48 posts tagged “music”

Nina Persson, two other persons

Oct 18, 2009
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I was listening to A Camp's Charlie Charlie and then I clicked Last.fm to research the article I had just written prior to this on my blog (aren't I a pretentious prick, calling blog posts articles? Sorry. Reflex), and then I saw this. Isn't this a gorgeous picture? I don't know who the other two are, but I really like this picture. It's so very Scandinavian and A Camp.

A Camp

Confession: except for Stronger Than Jesus and Love Has Left The Room, I found A Camp's second album Colonia to be a woeful disappointment. On the plus side, it has raised hopes that she'll follow up on that fail with a far superior The Cardigans album sometime in the future - no matter what you say, Super Extra Gravity was a fine, fine album.

Bear McCreary's Opus: Battlestar Galactica Season 4 OST

Aug 3, 2009
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Thebear

Praise for Battlestar Galactica, the recently-ended SyFy television show spanning four seasons, was particularly heavy on its characterizations, excellent (and mostly Canadian) cast, and intense themes; another that received special attention was the bewitchingly excellent soundtrack by Bear McCreary that told a parallel story.

McCreary's tunes were unorthodox in the way that it didn't have an overarching show theme, but multiple themes for characters, relationships, concepts and more. His use of obscure ethnic instruments was also a highlight, with the percussion-heavy battle music (pioneered by Richard Gibbs, who was involved in the miniseries' soundtrack) being a dizzyingly interesting change from typical science fiction soundtracks.

With the show over, I'm left wondering what more there is for a Galactica fan; well, there's The Plan, a made-for-TV movie chronicling the entire show from a Cylon perspective, and there's Caprica, a new SyFy production that could loosely be described as a spinoff/prequel. What I was really looking forward to? McCreary's Season 4 release. The music of Battlestar Galactica really peaked in Season 4, with almost every episode having a track that could be described as 'epic'.

Season 4.0 and 4.5 had its weak moments, but the music never wavered. And now, McCreary has released the OST through La-La Land Records.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: SEASON 4 (2 CD Set!) [Soundtrack]

It's a two-CD set, with the first CD being the best themes from the twenty Season 4 episodes - a tough call, considering the incredible amount of quality in that season - and the second being a CD dedicated solely to the three episodes of Daybreak, the series finale. All in all, hours and hours of sheer aural sex.

I've taken to replaying episodes just to hear snippets of the music, and now this album has given me a chance to hear the purest form of it. The Cult of Baltar is a favorite track, along with Kara Remembers, Gaeta's Lament (who knew Alessandro Juliani had such a beautiful voice until that fateful episode?), Dreilide Thrace Sonata One, and more.

Extremely looking forward to getting it. Give it a spin, you too. Television will never see such a convergence of audio and video ever again, quite probably.

A Standing Joker Like A Vocal One-Liner

Jun 23, 2009
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We Started Nothing

The Ting Tings

Favorite album this week. I've been listening to it non-stop. There's more to The Ting Tings than just "THEY CALL ME HELL, THEY CALL ME STACEY, THEY CALL ME HER, THEY CALL ME JANE!" (That's not her name, by the way, guys)

I blame Uncle Asri's iPod for accidentally playing me That's Not My Name to me as I started trying to fix it for him - nothing major, just adding and removing songs using Yamipod - and I gave it an extended listen-through. Bit the bullet and gave We Started Nothing a spin soon enough.

Not enough time to write, but Katie White is raw sexiness with her Mancunian accent and highpitched screaming (see: Fruit Machine). She's also got, amazingly, the voice for ballads like Traffic Light; anthemic tracks like That's Not My Name are great too. Oh, and Jules' background chatter in That's Not My Name is badass.

It's a relatively short album. We're looking at ten tracks total, but they're all hardcore excellence, whether they're high-octane BANGbangBANGBANG loud tracks, or the mellower ballads. The only weak track I found in the entire album was Impacilla Carpisung. It's the silly name. I like this album great.

They called me quiet, but I'm a riot.

SAYS AMIRUL: I Have This Love For You, So Let Me Share It

Jun 19, 2009
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A_IGP3499

ON MUSIC AND THE INSPIRED FEELING OF HUMAN GOODWILL AND MUTUAL ADORATION:

I am currently listening to melancholic indietronic music and rereading my favorite new games journalism pieces, so I might have the tendency to love everybody a little too much for the next few hours.

On this melancholic indietronic music: whilst watching a beautiful video about a sea biscuit's life, I discovered My First Trumpet, the indietronically awesome performer behind the hauntingly beautiful song in the above-linked video. Little bits of looking-up courtesy of Google got me the address of Aerotone, the wondrous netlabel that covers these wondrous indie electronica performers. The quirky covers got my attention real quick, but I wanted My First Trumpet's album right now, thanks to that video.

Aerotone offers seventeen different albums for free download at their site. These albums are by eleven different groups/musicians, with the odd compilation album tossed in too. Not knowing what to get, I chose My First Trumpet's Frerk first.

Frerk is a beautiful release that across twelve tracks shifts from vaguely happy and positive to hints of melancholic atrabiliousness to jitters of shy, forlorn sadness. Continuously played it segues from track to track cleanly, leaving me to realize that from the time I started writing this article to now I have actually listened to the album in repeat three times with nary a notice.

The song I was looking for from Frerk was track 11: "Autonarkose". It's beautiful, haunting, pensive. It reminds me of lost loves whose memory I recall while taking midnight long cold walks towards the train station, hoping to not miss the last train. It's a real random thought, but this is what I interpret Aerotone's philosophy and design (also beautifully, beautifully transcribed from emotional mindform into heartaching text:)

About 6am. - we have reached the airport, because you have to leave. Not for a couple of days, but for a period of time that will be painful for both of us. You have to go the distance, as it is part of your masterplan. And I have to stay here because here is my life. We don't talk much. We don't find words to express our feelings right now.

This night we promised to each other that the miles between us won't harm us, that this circumstance will tie us up even stronger. But I know you can see the fear and sadness in my eyes like I can feel it when I look in yours.

I can hear the planes taking off, people whispering. I listen to the announcements which intend to separate peolpe from each other. I wait until our call echos through the terminal to tell: time to say good bye to my love.

Again and again I look at you, while you try to fix my eyes. Both we feel desperation and melancholy which can't be put into words. So we just sit here, watch the planes heading to other places. I hold your hand that feels cold and sad. Just as if you were already gone.

Daylight is crawling up form behind the horizon. This is our call. One last fearful glance from your face before we hug and kiss. You promise me to be mine forever, I nod and wave good bye. Then you are gone. I watch your plane leaving the building, blow you a kiss which vanishes into the terminal air.

Back home I feel empty and tired, but determined to store this state of feelings. I sit down and start to make music... sounds like some aerotone.

It tells you absolutely nothing at a glance, letting that gorgeous narrative settle in your thoughts first. Sounds like some aerotone. I visualize everything: the airport, the fleeting smell of a transit milieu, dimmed lights and bleary eyes all around.

For all your quirky indietronica musical needs, choose and support Aerotone. If 'love' has an associated melodic pattern, it would be chronicled definitively by the music Aerotone pushes. It's almost completely idiosyncratically quirky and European in nature: a German site peddling lonely French vox+acoustic music beside pianists named after Norwegian towns. Don't give this site a miss. Expand your tastes now.

Loyalty

Jun 2, 2009
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Okay, this is the big blogworthy piece I'll make to revive the flagging Word-Text-Communications readership.

I've not made many personal posts lately. In fact, I think the last genuinely genuine blog post I made here was the ode to Jan's untimely death in mid-March (Oh, Jan, how I miss you so much). Even then, much of the months before that had seen a lull in words, texts, and/or communications here.

This doesn't mean I'm leaving the blogosphere. In fact, the opposite is true - now that circumstances have led to me being employed as a writer, I think it would be pretty healthy for me to stay and write. Expand Word-Text-Communications' scope, too.

My main gripe with Vox is that it's so practically impossible to use on Safari. Ever since I started using my MacBook, I've been getting little bugs and annoying difficulties on using the Vox interfact on Safari - I can't use standard commands that I could on Windows (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, etc, etc - Mac!Firefox seems to be able to do this for me a little better), I can't even upload files up to Vox easily without errors of 'file association not accepted' or some such, and lastly the fact that I can't press the buttons without something stupid happening. I highlight some text and then press Bold, and all I get is... a totally different sentence getting bolded. I can't even play with text sizes anymore. Genius, Vox, and thanks, Safari. When the simplest of formatting becomes a chore that's unnecessarily difficult to do, you know it's time to consider leaving the site.

I had a moment where I was thinking I was going to go join Tumblr; Greta Salpeter's blog, while pretty, wasn't enough of a model to attract me to use (not without a great amount of commitment, at least). I hear that Tumblr is nearly completely modifiable and I'm sticking to Vox... for now. Expect me to get distracted real soon, though. We may have to have this discussion again soon, Vox, my love.

But Greta Salpeter's blog is pretty, though. Here's a pic of The Hush Sound singer.

Greta

I don't think anybody can doubt she has an awesome name. Greta. Salpeter. I think I may have plugged The Hush Sound's latest album Goodbye Blues three or four times now here at Word-Text-Communications, but...

It really is that good.

Melodyless Woes

Jun 1, 2009
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Ipod_photo

My lovely iPod, a plastic white fourth-generation iPod Photo that's just simply impossible to find anymore - they don't make 'em like they used to -, has been feeling under the weather lately. In fact... each time I try to use it, it simply straight out refuses. It gives me...

THE SAD FACE.

Ipod-sad3

See how sad it is?

I'm actually much sadder than my iPod. The data inside the 'Pod isn't really all that unrecoverable - it was synced directly to the MacBook's music Library, so everything's still in iTunes. What is sad, though, is the fact that I do a forty-minute trip from work every day (WORK: to be discussed in another post!) on the LRT. Music would be a great thing to have; in fact, portable music's probably the next best thing to get during that long bout of transit, second only to sleep.

But I can't obviously sleep the entire way. Someone might just... snatch my bag away. I get awfully paranoid about this. My bag's not very fancy, nor does it really indicate I've got a laptop inside, but you never really know. Crowded cabins, distracted people... Who knows, it might just lead to an awful case of Missing MacBook.

I'm going to send my iPod through Poslaju straight to the guy in Penang who had sold me the iPod. Hopefully he can have it fixed, or replaced, I just... really, really want my 30GB iPod Photo back.

It's been so long. I think I've even forgotten her name.

This Is My iPod. This Is My Tagged Note.

Mar 29, 2009
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Itunes

...Yeah, it's a MUSIC THING. On what has become a MUSIC BLOG! Let's all open up our iPods, our iTunes, our Windows Media Players, our Zunes, our Sony thingies!

Total number of tracks:
1,113

Sort by song title:
-First Song:
Abba-Gadda-Divida - Storm & The Balls (I suppose it's also worth adding that I have four versions of this song, all performed live)
-Last Song:
1916 - Motorhead

-Shortest Song:
And That's How I Choose To Remember It - Rilo Kiley (00:05) (I'm not certain, but I believe this song also has no music or words. It's four seconds of silence)
-Longest Song:
01 - Bohren & Der Club of Gore (22:34)

Sort by album:
-First Album: Acid Tongue - Jenny Lewis
-Last Album: What Is Free To A Good Home? - Emily Haines

Top 10 Most Played Songs:
01) Too Little Too Late - Metric
02) Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley
03) A Distant Sadness (from 'Occupation') - Bear McCreary (with the lovely Raya Yarbrough, his fiancee, on vocals)
04) Rise Up With Fists!! - Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins
05) Combat Baby - Metric
06) The Good That Won't Come Out - Rilo Kiley
07) Glendora - Rilo Kiley
08) Exordium Intro 2 - Shiver Skin
09) Space Oddity - David Bowie
10) Science vs Romance - Rilo Kiley

First five songs that comes up on Shuffle:
01) Metamorphosis One - Philip Glass
02) Here Are Many Wild Animals - A Camp
03) Heeding The Call (From 'Crossroads, Part 2') - Bear McCreary
04) Communication - The Cardigans
05) Hurricane - The Hush Sound

Search...
"sex", how many songs come up?: 2 (Two! Only?! There's Richard Gibbs' Six Sex off the Battlestar Miniseries soundtrack, and then there's Snoop Dogg's Sexual Eruption, which is my chill song)
"love", how many songs come up?: 37 (Examples: Love Is A Losing Game, Love In Mourmansk, Holy Love, Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, Love Is A Place)
"you", how many songs come up?: 109 (Examples: It Was Nice To Have Met You, I Want To Kill You, You Are The Moon, You Be My Wife, etc, etc)
"death", how many songs come up?: 3 (Despite this, I do have a fairly large selection of requiems)
"hate", how many songs come up?: 0 ("Get rid of the hate, make room for love!" Storm Large told me)
"wish" how many songs come up?: 0 (...wow)

MOAR MUSIC, MOAR

Mar 11, 2009
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At the risk of turning this blog from a vanity machine into a music review blog (comprised solely of "OMFG OMFG WOW I LUV THIS ALBUMZ"), I've got two new album mentions today.

The iPod has been playing these three albums nonstop: The Hush Sound's Goodbye Blues, Kind of girl's Lonely In A Modern Way and Philip Glass's Solo Piano.

Goodbye Blues

The Hush Sound

Goodbye Blues effortlessly showcases Greta Salpeter's gorgeous, gorgeous vocals. Songs like Molasses and Break The Sky especially. Lyrics take a backseat in certain songs - Love You Much Better, for instance - and it's nothing compared to the depth you'll find in an Emily Haines song, but still! Greta Salpeter is singing. You wouldn't care about anything else. Yeah, and there's the rest of the band, too. Recommended tracks: Break The Sky, Molasses, Love You Much Better, Hurricane, Six (Interlude)

Lonely in a Modern Way

Lonely In A Modern Way was an album I've been watching since before it even came out, back when Danish outfit Kind of girl were still sending demos and posting free MP3s on Last.fm - I've had their album for awhile now, but Sissel O's addictive vocals have got me back on this album with a musical intensity. Recommended tracks: Someone You Replaced, Poetry Boy

Solo Piano

My introduction to Philip Glass was the song Metamorphosis One played during the end credits of the Battlestar Galactica season two episode Valley of Darkness - supposedly a piece composed by Kara Thrace's dad. The entire album here is a joy. I put on Metamorphosis One every morning to give myself a boost of morale: for some reason or another, this song calms me down each time. The journey continues to Metamorphosis Two through Five, and then there's the excellent twelve-minute composition Mad Rush, an amalgam of the five Metamorphoses from before, which expresses the intensity and pursuit through the speed of play. Recommended tracks: Metamorphosis One, Metamorphosis Three, Mad Rush

Fantasies (album)

Mar 2, 2009
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Help I'm Alive

This announcement must've slipped past me, but it's the BIGGEST FRAKKIN' NEWS ALL WEEK.

Metric is making their fourth album. A song off the album, Fantasies, is posted on their Myspace page, and they've even got a download link for an acoustic version. I've been listening to Help I'm Alive, the song that's out, and it's Metric alright. 100% pure Metric gold.

Highly recommended. Check. It. Out.

Also, with relevance to the previous post I made ("Sight Reader"), I am currently listening to Philip Glass's Solo Piano album (which is... solo piano!) and The Hush Sounds' Goodbye Blues.

Playlists

Feb 21, 2009
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ITunes

So it's 1.51AM, and I've been kept awake simply by dint of it being 1.51AM, and I'm going through my iTunes for a bit. I realize that I have a number of playlists. This is a new thing to me. Prior to 2007 (or was that 2008? They both seemed like the same year, really) I used two playlists, ever. "Music Library", y'know, the default All Your Music Are Belong To Here place, and "Party Shuffle". I still use Party Shuffle regularly. I don't have many parties, nor do I really shuffle at these parties, but I do enjoy the randomness.

I set my Party Shuffle playlist to play only from the My Top Rated autoplaylist (sorry, "Smart Playlist"), which are my four and five star rated songs. This has some very serious significance. If you're a four-star song - as rated by me, at least - you're in. You get to be played. If you're a five-star song, all the better. The likelihood of you being played is much higher than, say, the other six thousand songs not rated with five stars.

iTunes has some pretty deep mathematological randomness here, doesn't it?

Sorry to have to be Captain Obvious right now, though!

I have two other playlists of note. One's a set-up and modified Smart Playlist called "Top 25 Most Played", which, y'know, is rather transparent. It's the top twenty five songs, in the order of most played. The current winner is Silver Lining by Rilo Kiley at 87 plays.

Under the Blacklight [VINYL]

Rilo Kiley

Blah blah blah, more music rant, more numbers, stream of consciousness and statistics over.

It's 2.04am now, ladies and gents!

Also: Metric's Too Little Too Late, my favorite song ever, is playing right now. There aren't any superlatives in the English language to describe the guitar riff. The lyrics. Emily Haine's vocals. The way everything mixes together. I've used "orgasmic" before, but even that doesn't do the song justice. I'll just have to stick to "orgasmic". Anybody who's heard the song will agree. (Music Completist note: listen to Emily Haine's ultro-rare CD Cut In Half And Also Double for a track called Carpet. It makes the most beautiful companion piece to Too Little Too Late)

Final postscript: Amirul B Ruslan, inventor of the One-Word Verdict and its associated act Word-Text-Communications, is currently listening to Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Such beautiful compositions.