging establishing a pattern of sorts. Lollygagging on the current stuff, but not that Cryo Chamber hit, oh no. They're almost always first out the gate, since they're a label I keep most up-to-date on, with albums released at such a steady clip you're never left wanting for material. Odds have always been in their favour that they get the FIRST glory, and wouldn't you know it, this particular release features two artists that have even been part of those pole positions, Dronny Darko and Alphaxone. Can you blame me for having it stuck in my head that this collaboration album between them was a 2018 release then, and would be my first review of a release in this year? But nay, that is not the case at all, Forsaken rather coming out mid-2017, and it's only now that I've actually gotten around to it. Damn it, though, I could have sworn it was a Dronny Darko album that would do the deed, and something regarding 'cryo' at that. I'm forgetting something...

Anyhow, I got this album because how could I resist a pairing of these two? Alphaxone has built a career on crafting droning soundscapes leading you into alternate dimensions (or space), while Dronny Darko crafts droning soundscapes for when you're already in these alternate dimensions (or space). It's a match made in heaven-Hell (or whatever that labyrinth cenobite realm is), and I couldn't wait to hear what weird, strange, twisted, perverted, conceptual head-space these two would take me. Fiery towers in washed-out graylands? Deep explorations of quantum realms where only Event Horizon madness dwells? Ooh, such tantalizing, very fantasizing!

But nay, we instead get something... conventional? Like, Forsaken does have a definite narrative, but it isn't anything specific, at least to the degree 'Xone & Dron' have done before. The track titles are mostly broad, generalized moments of an inward journey - Immersion, Enter The Gates, Dissolution Of Thought, Approaching, etc. - but there's no indication of where are why this journey is taking place. The assorted imagery in the CD package also shows pictures of foggy city-lines and sail masts, which gets my 'dark ambient boats' triggers all a'twitter, but still doesn't clue me in any further exactly what's forsaken here. And speaking of the CD, why do the tracks have fades between them? It's clear this album is a continuous mix, but the fades makes it sound like we're taking a commercial break between tracks. I can only assume this was an oversight.

All that nitpicking aside though, the music (such as it is) perfectly captures Alphaxone and Darko's droning strengths, involving you in a weird journey of discordant tones and strange sounds. I just wish I knew exactly where I was going.

Gridlock - Formless

Hymen Records: 2003

Man, talk about a coincidence, two straight album requests featuring breaks cribbed from the IDM camps! Though as this isn't a Patreon request, I can't give a specific shout-out to the requester. Sorry, Philoi. (wait...)

More to the point, this was requested as a bit of book-keeping from the TranceCritic days, an item covered by one of the website's other writers that could use a dusting off for our current clime's. Thing is, I don't recall this crossing our path, nor do I have a back-up of said supposed review. Granted, I don't have every item we published, and this one could have possibly slipped through the cracks, but I'm fairly certain if something this obscure had made it into the TC archives (and my back-ups), I'd have remembered it.

Back to the coincidence, Gridlock wasn't an actual breaks act like Tipper. Rather, they hail from the industrial camps, early adopters of the aggrotech scene (aka: when industrial discovered big-beat ...kinda'). Basically, a lot of noisy beats, angry shouting, with occasional moments of respite in dark ambient dirges. As time went on though, to two Mikes behind the project (Cadoo and Wells) drifted away from the industrial abrasiveness, their music becoming something more common among the IDM camps. They still kept the glitchy, harsh rhythms, but you could find that among breakcore or drill n' bass anyway. What pulled their music into a completely different scene, however, was just how nicely melodic it had all come, none of the menace and macabre of industrial remaining.

Formless was their final album, and serves as a nice capper of their transition from their bleak, early work. The beats are still all crunchy and glitchy and noisy, but so often coupled with charming melodies and pleasing ambient timbre that you almost forget there's a mechanical racket going on in support. What's nice about these beats is they never overwhelm the songcraft, over-indulging with fancy effects to the detriment of whatever musical ideas Gridlock performs. While this is hardly a new idea in the realms of IDM, I haven't heard it done quite the way Gridlock does here. Mind, it's not like I've gone super deep-diving into the realms of IDM, and there are still plenty of moments that have me thinking mid-'90s Aphex Twin (because it always comes back to him in this scene, doesn't it?). For the most part though, Gridlock have found a lane for themselves, and ride it with skill and finesse.

In fact, they stick to that lane so diligently, it kinda' hampers the overall album. Formless is fifteen tracks long, some short interstitial doodles, others breaching the nine-minute mark. Most, however, hover around four-to-six minutes, and while they all sound fine, there's also a noticeable lack of sonic variety too. Industrial beats, ambient techno melodies, and that's about it for the duration. I'm never bored by what I hear, but I cannot deny the mind drifting a little towards album end too. Annoying when the grey matter does that.

Tipper - The Critical Path

Higher Ground: 2000

(A Patreon Request from Omskbird)

Despite it soon dominated by *those* basslines, there's a reason why nu-skool breaks was briefly considered among the cutting-edge tuneage in electronic music: producers were eschewing traditional standbys like sampling and bigging-up the beats in favour of cribbing technical innovations from the IDM camps. Micro edits! Digital scratching! Glitchin' that shit up! Of course, by the time the nu-skoolers had gotten their mitts on these toys, the IDM world had long moved on, but it's not like the IDM and breaks scenes would ever cross-pollinate again. (oh hi, Venetian Snares)

Among those early innovators was Dave Tipper, a nu-skool hero for the headier heads (and a glitch-hop favourite when nu-skool became old-n-busted school). He never achieved the same level of commercial fame as other players in this particular scene (Rennie Pilgrim, Adam Freeland, that attention whore BT, who only dabbled in nu-skool but somehow took almost all the glory... *ahem*), but that's how his followers like it. Tipper is their guy, making music for their brain matter. Sure, it's nice you can find him headlining festival stages and all, but he's playing his music for their DMT trip. Why yes, I've had this conversation at the Shambhala Music Festival, why do you ask?

After a couple singles sticking to conventional breaks of the '90s, (big beat, acid crunch, trip-hop), his Twister record marked a sudden change in how his sound would carry forward. The Critical Path is the debut album that followed, and offers ample amounts of that nu-fangled take on the broken-beat. No samples of obscure funk, every piece of rhythm an original construct. Except maybe opener Seldom Vile, in that it at times reminds me of Aphex Twin's Acrid Avid Jam Shred. Hey, I told you nu-skool were aping things IDM had done half a decade prior.

At eleven tracks long, Tipper gets plenty of room to show off all the fancy nu-gimmicks in his computer arsenal, more than half the tracks varied examples of what breaks of the future might evolve into (before the 'tear-out' guys sullied it). This being the year 2000, he gets in a couple trip-hop cuts too, including Zero 7 favourite Sophie Barker on vocals. And what would a breaks album of that period be without a little Hybrid borrowing, a few tunes working in orchestral swells as well.

And the music itself? Well, if you like Phase 1 nu-skool, you probably already have this. It took me a little to get warmed to it myself, and there are portions where Tipper comes down with BT-itis, over-indulging the effects to ludicrous extremes (oh God, are they ever ridiculous in Last Informer - impossible to pay attention to Ms. Barker's lyrics with that much nonsense going on in the background). Overall, I was more impressed by Tipper's sound design than his songcraft, but so long as tunes like Twister, Sort Code, and Supersport have me imagining blistering down hyper-sonic race tracks through ancient temples and lunar colonies, mission accomplished, I say.

Tomita - The Firebird

RCA: 1975/2016

Tomita's passing was sad, but not unexpected, the famed Japanese synth wizard having lived a long, accomplished life. And if there's anything positive to be gained from a storied musician's death, it gives their estate and associated labels a reason to push out a fresh round of re-issues of their seminal work. Not that it happens all the time – Prince's estate remains rightfully protective of the man's vaults of music – but far as I can tell, Sony and Tomita have been on okay terms for the past few decades. About as positive a relationship as anyone can have with a faceless monolithic entertainment corporation anyway. (they do make wonderful portable music devices tho'!)

Not that Tomita's '70s albums were out of print or hard to find, but it'd been a while since his famed records were last in fresh circulation. Heck, Firebird alone hadn't been released in non-Japanese stores since the early '90s, though to be fair, Snowflakes Are Dancing is generally regarded as the Very Important Tomita Album deserving of frequent re-issues, since that's where all his technical innovations (Phasing! Flanging! Spatial stereo!) first appeared.

Once he got all that sorted, Tomita was able to crank out more classical interpretations at a modestly steady clip – just which ones would he take on, then? Bach and Beethoven were clearly out, as Carlos had already created the defining electronic takes on them (for a while anyway). Nay, ol' Isao-san had something a little more modern in mind, one of the giants of 20th Century classical and ballet composers, Russian Igor Stravinsky and his Firebird suite. Even if you've never heard a single piece of orchestral music in your life (!!), you've likely heard some variation of Infernal Dance - pure heavy metal fodder, that. Though I always think final boss in jRPG, which makes sense since Infernal Dance kinda' is a final boss confrontation in the actual ballet.

Obviously Tomita couldn't perform and produce the entire suite, so we get a truncated version of Firebird, with most of the highlights intact (think Disney's Fantasia 2000 version). For a composition that traditionally utilizes huge orchestras, what Tomita cranks out here is quite remarkable, synth-heavy sections of Round Of The Princesses, Lullaby, and Finale hitting you with just as much gravitas while worming in quirky, bleepy, flanged sounds and effects. I cannot deny though, Infernal Dance doesn't pump the adrenaline so effectively with the tinny synths here. Give me that full-frontal horn assault any day!

A couple bonus compositions were made for Side B, including Debussy's Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun. I don't know much about this one, but it's pleasant enough. The second is another heavy metal favourite, Moussorgsky's A Night On Bald Mountain. Hot damn, but are those choir samples ever put to great use here! Even the weird, burbling bloops have me imagining dancing devils as some cyborg abominations. Like, if that Disney version went full anime. Makes sense, with all the players involved.

Gareth Davis - Filament

Slaapwel Records: 2016

Even in the current heat waves, I haven't had that much trouble sleeping, but I cannot deny throwing on the few Slaapwel CDs I've gathered does do the trick in a pinch. Daily commute aside, I think I've only ever completely listened through one of these once, if you want to count 'playing in the background' among the conditions. For sure they aren't intended as such, and I almost fear should I try them out as more consistent sonic background ambience, I'd nod off on whatever task I'm trying to accomplish. Like, how can I kick Persian ass as Alexander The Great in Rise Of Nations if I've conked out on my keyboard? Firing off all the hotkeys at once is a great strategy!

Gareth Davis' Filament has thus far been Slaapwel Records' latest offering ...released two years ago now. Hey, when I said the Belgian print has a 'lazy' release rate, I wasn't kidding. Mr. Davis himself is something of a journeyman musician, providing bass clarinet with several artists this past decade. Let's see if you recognize any of them, because I sure don't: Martin Stif Anderson, Daniel Biro, Machinefabriek, Elliot Sharp, Steven R. Smith, Aidan Baker, Merzbow... Okay, that's one, but wow, to work with the endless Japanese noise master, then provide a sleepy-time album in the same year, that's quite the contrast. I wonder which was recorded first, this or the Merzbow project? Filament technically came out after Atsusaku, though this was recorded in late 2011, whereas I'm almost certain Merzbow releases his stuff hours after recording. I must know which came first, the yin or the yang!

Filament is also the only time Gareth has done a solo recording (so sayeth Lord Discogs). Makes sense, as there aren't many out there who'd be down for a bass clarinet player tootin' his own horn for albums on end without something else accompanying him – at least, not outside jazz circles. Even Mr. Davis knew he couldn't just play it on his own without a little sonic wallpaper in support, so he provides field recordings of gently washing waves as a sort of rhythmic backbone to the piece. Huh, and here I thought those would have been sounds found in that other Slaapwel CD I reviewed, Seaworthy's Sleep Paths. I wonder if ocean tones might also be on The Boats' Do The Boats Dream Of Electric Fritz Pfleumer? (now that's a fun title to say out loud!)

From the opening lapping of salty brine upon rocky shores, distant sounds have me reminded of whale song, though is really Gareth's heavy clarinet tones fed through effects pedals, creating an eerie yet soothing drone. After a time the waves recede in prominence, lazy clarinet melodies and backing pad effects creating a sense of drifting among tidal pools. It's all very calm and relaxing, as intended, and at thirty-five minutes long, provides plenty of doze-off time. No, really, it's perfectly fine if you don't last the duration. It's kinda' the point.

Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release

Wichita: 2007

(A Patreon Request)

For the longest time, I couldn't shake the notion Simian Mobile Disco (a spin-off from Simian) and 2 Many DJs (a subsidiary of Soulwax) were part of the same conglomerate. There really was no basis in logic or fact for this to have lodged inside my brain – the two groups don't even hail from the same country! The only similarity they have is they're off-shoots of an established indie rock band, with a side-career in music making, remixing, and DJing that got them greater attention in clubland. Perhaps my confusion stemmed from both growing popular around the same time, riding the wave of disco punk and (eergghhh...) 'nu-rave' hype of the mid-'00s. They seemed about on par in popularity in my region of the world, though SMD were quickly promoted to New Hotness in the British press, their answer to the French juggernaut that was Justice and all things Ed Banger.

That the UK rags would prop their homegrown indie-cum-electro house darlings to minor chart success isn't a surprise. A decade hence though, does Simian Mobile Disco's debut album Attack Decay Sustain Release hold up, or is it very much a product of its heyday, when noisy, trashy maximal techno brought the rave back to the clubs? Considering Misters Ford and Shaw have kept the SMD banner going to this day, I'd say they tapped into something with lasting appeal. More successfully than Justice managed, in any event.

What I find remarkable about ADSR is how it crams so many ideas in such a short album. This record's a mere ten tracks long (a couple more if you sprung for an American version), with only the opener inching anywhere near the five minute mark. The rest hover in the three-to-four range, all perfect for the radio market, though none of them ever played on my radio. I'm sure It's The Beat and I Believe were all the rage on the merry ol' 2007 London airwaves though.

And while noisy, acidy electro house rules the ADSR roost, these animated primate clubbers show off some fun diversity too. Sleep Deprivation is the right kind of thumping, building opener you need to kick a party off, while follow-up I Got This Down gets, erm, down on the electro-funk! It's The Beat, Hustler, and Hotdog provides the cheeky trash, I Believe and Love provide the singalong anthems, while Tits & Acid provides more acid than you can handle. Bury your face in this bountiful bosom of acid! And... what on earth is Scott all about? It's like a primitive, weirdo prog-rock synth piece from the '70s. What an odd, strange, bizarre, confounding way to end an album that clearly has cross-over appeal firmly in its sights. I give it three thumbs and a goose neck up.

Attack Delay Sustain Release does everything an album from this era should. It gets in, hits you with all that it needs to, and gets out before the booze ruins your night with French regret.

Ott - Fairchildren

Ottsonic Music: 2015

Ott (no relation to NHL player Steve Ott) reminds me of that super-dependable rock band that can always churn out quality music that tickles my earholes just right, but for whatever reason never inspires me to dig deeper and further, much less wax the hyperbolic purple as I dance to his architecture. What rock bands, you ask? Oh, geez, put me on the spot, why don't you? Like, I kinda' wanna' say Coldplay, the most traditional of all milquetoast name-drops, but there's better options. Maybe The Strokes, or The Killers. Yeah, let's go with that: Ott is The Killers of psy-dub.

I liked Skylon a great deal, still have it in the regular rotation. and when Ott reissued his discography on his own print, you bet I snagged up a copy of his debut Blumenkraft. For some reason though, I was only mildly interested in hearing a follow-up. Maybe I was feeling psy-dub burn-out at the time, coming across too many artists that were only emulating the style Ott and Shpongle had popularized. I needed a little absence from it, and boy-howdy did Ultimae and Altar provide a good excuse to do so. Ott also appeared in need of a little diversification in his songcraft, but when I heard he chose to go the road of dubstep, I promptly 'NOPE'd on Mir, and didn't look back. Which was stupid, of course, but you cannot begin to appreciate just how over-saturated dubstep had become in the year 2011, especially in my hub of the world. Just... brutal...

But time has passed, as has the dubstep fad, and when I heard his fourth album Fairchildren being hailed as more a return to the tasty sonic soup that made his first two records such standouts, I had no problem diving back into the Ott fold. Erm, and it seems he's found himself a new toy to tinker with in glitch hop. I don't mind the stuff, but God can it ever grate when a producer overdoes it with the random sample wankery, which Ott succumbs to in Harwell Dekatron. So much directionless wibble – I need my wibble to have some momentum, y'know (Eat Static does the wibble good).

That's just one track of eight though, and aside from brief dabbling in Ship Is Not A Child, things don't go that wonk anywhere else on Fairchildren. Instead, we get bouncy psy-dub rhythms, cavernous dub echoes, vocals and instruments played, plucked, and plundered from lands far and wide, with just enough fun, wibbly, trippy effects keeping things cruising the psychedelic avenue to the dawn's morning light. Or through the afternoon heat on the beach. I've only seen Ott live in the latter setting.

And yet, I actually find myself just as dumbfounded in talking this music up in any specific detail. It's an Ott album, and if you know your Ott music, you know exactly what what you're gonna' hear. Won't deny it's that consistency I slapped my hard-earned bones down for though.

John Beltran - Everything At Once

Delsin: 2016

John Beltran should be a more important person in the world of techno. For sure he's highly regarded and respected, a two-decade veteran of the Detroit scene that's danced with the Belgian dudes just as often. He even scored a licensing hit in Collage Of Dreams - not many Detroit producers can claim that. And whenever a new album from Mr. Beltran drops, it always earns plenty of props, kudos, and love from the techno community. For whatever reason though, he's never quite broken through the ceiling that separates the Darn Good producers from the Legendary Name-Droppers. I can only assume his frequent flirtations with the ambient techno camps isolates him from the True-Pure Detroit leagues – Motor City don't take kindly to those who pall about with them softy Belgian boys, I reckon. Pft, as if that ever stopped Juan Atkins' status after releasing material on R & S Records.

Early seminal works aside, two decades of music is daunting to dive into for the Beltran newbie, few albums sounding quite like what came before. How nice of him, then, that for his tenth outing, John went with the ol' 'career retrospective' take, Everything At Once intended as a reflection of all that he's done. Can't think of a better excuse for a 'jumping-on point' than that!

And absolutely does Beltran deliver a smorgasbord of his various musical inclinations. There's ambient! There's techno! There's ambient with techno! There's twee acoustic glitch (She Dwells In Beauty)! There's dreamy indie loop-jazz (Dream Lover!)! (!!) There's Kraftwerk homage (Tanzmuzik)! There's... um, drone-tone...? Whatever Gentle Boxes is.

So there's eclecticism on Everything At Once, and at seventeen tracks, can get a tad overlong to sit through. While I'll always champion musical diversity, there needs to be some uniting theme tying it all together for each piece to properly settle into my brain-matter. Otherwise, bloopy jazz-shuffle tracks like White Rainbows get lost among the fuzzy ambient drone of Nice Sun and mellow Aphex nods like A New Room.

It also doesn't help matters when many of the lengthier tracks are front-loaded in this album, second-cut Faux giving us over seven minutes of soft clippity-clop breaks with acoustic strums and warped, harmonizing pads. That's followed upon by the titular cut doing a jazzy groove with haunting soul singing (paging Dr. Burial, if you may), while Sine M gets back to that vintage, chill Detroit techno, and Lift works the electro-jazz 'bells-n-bleep' businesses. Bookend this opening act with two short ambient pieces, and you'd be forgiven for thinking Everything At Once nicely wraps up just a shade shorter than many breezy albums do these days.

Not that there's isn't nice music in the remaining two-thirds, but they don't imprint quite the same, tracks seemingly more about Beltran indulging himself. Which is fine, ol' John more than capable of crafting engaging pieces even at his most left-of-field tendencies. It just leaves the back-end of Everything At Once a tad wanting, 'tis all.

Porya Hatami And Lee Anthony Norris - Every Day Feels Like A New Drug

Unknown Tone Records/...txt: 2013/2014

Another in Lee Norris' semi-regular series of 'Albums I Made A Number Of Years Ago, And Are Giving Away As Limited Free Bandcamp Downloads To Fans Following My Music, Because You Guys Rock'. It's a nice series, though I can't imagine it being terribly profitable. Then again, given the limited runs of the original CDs, it's not like there's much money left on the table now. Unless you're one of those shysters in the second-hand market, selling music at over-inflated prices because you know there's enough easy marks with collector's cash to make that investment worth the while. How nice of Mr. Norris to bypass all that for his fans who just wanted to hear the music on a streaming service. Still, I do wonder what Porya Hatami's say in all this is? Like, I can only assume he's fine about it, but what if he was hoping to squeeze a couple extra dimes out of a purchasable Bandcamp download from this album? The margin of profit in the ambient scene isn't terribly high to begin with – gotta' get all you can get while the getting's good, amirite?

Every Day Feels Like A New Drug was Misters Norris and Hatami's first pairing, initially coming out on Unknown Tone Records. Yes, it's Yet Another Ambient Label, though I don't recognize it, nor many names there. *sigh* And of course, they have some tasty-looking items too, much to the chagrin of my bank account. At least they're based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, so shipping shouldn't be that expensive. I hope...

So obviously this album sold out, but given the buzz generated by their other collaboration, The Longing Daylight on Carpe Sonum Records, Every Day Feels Like a New Drug saw a re-issue on Lee's own ...txt print. That CD's likely all sold out now too, hence the limited digital giveaway on Norris' part. Or maybe not, the Hatami-Norris brand of ambient perhaps just a tad too deep on the Mellow Spectrum for all casual costumers of their music to consume. I mean, I sure wasn't in a hurry to hear more of it, only jumping on this album because Norris offered it up for free. I like their stuff, but it didn't exactly leap out from the glut of ambient works I've buried myself in either. Short album lengths don't help either.

Comparing the two albums, I find The Longing Daylight has a little more personality going for it, in that the unique approaches to ambient Norris and Hatami offer come through clearer. Here, I get the sense neither artist really wanted to outshine or subvert the other, so it all mushes together into a similar tone throughout. Soft pads, dusty background textures, glitchy reverb washes, gentle pianos, and bubbling field recordings. And The Birds Flew In A Different Direction sparks my Adham Shaikh memory membranes, but nothing else grabs my attention the way their other works have. Ambient music in its truest form, I guess.

Andrew Heath - Europa

Disco Gecko: 2016

Y'know, I do like Andrew Heath's vibe, but even four albums worth of his minimalist ambient feels a bit overkill for my music collection. Just how many times can I take hearing his sparse piano tones, treated field recordings, and ephemeral synth harmonics before it all it starts blending into the same sonic soup. It's not really a style of songcraft that lends itself to radical experimentation. While there are different ideas and settings he can approach his compositions from, his basic texture hasn't changed that much in the four years he's released material on Banco de Gaia's label. Perhaps that's why hearing his most recent album, Soundings, open with that clickity-clack of typewriter typing was so effective at grabbing my attention – it was a sound astoundingly unique in Mr. Heath's overall sonic palette. Either that, or I find something intimately relating in hearing the sporadic striking of a querty keyboard.

Still, Europa should satisfy at least another innate tug at my soul, wanderlust. No, I mean actual wanderlust, not Wanderlust, the Andrew Heath piece with the typewriter sounds (I can't get over it!). After his first couple albums most dealt with the idyllic, pastoral vistas of the British countryside, Heath set his ears to the recalled sounds of mainland Europe, reflecting the areas he'd travelled while touring throughout old lands of Empires long passed. It definitely lends itself to a different vibe compared to The Silent Cartographer and Flux.

Andrew's music has always had a sense of journey about it, though seldom with any particular destination in mind – you can imagine slowly floating down a small creek in a tiny village as his music plays. Europa, on the other hand, has far more territory to traverse, so that same languid pace isn't quite so prominent. For sure the pieces crafted here remain as calm and soothing as anything Mr. Heath's crafted – he's quite comfortable in his lane – but in trying to capture the sprit of the different regions of his travels, it doesn't feel like we're completely taking in all that each setting offers. Some local folk music flavours in Lunz, sight-seeing unique fowl fauna in Requiem, partaking in the pleasant child activities in The Summer Boys, checking out the historical cultural achievements in Sputnik | Little Earth. So much to see, so little time to see it all in (approximately 74-80 minutes, plus another twenty if you sprung for the extra-deluxe bonus tour, er, tracks).

Which is par for the course when it comes to tourist vacations, always in a hurry to get to your next destination, being herded like cattle onto buses or monorails before the deadline, and ooh wait, there's just one extra thing I want to see, no, don't leave me behind, I don't have enough local currency for a hostel stay, wait! Er, not that I've ever had to deal with such inconveniences when sight-seeing abroad. I've heard stories though. Oh, have I heard stories.