Earth and Expo '70

Saw this awesome double bill tonight. I've seen both bands before multiple times so I knew what to expect. And neither of them disappointed.

I missed a bit of Expo '70 since the movie I was at earlier in the evening (the widely acclaimed Queen which I will write about tomorrow) ran a little later than I expected. I think the song I missed half of was the promised new one too. But no sweat, I'll be setting them again twice later in the month.

Earth was just what I need to soothe my ruffled feathers. Ruffled because I got stood up. Sort of. This dude I'm friends with on last.fm said he'd look out for me and say hi. We go to a lot of the same shows but have never actually met up. His taste in music is so close to my own that I actually use his upcoming shows list to pick the ones I want to go to. Would've been nice to actually have a friend irl with similar interests. Oh well.

But going back to the show itself, Earth, as I said, was the perfect music to make peace with the world. They alternates between tracks from their upcoming album and older material. The new stuff held up great, so I'm liking forward to that album which comes out in July apparently.

I get a day of tomorrow (not from work sadly) and then it's back to plenty of live music again on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at a music fest. I should get some rest now. Early and busy day awaits tomorrow. Think I'll play my favorite Earth album to sleep to. Here's a song from said album:

Some conversations

can be so draining. You know you're not really getting through to the other person but you try anyway. In the end, you walk away frustrated and they aren't feeling any better either. Wish I could avoid these situations. Usually I'm in too deep before I know what's up and then it's too late to back out. Ugh.

In other news, I spent a ton of money on music today. Have a sweet bunch of records headed my way soon. I should start doing the Vinyl Weekend thing again. I haven't been listening to my records as much as I should ever since I moved. Need to set up my gear properly. Soon.

Here's a list of what I bought today. All good stuff that is well worth checking out, mainly of an electronic/noise/drone/ambient music persuasion.

Dino Spiluttini & Nils Quak - Modular Anxiety

Safiyya - Shareek Hayaat

Fennesz Daniell Buck - Knoxville

Robert A.A. Lowe & Rose Lazar - Eclipses

3 Derek Rogers albums on bandcamp


Also, gave the new self-titled St. Vincent album a listen and quite liked it. I think I'll try and go see her show tomorrow after all.

Update: I took a photo of all that stuff I bought. Here it is.

March is for Music

This month has been a wild ride. I haven't discovered this much new music in this short a time frame since sometime back in 2006 or 2007 when a certain bunch of people threw a lot of great music my way changing my life in a very fundamental way. That may sound like an exaggeration but it really isn't. It was pretty much the big bang of my musical universe. Or rather the inflation shortly after the bang (if I understand inflation theory correctly). So I'd like to say a big thank you to all those people whom I'm sadly not really in touch with anymore (internet, heh).

But coming back to the present, today's major discoveries were Good Willsmith and Nils Frahm. Never heard of either of them before today but one listen was all it took to compel me to buy their recent records. I haven't listened to Nils Frahm's Spaces in full yet, so I'll talk about that album another day. Good Willsmith's The Honeymoon Workbook, on the other hand, I listened to not once but twice. I listened the first time, LOVED IT, immediately bought the LP online (something I very rarely do, usually preferring to buy direct from artists on tour or at local record store), then listened again all the way through. I'm listening again as I write this, so make that three times.

Despite all these listens, I don't know if I can actually describe this album. A very vague description would be noisy ambient drone experimental electronic field recording and otherworldly sounding vocals filled yet rhythm oriented crazy dark yet compelling ride. It really is something you have to listen to and experience in its entirety, which you can do courtesy of tiny mix tapes here (scroll down to the soundcloud stream). The album is one cohesive piece with the tracks flowing right into each other. In fact, I found the little hiccup in the stream during track transitions a little off-putting tbh, so I'm all the more eager to get my LP with the download code. Here is the second track from the album, which is a good taste of it, and what drew my attention to it in the first place. But really, do listen to the whole thing if you like this. And buy it (they're even throwing in a free limited edition cassette of live recordings with the LP!)




In other unrelated news, Kronos Quartet started following me on Twitter this morning! I still half-think they must've accidentally clicked follow when looking at the multitude of tweets where I mentioned them yesterday. Which is partly why I didn't even give a shout out thanking them for the follow; I don't want them to realise their mistake and unfollow me right away. So instead, I'll say wtfwhee here instead. :)