I’m sitting around still sniffling with a cold, reading PD James’ “The Children of Men” and listening to Thomas Dolby’s new album, “The Sole Inhabitant” (which led to me listening to “The Golden Age of Wireless” and “The Flat Earth”.

I’ll get to “The Children of Men” another time. It’s rather different from the film, but I’m only 60 pages in so I can’t tell you precisely how different. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the film and I’m enjoying the book. Thomas Dolby is a good accompaniment to it… moody, a bit futuristic.

It’s a bit of a tease to call “The Sole Inhabitant” a new album. It’s a live recording from his 2006 tour. The track list runs like this:

1. Leipzig Is Calling
2. One Of Our Submarines
3. I Live In A Suitcase
4. Flying North
5. The Flat Earth
6. Budapest By Blimp
7. Windpower
8. Europa And The Pirate Twins
9. Hyperactive
10. She Blinded Me With Science
11. Airhead

It’s a warmly nostalgic performance which reminds me how much I love “The Golden Age of Wireless” and “The Flat Earth”. The CD definitely picks the strengths of those two albums (plus “Airhead”), and while reminding me of how much I loved them it updates the songs a bit and adds to them as well.

According to Wikipedia, Dolby is preparing an album of new material. I’m looking forward to it… a long break really helped Kate Bush a lot on “Aerial”; hopefully Dolby can recapture some of the thoughtfulness and mystique of his earliest work.

“The Sole Inhabitant” is available at Amazon and on iTunes. iTunes also lists a free Sole Inhabitant video podcast

One fun bit of trivia; the man whose voice is sampled shouting “Science!!”, who sounds a lot like Rygel from Farscape is Dr. Magnus Pyke, a British scientist, “media figure” and eccentric mad scientist who helped popularize science in the UK. Among his written works is the book “Butter Side Up”. At one time he apparently proposed that a blood bank surplus in the UK be used to make black pudding. And after the success of “She Blinded Me With Science” he would be quite annoyed when fans would run up to him and shout “Science!!” in his face. Dr Pyke sadly passed away in 1992.

Via: Wikipedia: Thomas Dolby
Via: Wikipedia: Magnus Pyke
[tags]thomas dolby, sole inhabitant, magnus pyke, she blinded me with science, the golden age of wireless, the flat earth[/tags]

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