Taste

Taste, as they say, is subjective. So it's not terribly surprising to find that different people have different reactions to the same work of art. But still it shocked me to find that one piece of music got an overwhelmingly positive response among group of people and quite the opposite from another.

I'm talking about Nils Frahm's Says. I loved it on first listen. And so did quite a few others that I am very proud to have turned on to his music. But when, encouraged by this positive response on one forum, I shared the same song on another forum..ugh. "Boring", "Too long", "Too repetitive", "Strictly background music", "Is this even a song?"...

Listen to it and judge for yourselves. I think it's a beautiful song and one I can get lost in each time. But whatever you do, don't do what this one stupid person did and turn it off at the 4 minute mark.



P.S.: Gotta give a shout out to Taryn and Kelly over at Love Garden Sounds for introducing me to this wonderful music and many more. 

A very belated show report

I've been to some really great live shows these past 4 weeks or so. And I keep meaning to write about them but haven't been able to get around to it. I shall remedy this somewhat now. I scribbled part of the following on the back of a grocery store receipt while waiting for A Minor Forest to take the stage at one of the aforementioned awesome shows. I meant to copy it over and finish writing it that night (week before last?) but never got around to it.

Mind Over Mirrors, Shawn E. Hansen and ISAM

I found out about this show a couple of days before it was set to happen. It was at the same place as that Midday Veil/Expo '70 show I stumbled upon sometime ago. This place as I later found out happens to be where Justin Wright of Expo '70 lives, which explains how they're able to set up shows there at such short notice. It also explains why these shows are invariably really really good.

So anyway, once again I got there too early, even though I had taken the precaution this time of double-checking beforehand about when exactly the show would start. I was told in response to my enquiry on facebook that the music would start shortly after 8:30pm, and so I rushed over straight from work without even stopping to get dinner. I still only made it around 8:40, but fortunately, they hadn't started playing. I sat myself down in a corner of the room and waited. And waited, getting crankier by the minute.

Finally, just after I had broken down and posted a snarky tweet (which I later deleted), the first person (ISAM) began playing. This was an evening of 3 solo acts, you see. I quite enjoyed the first set once I got off the bench, whose shaking with every move of my neighbour was distracting me a tad too much, and sat myself down on the floor.

Next up was Mind Over Mirrors. From the first drone of his harmonium, I was hooked. This harmonium was nothing like the ones I was used to seeing my music teachers playing back in the day during my short stint at learning Carnatic music. Instead of having the bellows in front of the keys, this guy had a set up where the bellows were by his foot like pedals in a piano. See pics below..

                               To be continued... 

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. :)

A very musical day

It's been an overwhelming day. So much new music. It all started with listening to a mixtape by a Bang on a Can All-Stars member on Q2 music. I missed the Terry Riley piece, which is what drew me to start listening in the first place, but all the rest were very good and by unknown artists (to me) to boot. The only other name I recognized aside from Riley was Ryuichi Sakamoto. Mainly because of his association with Fennesz. I also vaguely remembered coming across Alva Noto sometime or the other. So I was eagerly waiting for that bonus track Moon. As it happened, it was never played.

Today also happened to be a busy day at work, which is where all this listening has been taking place. But I was so captivated by the music that was on this mixtape stream that I didn't want to leave my desk to go talk to a co-worker about some work related stuff. Kept waiting for a boring part that I could use as a break. It never came. Then I saw that the track currently playing was the last one before the bonus track. So I told myself I would go after that one and Moon had finished playing. Just 15 more minutes tops. Well, instead of Moon, they went right into a John Adams track. It was interesting enough to make me want to keep listening, even though it didn't make me want to look him or his work up right away. What I heard after the John Adams made me sit right up. I switch tabs to see whose work was playing, and it is John fucking Cage. Of course. I really need to listen to more of his discography. I loved this particular piece - Mysterious Adventure.

Meanwhile, I had seen a link to a new album featuring Kronos Quartet by some person I hadn't heard of called Glenn Kotche. Turns out he is the drummer for Wilco, a band I've heard of but never actually listened to (that I can remember anyway). Anyway, I started listening to this and really liked the two-ish tracks of it I heard before having to step away. Should listen to the rest of it sometime.

In all this, I hadn't forgotten about that bonus track that never got played. I had actually googled it as soon as I saw they weren't playing it, found a youtube video, which I left open in another tab so I could come back to it. I finally did just that and wow. So beautiful. At first, I was only listening to it in the background while doing other stuff, but it drew me back to it. The beginning actually reminds me of a Björk song I can't put my finger on right at this moment. The video was very interesting also. Turns out that it is actually an unrelated performance of a dancer called Yang Liping also titled Moon. It fits this track so well, however. I think I've listened to this song over a dozen times today. This despite discovering yet more new music thanks to a closeout sale at mimaroglu (brain was too fried by this time to take in any more new music, although I've made note of the stuff I want to revisit there). Anyway, I'll leave you with the video/song that really caught my fancy on a day filled with so much amazing music. Enjoy!



Just realized that this is my 50th blog post. How fitting that it should be about music - my raison d'être.

Disintegration Loops

Not really in any state to write much today. But I don't want to break my streak either. So a quick note and some music for today.

My mind was very restless earlier today (as it has been for the past couple of days), which when combined with a weak body that essentially left me bedridden for most of the day, was a very frustrating experience. Was trying to occupy myself by reading random things on the internet but that didn't really help. Finally I hit upon something that did - William Basinski's Disintegration Loops.

It is an ambient work that was created when Basinski was trying to transfer some old tape loops to digital and realised that they were disintegrating in the process (hence the name). Soon after he completed the project, the 9/11 attacks happened and he recorded a video of it from his rooftop and set the first of the loops as its soundtrack. So one gets to see the destruction of the twin towers juxtaposed with the slow physical destruction of the tape loops and it is mesmerising. An ode to the eventual fate of all things.