Star Wars Robot Chicken

Robot Chicken is a big generation X comedy/ animation thing in the US as I'm sure most internet people are aware. Seth Green from Family Guy and Austin Powers among other things is one of the producers and voices. This new Star Wars spoof is out now and it's hilarious.

Robot Chicken uses action figures and very well crafted stages to animate and create a very bizarre spoof of the greatest Sci-Fi journey of all time. Family Guy released a similar DVD movie 'The Blue Harvest' last year but it wasn't very good. It kind of just recreated original Star Wars scenes and added Family Guy jokes. Robot Chicken works in a mixtape form, with the comedy coming from the more absurd visuals you'd find in the Star Wars trilogy. All the characters are here, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, George Bush (indeed). Ranging from the absolutely ludicrous (Storm Trooper dance routines) to standard pastiche (Darth Vader phones Emperor Palpatine to tell him the Death Star has been destroyed "What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"). Star Wars Robot Chicken gains strength from its fundamentals, great dialogue, brilliant visuals and smart editing. The in-film character development and reoccurring jokes are complimented of course by the source material's undeniable brilliance so maybe if you're one of the very few people in the world that don't feel at least some connection to Star Wars episodes VII through IV you may find yourself at a loss with this DVD.

Having re-written a series of jokes from the film in this review only to delete them I'm finding it hard to translate the pace and wit of the film. Luckily it's 2008 and I have Youtube at my disposal. Watch the Trailer below. Then Buy from Amazon. You won't regret it.

Artrocker review of Devil In The Distance

This is from the current issue of Artrocker Magazine.

BUY THE ALBUM: 100% Life changing results guaranteed

Music-News.com gives Devil In The Distance 5/5

There's always something about Brit rap that makes me wince. There have been too many braggers and losers, rappers with half a decent song and an album full of half rubbish songs. So Devil in the Distance by Marvin would have a lot of prejudices to overcome to please me.

From Brixton, some of Marvin's songs explicitly reference London (A track called Trocadero being an obvious example), though they could be about an inner city, any secondary school or any council estate. His lyrics, though a little broad, are clever and cleanly delivered. He raps about what's around him and has an eye and ear for the intricacies relationships and speech. The music is polished but also has the rough influences of grime and dirty beats.

What I like is Marvin takes his ego out of his work. He makes political statements without being polemic. Get By (Be Good) is a list of ills (from education to CCTV to housing) without forcing the issue of how hard it is, nor does it offer any solution. Goodbye is about gun crime, without judging if it's a good or bad thing but about why it is.

He's also effective at building ideas from lots of tiny details, and this is not better demonstrated than on Richard's Nan . This song is a hundred flashing camera phone photos, burning an image of community one mosaic at a time. The raft of Marvin's community are represented: the boys, the girls, the gangs, the racists, the gays; a reflected conscience made of the sum of it's parts.

Devil in the Distance is an intelligent album that tells its own story. It is confident enough not to ask for anything from you as it has its own energy to survive. I am very pleased.

Kwok W Wan

LINK: Music-News.com

BUY FROM iTUNES: JUST £7.90

MusicOMH reviews Devil In The Distance

****
Devil In The Distance has been quite some time coming; succeeding the 2006 releases of The Hoods And Badges EP and single I Hate My Job which introduced the genre-defying amalgamation of indie and grime - grindie. Arguably the groundwork put in by Marv the Marsh set the stage for the reinvigorated Dizzee Rascal's sound.

This digital only release isn't a million miles away in style from the Hoods And Badges EP that set some tongues wagging and probably one or two unintentional hits on the Looney Toons website. Although this album is infinitely more polished than previous releases there is still a bedroom studio quality to its contents. It gives Marv's observations the same air of authenticity that The Streets' Original Pirate Material benefited from, as well as that same retrospective, almost nostalgic, perspective.

Despite this, the content and issues are current and pertinent, for example Goodbye's line "MP should stand for mostly pricks". You can't argue with logic like that. The team of producers DJ Jack Nimble, Bob Locke and Andy Jenkins has resulted in a mash-up that takes grindie one step further by throwing a generous measure of Roots Manuva-style bashment into the equation.

The production team are clearly adept at innovating with Fight Or Flee being the prime example on Devil In The Distance. Less house than Wiley's Rolex search, and less ridiculous than Dizzee's Dance Wiv Me it's just one display of how this album finds boundaries and preconceptions before smashing through them.

The actual content of Marv's tracks are not unpredictable; violent crime, drugs, poverty, desire and anger. What is unpredictable is the calm eloquence of his delivery and the manifestation of that anger. It's an empathetic anger with no recourse and no outlet beyond itself, which is perhaps the strongest message Devil In The Distance can offer, but there's a real sense of apathy at times: "And maybe I'm just a paranoid dude/ but at four pound a ride I don't feel welcome on the tube... why bother? You can just get by."

There isn't something for everyone of Devil In The Distance, and its appeal will be limited but hopefully widespread enough to push Marv's music towards a critical mass of at least awareness. This is the antidote to unintentionally self-parodying hip-hop - but for fans of the genre it's harder to appreciate substance over style. If you can appreciate the substance then recognising and falling for the style becomes incredibly easy, and equally worthwhile.
- Azeem Ahmad

Marvin- Devil in The Distance [MusicOMH]

BUY DEVIL IN THE DISTANCE HERE

Nuts Magazine reviews Devil In The Distance

Nuts know what's going on. Don't try and say they don't because they do.

BUY DEVIL IN THE DISTANCE HERE

Previously: Nuts Magazine reviews That One Time

Teletext reviews That One Time

I don't care what it says, look at that OG Internet jump-off!

TheBeatSurrender review That One TIme

TheBeatSurrender.co.uk reviewed 'That One Time'. Check it out...

Marvin - That One Time

Everyones favourite Martian is obviously going to be ET so Marvin wasn’t on to a winner when he went as Marvin The Martian previously. It seems though he’s realised the competition was too and has now dropped his name down to simply Marvin.

While the nasme may have changed the style and substance of his music hasn’t, he’s still mixing elements of hip-hop, grime, dance and pop with some brilliantly autobiographical lyrics, this time on That One Time it’s taking you back to his school days.

While I do like this track, the highlights for me are hearing the two mixes of the single, particularly Aidan Lavelle’s Mix which really strips away leaving only a small fraction of his vocals.

The album Devil In The Distance is out next week and a review will feature on this very website!

Kev

RWD review Devil in The Distance

Beats go hard. Swear down.

Nuts Magazine: Buy That One Time

Who are you to argue with Nuts Magazine? Buy Here.

The Voice review Devil In The Distance

Just in.

PREVIOUSLY: Interview In The Voice

Another Devil In The Distance review

I don't read my own reviews I promise. I get sent these and I put them on my blog. Okay I read this one. I like when people get the point of my music. Not to sound pretentious but I like to think it's a little deeper than your average. Subba-Cultcha know what time it is though.

Lyrically subversive, promising debut from Brixton Hip-Hopper

The commercial successes of British Hip Hop acts has been slim over recent years; more so for those who have avoided the cliché bombast of gangsta rap. Dizzee Rascal, of course, has been the leading pioneer of the genre, but for most it has been a case of re-inventing yourself to make dance floor music (compare Wiley’s ‘Wearing my Rolex’ to some of the tracks from his album ‘Treadin’ on Thin Ice’) or accept that a cult underground following is your most likely outcome (Lethal Bizzle, Taz, Prof. Green, the list goes on). ‘Devil in the Distance’ is the long awaited debut album from Marvin.

‘Devil in the Distance’ is an album that, for the most part, stands up well to comparison with any of his genre peers. The likes of ‘Goodbye’, a song about youth violence that feels particularly pertinent in the current climate, recalls the likes of ‘Can’t Contain Me’ by Taz, whilst ‘First Born’ shows a maturity in Marvin’s approach to lyrics; a frank honesty without the bravado some would inflect upon such a topic. Marvin also shows himself to be capable of great lyrical dexterity on the likes of ‘Fight or Flee’. There are a few blemishes upon ‘Devil In The Distance’, ‘Trocadero’ feels a little gimmicky whilst carry me seems like a compromise with the rest of the album; it’s piano accompaniment belying some frank lyrical content. However, the production on the album is first class (see the likes of ‘That One Time’) and ‘Devil In The Distance’ has enough strength to survive any critical savaging. Whether it has any crossover singles is debatable; unlike Dizzee Rascal’s debut it’s difficult to see which songs could bother the charts and it’s similarly difficult to pick out a song with the dance floor appeal of Wiley’s recent single, all of which suggests that Marvin is destined to be confined to his cult fan base alone. This would, of course, be a great shame as ‘Devil In The Distance’ is a mature, lyrically creative album that shows that British Hip-Hop can be creative and not rely upon well trodden rap conventions. He might not become a well known name with this album, but Marvin has created a debut that potentially sets the bar for all future British rappers. Innovative and surprising at every turn, this is a very strong first offering.

By: Lewis Morton

Out July 28th as I may have mentioned.

The first 'Devil In The Distance' review is in

The first review of my debut album Devil In The Distance went live today. It's from GigWise . Check it out.

British Hip-Hop has come a long way since the 1980’s and standing at the forefront of what is now affectionately known as Grindie is a man called Marvin. Since crashing to earth two years ago, Marvin has dropped his Martian suffix for the release of his debut album, proving that he’s anything but from another planet. He is in fact from Brixton and ‘Devil In The Distance’, an album with more dysfunctionality than a curfew of ASBO’s, is an uncompromising and autobiographical stomp through the South London of his yoof, highlighting the gritty pressures of contemporary urban living.

Although its genre bending crossover appeal ensures musical accessibility, the emphasis is placed firmly on the use of observational lyrics and the window they open onto societal decay. Fuelled by an intense honesty, spat over unbending and hard-nosed instrumentation, the dark undertone of ‘Goodbye’ tackles the endemic spate of gun and knife culture head on and the socio-political theme continues further through ‘Get By (Be Good)’ and ‘Fight Or Flee’ by exploring the effects of isolation and fear combined with the frustrations of poverty and ultimately the harsh realities of life.

While instinctively pragmatic, Marvin does manage, in part, to conceal his heartfelt anger behind a thinly veiled guise. References to Masters of the Universe, Rainbow, Panda Pops, Chicago Bulls and Naf-Naf not only define Marvin’s era but also contain a matured innocence that allow him to openly discuss drug addiction, broken family dynamics, sexuality, racism, mental health and the vicious circle of stereotypical expectations examined in ‘First Born’, ‘Richards Nan’ and ‘Devil In The Distance’.

Marvin also understands the importance of optimism and the album is littered with hope through the interactive lust, patter and promise of ‘Trocadero’, self-confident belief of ‘That One Time’ and in ‘Superhero’, the acknowledgement that day-to-day survival is a worthy achievement in itself. Culminating with a soft step plea for help ‘Carry Me’ recognises that life is tough, made tougher going it alone and that to end the proverbial self fulfilling prophecy something has to give.

Jacqui Smith doesn’t have the answer and nor does Marvin. He’s not a politician or a gangster and doesn’t attempt to provide solutions to the widespread problems plaguing a desensitised zeitgeist. But his straightforward approach, authentic delivery and effortlessly sharp, subtle yet hard-hitting intelligence does expose an innovative trailblazer who, excusing the cliché, isn’t afraid to tell it how it is.

Huw Jones

Out July 28th.