100 Favourite Tracks of 2010: Part V

Everything’s a compromise. For instance, you’re not going to get Marlon Brando to do your script, you’re going to get someone lesser. The room you see in your mind’s eye is not the room you’re filming in. It’s always a question of high aims, grandiose dreams, great bravado and confidence, and great courage at the typewriter; and then, when I’m in the midst of finishing a picture and everything’s gone horribly wrong and I’ve reedited it and reshot it and tried to fix it, then it’s merely a struggle for survival. You’re happy only to be alive. Gone are all the exalted goals and aims, all the uncompromising notions of a perfect work of art, and you’re just fighting so people won’t storm up the aisles with tar and feathers. With many of my films—almost all—if I’d been able to get on screen what I conceived, they would have been much better pictures. Fortunately, the public doesn’t know about how great the picture played in my head was, so I get away with it.

- Woody Allen in an interview with the Paris Review


The National - Conversation 16
Another great track from "High Violet" set to a literal depiction of the song. Oh what gloom and doom, so sweetly done by The National. I love the chorus in particular as Berninger says matter-of-factly "I was afraid I'd eat your brains".
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

Beach House - Zebra (mp3)
I'm surprised that Beach House opened for Vampire Weekend, as said in the top rated comment on the youtube video for this song. I would think Beach House is almost as popular and many would have been clamouring for a full set from Beach House as well. Can't get enough from this prodigious duo and can't wait for Laneway!
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

GROUPLOVE - Colours (mp3)
Good old rockin', just having fun together and making music as a group, GROUPLOVE indeed! This song is such a ball of fun.
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Ooh, I love this song. Régine Chassagne, who is also Win Butler's wife as well provides vocals for this outstanding track. Taking a more experimental approach, they dip into the electronic pool and come out with Sprawl II to a beautiful outcome. Their rock roots are still very much present, which makes this song even better, even nicer a listen.
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

Yeasayer - O.N.E
Experimental rock group dishes out what's notably missing this year, experimental random stuff. It's catchy, quirky and tribal-ish, it's fun. Wonder what their performance at Laneway is gonna be like, hope it's gonna be raving!
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

Villagers - Becoming a Jackal
Becoming a Jackal is a heart-wrenching, melodic piece full of lyrical finesse; its the sort of song you want to play on repeat until every last note is engrained in your mind. - Domino Records

They're coming down to Singapore on Jan 31. Try this lovely brilliant acoustic version here.
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

Caribou - Leave House
Good stuff from Caribou, still remember what got me listening to him was Hello Hammerheads, which is very different from his deeper electronic stuff now, like Leave House for instance.
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

Owen Pallett - Lewis Takes His Shirt Off
Sweet and tender with a conspicuous trombone(?) sound, Pallett is such a delight here. It always seems as if he's teetering on a tightrope, but singing his heart out at the same time.
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

Stars - Wasted Daylight
A lot of Canadian magic this year. Stars, Owen Pallett, Broken Social Scene, Basia Bulat, Caribou, Arcade Fire and Crystal Castles just to name a few. I just realised in this post alone, there're already 4 of them! Amy Millan's silky vocals shine here, dancing unabashedly amidst the twinkly electronic beats.
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

White Hinterland - Icarus
Big booming bass that rattles at the start, toned down subsequently to provide a neat toe-tapping back drop as Dienel's swooning vocals charm the socks of me. Sounds like magic.
[official] [myspace] [last.fm]

we will triumph again

I have to apologise for the lack of posts of late, as preparations for my upcoming eurotrip have taken up most of my time. Also, moving forward, there might be no posts for the next 5-6 weeks, as I'm still unable to find a guest writer.

Caribou - Found Out
Get a feel of his organic-sounding music, as he seeks to expand his boundaries. "I got excited by the idea of making dance music that's liquid in the way it flows back and forth, the sounds slosh around in pitch, timbre, pan...dance music that sounds like it's made out of water rather than made out of metallic stuff like most dance music does," Snaith said in a press release. Found Out evokes this sort of sloshy feeling - part psychedelic, part liquid - like a kaleidoscope of lights from the surface of the sea, seen from high up above.

Bear In Heaven - You Do You
A tight mix of indie rock plus electronica that defines this song. The song feels endless, spacious, such that it makes it seem like you're but a small speck amongst this sonic vista. A little intrigue, a little of pulsing synths, a little of many things; you feel distant, maybe right in the world of the Watchmen.

City Breathing - Rain and Revolution
It's inevitable that they draw comparisons to 65daysofstatic or Explosions in the Sky, but whatever the name drops, their brand of slow-rock is mellow and dramatic, making full use of subtle reverbs that echo into space, one feels that their band name is a little apt, the heartbeat of the city like such.

City Breathing - A Place to Bury Old Mistakes (mp3)
Beautiful instrumentation that tugs your heart.

we are falling straight down so don't lose hope

Bear in Heaven - Lovesick Teenagers (mp3)
A synth cascade opens this seemingly simple and straightforward track. But the song is really much more than just 'lovesick teenagers'. It's more about hope. The persistent electronic ba-dump in the background seems lulling, while Jon Philpot's vocals seems to be treading with caution. Almost as if it would culminate in a climax as the pace hastens, bringing about a glorious eruption of what not, the song halts abruptly, leaving you hanging.

Caribou - Odessa
An intriguing song with seemingly Middle Eastern influences, Dan Snaith sings ponderously about a girl tired of crying and all her man's lies. There's something intangible about the song that ensnares you, compels you to put yourself into the shoes of this young girl, as she stands up for herself and decides to leave him.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM

Class Actress - Careful What You Say (mp3)
Not a direct link, get it via RCRDLBL. A class act indeed, doling out pop ditties with graceful ease, controlled vocals melded with sparkly synths is definitely a recipe for guilty pleasure. Someone mentioned somewhere she sounded uncannily like Karen O. Anyone agrees?

and i looked in her eyes and left her

The Swimmers - Shelter
A very sweet song plus a quirky little video. Very personal, this song seems to expose them at their most vulnerable, making them the humans we all are.

Caribou - Hello Hammerheads
I thought I was actually listening to a Shearwater plus Fleet Foxes collaboration. But this is Caribou aka Daniel Snaith. Very contemplative lyrics, backed by that folksy, melancholic voice plus simple acoustic plucking. A small nugget of information - he has a PhD in Mathematics from Imperial College London. But that's no wonder, considering his father is a mathematics professor at the University of Sheffield and his sister is a reader in mathematics at the University of Bristol.

The Temper Trap - Soldier On
A little Temper Trap for all. Very beautiful and might I add, enchanting voice.

Beach House - Norway
From their 2010 album "Teen Dreams". I don't actually always pick out their songs to particularly listen to, but whenever I listen to a random playlist with their songs in it, I never fail to love the song. They're fantastic, Alex and Victoria. Oh, and Victoria is providing vocals for Grizzly Bear in Slow Life for the New Moon OST.