New Layout

Yeah so new layout - cleaner, moodier, sexier, more efficient if you will. I like it, i hope you do too :)

Wolf Myer Orchestra and Parov Stelar - Femme Fatale

A delicate blend of soul, jazz, trip-hop and pop constitutes Wolf Myer's Femme Fatale. With a myriad of guest vocalists it is diverse and rich in quality with sexy soulful vocals provided by many and is accompanied by Parov Stelar's signature downtempo, smooth sound. At times dark and confronting, with dashes of funk and dance this album is great for those cool nights.

Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children

Smootm ambient synths wind in and out, drift through the air an into your ears just as a feather would to your hands. The ambient and earthly sounds are accompanied by glitchy beats that maintain punchy rhythms and hop around electronic bliss.

This is the way to wind down and relax...

Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice

My love affair with Minus the Bear started when i picked up their Menos el Oso album 3 years ago. I brought it home and listened to it while a friend dyed my hair - i was going through a phase with my music - an exciting one which would lead me to greater things. The same could not be said for my hair that night...

Planet of Ice feels like an icy album - an album that you put on when the rain is hitting hard against the windscreen of your car. I also get this sense of sexual passion, i know weird right? But it is like Minus the Bear have sexually matured - ageing from adolescence to men - and it shows in the lyrics of songs like White Mystery and Patiently waiting (if you have the aussie release).

Lotus is a huge trip of prog greatness while the images of drinking warm sake on a cold Japanese night could not be pulled off any better in the alluring song Part 2.

Random Post for Anonymous # 6

This is not a humerous post. This is not a beam of light. This is a post of extreme disdain and disbelief...Above is a photograph taken from the crash two minutes from my house at 12.30am on the 28 of March 2009. Two cars were drag racing on Magill road in excess of 150 kilometers per hour. They lost control of their cars and both crashed head on into stoby polls. One man was killed instantly. One youth dragged himself out of his burning wreck with only one leg. Two other passengers were seriously injured.

It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. In fact, i do not feel sympathy, not one bit for the man who lost his leg (possibly two). I hope he is haunted for the rest of his life for killing and seriously injuring people he knows. I hope he is haunted with the images of familes gathering at the crash site in horrific agony because of his actions. I hope he never lives it down. He never will.

What happened was a tragedy, but like most tragedies could have been avoided - stupidity like this should not be glorified and should not be praised. The only saving grace that came out of this ordeal is that no innocent people/bystanders where killed - but that is not always the case.

This Adleaide reader sums the whoel thing up pretty well,

"The best thing for our youth is not to experience death (for which they have no concept) but to understand suffering (which lasts a life-time): Suffering with permanent physical or intellectual disability. Loss of independence and freedom. The indiginity of having someone else attend to their basic hygeine. The guilt and anguish of killing a(n) innocent bystander and robbing a family of their precious loved ones. If the survivor only lost a limb then he was relatively lucky. He will now have a life-time to reflect on the death he was involved in and what advice he might give to future generations."

Grow Up.

The Mars Volta - News (new album...)

So my beloved band the Mars Volta will be releasing a new album titled 'octahedron' in Australia on June 19th 2009.

Well, this is the case if we are to believe triple j (id say a very reputable source here in Australia).

So yeah, im excited, even if you're not haha.

Peace

Sage Francis - Personal Journals

Oh yeah, so not a big fan of the Hip-hop genre, what with objectifying women, killing people and shit. But hey, this album is a very very fine album - quality hip-hop with intelligence and not an over-exerted ego. I'd like to write a review for it, but Pitchfork Media have probably one of the best reviews iv'e read about this album, so here it is.

"Whatever else may be wrong with the Anticon guys, at least they're not afraid to say they need their mommies.

The Anticon hip-hop collective-- of which Sage Francis is some kind of member now-- have a reputation for brainy, convoluted lyrics and wordy self-examinations. Instead of chest-out bragging or shout-outs to their small-city hometowns, they use their rhymes to admit weakness, and to dredge up every small bad memory of childhood. Sage Francis lets it all hang out on Personal Journals, his first major solo release, using his assertive rapping and thick exterior to deliver a startlingly self-revelatory album. His voice, informed by spoken word performances, can take on a dramatic frenzy, matched by lo-fi but dynamic production from underground DJs like Odd Nosdam, Sixtoo, Jel, Joe Beats and Scott Metallic. And in case anyone thought that Francis was just a poetry slam-winning white boy who's here to read his diary, he also displays a sense of humor while flexing his lyrical muscles.

Francis takes himself apart a dozen different ways on this album, starting with two different approaches at self-portraiture. On "Personal Journalist," he explains himself with fast-paced abstract wordplay: "Non-prophet/ Artificially intelligent/ Avant-guardian angel... Loyal son, father to none." Chaotic street scenes and Jesus imagery fill out the track. On the more direct "Different," riding on a throbbing upright bassline, he pronounces himself a drug-free vegetarian who "wouldn't smoke the pot I was pissing in, and I had no dead homies to honor while pouring out the liquor I won't drink." I have seen the future of underground hip-hop, and it is straight-edge.

When he brings his family into the fray, the self-analysis gets murkier. Francis' relationship with his mother could fill volumes, and every track is full of haunting images and vague, unresolved guilt and blame. He talks about a childhood without a dad: "Eviction Notice" depicts Francis' mom fighting with her live-in boyfriends, while the disturbing atmosphere from cLOUDDEAD's Odd Nosdam evokes a picture of little Sage hiding under his bed. Francis' mom appears again in the brutal love/hate "Kill Ya Momz," which lays a heavy metal offensive over a creepy, innocent recording of young Sage doing a devoted Mother's Day rap. And then there's "Inherited Scars," one of the album's best tracks, about his younger sister; as he looks at her scars (self-mutilation? Tattoos? Are they the same thing here?), he implores her to "stick it out" at home as he tries to decide who's to blame-- their father or himself-- without ever answering the question.

Grown-up Sage isn't any less complicated. The beats are not only lo-fi, but hypnotic and claustrophobic-- especially the hand drums and drum kit that Sixtoo puts behind his fevered rapping on "Buckets of Silence." That and "Specialist" are back-to-back studies of obsessive love, where the wordplay grows frantic: "I'm a slow self-esteem engine in need of a whore's power.../ I'm holding a sleepless beauty pageant on my shark-infested waterbed until it's punctured." The rejection and his own abusive loving give us one picture-- "Mr. Feel-Nothing," who "saves his tears inside of a cup, and he drinks and he forgets that he's an asshole." But then there's the tender side that comes out in the unabashedly gorgeous "Broken Wings," gliding on a beautiful piano line from Scott Metallic's production. It takes a tough man to sing a lyric like, "We don't need no wings to fly," and Francis pulls it off.

"By the end of the record I'll make sure y'all know who Sage Francis is," he promises early on, though he never convincingly finishes the job-- he's still figuring it out himself. There are people who will criticize the wordy, convoluted lyrics, or resent the hall of mirrors that Francis drops us into. But being complex doesn't make this art: Personal Journals is a success because it turns the self-examination into poetry and then, harder still, turns the poems into great rap. And as dark as he gets, Francis makes sure we have a good time: dig his sub-karaoke live remake of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page." Clearly, nothing embarrasses this guy.

— Chris Dahlen, April 30, 200"

Pitchfork rating: 8.7

Random post for Anonymous # 5

i think it's number five...yeah it is...
Ok new features, a shoutbox to the right has been added to leave quick messages of anything you would like to say, please use it, anyone lol.

i'd like to follow on from a previous random post on University toilet graffiti. A funny one i saw the other day - "what are you looking up here for? the joke is between your legs!"

got me.

Soil & "Pimp" Sessions Feature Artist

You can tell by the photo above that this is no ordinary Japanese jazz band - these guys are quite possibly the most fun, neergetic and downright awesome band i have come accross in the last year or so. I mean, they have a member who takes on the role of 'the agitator' at live shows - basically requiring him to agitate the crowd and get them ready to dance the night away.

Soil & "pimp" Sessions were formed from the tiring disco scene in Japan - they yearned for something fun to dance to, something fast, hectic and sweaty. What has arisen from this dull era is amazing and must be heard to be believed. Self-described as 'death jazz' the band is an onslaught of blistering horn sections, an astonishing drumming section (the guy does nto let up) and the added element of classy piano. It is fresh, it is danceable, and it'll keep you awake at night wanting more.

Soil & "Pimp" Sessions - Pimp Master (2005)


Soil & "Pimp" Sessions - Planet Pimp

RX Bandits - ...And the Battle begun

So after a bit of a musical lull of sorts i have made a concious decision tof inally check these guys out. And damnit im glad i did - there's something irresistable for me about reggae/ska stuff, but i'd never listen to a whole album of the stuff. Enter RX Bandits - a what most people now would call a progressive rock band with elements of reggae and ska music - true to their early form.

It is an extremely impressive amalgamation of ska/reggae and progressive experimental rock ala The Sound of Animals Fighting - you can really hear in these songs how Matt Embree influenced that band. It is this ecclectic nature of the music that keeps you coming back. From the finger clicking tangent that 1980 takes you on to the hard hitting rock of To Our Unborn Daughters it is an absolute trip. And i cannot get past the awesome slower songs on this record - showcased by apparition and only for the night - technical and catchy and it's great.

Karate - 595

For those unfamiliar with Karate (it should be obvious that im talking about the band and not the martial art). Jokes aside, Karate led by Farina is what some may regard as an influential band on rock movements to come, but what i regard as a fresh sounding, sonically challenging trio that combined their extensive musical knowledge with rock sensibilites to win hearts accross the globe.

This, their final release before disbanding is their 595th live show recorded in Italy i believe. It showcases the bands jazz/rock genre at it's rawest with prolonged jam sessions and expanded solos that differ considerably from their studios offerings. You will find everything here, the spaced out, soulful and spine tingling guitar playing, delicate and erratic drumming and smooth soothing basslines all combined with the touch of Farina's distinct voice.

Something for a warm summers night drive definately.

Parov Stelar - Monster

Oh yes oh yes, Mr Stelar returns after his too amazing ep's The Flame of Fame and Libella Swing to bring us a new, fresh and tantalising amalgamation of house, electro and of course that nu-jazz sound that Parov is widely knwon for. Heavy drums open the title track with a vocal sample that builds to an eruption of brass instrumentation and club electro beats that would fit on any dancefloor around the world.

It seems this new direction Stelar has taken with his last few Ep's has re-ignited some sort of energy within the man usually known for his downtempo jazz bar scenic tunes - showcasing his strengths in upbeat danceable electronica but still witholding his unique spice of jazz and swing Monster closes with a jazzy-electro number saxaphone heavy and with just enough oomph to have you dancing in your bedroom like the music nerd you are.

Mokyow - Variations For Spiegel

I hope whoever read my blog for the past month enjoyed the featured Japanese artists and groups - i have one final offering for you to complete the month of February (even though it is now March...).

Mokyow are from Tokyo and create an atmospheric styled post-rock akin to the likes of Sigur Ros - although i'd perceive it as alot less orchestral and much more organic. The prominent use of piano throughout the record showcases the subtle beauty of tracks while aggressive layered guitars add a cathartic and chaotic bliss to the climaxes of songs. Definately worth checking out.