A great quote I came across

"There is no difference between a pessimist who says, 'oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,' and an optimist who says, 'don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.' Either way, nothing happens."

Yvon Choinard, founder of Patagonia

Listener

I can honestly say I have not heard anything like this before. This is Listener and Dan Smith, the vocalist, describes his project as "Talk music". Its sort of like rap but its not. Its got more of a spoken word thing going on with music backing it up. 

I discovered Listener on the music subreddit. Someone had put up this video and I was stuck at how passionate Smith is in his performance and the tiny garage it was shot in. I would love to be in the audience for something like this. I am a great believer that the hardest shows to play are the most intimate and Smith is fully in control in this instance. 

I really recommend you listen or read the lyrics to these songs. They are incredible. I would show some examples but I really think you need to see the whole thing to get the context. Just look at the lyrics for the title track. It is simply sublime. 

Classical Breakcore

I was on youtube browsing some videos and came across a breakbeat remix of a Mozart piece. It wasn't that great but it reminded me of this:

Venetian Snares' "Rossz Csillag Alatt Született" (yeah, I have no idea how you pronounce that either) is a great breakcore album. Aaron Funk (A.K.A Venetian Snares) samples from works by composers such as Bela Bartok, Stravinsky and Paganini, then combines them with into something completely different. There's even a bit of a jazz section in the track "Hanjal".

He also does a rendition of "Gloomy Sunday" ("Öngyilkos vasárnap" on the album), a song that according to urban legend lead to multiple suicides when it was released due to its melancholy nature. Those that are superstitious need not worry, I've heard several different versions of this song and I am still here!

If you are into breakcore, this is a must listen. If you are into classical music, this will be interesting at the very least so give it a go!

The for Carnation

I seem to have a knack for finding good bands that have lousy wikipedia articles. I tried out this site called music map and I put in The White Stripes, which got me some similar sounding bands but the one that caught my attention was this band:

The most striking thing about that song, I think you will find, is that it sounds nothing like The White Stripes. Not that I care, I love the laid back post rock thing that's going on here. This is going to be great when I want something to listen to when I am getting ready to sleep or just something I can ignore while studying...or even blogging! There's a bunch more of their stuff on YouTube, so be sure to have a look.

New favorite discovery!

Started looking for new music tonight and came across this:

 Its kinda like Andrew Jackson Jihad in that it has a sort of punk/folk thing going on. I just love DIY stuff like this plus there is a sample from an episode of Dexter. Much love indeed. Check it out here.

Boris and Milan

Today, More music and a book recommendation!

This song, just awes me. It has this strange juxtaposition of slow metal heaviness and shoegazey guitars. This, in my mind, shouldn't work but it does and that make it one of my favorites.

Fun fact, the echoy riff you hear in the beginning is an allusion to a melody from a Nick Drake's song called Horn. The song is on album called Pink Moon (Possibly why the Boris album is called "Pink"). Check it out, its pretty cool.

Now the book!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, is definitely one of my top recommended books. I could give a brief summary of the plot but really, the plot is secondary to the philosophical ideas that the author is trying to get across to the reader. Kundera manages to discuss philosophical ideas with such a lyrical narrative that it doesn't feel like he is explaining anything too counter intuitive, that is until you try explaining the same idea to someone else. I really recommend that anyone with a slight interest read this book, it is amazing.

Beginning again

Decided to delete all my old posts and start over. No real reason really other than I want to start with a clean slate. The original idea for this blog was to just post music I liked but now I am just going to blog about whatever I feel like.

First up...its some Japanese post rock: