ALBUMS 2010 - Top 5

1. Beach House - Teen Dream

2. Sleigh Bells - Treats

3. Tev95 - Crime Loops

4. Twin Sister - Colour Your Life

5. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Millionyoung - SunnDreamm EP

Millionyoung is quite perculiar in the way his sound is introduced to you. I guess it's similar to most indie artists these days but there is something that strikes me as very unique about his sound, you become hesitant at first but once you start listening to the tracks for abit they sink in and your taken away with the music. It feels though as people are taking pop music in a different direction such as this. It's wierd in a way because you can sense real emotion in this kind of music other than most stuff you hear on the radio. Also his beats are very interesting too.

This guys is making way for the future.

Tracks-
Mien *****
Youthless ****
Chlorophyl *****

Holidays

Its been a while since Ive made a post but I guess I've been away from tafe for abit. So holidays its been. I've been around the last few weeks. Went down to Shoreham again with my lazy companions, went on a 12 km walk along the beach to Flinders and got a Pizza. Doesn't seem worth it? Imagine tin cans of food, Breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was good going back down. It's as though I feel like I'm always the last to leave no matter what on camping trips. Its actually not a bad thing, I just find it strange. We came and everyone was in the camp site but as the days progressed people started to vanish till it was just me and my friend. I also lost my pinky toenail, pepped up on antibiotics and friken limping since.

Been listening to some good music though.

Junip - Fields
Wavves - King of the Beach
LCD Soundsystem - This is happening

One of the best albums that I listened to during Highschool... All tracks are good memories to me.

Last night I had a dream

(This photo of Churnobyl was the closest thing I could find to what I thought might be the dream city)

Before I forget it, I had a dream last night about the world ending twice.

I had this book. It looked a tiny brown diary and the thing was If I wrote a disaster in it, it would happen and I was in Swanston street at the time but I don't remember there being any people there at all accept this middle aged couple. They were fat and jolly, they didn't think that it was true. The street was pretty bare aswell, no signs up at all.
So they suggested a disaster, "How about a Nuclear disaster?". So I wrote it in.

I have this picture of them laughing and holding their hands smiling, standing in the middle of the road, like a family portrait as this nuclear lightening bolt splits a tower in half and dissintergrates into dust and watch them disappear in front of me with the same happy, content expression on their faces. Then it starts over again..

There is a girl this time. Black hair. Long. Pale face. About 18. She is more curious than the other couple and asks "How about a flood?"
I write it in and I don't know why, it's like I intended on it happening anyway. In this distance we both hear the waves crash over civilians. The waves are tall and destructive as they bounce between the buildings. I enjoy the people being swept up but I don't tell the girl. We both hurry up the nearest buildings stair case. We hear screams this time and the blue/grey waves turn into red as we look down on the people. She starts sobbing and I wake up.

This is the first dream I've had in two months.

Two Door Cinema Club

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB.
This band is definately going to be one of my summer bands this year. Dreaming guitar riffs, great jumpy beats, Soft singing. Very tasty.

Ornette Coleman. Some really sweet tunes coming out of this album and I love the doubling up on the melodies from the wind instruments, he does this quite a lot throughout the album. Free jazz is really appealing to me at the moment, I thought it would be too messy for my tastes but once I heard 'Lonely Woman', it was new and interesting to listen to and I guess the rest of the album did it for me too. I mean the first half is very dark, but then it lightens up. I think to be quite honest it should have stayed dark. Otherwise I would've rated this a lot higher.
Good shit still...

Beach House - Teen Dream

Ok, This album makes me think I should stop downloading music. Its a really bad habit because artists such as these need all the support they can get and I end up just taking it from internet. This is definately an album and a half,. Most of Beach House's albums are fantastic but that is because I just love Victoria Legrands voice. I would recommend anyone this album who is into 'Portishead' or 'My bloody valentine'. I think of Earth being flooded when I listen to this album for some reason.

Crystal Stilts - Alight of Night

I've always liked the simple approach to music, I've said this quite alot, to alot of people and it surprises me that it doesn't make a difference to me how little any of the band members provide to their music. I guess to them its more like I've just got this instrument, I will play what ever I can to fit the singer and see what happens. Now Brad Hargett (vox) he isn't one of the best singers but then again neither is Kim Gordon (sonic youth) or Chris Owens (Girls), I guess there are a lot of comparisons but his kind of push the boundaries, and his approach seems like he has gone to the best of his ability to fit his own style and because on this album he doesn't ever quite hit the note, it feels like he is somewhat part of the rhythm section pushing the songs along. Melting in with the bass and the guitar and making it retrospective and daydream-like.

This album you have to listen to it when your in a good mood coz it will bring you down possibly.

Favorite tracks-
Verdant Gaze
Departure
Prismatic Room

Crime Loops

Crime Loops is essentially combined samples and loops to create instrumental music. This is an artist I have never heard before in my life. TeV95, this artist I only found out today and seriously this is the shit. It's very creative, original and has a deep sense of pounding rhythms and tweaking pitches and adding effects to some of the samples to make them original instead of clear cut stuff you hear in most popular hip hop. The tempos to most of the songs are quite slow and pulsating. So very chilled out but very good/

You know what I mean when I say that there are artists in the world that you connect to because it pulls out old memories of yours that endears you to love the music even more or it helps with creating stories or movies or what ever you like imagining. Crime Loops does this to me. To be honest there isn't a lot to say about this album. I just really like it.

'Cold heart' reminds me of the second half of 'Take Pills by Panda Bear'

Beck is one of those artists that I really connect with, his music is undeniably good, and has stuck with me for a long time. I remember listening to Midnight Vultures on long car trips and not appreciating it at first. I thought anything that my dad played was a piece of crap, wasn't cool, but he proved me wrong. His taste and along with my mum's have both been influencial on me. Along with Portishead, Frank Zappa, Ray Charles, David Bowie, Moby, Nick Cave etc. I was a rat bag listening to Backstreet Boys and Spice girls and Tv hits. That Superstylin stuff. I was once forced to listen to Elvis Costello, sometimes it would be on often enough that I would give in and sing a few lines but now some people make it known more than others that my transition into/out of bands is quite brash. I will listen to what my body says is right, and what is good for the body is good for the mind and spirit.

The information (album) check this one out. It may be to your liking.



Track of the week= Jaylib - The Red

This comic is just great. I love this style of drawing alot. Also its biographical representation of Yuko and Ananth is quite amusing but Johnny Wander is definately a favorite comic of mine.

Track of the week- Miss fat booty by Mos Def

www.johnnywander.com

Fiora

(Left to Right: Me, Paul, Jack)

Fiora was a girl that I met when I went camping a few years back. She was a just a girl with brown curls, and a face that could shock you in two ways. Quite plain really.. but she was nice. I liked her. I wouldn't say that I was in love because I probably wasn't anything to her and she wasn't very interesting. But she definitely was a perfect picture. Happiness and composure were the things that struck out about her to me. None of which I had. I was young and the sand was cold and wet, and it didn't rain mostly. This trip is abit vague in my memory because I stayed at the same camping spot numerous times consecutively throughout the last 3 years of my high school days. Most times with my odd friends Paul and Jack.

Its hard to point out the insignificant things in my life because most of them I forgot about or are too small to really hold onto. I wish I did though. That is what Fiora stands for: The little gaps in my memory for the things that I really appreciated in my past. Visual moments. As I grow older it feels as though I need to hold onto something. Like a thin line that everbody is racing for and I need to keep swimming to keep up with them. Distractions.. Oh well.

Ariel Pink's Lover Boy is an album that I suppose doesn't mean anything specifically. You can listen it.. and sure it's lo fi but there are musicians out there who may focus on the technicality and production side of the music being rehearsed but there are also other musicians who want to go past the sphere of music for the sake of being musical. Its easy accepting music like this because its unoffensive and people like it. I'm not reducing the music that you listen to is a worthless piece of crap. I'm saying that there is things that we see today and especially in the music industry, that music is just built on what we've seen on T.V. or listened to or have read in history books. Music in my mind should also incorporate experience, dreams, feelings, stories.
Explore a world that you peer into, past your reality and delve into the black waters of Hyper-consciousness and/or the dreamworld and sometimes they combine when your playing or creating. This doesnt lie in the lyrics or the music. I think it lies in the sounds. The novel. The sounds. I think in a way this should be taught. Some people need to be guided into being honest within their music, once you can be totally honest and free in your own music. Then you make wonders and enjoy having days of pure extascy just enjoying what you create and knowing that your song, your personal song is being released out into the open.

Loverboy is a wonderful magical journey into dream and adventure. Superb album. In some ways very similar to Mothers of Invention - We're only in it for the money.

Three of my favorite tracks so far have been..
-So glad
-Phoebust Palast
-Hobbie's Galore

Song of the Week

Picture: Japanther at Waterloo Park, March 21 2009

Super Loser - Japanther

What a cake of a song! Honestly, its so thick you could eat it. Im satified with this piece because naturally I want nothing more from it. It has consistency, wierd hypnotic effects, distortion and a driving beat that will have you jumping down the street kicking down letter boxs.

Shortage on money

There are certain things that I want, maybe I am selfish but I don't mind working to achieve these things accept that there are rediculous obstacles in my way and sometimes I wonder whether something so absurd could happen in an instance of finding a job.. and there was.

Last week I applied for a job at The Pancake Parlour. You know the one, with the huge gimmick that's been the label for that business since before I was born. If you see an add with a trumpet jingle, a monkey holding a phone. That's the one. It's abit coincidental as the story I'm about to tell you involves as much stupidity and absurdity combined you wonder why I got denied from this job. Crazy people live there, with wierd morals and their own definitions of what is professional.

I handed in a resume and did an online application for a casual/ part time job there...

A week later Im sitting in my friends car and he is telling me that one of his friends saw me hand in my resume to a worker there and by the way this conversation was going, a look of amusement creeps across my friends face and the words that he will announce are just honey to his ears. He tells me the worker handed it to the Manager there and the guy disapproved of the resume because I handed it in an envelope.
"Very unprofessional". What is unprofessional about handing a resume in a letter? Ask the monkey with the telephone behind the desk or the Giraffe waiting tables.

Aside from that.. I do enjoy the food there. Love pancakes. Next time I'll order a 5 stack with extra ice cream and chocolate sauce and get the manager to do a little dance for me.

Vintage Violence

John Cale's Vintage Violence was his first solo album released in 1970. It is the sort of album that you listen to after a hard day at work. You go to your car and put on the cd and everything is complete for the day.
One of things that I adore about this album is that the tracks are 'kind of' country but then again at its time, the poppy and rock n' roll side to it stays aswell. By listening to this album you can see the importance of John Cale's role in The Velvet Underground. You see without his intellect for Pop/rock structure, whether it be intentional or unintentional in his songwriting, his influence on The Velvet Underground was phenomenal and made songs which swung both directions on the mood pendulum. Having his Violin skills, he courted a really depressive feel to "Venus in Furs". Yet with their other songs like "Who loves the sun" and "Sunday Morning" he could definately swing it back for the people who need cheering up.

His husky yet sonorous voice leads me out to the clouds where I could die peacefully basking in the sunlight forever. Truly..
"Cleo" is a song I just purely enjoy for the influence of soul music on the guitars and keys especially. With it's high emphasis on rhythm, its fairly simple. Lyrics are quite easy to pick up but its just totally listenable. It would have your whole family dancing to the beat.
The best track on the album I would have to say is "Amsterdam". It's just John Cale and a guitar but how his sorrow connects with me. I feel like I'm in some poor movie theatre watching a documentary that doesn't interest me at all. The depressed make such good songs sometimes. It also reminds me of my songwriting which in a way gives me hope for my musical career. If Im abit like John Cale, I cant be too bad.

Im outta here.

Hi there..

So Ive got a blog now.. Here is a poem to start this shit off..

Big Bears
I stare through the thick haze of my front window.
Its a meaty sight, Im on top of a giant bear I squeak to myself.
Im speeding along, pretending I can beat the hightrees and the mountains
but my thoughts are boundless, restricting, and I dream of the things I did on the shores as I get deeper into forest..