Back in 2010 one of the biggest things in dancefloor and electronica was Daniel Victor Snaith a Canadian composer and musician. He released under his stage name Caribou one of the best dance records at the beginning of the new decade - Swim. I owned this record after listening to a late night radio show that featured Caribou. Mixing the best of early psychedlica with electronic and loops. He knows like a few to build up it with every song a tension curve from which one cannot avoid any more. Give yourself a chance to this.
A few days ago Sad Man's Tongue Rockabilly Bar & Bistro - Prague announced a some concerts from afternoon till midnight. All the bands appearing have one thing in common: They play various kind of Rockabilly. I posted in this series Rockabilly from different countries but never before from a Japanese band playing Rockabilly. This concert might be a very good reason to spent some days in Prague - a city that is every time worth to visit. Sadly, I have no time to go to. So let's have some fun with the Starlite Wranglers with the video instead.
I spent many hours this weekend (only discontinuously by consider football) to upload a mix to mixcloud. There were many tutorials to read and to watch but I wasn't successful at all. On Sunday downloaded a DJ program to make a mix out of my selected files. After five hours of working with this program I stopped in the afternoon and go out for a beer with my mate. This song would be on my mix (if ever I can release it on mixcloud). Okapi Guitars are a Sydney based band with black and white members. They play a combination of Zimbabwe music with guitar styles from all over Africa. It from their 2004 release with the same title and this song is typical for their style. Using rich guitars with picked pattern of afrobeat. I have been reading some translations of their lyrics and I can say that their lyrics are marked very politically, because they sing about the ongoing disaster of Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
Seems like the weather will change throughout the next days. After a period of sun and higher temperature we'll going into a wet and cold period. According to this I will post a song that makes you feel warmer (hopefully). Lambchop is an American band associated to the Alternative Country music. But there music is much more. They have influences from soul, post-rock and lounge music as well. This song is from their album Nixon released in 2000. A little gem with only a picking guitar added with string and horn arrangements. A song perfect for a lazy 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.
I thought by myself to finish this little series with the last post. But I remember still some bands that would be worth to featured in this series. One of them were The Motors which was formed by former members of Ducks Deluxe Nick Garvey and Andy McMaster. After a short period of existing they got a new guitarist called Bram Tchaicovsky (what a name!). Trained by many appearances in a lot of pubs the released their first record called '1' in 1977. It was the time when punk and new wave started to open the ears of a lot of people. And The Motors released a record with classic Rock and Roll or how it was called later PowerPop. Dancing The Night Away is a guitar dominated song added with some good voices and harmony singing. I loved them songs because they had the best of 'two worlds'. The structures of guitar based songs with hooks and empathy. It was a record that showed a lot of folks how new music could sound.
It is just a mix today but what a mix! I spent some hours on Soundcloud the other days and found a mix by Justin Robertson mostly known as a DJ during the Madchester era. This one is like a trip through musical history. Loved to hear Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in this mix.
Take time and enjoy (will be out tonight to watch the semi-final of UEFA-Champions League)
