Neon Indian – Deadbeat summer
This is fun and irreverent Sunday night listening. It makes me want to dance around foolishly. There are worse qualities for music to have. Probably not great for everyone else though!
Tag Archive for Current
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Japandroids – Young hearts spark fire
This is has a raucous, raw energy that makes it youthful and arresting. It is is a little more jarring and angular than the usual type of thing that I go for. However, for some reason I couldn’t get enough of it today. Along with the energy, the lyrics also resonated with me; feeling like I am not as young as I once was and trying to work out what that means.
Additionally, I think Japandroids is a pretty great name.
We used to dream, now we worry about dying… I just want to worry about those sunshine girls…
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Summer Camp – Ghost Train
This has an innocence that I find charming, with a video to match. These guys were the support act to the drums when they played the best gig I saw in 2010, if not ever.
Slow train brought you to me. Fast train sent you back. Sent you far from me and now I’m alone, alone, alone…
30th July
Elbow – Lippy Kids
I usually gravitate away from recordings of live versions of songs but this is one of the rare exceptions to that general rule. It think the stripped down quality here makes it even more striking than the studio version.
Van Morrison is another notable deviation to this general phenomenon. He is the only artist to have produced a live album that didn’t disappoint me. In fact he has released 3 that all blow my mind in It’s too late to stop now (which has also maybe my favourite album cover of all time), Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast and A night in San Francisco.
I would be happy to hear any suggestions as to live tracks or albums that may change my mind about the concept.
This song is double apt as I had my own bad experience recently with a certain Lippy Kid.
28th July
Vondelpark – TV
This is another sparse, washed out electronica track. I seem to have been listening to an endless stream of these recently. The murmerred, hypnotic lyrics add to the dream-like feel.
I think Vondelpark are from London and are named for a park in Amsterdam.
25th July
Youth Lagoon – Cannons
This is the newest addition to my MP3 player and has been receiving heavy play.
It is the latest in a series of songs of a similar ilk that have grabbed me (several of which I have posted, with probably some more to come). They all have a kind of washed out, dreamy sound, like The Beach Boys meets Fleet Foxes. Not sure if this is just the style of the moment or they just speak to my slightly jaded mental state.
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Swiftumz – It’s Beautiful
This is short but kind of cool and hypnotic. It has a trippy, dreamlike charm that I have found irresistible for the past few days.
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Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Ffunny Frends
Short post today – it’s been a long week. Interesting band name. I know little about them other than this guardian article. New Zealand by way of Portland apparently.
Anyway, I like this laid back number and have been listening to a lot of it this week.
13th July
Washed Out – Feel it all around
Was surfing around Youtube aimlessly and stumbled upon this a couple of days ago. It was the right song at the right time. It is breezy and hypnotic, a breath of fresh summer air. There is quite a fitting video here too.
Benis Cletin – Jungle Magic
An old friend returned home from a 2 year African odyssey today (welcome home Sammy) so I wanted to post something with a world music vibe in his honour. This is released on Sofrito Records – “home of the tropical discotheque.” A pretty good claim to fame.
Said buddy and I have also been having a transcontinental email conversation about our shared appreciation of Seamus Heaney. Particularly how his poetry reminds us of home, heartening us from places far and not so far from there. See below a favourite from his latest collection that conjures an image of home for me as vividly as anything i have ever read.
The Baler
All day the clunk of a baler
Ongoing, cardiac-dull,
So taken for granted
It was evening before I came to
To what I was hearing
And missing: summer’s richest hours
As they had been to begin with,
Fork-lifted, sweated-through
And nearly rewarded enough
By the giddied-up race of a tractor
At the end of the day
Last-lapping a hayfield.
But what I also remembered
As woodpigeons sued at the edge
Of thirty gleaned acres
And I stood inhaling the cool
In a dusk eldorado
Of mighty cylindrical bales
Was Derek Hill’s saying,
The last time he sat at our table,
He could bear no longer to watch
The sun going down
And asking please to be put
With his back to the window.