The first week in business this year is over and it is like I left it in mid December. Nothing really changed but if I'm honest I didn't expected it. I am still not through reading all the posts you've done during the last weeks and listen to the music you offered there. Often because you type a lot more than me (thank you for it JC, SWC and Badger - always a pleasure to read your thoughts). So it will take time until my blog will run the usual way with (new) series, etc. Until then I will post the best of new music that came up to me from the in-box and other media. It is Sunday morning and I think the new single by The XX is perfect for it. With this one they come very close to a perfect pop song. All the ingredients of their sound are still present and the dark an melancholic voices of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim floating over a steady beat.
This piano version shows us how fast covers could be made these days.
It's hard to describe Jamie XX's first full length album In Colours. Of course it is a masterpiece in electronic music. Not only because he's looking back in music history to sample some really fine tunes or for the fact he made the finest dancefloor ballads for long time. For me it has been an album I put on the turntable when I found calmness on my own. It's a record to let one's mind wander. The more you listen to the songs you'll find more and more details in it. Never thought that he could turn the dark mood of the XX records turn in optimistic music like this.
When I woke up this morning I could see the first snow falling for this years and it seems like winter arrived. Like many others I will spent the day at home with a good cup of coffee listen to some music and reading a book. This is the new song by Daughter, a London based three-piece folk band with roots in post/dark wave. It's minimal and dark, a bit close to XX and a wonderful song for Sunday morning.
My workload has reduced to a normal mass this year and I was mentally able to stabilize again. I was very busy with myself that I didn't noticed what really happened around me. So I didn't realized that C. wasn't happy in her job any more. Surely we talked about these things but we were not able to find a final solution for her problems. Looking back from my my today's point it seems that something has gone lost in these period. As normally we have pushed it on the general strain in the occupation and have fled in the next vacation. In hope that we afterwards again enough strength will have to master around the upcoming problems. We both weren't willing to take a round-trip anywhere so we decided to go tho Goa, India, again. Just to have a quiet beach life with sun, swimming and some good times. We found a nice apartment in immediate beach nearness which was pursued by an older English lady. It was wonderful. And for the first time in our life we met Russian people during our vacation. Unfortunately, became all prejudices we have belonged confirmed. Very loud people who have no respect to the culture of the host country. Many have behaved like small dictators and have treated the locals like personal slaves. So I kept distance to them. Anyway - these days were peaceful at all and we got the power to pull up again. Not knowing what the next year will bring. More next week
When I was looking back to this years music I have to admit that I didn't got my eyes on longplay records. I was more into electronics and dance these days. But anyway, here are some records that are worth to be named again:
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest: Fine mixture of folk and experimental rock
Fever Ray - same: It would be my record of the year if The XX wouldn't appear
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - same: Clever indie pop
Element of Crime - Da wo du bist bin ich nie: More hooks this time
La Roux - same: The evolution of 80s synthie-pop
In addition to this: here are some songs I like to play again.
Seems like I watched different kind of movies this year:
Sherlock Holmes: Guy Ritchie makes an old story new - awesome
The Hangover: If only for the first sentence 'We fucked it up'
The Hurt Locker: Great movie during the war in Iraq
Crazy Heart: One more fantastic movie with Jeff Bridges
Inglorious Basterds: The breakthrough for Christoph Waltz
Taken: Great thriller
The Boat That Rocked: Back into the early 60s
Some headlines from 2009:
Horrible bushfires in Australia kills nearly 200 people // Swine flue outbreak - the influenza spreads from Mexico and the United States to other countries // Sri Lanka announces victory in its 27 year war against the terrorist organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
It's not purist. A short band name, the same time album name is and, of course, a cover which only by a 'X' is decorated. As highlighted in the treasure hunt, as it were, the X is the body. And if you're going to dig this music turns out this album as an incredibly minimalist but it is precisely this incredibly stirring dream. The quartet from London unfolds into a dark beauty with the simplest of means. 2 Guitars a bass and drum computers, as well as triggered beats from a few slight electronica rich from. It is like as if the dark despair and mood of the early Cure and Joy Division experienced an amazing reinterpretation in this form in the outgoing decade sure a few bands have succeeded. The music is melancholy sad but is always allowed moments of hope again. Especially if Romy Madley Croft with her wonderful voice and thus the micro takes a fragile soul and an honest warmth in the music as you would expect at first glance. Particularly in a cheering chorus with band mates Oliver Sim makes this incredibly fun because he is, so to speak, the dark counterpart to his teammate. So the songs sometimes almost like dialogs. Introverted love songs in dark times. Ideal for the autumn some may also write for the financial crisis' but the other should decide. This album is so incredibly great and wonderful to listen to them that it almost brought tears to the eyes. Long would despair isolation and darkness not so good anymore in music packed as here. The xx is an honest emotional and incredibly good album full wonderful soft sounds.
Few days ago we were invited to a Sri Lankan wedding. The wedding flow is totally different to one Western people are used to. First there is no bachelor - celebrating with your friends and also no hangover possiblle. As we used to marry in the curch them people don't because there are less christians round here. The blessing of God will be given by a Hindu priest to the couple in a short ceremony. After that they start to photograph bride and groom on hundreds of pictures. Meanwhile the traditional starter was prepeared and served. For western tongues it is more a desert than a starter, because it came as cupcakes and other sweeties. After that a band starts playing or (like in our case) a DJ starts his set.
This is mostly the signal for the man to leave the table and go outside (if the celebration is in a hotel) or seperate when it's outside. Then they order their local whiskey called Arrack and some soft drinks and tonic and they start talking about nearly everything. So it goes on for some hours. Between talking, drinking and somking you can get up for some lunch and come back to the men's table.
Women, older persons and kids stay during this time on their tables, enjoying music, talking to them others or having lunch. After the men's drinking conversation is finished, everyone joins the band/DJ to dance for a while. And so slowly ends the celebration that normaly don't go longer as four/five hours. Than the wedding couple leaves and the party is over. Normally the celebration ends in late afternoon and a lot of guys want to continue the party. So hey formsomegroups,which then party at their respectiveplaces of residence - mostly till late night.
Todays track is the XX-cover from 'Sheler' done by Hercules And Love Affair.
