THIS MONTH: what was and what will be

Well, August is coming to an end, and we're two-thirds through with the year. Music this year so far has been awesome. There's so many albums which could potentially be album of the year, nevertheless, here's some goodies released so far this year.



Of course, the much hyped Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective can most certainly not be left out. In fact, I'd think that MPP would be on nearly every Top Albums List of the Year. Something random, I've come across quite a number of people who say that Animal Collective sounds even better than they already do, when you're on drugs or on a high. Well, I should try listening to them when I'm on a high. Besides, they have this really dope optical illusion for their album cover. It's already making you see weird when you're sober, what more seeing it while you're high. Trippy!

Animal Collective - In The Flowers



This is one of my personal favourites for easy listening, like really, anytime anywhere. An unexplicable attraction to their songs is the easiest I can describe this. It's Au Revoir Simone with Still Night, Still Light. I did a review of it here and they certainly are much to love.

Au Revoir Simone - Knight of Wands



Dirty Projectors sure came a long way, since the time Longstreth struck it out on his own with "The Graceful Fallen Mango" and now releasing the critically acclaimed Bitte Orca, which means Please Orca or Please Whale, since Bitte is please in german and Orca is a species of carnivorous whale (remember Free Willy?) Their fresh experimental music is definitely here to stay.

Dirty Projectors - Temecula Sunrise



They are Robin Pecknold, Skyler Skjelset, Christian Wargo, Casey Wescott and Josh Tillman. They are Fleet Foxes. With their eponymous debut album, Fleet Foxes. Says Robin, who along with Skyler could be said to be the founders of Fleet Foxes, "We aim to be adventurous and true to ourselves and to enjoy our time together—the music we make is a reflection of our instincts... ...We love acoustic guitars, electric guitars, big rolling tom drums, mandolins, dulcimers, bass guitars, bass pedals, organs, pianos, kotos, and most of all harmony and melody.. ..try to draw from the traditions of folk music, pop, choral music and gospel, baroque psychedelic, sacred harp singing, West Coast music, traditional music from Ireland to Japan, and film scores, and are inspired by the music of our friends and contemporaries in the Seattle music family." Well, they've certainly succeeded in drawing from their influences, and clearly in Blue Ridge Mountains, there's the folksy english/irish sound accompanied by what I think is the mandolin.

Fleet Foxes - Blue Ridge Mountains


There's tonnes more good music out there, these musicians, bands or singers etc, with unrelenting fervour in doing what they do best - creating music. Here's a list of several more albums that have been put out so far this year and is in no particular order. Also, this list is by no means exhaustive, for every album I list here, there's probably 5 more as good/better albums out there. Feel free to add in your comments what you think are your favourite albums so far this year.

Dan Deacon "Bromst"
Reverie Sound Revue "Reverie Sound Revue"
Whites Lies "To Lose My Life"
Bibio "Ambivalence Avenue"
Handsome Furs "Face Control"
The Antlers "Hospice"
Fever Ray "Fever Ray"
Grizzly Bear "Veckatimest"
Phoenix "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix"
Miike Snow "Miike Snow"
O+S "O+S"
Ohbijou "Beacons"
Passion Pit "Manners"
Portugal. The Man "The Satanic Satanist"
St. Vincent "Actor"
The Decemberists "The Hazards of Love"
Camera Obscura "My Maudlin Career"
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart "The Pains of Being Pure at Heart"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "It's Blitz!"
Florence + the Machine "Lungs"



Well, having said what was, now what will be. I'm pretty sure the later third of the year would not be a letdown, what with all the new releases anticipated by everyone out there. Here's some.

Yo La Tengo "Popular Songs"
The Big Pink "A Brief History of Love" The Big Pink - Dominos
Islands "Vapours"
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart "Higher Than The Stars EP" The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Young Adult Friction
The Twilight Sad "Forget the Night Ahead"
Volcano Choir "Unmap"
Fool's Gold "Fool's Gold"
Memory Tapes "Seek Magic"
Headlights "Wild Life"
Sufjan Stevens "Run Rabbit Run" Sufjan Stevens - The Lord God Bird
Atlas Sound "Logos"
Fuck Buttons "Tarot Sport"
Built To Spill "There Is No Enemy"
Mayer Hawthorne "A Strange Arrangement" Mayer Hawthorne - Just Ain't Gonna Work Out
The Raveonettes "In and Out of Control"
Neon Indian "Psychic Charm"




See yall in September!

X Factor UK #1 - like the mischief hidden in your eyes

Anybody's thought of what fate is like? Ever thought that your future wife, could be someone you walked past several times in your life so far? Interesting eh? Anyhow on to music.


Kings of Leon - Use Somebody
Just had to post this. Really. Watching Jamie Archer(on X Factor UK)'s rendition of Sex on Fire by KoL was so awe inspiring. Haha. Ever since I saw Danyl sing "With A Little Help From My Friends", I just had to follow X Factor UK, via youtube ofcourse.

For the benefit of you guys, here's the two of them singing.
Jamie Archer singing Sex on Fire
Danyl Johnson singing With A Little Help From My Friends
Said Simon Cowell, "That was, singlehandedly, the best first audition I've ever heard."

Lightning Dust - Antonia Jane

Pocketbooks - Footsteps

Moswcow Olympics - What Is Left Unsaid

The Saturday Mix #14 - today is saturday.

Oh dear me. it's the last Saturday of the month already. Anyway, on Monday, there's gonna be the end of month post, so look out for it!

I think I should be changing The Saturday Mix a bit. I'm gonna start posting remixes of songs and awesome dancier soongs. Sometimes there'd be the occasional house track. Think I sorta did that the last Saturday, so anyhow, here goes!


Arctic Monkeys - Dangerous Animals (The Raged Remix)
Here's the guys who brought you Brianstorm and their latest single(?) Crying Lightning. The original Dangerous Animals is here but I'm more or less neutral towards it.

OH MY GOD. the start to this remix, SOUNDS SO MUCH LIKE ANOTHER SONG AND I CAN'T PUT A NAME TO THE SONG. MY HEAD BLANKED OUT, SOMEONE HELP ME OUT. there's the lyrics "i'll never find you"

Passion Pit - The Reeling (Shuttle's Super Club Mega Mix '99)
New boys who've come rocking into electronic town has Shuttle to call their own. Nate Donmoyer who plays the drums, IS Shuttle! This "self-remix" is good stuff. Frenchkiss Records has got gold in their hands. First Passion Pit, and now The Antlers.

The Raged - Home Experiment
There's no lyrics, but hell this doesn't take away the awesomeness in this song.

Shakira - She Wolf (Calvin Harris Remix)
I heard She Wolf somewhere, can't remember. Then I chanced upon this Calvin Harris remix, and it's made the song way more suited for the dancefloor. Makes the original very muted after listening to this. And I don't really fancy the pseudo wolf howling in the original.

John Legend - Everybody Knows (RAC Remix)
Those who haven't listened to the MSTRKRFT song Heartbreaker featuring John Legend should really go listen to it now. And here's the original Everybody Knows. And this song is indeed dope.

deadmau5 - Faxing Berlin

Empire of the Sun - We Are The People
the scent of lemon, drips from your eyes/we are the people who rule the world

stay up get drunk with all your best friends

ooh, I don't mind living in a house like that!



Lightning Dust - Never Seen
Right click and "Save Target As/Save Link As". Free promo mp3 by their label. This song reminds me of the MS-DOS game Hocus Pocus. No idea why, don't ask me. HAHA!

The Rifles - The Great Escape
Groooooooovy beat. I totally love it when Joel Stoker goes "waiting for the day you're not looking for something else... something elseeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" ok he doesn't drag the else, but so what? Love them.

Little Boots - Mathematics
Well, who thinks there's maths involved in the equation of love? Well, maybe all there is to it is just a heart plus a heart. Neat lyrics there. Could very well get good radio airtime.


where's my sylviaaaaaaaa remix? maybe thin white dukes could do the remix. I NEED.






NEED.





NEED.



oh well. whatever. Miike Snow's still awesome.

let's face this night and see it through

Animal Collective - Daily Routine
Actually I figured on doing a review on Merriweather Post Pavillion, but there's a dearth of reviews on MPP, and there was so much hype over this damn good album that most reviews are positive.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Young Adult Friction

Page France - Spine

Friendly Fires - Skeleton Boy
OMG, really creative video. I like the chalk drawn skeleton on the black outfit. Neat!


on a side note, someone should seriously do a remix of Miike Snow's Sylvia.

there's no other witnesses, just us two

The Antlers - Two

The Golden Filter - Solid Gold

Phoenix - Rome
Taken from their latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. And yes, that's Wolfgang Amadeus from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. More on this french outfit soon.

Deastro - The Shaded Forests

this is one plane i can't miss.

The lovely folks over at AAM, particularly Tom, gave me Aeroplane Pageant's latest LP "Even The Kids Don't Believe Me" to sample. Earlier, I featured their song Stars Still Pretty here. Aeroplane Pageant(from here on AP) are Brian Kelly (vocals/guitar), Timothy Watson (bass/vocals), Michael Areephituk (lead guitar), Christopher Aguis (guitar/electronics/percussion) and Erik DeAngelis on drums.

What stands out the most in this LP is Kelly's vocals, it seems to be what's driving many of the songs. But it may seem this way because quite a few songs are actually pretty stripped down, featuring simple beats and acoustic plucking to complement Kelly's good vocal range. Like in the titular track, this is very evident. Even The Kids Don't Believe Me sings of feeling lost, and not telling that to a particular person, which should be a girl. Seems to me that this is a song about lost love, but the lyrics are a bit abstract so I'm not too sure myself.

I’m in the closet trying on all of my old shoes
Waiting for someone to come by, say something of use..
I’m in the kitchen listening to the snow hit the ground
Hope to hell someone will tell me, "It’s okay you can go now."

You can really feel the emotions bursting out of his voice, trying to tell the listener something, in both the previous song and this song After The Car Crash. They employ the same plucking of the guitar and light drumbeats and allow Kelly to bring the song to it's greatest height, at "So much for us foxing around/So much for us forgetting ourselves/So much for everything else".

You can hear the percussion in Nobody Gets Hurt where the main character is a spider, who was invited to witness a man and his mistress, and subsequently where a crowd has gathered. But the stand out track is probably Stars Still Pretty. It's the most "un-stripped down" song in the LP. There's a really catchy beat, their standard abstract lyrics. Most of all, they sound like they're having loads of fun in this song.

AP really has lots of imagination and stuff up their sleeves, for I can't really fathom what they're singing about, because the lyrics in one song never seems to be always about one thing, and this could be a good or bad thing. The jury's still not out on that. One thing for sure, is that this LP still seems a bit experimental, trying to find out their best sound, though they somewhat find their ground in songs such as Stars Still Pretty, Even The Kids Don't Believe Me and After The Car Crash. They've got a good vocalist in Kelly, and they need more songs which would showcase the abilities of their guitarists and drummer, which I believe are just as good. One gripe about this LP is that they could have done away with all the less than one minute songs, which seem to be there for the sake of being there. Otherwise, this is a laudable effort by AP and I would expect their first full length album to be nothing short of brilliant, having given us glimpses of it in this LP. Watch out for them for this is one plane you won't want to miss.

You can listen to them at their myspace or head over to last.fm. Their official site also has stuff you might want to check out. And here's a repost of Stars Still Pretty. Really fun and hilarious, not to mention random video of them, certainly befitting of AP.

Aeroplane Pageant - Stars Still Pretty

For those who want to download Stars Still Pretty, here's the link provided by Spinner, as their free mp3 download of the day. (Right click and Save Target As/Save Link As)

the here and now is coming round

Headlights - Get Going
This is their myspace website, as usual just click on Get Going.

Fanfarlo - The Walls Are Coming Down

Volcano Choir - Island, IS
Volcano Choir is a side project between friends from Collection of Colonies of Bees and Justin Vernon, known for his stage name Bon Iver.

deadmau 5 (feat. Kaskade) - I Remember

The Saturday Mix #13 - just like the saddle in the foggy mist

Delorean - Seasun
Fresh and dancey EP they have, Ayrton Senna. Check the post with another song of their Song, Deli.

Sally Shapiro - Love In July

Shiny Toy Guns - Start With One (Classixx Remix)

Fever Ray - Seven (RealDaniel Remix)

Miike Snow - Animal (Fake Blood Remix)

Passion Pit - The Reeling

Passion Pit - The Reeling (Miike Snow Remix)

from all it's spinnin' round and round

One for the Team, an indie rock band based in Minneapolis has released an EP - Build A Garden. It's quite a refreshing listen, highly enjoyable. Their recipe of guitars combined with vocals from both Ian Anderson and Grace Fiddler provides a very simple but awesome listen. This sound is clearly reflected in Best Supporting Actress.

I really look forward to them releasing a full length album.

One for the Team - Best Supporting Actress


Now, Now Every Children - Sleep Through Summer

Simian Mobile Disco - Bad Blood (feat. Alexis Taylor)

Fanfarlo - I'm a Pilot

ok, i just had to repost this song. it's so damn good.
The Raveonettes - Suicide

saturday night fevaaaaaaaaaa. not exactly saturday though.

Well, what's reaching fever pitch here in Singapore is the upcoming F1 race held from 25 to 27 September 2009. It's the first night race in the whole world, and this is the 2nd year that Singapore is hosting this prestigious and supposed glamour that comes along with it (think Monaco). It's all up to the Singapore organisers to put out all stops to make this year's event even better than last year's, which set the bar pretty high, in the eyes of most industry insiders. That said, something else is reaching fever pitch, and that's FEVER RAY.

Some may have heard of The Knife, and in fact along with Fever Ray, I've featured them before. The Knife is siblings Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, who run Rabid Records, which also released Fever Ray's eponymous album. So now, The Knife is taking a supposed 3 year hiatus, and Olof has gone back to working on his solo DJ project while Karin... obviously did something. Something that could be so huge and reach fever pitch in the genre of electronic music - releasing her first full length solo album.



While I won't profess to know much about electronic music, I think anybody with a discerning ear can tell that Fever Ray is something different (whether good or bad is another question altogether but I'll leave that for later). So electronic music sounds electronic (it's really retarded but for the lack of a better word, I'm really bad with words), there's a different spin to her electronic, which I'll put it as tribal sounding? I feel as if I'm being tied to a totem pole, with these face painted tribal people dancing around me. Ok I digress. But there's this manic, demented and catatonic feel to her songs. The lyrics, the melody, the accompanying electronic beats. Does "i learned to not eat the snow/my fur is hot, my tongue is cold" sound vaguely sane? Seems like she wants to become an animal or sorts to me. This unhinged feeling resonates throughout most of the album, accompanied by a alluring sort of warbling and elusive feel. It's like the lyrics are floating towards me, and try as I might to grab it, everything just slips through my fingers. Again, the discerning ear is able to tell that there are all sorts of different sounds, produced by a plethora of instruments I would suppose, proof of her experimentation in this genre.



When I Grow Up evokes a certain rawness, coupled with measured insanity, "i put my soul in what i do/last night i drew a funny man/with dark eyes and a hanging tongue" You would give your all say, in your favourite sport, or maybe in rigorous academia, or even drawing. Yet all her soul was put into what she did, drawing a funny man with dark eyes and a hanging tongue. Seven is a stark contrast, singing about how she talks to a friend she knew since she was seven, about banal things such as the dishwasher tablets, intimate stuff like love, and dreaming together about heaven. But one might be inclined to wonder if that friend actually exists. What is said at her site, is that you can figure out for yourself whether a song such as If I Had A Heart, which sings of “Dangling feet from window frame/ Will they ever reach the floor/ More give me more give me more”, is inspired by observing her young children. Or if Concrete Walls, despite its ghostly demeanour (that seemingly masculine vocal is, as always, Karin working the voice transformer) and sense of entrapment, is actually about new motherhood, as revealed in “I live between concrete walls/ In my arms she was so warm/ Eyes are open and mouth cries/ Haven’t slept since summer.” Or whether the regular references to snow reflect anything more profound than the national climate. (Note: I took this from her site because I wanted to present a different side to what her album is like, and it's hard to say what was said without differing much from it, so I figured showing everything as it was. So note that the portion after the 'her site' link, was not written by me.)

This is a Swedish gem (more and more good stuff coming from this Nordic country it seems), and I hope more can actually uncover it's brilliance. That said, Karin/Fever Ray's different is something sublime, and it enthralls you for all it's feverish mania. Personally, I can't find anything to fault in this album, and it could mean more to come for both Karin herself, and The Knife as a duo. To sum this album and Fever Ray up succinctly, one would only need to look at If I Had A Heart's "more, give me more, give me more". More indeed.


Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart

Fever Ray - Concrete Walls

Fever Ray - When I Grow Up (D Lissvik Remix)

Fever Ray - Triangle Walks (Rex the Dog Remix)




Bonus:
The Knife - Heartbeats (Rex the Dog Remix)

let's pretend we don't exist

Loney Dear - Airport Surroundings

Vetiver - Everyday

Asobi Seksu - Me & Mary

Mates of State - It's My Only Offer

Of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist

i think i need a distraction

Thieves Like Us - Drugs In My Body
uber trippy! i dare say anyone will love this.

Mayer Hawthorne - When I Said Goodbye
soulful song's are good.

Mike Bones - What I Have Left

Faunts - Feel.Love.Thinking.Of
This is the most rad video I've seen so far I think.

if i was not so scared of being broken

Today I am featuring some christian rock bands. Hence, their songs may sound more mainstream and radio friendly. But that's not a bad thing. Usually when one wants to find songs to serenade a girl with, it's usually such radio friendly songs. It's all good.

FM Static - Tonight

Jars of Clay - Frail

The Afters - Beautiful Love

Relient K - Who I Am Hates Who I've Been

most window-gazers never know what they witness

Kaskade & deadmau5 - Move For Me

Fever Ray - Seven

Reverie Sound Revue - Walking Around Waiting Downtown
Love. This. Song.

The Saturday Mix #12 - tumbling down from the hills, just half way introduced, stumbling into your arms, passing out in the line

Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek (Acoustic Live)
A friend highlighted this to me, very good rendition and alternative to the layered and very very electronic sounding original. All she needs to do now is a guitar version.

Miike Snow - Sylvia
Totally different sound from Animal. These swedish people are good (but of note is that Andrew Wyatt is American). You've got Fever Ray, The Knife, Jenny Wilson, Lykke Li, Robyn and millions more. Now there's Miike Snow(2/3 swedish).

Dirty Projectors - Cannibal Resource
They really make unique sound good.

The Raveonettes - Suicide
Single out of their new album, In and Out of Control, which will be out around October.

Air France - GBG Belongs To Us
I think just click the link and you'll be able to download the song. Direct download off their own site.

The Big Pink - Dominos

The Radio Dept. - Lost and Found

silverpop. songs for the aged.

Radiohead - These Are My Twisted Words?
It's a leaked Radiohead song. Leaks are abound nowadays. Oh well. Tell me what you think of it.

The Low Anthem - Charlie Darwin
This song is good stuff and it could literally lift you into aural nirvana. Period. Ok maybe it was an exaggeration, but it's really good.

Golau Glau - Virtual Boy

Golau Glau - Summer Games
The links for both songs by Golau Glau are direct download, so just right click and Save Link As/Save Target As. I really can't put a finger to their type of music. They sound a bit like Asobi Seksu, but not, Asobi has a more distinct pop-ish feel. Maybe they remind me of Fever Ray (because they're really breaking new grounds in terms of electronic music), but not again. Whatever it is, they brand their type of music silverpop. Well, I've heard of dreampop being used quite often, but this is my first time hearing silverpop. Nevertheless, I feel their music is a like or don't like kinda thing. And so far, my verdict is... that I like them. Virtual Boy has this very strong draw on me, for reasons unknown. Anyhow, for those who find themselves liking them, visit them at their myspace or go to last.fm where all their direct download links are. Alternatively, you can visit their official site. Oh and they like cats and Wales.

this day's a spinning circus on a wheel

A Fine Frenzy - Think Of You

A Fine Frenzy - Almost Lover

A Fine Frenzy - Ashes and Wine

Listening to Lush 99.5 unearthed this singer and the first song, and subsequently the other songs on youtube. Different from other singer/songwriters like Priscilla Ahn or Meiko, who play the guitar, in that she plays the piano, she's got quite the good voice like them. But somehow I feel that her songs are more polished? Maybe it's because she's signed to a major record label. Her new album, Bomb in a Birdcage is set for a September 8 release. Meanwhile, Blow Away was the first single released from that album.

this is my boom boom list - Going to Work #1

This is my "going-to-work" playlist.

Good for waking the hell out of me and keep me from dozing off and missing my stop. Anybody who doesn't have this, has gotta get it.

Röyksopp - Vision One

Friendly Fires - Jump In The Pool (Thin White Dukes Remix)

Woodhands - I Wasn't Made For Fighting

Simian Mobile Disco - Audacity of Huge

Pictureplane - Goth Star

MSTRKRFT (feat. John Legend) - Heartbreaker

Miike Snow - Animal
"In your eyes I see the eyes of somebody I knew before long ago"
This song is just pure juice.

Martin Solveig (feat. Dragonette) - Boys & Girls

Home Video - I Can Make You Feel It

you've gotta run right back to the start

Copeland - The Grey Man

Family Force 5 - Fever
The band name is really kiddish and wtf sounding, but this sounds good. The beat is slickkkk.

Free Energy - Dream City

The Saturday Mix #11 - i know that someday we'll surely find it

Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek (Cover by some random girl on youtube)
pretty neat take on the song, in fact I wonder if Imogen Heap actually did an acoustic version of this song, it'd be awesome.

Frou Frou - Let Go
Imogen Heap is one half of Frou Frou, and Guy Sigsworth makes up the other half. They released only one album together, which is Details, from where this song comes from. However, I can't find a Frou Frou version of the song, and could only settle for a piano version Imogen Heap herself did.

Pardon the sudden influx of house music. But this is for songs I like right? Haha!

Kaskade - 4 AM

Kaskade - 4 AM (Adam K & Soha Mix)

Little Boots - Remedy

Little Boots - Remedy (Buffetlibre vs. Sidechains Remix)

let's have them parades and bring the house down

Foals - Olympic Airways

Foals - Cassius
It's nice how these guys actually stand up for each other. Foals vocalist, Yannis Philippakis along with of his own band members and that of Kaiser Chiefs, broke up an alleged attack on Bloc Party's vocalist Kele Okereke. In music, there should be no such thing as racism. Music is music, and it's love for all.

Bloc Party - One Month Off

The Republic Tigers - Buildings and Mountains
Their myspace site. Click on the song and play. really lovely song, nice tempo and good voice.

Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls

Animal Collective - Bluish

St. Vincent - The Strangers
Oddly nice song. A bit quirky but i like it.

of love and heartbreak. loss and redemption. hope and despair.

Finished "Will You Be There?" by Guillaume Musso. It's similar to The Time Traveler's Wife in that this also uses time travel as a plot tool. While not as page turning as TTTW, it is a simple and lovely story in it's own right that I quite loved. Also, finished When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. A love story subtly woven into one set in the forties, where crime reared it's ugly forehead and a detective takes centrestage in this novel. His unique narration as provided by the main character takes some time getting used to, after which it provides a new perspective. However, plot is quite loose in my opinion, but nevertheless, I thought the character development of the protaganist was well fleshed out.

Au Revoir Simone - Dark Halls

Anberlin - Retrace

YACHT - Summer Song

The Saturday Mix #10

Florence and the Machine - Kiss With A Fist
lol such a random video with random lyrics. But kiss with a fist is so cute, instead of punching, I'll give you a kiss with my fist.

Florence and the Machine - Drumming

Fleet Foxes - He Doesn't Know Why

The Script - The Man Who Can't Be Moved

Black Mountain - Angels

Band of Horses - The Funeral

Passion Pit - Little Secrets