The Shins - something about everything

After the last Norah post and an unplanned discourse on masculinity issues on this blog (which is at a historical low at the moment), zhu and I agreed we need to turn our attention to the non-female side of musicdom, males and Martians qualify. And so this post seems well called for and very appropriate to me (all smug), since our other problem, besides having polarized ear-brain connection that respond all too strongly to female sounds and little else, is that we tend to blog about artists we already take every opportunity to rave to each other about anyway (we here refers to two nutcases that’s zhu and me, but anyone is welcome to join the collective, non-extant *grin* emoticon). Blogging is hence just making babbling a little more coherent (and less scandalous) and take it to the next level. I say we do something about the growing list of each of our new favourites, now.

aww these guys ain't glamorous rock-star looking, I know, but they rock!

The Shins is a relatively new and extremely delightful new find of mine (though the band started way back in 1997 as Flake Music.) My shame at my slowness is slightly mitigated by the fact that the indie band’s profile was greatly boosted when two of their tracks were featured on the critically acclaimed 2004 indie film Garden State (Zach Braff, Natalie Portman), which I love, and which was how their sounds first reached my nerve endings a year ago. Since then they have become an absolute favourite.

As to their sounds and discography…here is where my musical vocabulary becomes a limiting reagent, so I’ll quote wikipedia instead.

The Shins' first album was 2001's Oh, Inverted World, released to critical acclaim for its lyrically deft, jangly pop sound. Dave Hernandez, former member of Scared of Chaka, joined the group following the departure of bassist Neal Langford. Chutes Too Narrow followed in 2003 to much fanfare in indie music circles, featuring even more multi-layered lyrical inventions and a musical approach that explored new genres, song structures, and levels of production fidelity.

and this bit is fun..

The Shins played a critically acclaimed show at the historic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, with Scotland's Belle and Sebastian on July 6, 2006. Both bands described playing at the venue as a career highlight. During live shows, the band members (particularly Crandall and Hernandez) are known to frequently swap instruments, making it somewhat difficult to define their exact roles in the band.

Oh, Inverted World

Chutes Too Narrow

The exciting news is that their next record, Wincing the Night Away is set for release on January 23, 2007 (soon!!). It was said to have been leaked to the internet but I'm totally waiting for the official release--I'll buy that as the first record in a hiatus of three years not of buying any music. I'll put up a few tracks for you guys to sample when the connection gets better (yelling for help from zhu!). Before that, please contend with this teeny tiny radio. (toothy emoticon =d)



Update: A sample of Young Pilgrim (zhu's pick) and Turn a square (mine) from Chutes Too Narrow is ready here, thanks to zhu! Expires around 7 Jan, old disclaimer apply. =d

New York City - Norah Jones

It’s really not so good an idea to fill your ancient, tiny-capacity MP3 player with Norah and Norah only, and set out on the road, thinking it’d make even the grimmest parts of the journey tender and not without subtle meanings. Especially when it’s an album featuring Norah singing about a labyrinthinely fascinating city that you'd always wanted to see for yourself. Especially when your own travel happens in winter, to harsh, unrelenting places like Chinese tourist destinations. (Of course you can renounce the idea of even bringing a player to drown out all other interesting, real sounds in travel. I got to do that when I am out of battery, which happens pretty often anyway.)

The thing about Norah is that she comforts you like opium. You keep coming back for more. You laugh, you fall into a reverie to the lyrics set to her low, smoky voice, and as you wake up lingeringly you cry, and cycle repeats. It’s subversive in that it could quietly wipe out everything else (N.B.: in emotionally turbulent times), and it's bad travel company exactly because of that. In the small town of Yangshuo, as I sat with newly made friends on the road side watching people and (unmoving) karst rocks and good humouredly chatting, we asked what music we each were listening to on that stretch of the journey. The guys chuckled (in slight embarrassment?) “oh, I know Norah Jones…but I never listen to romantic stuff like that ye know..” (guy’s pick was rock, more or less predictably.) Never occurred to me before that Norah’s music would be described as ‘romantic’, and then I thought, maybe, only girls and women listen to Norah? I personally would feel a little amused imagining a guy transfixed to her music for weeks on end like I sometimes do. Only on reflection did I realize that the subject matters and the perspective of her lyrics, poetic, poignant and at times melancholy, are mostly a very feminine kind. But I’d very much like to see someone disagree. :-P

About this album of New York City (which is actually by the Peter Malick Group featuring Jones)—if you had listened to the other more famous Norah albums (Come Away With Me and Feels Like Home) this one would not disappoint you in the least. The collaboration sees Norah attack the ‘70’s singer/songwriter style country/bluesy’ songs (quoting an unremembered source) with vigor and heart, and the result is that the album has a distinctly different and refreshingly lively feel as compared with the solo efforts. It’s really difficult to pick a favourite to put here, as all six tracks featured are equally great. I’ll just put the title track on YSI first. (coming later due to Taiwan earthquake and my being partially cut off to servers across the ocean..) UPDATE: download here before it expires around 6 Jan. Thanks to zhu for circumventing the problem from north America instead. All material from the web and meant for non-commercial purposes only. =D

New York City

I can't remember what I planned tomorrow
I can't remember when it's time to go
When I look in the mirror
Tracing lines with a pencil
I remember what came before

I wanted to think there was endless love
Until I saw the light dim in your eyes
In the dead of the night I found out
Sometimes there's love that won't survive

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
Such a beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

Laura kept all her disappointments
Locked up in a box behind her closet door
She pulled the blinds and listened to the thunder
With no way out from the family store

We all told her things could get better
When you just say goodbye
I'll lay awake one more night
Caught in a vision I want to deny

And did I mention the note that I found
Taped to my locked front door
It talked about no regrets
As it slipped from my hand to the scuffed tile floor

I rode the train for hours on end
And watched the people pass me by
It could be that it has no end
Just an action junkie's lullaby

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
Such a beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

We were full of the stuff that every dream rested
As if floating on a lumpy pillow sky
Caught up in the whole illusion
That dreams never pass us by
Came to a tattooed conclusion
That the big one was knocking at the door
What started as a mass delusion
Would take me far from the place I adore

New York City
Such a beautiful disease
New York City
You are my beautiful,
Such a beautiful disease

Salyu

Yes, my first post under the new pinkie sky! First of all, a round of claps for zhu's return haha! Although ukulele's again back to me + jady duo state as it originally started to be, I'm pretty happy with the current layout and contents ^^. (I hope blogger can consider EMOTICONS and a few remotely artistically inclined templates.)



Salyu Salyu! Did I write a post on Salyu before? The wikipedia entry is here, too brief to be informative but I can't add any more details as Salyu is indeed a mystery, a real Lily chou chou walking right out of the movie. Since all of the songs (and most lyrics) are single-handedly composed and written by Takeshi Kobayashi, a well-known composer in Japan for producing brilliant soundtracks for Shunji Iwai's movies, Salyu is a materialization of Kobayashi's ideal of music, a mix of new age, pop and acoustic. Salyu's 'angelic' voice (as most people like to describe it although I think it's more draggy, semi opera and maternal) lifts you high above ground into an imaginary world of wuthering winds (like 'Kaze ni noru fune') or a conundrum of still air, of emptiness. Scary or blissful depending on the situation. Most of her songs have a strong healing power which is reminiscent of Lily chou chou and we all love her for that =D (emoticons please!) We also love her wacky wardrobe and big loving smiles, and how she distorts her facial muscles to the extent we see an over-representation of mouth and too little of eyes! Yes, not to forget her chubbiness!!

Among her singles released so far, my favourites are VALON, Kaze ni noru fune, to U and Platform. All her PVs are superb! I wonder if it's the same director.

Some clips from youtube

Landmark - from 2006 live 'close to you'


VALON1 Live Countdown (lovely makeup!)


Me and Jady's mutual favourite - Kaze ni noru fune


Platform live (First appearance on Music Fighter)


To U - ap Bank fest

Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek

Some random reading in Last.fm on Frou Frou and I read (with great surprise) that FF is a duo and not the name of the singer, right. And then I saw this weird name ranked first in a list of ‘Similar Artists’. Imogen Heap, what a name, but no, didn’t ring a bell. But later when I played the Hide and Seek sample track and heard the first notes, bell ringing big time. (If you are an obsessed follower of So You Think You Can Dance, you definitely will remember this track and/or the goose bump-inducing dance choreographed to it with the dancers in heavy mascara and full black outfits. But I digress) and later still, when I did find a tubie and stared at her bony, strong face for five whole minutes, I jumped from my chair realizing she is Frou Frou. The visible half of FF, anyway, so much for my uncomprehending reading activity. And YES, she went solo and has good projects going. I’m trying to get the albums down now, more to come.



Clip of the SYTYCD dance. Low quality but you get the idea. ;-)

maintenance worker blogging

Well I'm done playing truant for now and here's a report: Blogger has come out of beta officially as of today, and besides the long needed tagging function they also dished out a (yet rudimentary) recent comments in sidebar function too! Boy, aren't they aiming to push the other service providers off the cliff! Hoho... don't mean to make this into a lengthy geek post though, just some excited whistles and I'll snap right back to normal. Anyways. a little deserted this place looks, I wonder how everyone's doing...musically or otherwise. ;-) The last two of fish sama on classical music was just...mind boggling otherworldly and awesome, more more! and I say let's revive it rejuvenate reincarnate rewhatever! (and zhu I want to revamp uku, major itch. =$ shall we?)

Last.fm – the social music revolution

Something I stumbled upon the other day and had since fallen head over heels for. Basically it is a comprehensive music service that allows you to sample clips, see what's recommended and popular with other listeners, and the best part is this small software that runs quietly in the background of the computer, collects information of the music you are listening to, send it to the last.fm server so that personal billboard/radio 'charts-like’ thingie are automatically built up, allowing you (and others) to see weekly/overall top listened artists/tracks, who on the network share similar tastes with you, and other tricks I am still continuing to discover. It currently supports wmp and winamp. My (highly rudimentary) chart now looks like this.

Verdict: Highly recommended for index-maniacs and general music fiends. Geek to Live!