alternative sounds : an ipod music blog

eternalized, objectified : the best of 2008

2009-01-06T00:19:00.008+08:00

Better a tad late than never, that's my middle name, so here goes a recap. I think 2008 was a year of big decisions for me. Nothing earth-changing, really, but they could eventually be. I bit off more than I could chew, that's for sure, especially in the second half of the year, which explains my absence from this blog. But I haven't been completely out of touch with music; in fact, I think I bought more music in 2008 than the year before, which explains why I'm able to come up with a longer list of the best songs of the year (44) than the two lists prior. I could have rounded the list to 50, but some of the other songs just don't fit in the two mixes I've made below. Truth be told, they weren't easy to make. It was clear early on that I could split my list between electric and acoustic, fast and slow, bands and singer-songwriters, but actually grouping the songs that I liked in a way that made them gel together (an OCD behavior typical of mix-tape fanatics) meant that I had to violate some of the contrasts I just described. This is why you'll find a Portishead song in the same mix as Bon Iver, and why I included Kings of Leon's Sex on Fire instead of Manhattan, my favorite from their album.

Like I keep saying, this blog is about songs, but I won't hesitate naming the 10 albums I listened a lot to last year, which necessarily makes them my Best Albums of 2008. In no particular order:

Dear Science: TV On The Radio
Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!: Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
God is an Astronaut: God is an Astronaut
April: Sun Kil Moon
For Emma, Forever Ago: Bon Iver
Sleight of Heart: Malcolm Middleton
Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
Limbo, Panto: Wild Beasts
Car Alarm: The Sea and Cake

Anyway, enjoy these songs:

Best of 2008 Mix 1

click here or on the image above to stream the entire list in one go, or click on the titles below to listen to the songs individually

(The Forgotten People) : Thievery Corporation
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa : Vampire Weekend
Head Honcho : DeVotchKa
Youthless : Beck
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
The Fix : Elbow
DLZ : TV on the Radio
Shores Of Orion : God Is An Astronaut
Rooks : Shearwater
These Hands : Deerhunter
The Devil's Crayon : Wild Beasts
Say Back Something : Tapes 'n Tapes
Sleeper Hold : No Age
Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1 : Los Campesinos!
Electric Feel : MGMT
Better Than This : Keane
Graveyard Girl : M83
Holy Cow! : Margot & The Nuclear So And So's
To Be Where There's Life : Oasis
Sex On Fire : Kings Of Leon
One For The Cutters : The Hold Steady
Daddy's Gone : Glasvegas

Some highlights:

Mix 1 of music to groove to was made with some compromises, but overall I'm very happy with it. The musical output from 2008 was weird for me, in a good way, in that the ones that stood out the most to me are very diverse. Thievery Corporation, the Washington, D.C.-based DJ duo that puts a club spin on so-called world music, released their best album since Abductions and Reconstructions from a decade ago, and I thought The Forgotten People, their own composition, made for a rousing opener.

Dig, Lazarus, Digg!!! by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was easily my most played song of 2008. What an amazing record, with an addictive hook and an interesting twist on the old narrative of the artist's struggle between purity and popularity. At least that's how I see it.

How Elbow had gone by under the radar all these years is a mystery to me. These guys have been making tremendous records since 2001. They finally won the Mercury last year, but I think they're just getting started. Elbow is very versatile; their debut album, Asleep in the Back, is track-for-track half a world away from last year's The Seldom Seen Kid, but both are equally good, although the latter is obviously the more self-assured. The Fix is full of mischief.

Album buyers will find TV on the Radio's Dear Science great value for money; they'll get 11 well-crafted songs that cross genres. DLZ, whatever that means, is the most brooding song of the album, a scathing critique, the way I read it, of George W. Bush and his stupid wars.

God is an Astronaut was a big surprise. Scottish post-rockers Mogwai released an excellent album last year in The Hawk is Howling, yet here I am posting a song by a group that obviously takes after them. Their self-titled album is a revelation, every song is stirring, and Shores of Orion uncorks a pent-up indignation.

Wild Beasts was an awesome find. This new English band has its own sound. They cook up highly original guitar melodies, but their songs aren't for everyone. What could put people off is the vocals. They make liberal use of falsettos alternating with pure grit, and the combination can get grating. The best example is She Purred While I Grrd – listen to it when your tolerance hormone level is high. The Devil's Crayon is tamer, but no less ear-catching.

I don't know how many new bands released their debut and sophomore albums on the same year, but Los Campesinos did it, and they did it well. What makes this Welsh seven-piece amazing is they don't only deliver fun party songs for the artsy, but their lyrics can also be cleverly graphic and hilarious without making the songs ridiculous. Documented #1, from the second album, is such an example; the first line never fails to make me sniggle.

Did any band release a more fun record in 2008 than MGMT's? These guys have had a great run, and let's hope they don't crash and burn. Oracular Spectacular is just what the album name suggests: an exciting piece of work that hints at even greater things.

Sometimes it's hard to take a band seriously because of their choice of name, but Margot and the Nuclear So & So's is a good argument for, well, not taking a band for its name. Holy Cow is seriously professional in sound and arrangement – perhaps more so than the band would have liked, since this comes from Not Animal, the version of the album their label wanted to release. (The band's preferred version, Animal, was also released, and it's equally good.)

I had stopped taking notice of Oasis since What's the Story Morning Glory?, but Dig Out Your Soul restored my faith, perhaps because the album is mature, perhaps because the Gallaghers are more mature. They've been easing their grip on the group's creative output, and To Be Where There's Life is guitarist Gem Archer's work. It could well have been George Harrison's composition sung by Lennon. It has the makings of a classic in spite of the novelty – a £12.50 toy sitar, if Noel's claim is to be believed.

Only By The Night by Kings of Leon probably gets the award for the most polarizing album of 2008. The band has grabbed the public's attention since their debut, but with each record they veered farther away from their southern roots. Some hated them for it, most loved them even more. I'm with the latter. Take the past out of the picture and you'll agree that they're making great records. Who could resist Sex on Fire?

Best of 2008 Mix 2

click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or click on the titles below to listen to the songs individually

White Winter Hymnal : Fleet Foxes
Writer's Minor Holiday : Calexico
Total Belief : Malcolm Middleton
Twist Of The Knife : Andy Yorke
I Still Care For You : Ray LaMontagne
Skinny Love : Bon Iver
Always : Peter Bradley Adams
Moorestown : Sun Kil Moon
Face Down In The Right Town : Earlimart
New Schools : The Sea and Cake
Speak : Dark Captain Light Captain
Listen : Amos Lee
Hard White Wall : Joan As Police Woman
Little Black Sandals : Sia
Hearts Club Band : Martha Wainwright
A&E : Goldfrapp
The Rip : Portishead
Gódan Daginn : Sigur Rós
Cape Canaveral : Conor Oberst
Swallows Of San Juan : Alejandro Escovedo
Cath... : Death Cab for Cutie
Weightless : Nada Surf

This Mix 2 of rock for wimps has some of my favorite songs of the year. White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes was a shoo-in, although this isn't my favorite from the album (that would be Ragged Wood). These guys are really good and oozing with minty freshness, even though they're very 70s Americana. I thought I'd get sick of them easily, but I'm still listening to the album. They'll probably have to find a newer sound for their future albums, though, perhaps with the help of a new producer who could funk them out a little bit. It's not that their original sound is bad, it's just that even Mentos comes in different flavors.

Calexico is back. Their Garden Ruin album from 2006 didn't really pluck my strings, but Carried to Dust has quite a number of gems, including this here's Writer's Minor Holiday, plus House of Valparaiso, Two Silver Trees and Red Blooms.

I grew fond of Malcolm Middleton very easily. This former Arab Strap lays incredibly simple but engaging acoustic arrangements in his latest solo album, Sleight of Heart. The self-deprecating Total Belief is typical of his ironic humor. "I woke late today with a puzzle in mind, I found myself hoping for the destruction of mankind, Nothing bad you know and not out of spite."

You wouldn't know Andy Yorke was Thom's younger brother just by listening to him. In Simple, his debut album as a solo artist, he got the sensitive singer-songerwriter virtuosity down pat. Twist of the Knife easily holds a candle to artists of the same ilk, like Ray LaMontagne, who subdues his normally powerful caffeine-and-nicotine vocals into whispers in I Still Care for You, or Bon Iver, aka Justin Vernon, who found himself being the alternative press's darling thanks to For Emma, Forever Ago. While Skinny Love was again an easy pick for last year's favorites, many other tracks from For Emma are more elegant, though a bit less radio-friendly. Re: Stacks is a painting in gentle brushstrokes of moving on from a failed relationship. "This is not the sound of a new man or a crispy realization, It's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away. Your love will be safe with me." The heart aches. I'll count Peter Bradley Adams in this group. His album Leavetaking is overly sentimental, but the songs – nay, serenades – are expressions in soft sighs of an honest wanting. Sun Kil Moon didn't really impress me with April, but Mark Kozelek is enshrined in this blog (see picture above) and he can do no wrong – even with The Finally, his latest album of covers, which incudes Send in the Clowns. (Really.)

Earlimart was an accidental find. I can't remember which artist I was browsing on iTunes that showed them as related, but I clicked and liked what I heard. This male-female duo makes amiable music that refuses to fade into the background, with their little elements of earcandy such as bird chirps and vocal harmonies. The Sea and Cake and Dark Captain Light Captain use the same technique, but the former slides a bit into jazz-pop and the latter alt-folk. Amos Lee straddles these genres with relative deftness. And just to wrap this up: Martha Wainwright continues to beguile, Sigur Ros finally became accessble to me, Alejandro Escovedo has a sweet soft side you want to explore, and Nada Surf are still underrated!

catching hold of the light

2008-06-22T12:35:00.009+08:00

cast away : the one am radio

our fall apart : the one am radio

click on the song titles to listen

The first thing you will notice when you listen to This Too Will Pass, an album by Hrishikesh Hirway or The One AM Radio, is the melancholy of his sound. These are midnight songs, best heard in bed in the company of empty space, eyes open staring into darkness. The second thing you will notice is the serenity of his voice. Hirway does not sing as much as softly breathe, but his is the monotony of quietude. If he is perturbed, he has found peace with it. And if neither has yet grabbed your attention, the third thing you will notice is his visual lyricism. Hirway's songs are beautiful pieces of haiku stretched into prose, creating imagery with attendant mood: calm but intense, unadorned but symbolic, concise but redolent with a rich narrative. Consider this, the entire lyrics of Our Fall Apart, about a couple on the brink of a perhaps decisive separation:

We stood within the dappled shade of the small backyard where we had our start. You kept your eyes on your cupped hands, held as though you might catch hold of the light. Behind the curtain of your hair, you began to say, half-turned away, "How strange to find this place unchanged to our hardened hearts, and our fall apart."

And then there's Cast Away, which is a haunting song about a man struggling to accept the prosaic reality of normal life after a long surrender to depression.

The first thing you saw when you washed up onto the shore were the words "I don't love you anymore" scrawled into the sand. And as the sun and the din from the street beat you sore, you had a sudden ache for the ocean floor. Every night you dream of the same underwater scene, where you nearly made your peace, but then the silence suddenly ceased. And placed by an unseen hand, you were brought back to the tumult of land. The sound of the hull against the waves is not around to lull you to sleep nowadays. You just lie awake, listening to the gulls in the bay. Breathe in salt air as you stare at the ceiling, trying to recapture the feeling of being married to the sea, but your vision gets so watery. Every night you dream of the same underwater scene, but safe beneath your sheets, you'll never find your way back to that peace.

It makes you think: Is it possible for someone to be so depressed, he wants to stay depressed?

three portrayals of almost love

2008-06-20T09:05:00.008+08:00

Or, films with characters that sing.

gold : interference

when your mind's made up : glen hansard & marketa irglova

click on the song titles to listen

An Irish indie hit from last year, Once tells the story of a relationship that develops between a Dublin busker and an immigrant flower vendor who inspires him to pursue his recording ambitions. I first saw it on a plane and fell asleep halfway through. I thought the story was more interesting than the music, but felt it was too slow to keep my attention. I gave it another chance on DVD, and loved it. It's intimate storytelling; we don't even get to know the characters' names. Theirs is a relationship of mutual respect, admiration and love of music, with the element of physical and emotional attraction an undeniable presence, a looming uncertainty over how it might change the course of the lives they're trying to carve for themselves.

One of the film's many charms is the simplicity of its story, and watching it unfold raises only two questions: Will he make it, and will they end up together? Spoiler alert. We only learn about the latter, and I can't think of a better ending: They record, he decides to go to London, they spend a day together before he leaves, and they confess to mutual attraction in a sweet, awkward goodbye, in which she declines his suggestion to consummate the relationship, afraid it would only lead to pointless "hanky panky." What a girl.

So here are my two favorite songs from the film. Frankly, we've heard Hansard's style before, which many people say reminds them of Damien Rice, but to me sounds more like a stripped down, pre-White Ladder David Gray. I like the way When Your Mind's Made Up develops by gradually adding and removing various elements – guitar, piano, voice, drums, backing vocals – to complement the mood of specific parts of the song. Gold, on the other hand, is a duality, alternating string virtuosity with vocal and lyrical purity. The latter, however, stands out in its earnestness. Vocalist Fergus O'Farrell sings with the withered voice of a medieval troubadour, delivering a song that is not only traditional in sound, but also in its use of metaphor. It's amazing that a song like this can still come from this century.

one day the dam will break : jesse harris

never see you : rocha

click on the song titles to listen

The Hottest State had its moments, but in the end I decided that it was an overdramatized piece of work that lasted far longer than its statement was worth. Written and directed by Ethan Hawke based on his own debut novel of the same title – in other words, it's self-masturbatory – The Hottest State tells the story of how a young struggling actor, William, falls in self-destructive fashion for a young struggling musician, Sarah. Their mutual attraction is obvious from the moment they meet – he is beguiled by her air of mystery, she by his mawkish verbosity – but the relationship they eventually establish remains platonic, until Sarah declares herself ready to get over a prior rejection, and by extension, to let herself fall in love again. Not long after the act, she begins to distance herself and decides that she doesn't want a relationship after all.

Unable to understand why, William tries to win her back, progressively becoming more obsessive, through midnight phone calls and recitations of Shakespeare in front of her apartment. You begin to get the idea – which, I guess, is that love can be real and passionate even at an early age – but Hawke rubs it in by sending William to a downward spiral that becomes too exasperating to watch. Perhaps it's due to a weakness in direction. Unlike other talky films that Hawke is very well familiar with – like Before Sunrise, where the conversations cleverly explore each character's lives – The Hottest State uses uncreative dialog and narration to explain. The flashbacks of William's early separation from his father are a disjointed explanation of how he developed his need for a relationship he could hold on to, and everything we get to know about Sarah's past is crammed in a dinner scene almost as an afterthought. This is, of course, a film about William as much as Ethan Hawke, who has called his novel a work of autobiographical fiction. But the film takes itself too seriously that it becomes pretentious – words that have been used to describe Hawke himself.

Thankfully, the soundtrack is enjoyable, made up mostly of songs written by the unheralded Jesse Harris, rendered by some good artists and himself. One Day The Dam Will Break is an uplifting self-medication against an inevitable fall, and Never See You is a shy wish for a second chance.

anyone else but you : the moldy peaches

tire swing : kimya dawson

click on the song titles to listen

I don't really have much to say about this film, which the world and half of Mars have probably seen, other than it's worthy of its acclaim. The soundtrack is an excellent alternation of mostly classic folk/rock songs and Kimya Dawson's jocular songwriting talent and tongue-in-cheek folk sensibility. Director Jason Reitman's song choices give the soundtrack a character as quirky as the film itself, and it's impossible to listen to it without thinking of the film's story and its starkly different characters. I predict Juno will be up there in the company of Singles, Garden State, and Pulp Fiction in any all-time list of Hollywood's most memorable soundtracks.

do you hear that, mr. anderson?

2008-06-14T12:18:00.006+08:00

"That is the sound of incontinent retards."

- Agent Smith, pre-Matrix.

a playlist : ringtones for people who hate ringtones
click here or on the image below to listen

Bear with me for a bit and let's talk about numbers. I was happily ambling about the internet the other day when I came upon this highly disturbing bit of news: According to soothsayers, mobile phone users will spend about $6.65 billion in ringtone downloads by the year 2012. Assuming that by then there will be at least 3.3 billion people with cellphones, and that the price of ringtones remains about a dollar each, then that amounts to at least two ringtones for every mobile phone in existence. That means there's going to be an awfully good chance that every phone that rings in the future will do so to the sound of music. But that's just the half of it. According to misfortune tellers, ringback tones will be more popular than ringtones within just a couple of years. That means instead of hearing the familiar ring when you're calling someone's phone, you will be hearing a song that that person has chosen for you to hear. So what kind of music will you be hearing more of – against your will – in the streets, in restaurants, in public transport, and even on your own phone in the near future? Check Billboard's Hot Ringtones chart for a hint.

Now I don't really care what songs they are. Putting it mildly, I'm not very fond of ringtones. All of them. I think ringtones are one of the most useless inventions ever, way up there in the ignominious company of electric candles, umbrella hats, and superhero capes (except Batman, who isn't superhuman, so he needs it). People have taken to ringtones to publicly announce what cool individuals they are or how much sense of humor they have. Well let me tell you something, Mr. Bleeding Love, your ringtone sucks, and when you pretend to be embarrassed when your phone rings and you fumble as if you can't find it just so the song plays a bit longer, what you're actually saying is, "Ooh, look at me, I'm an attention whore!" Twat. Apologize is for pole dancing, not moviehouses. Shake It and Pork and Beans are for frathouse pukefests, not supermarket aisles. Viva la Vida is for driving yourself off into a cliff, not for hospital waiting areas. And you should all be reminded that a blaring playback of Beautiful Girls in an ATM line is an abuse of airspace rights, tantamount to assault. One day, someone will Taser your ass in revenge and I'll be cheering them, bro.

Of course, I and the rest of us ringtone non-fans know that this rant is a futile exercise in rational bitchin', as there apparently is no shortage of retards who will fork 99 cents for the cheapest badge of individuality they can buy. But if there's one lesson we, the people, should all have learned from Hillary!, it is to never give up and to keep rolling on. We have within our means a number of ways to keep the fight for a sane, noise-free environment, and as responsible urban citizens, we must assert our rights and do any of the following:

Write for your congressman to legislate a total ban on ringtones. That way, we can litigate ringtone users to death and make their lives as miserable as they've made ours. Punishment for the guilty will vary. End-users will be isolated in a jail facility with a sound system playing Buy U a Drank on repeat 24/7, while ringtone manufacturers (including iTunes – I worship you, Steve, but please take them off the store and sack whoever told you that selling them was a good idea) will be hung, drawn, and quartered twice over.
Ask Dean Kamen, the inventor of Segway, to invent a ringtone-blocking device that city planners can install in public areas, defined as any amount of space with a population density of more than one person per square ~~meter~~ mile. (We don't really want to be thought of as being overly selfish, so this seems like a reasonable size to me.)
With the economy in a rut, the government can surely use some money. In these trying times, imposing a 1,000,000% tax on ringtone purchases is truly a win-win situation and a genius idea whose time has come. Lobby it.
Start a grassroots organization and initiate a "World No Ringtone Day." Spread the word through text messages simply saying, "Today is a good day to respect the rights of others to not be violated by your insensitive ringtone. Please set your mobile phone on vibrate and shove it up a nice, warm place within your body, if you know what I mean."
And now for the fun part: Beat ringtone users at their own game. Tell them how much their ringtones are the pig's ass by using one that will call their attention and slap their faces silly. Make it hard, make it punchy, make it as in-your-face as possible – anything with an angry riff, a cascade of drumming, or lyrics that will feed on their paranoia, because more often than not, these ringtone retards are right-wing Snapple drinkers who believe that terrorists are contaminating their bottled-water sources and so they try to seek comfort from wherever they can, including their cell phones. Therefore, I humbly propose the following songs:

Human Fly : The Cramps
Black Betty : Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Heartbreak Hotel : John Cale
Shake Your Rump : Beastie Boys
Pay to Play : Nirvana
Suicide Blonde : INXS
It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) : R.E.M.
Psycho Man : Black Sabbath
Man in the Box : Alice in Chains
Rebel Yell : Billy Idol
Space Oddity : David Bowie
Kashmir : Led Zeppelin

Got better ideas in mind?

insert big sigh here

2008-05-16T21:49:00.011+08:00

shots is fired

hard drive

Both songs by Evan Dando. Click here or on the image below to listen

Shots Is Fired is what you feel when you've bruised your feet from what you thought was a march to a hopeful end and the road all of a sudden forks and both paths look bleak and turning back is not an option and neither is a pause because you hear the ticking on your wrist that says time is running out. You wonder how in hell you even got here when just a moment ago or was it just a moment ago everything was so straight and so simple and so sure and you remember that you tried to blaze a trail because you weren't content with straight simple sure. Whatever part of you that's been calling the shots is fired. Tell him he's lost control how can it be how could he let you down how could he leave you on your own. But you gotta do it you gotta take a step left right right left it doesn't matter just take that step close your eyes it's gonna be okay it's gonna be fine maybe it's even gonna be easy but who are we kidding. Whatever. Get in motion. Hard Drive is what you feel when you know you'll get there you'll get to it it'll be over if not soon then eventually. You'll see it. A familiar street. The house of a friend. Pale paint on wooden gate. Your name carved in a tree trunk. Porch. Home. A path to the beach. A hand to hold. Palm on palm. Fingers locked. Wrinkled skin. You touch each other's aged face. And don't you know it. You're happy, just when it matters.

heart on a stick, dipped in a vat of burnt sugar

2008-03-16T01:51:00.013+08:00

or, a playlist : songs for the lovestruck and forlorn

Here's a playlist I've kept from one iPod to the next. I don't really have a name for it other than the generic Acoustic Ballads, but I've learned to live with it. Any other adjective would be inaccurate, any other noun contrived. Songs have come and gone on this list, but they all have one thing in common: they're stripped down songs about love, loss and yearning, and they're unabashedly sentimental. It doesn't necessarily mean they're gooey and clichéd. Most of them are not off-the-shelf expressions of abstract feelings, but experiences written as stories, as intentions, as streams of consciousness.

As usual, you can listen to the songs two ways: Click on the image below to hear them all in one go, or on the song titles to hear each song individually.

Somebody That I Used To Know : Elliott Smith
No Fear Of Falling : I Am Kloot
Saturday : Josh Rouse
Naked As We Came : Iron & Wine
To Be Alone With You : Sufjan Stevens
I Wouldn't Miss It For The World : Johnathan Rice
Poetry & Aeroplanes : Teitur
Sleeping To Dream : Jason Mraz
Only You : Joshua Radin
Your Sweet Voice : The Reindeer Section
Trouble : Ray LaMontagne
My Winding Wheel : Ryan Adams
Kathleen : Josh Ritter
Dogs : Damien Rice
Silent Sigh : Badly Drawn Boy
Babylon : David Gray
On Your Side : Pete Yorn

a boat ends its journey

2008-02-21T01:34:00.019+08:00

playa girón : silvio rodríguez

click here or on the image below to listen

I believe that idealism is a mark of noble leadership, but its practice should not humble a people to poverty. I believe that every person has the right to health care and education, but not at the cost of his freedom of expression. I believe in the pursuit of national unity, but not to the point of denying individualism. I know very little about Cuba, I know very little about Castro. What I do know is just enough to make me both respect and revile the man, impressions I no doubt share with countless others who have neither set foot on the island nor met any of its people. And yet, I have a strong sense that Castro enjoys a positive popular bias. His name has become synonymous with romantic notions about revolution, that what he has come to symbolize seems to have overshadowed what he has actually achieved. Castro may be a divisive figure, but also an inspirational one. Forget his influence on the current turn to the left in Latin American politics. While on one hand he has driven away some of the best musicians the island has produced, on the other his rule has led others to sing of his ideals in ways that are poignant and sublime. In Playa Girón, Silvio Rodríguez, a trovador and member of the Cuban parliament, pays tribute to the fishing boat where he worked in 1969, an experience that to him represented not just man's return to primitive form, constantly in battle with the forces of nature, but also the virtue of toiling not for mere individual survival but for the shared benefit of many. The song, he says, is "an intimate and human tribute to the nameless men who work in sometimes perilous circumstances for the Cuban population." But what makes the song really moving is that it is its own answer to the very question it asks: What words and rhythm do justice to a boat as vital as the Playa Girón? Here are the original lyrics below, followed by my very liberal, not literal, translation in English.

Playa Girón

Compañeros poetas,

tomando en cuenta

los últimos sucesos

en la poesía,

quisiera preguntar

—me urge—

¿qué tipo de adjetivos

se deben usar para hacer

el poema de un barco

sin que se haga sentimental,

fuera de la vanguardia

o evidente panfleto,

si debo usar palabras

como Flota Cubana de Pesca

y «Playa Girón»?

Compañeros de música,

tomando en cuenta

esas politonales

y audaces canciones,

quisiera preguntar

—me urge—

¿qué tipo de armonía

se debe usar para hacer

la canción de este barco

con hombres de poca niñez,

hombres y solamente

hombres sobre cubierta,

hombres negros y rojos

y azules los hombres que pueblan

el «Playa Girón»?

Compañeros de historia,

tomando en cuenta

lo implacable

que debe ser la verdad,

quisiera preguntar

—me urge tanto—

¿qué debiera decir,

qué fronteras debo respetar?

Si alguien roba comida

y después da la vida,

¿qué hacer?

¿Hasta dónde debemos

practicar las verdades?

¿Hasta dónde sabemos?

Que escriban, pues, la historia,

su historia los hombres

del «Playa Girón».

Playa Girón

My comrades in poetry,

considering the many ways in which

poems are written these days,

I would like to ask you,

I'm very keen to know,

what words must one use

to pen a poem about a boat

without making it sound sentimental,

without making it pretentious

or an obvious propaganda,

considering that I have to call it

the Cuban Fishing Fleet

and Playa Girón?

My comrades in music,

considering the wealth of tones

and the boldness one can employ

in the process of writing a song,

I have to know,

what harmonies one must use

to create a song about this boat,

this boat of men who knew little about childhood,

men and only men on deck,

black men, red men, blue men,

yet men who spent their lives in Playa Girón?

My comrades in history,

considering that truth is never a compromise,

I would like to ask,

I'm dying to know,

what do you say,

where do you draw the line

when someone steals food

then sacrifices his life for another?

What do you do?

To what extent do you uphold the truth?

How much do you really know?

Let them write, then, their own story,

their own history,

the men of Playa Girón.

déjà vu all over again : the best songs of 2006

2008-01-22T01:57:00.003+08:00

Will you forgive me for doing this? When I started making my two Best of 2007 mixes last December, it struck me as a good idea to revisit 2006 and revise my list of 20 songs I had uploaded as the best of that year. I always felt it rather incomplete, and truth be told, I put very little thought into it. Beth Orton's Safe in Your Arms, for example, was a cursory addition. I was simply recognizing her effort to release a new album, even though it was wholly underwhelming. The idea of a creating new compilation excited me, and I knew it wasn't going to be too difficult since I already knew my favorites. The only challenge was whittling them down to 34 and trying to see how to best group them in two. Thirty-four is not a number I picked for the sake of being random. I make these mix tapes ("mix CDs" just doesn't roll well off the tongue) with the intention of sharing and sending them to friends, and 17 just happens to be the average number of songs I can burn in a normal CD.

In these mixes, you'll clearly see that the first puts together songs that rock, and the second, songs of a more folksy nature. Now, the diligent mix tape nerd will disregard the fact that most people now listen to music in shuffle mode, and will take pains in putting the songs in proper sequence. You just don't throw them into a pot, you have a whole set of issues to think about. Do you start with a bang or do you gradually build up the mood? Can you follow a song that ends abruptly with one that starts slowly? How do you make a transition between – horrors! – two completely different genres? Can you build a story out of your song choices? Admittedly, I factored all these when I made my 2007 mixes, but for this 2006 set, I left it up to the wisdom of iTunes: I sorted them by song length, shortest first. And you know what? I'm happy with the way it turned out. I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I did putting them together.

As in the 2007 list, you can listen to the songs in one click, or individually.

Best of 2006 Mix 1

click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or

click on the titles below to listen to the songs individually

Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured : Arctic Monkeys
Nausea : Beck
Portrait : Upper Room
Long Distance Call : Phoenix
You Only Live Once : The Strokes
You & I : Graham Coxon
Have A Good Time : Morning Runner
Stadiums & Shrines II : Sunset Rubdown
Into The Ocean : Blue October
Mr. Tough : Yo La Tengo
Somewhere Down The River : Elf Power
Typical : MuteMath
Dead Funny : Archie Bronson Outfit
The Clock : Thom Yorke
Postcards From Italy : Beirut
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song : The Flaming Lips
Young Bride : Midlake

Best of 2006 Mix 2

click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or

click on the titles below to listen to the songs individually

Summertime : Josh Rouse
Yours And Mine : Calexico
Love You More : Alexi Murdoch
Irene : Rose Melberg
This Voice : Ane Brun
Thief About To Break In : Teitur
Born In The 70s : Ed Harcourt
Half-Assed : Ani Difranco
Lucile (Where Did The Love Go?) : M. Craft
Oh People : Tim Easton
Yellow Taxi : Matt Costa
Splendid Isolation : Pete Yorn
Forget About You : Cary Brothers
Rootless Tree : Damien Rice
Brighter Discontent : The Submarines
It's Beginning To Get To Me : Snow Patrol
Young Folks : Peter Bjorn & John

sounds of silver : the best of 2007

2007-12-08T21:12:00.000+08:00

Not to let a good year in music pass this blog by, I'm making a last ditch effort to resuscitate it after being long out of commission due to a technical glitch. Nothing serious; my iMac just decided one day to, you know, die, and this trusty PowerBook didn't have the program that lets me stream songs in Flash format, until recently. I'm still going to get a new computer; the act has just been delayed, first because of the wait for Leopard, and now for whatever upgrade comes after Macworld next month. I'm also torn between a new 24-inch iMac and a 17-inch MacBook Pro, but enough of the tedious stuff. I'm back on track, and since it's the end of the year, I thought I'd make the second of what will hopefully be my annual list of the year's best songs.

That's right, this blog is all about songs, not albums, so I won't even bother (We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, Modest Mouse) telling you (Because Of The Times, Kings of Leon) what are (Armchair Apocrypha, Andrew Bird) to my biased ears (In Rainbows, Radiohead) the best albums of 2007 (Boxer, The National) even though (Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem) I enjoyed (Crime & Beauty, Suzanne Vega) this year (The Con, Tegan & Sara) more than (Leaves In The River, Sea Wolf) the last (Wincing The Night Away, The Shins). I just wanted to make that clear.

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking that alternative rock is entering a new, quiet golden age, not just in the sense of today's music being not of the out-loud variety that grunge was, but also because the independent music scene seems to have found a lasting mode of survival, thriving and happy to be buzzing under the radar like never before. I am, of course, talking more about its manner of distribution than the creation of new styles. MySpace and Facebook have made word-of-mouth not only easier and more effective but also cool again, and these new channels have allowed bands to reach new and old audiences without reliance on corporate marketing. While getting rid of the middleman has long been possible through downloads from artists' websites, the conundrum has always been how to translate this freedom from labels into revenues. Radiohead's pay-as-you-wish model for "In Rainbows" introduced a clever way of doing so, because although it no doubt attracted low-ballers, it also won for the band a new market in those who wouldn't have thought of buying the entire album otherwise. I'm pretty sure it won't be the last, and as new, creative ways of selling songs and albums come up, independent artists will continue to make music the way they really want them to sound.

Which brings me back to my blog. Next year, I'll be back to posting songs not just because they're new and worthy, but because they mean something to me. In the meantime, enjoy this list, which took me a while to compile. A few housekeeping notes: There are two ways to listen to these songs. Apart from uploading them individually, I've also grouped the songs in two virtual mix tapes. All songs in each mix are in the same file, and will play one after the other in the sequence below. You can, however, jump from one song to the next or the one before by clicking the forward and back buttons. You can also play them in shuffle mode by clicking on the cube icon. So without further ado:

Best of 2007 Mix 1
click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or
click on the titles to listen to the songs individually

Australia : The Shins
Do Me A Favour : Arctic Monkeys
Don't You Evah : Spoon
Go Tell The Woman : Grinderman
Coat Check Dream Song : Bright Eyes
People As Places As People : Modest Mouse
Time To Get Away : LCD Soundsystem
A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene : Okkervil River
Plasticities : Andrew Bird
Mistaken For Strangers : The National
House Of Cards : Radiohead
The Opposite Of Hallelujah : Jens Lekman
Somewhere Between Waking And Sleeping : Air
No Cars Go : The Arcade Fire
Fans : Kings of Leon
Makeup : Everybody Else
Yankee Go Home : Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Best of 2007 Mix 2
click here or on the image above to stream the entire list, or
click on the titles to listen to the songs individually

Heart It Races : Architecture In Helsinki
Gronlandic Edit : Of Montreal
Raise The Roof : Tracey Thorn
Close Call : Rilo Kiley
Zephyr & I : Suzanne Vega
Myriad Harbour : The New Pornographers
Lay Your Head Down : Keren Ann
I Feel It All : Feist
Lifesize : A Fine Frenzy
The Con : Tegan & Sara
Love Me Like The World Is Ending : Ben Lee
Basement Parties : Matt Pond PA
Pioneer To The Falls : Interpol
Like Something Worth Remembering : Mixtapes & Cellmates
Pots & Pans : Les Savy Fav
You're A Wolf : Sea Wolf
Tonight I Have To Leave It : Shout Out Louds

thoughts from a boat ride

2007-10-03T08:49:00.003+08:00

cartwheels : reindeer section

click here or on the image below to listen

How much can you write in half an hour? Half an hour is my ferry ride to work. The amount of time it takes for me to decide where I'm having lunch and actually getting there. Three, maybe five, percent of my waking hours that slips past cognizance as I trawl the internet. (Is that all?) Three hundred and sixty seconds of gainful knowledge as I read the editorial page. Six songs and many years of adolescent memories from my eighties playlist. A tall soya no whip mocha for flatfoot. How do you occupy your mind in a half-hour commute? Sometimes I get to wondering about thought process itself. What do I normally think about when I have nothing to think about? I never knew, or maybe I did, but have forgotten. Thoughts are funnily tentative, like dreams, which are thoughts you didn't know you had. Sometimes I steal glances at other people. Do you look at other people too? Mentally pick on the man next to you for his coffee-stained two-buck necktie from Bangkok? Do you close your eyes and try to take a nap? Reminisce your childhood? Cartwheels are the stuff of childhood. I have never cartwheeled in my life. Or maybe I have, but never with any measure of success. I climbed walls and trees and jumped from them to scare my mom. I tumbled in the grass, on my parents' bed, on our living room couch, which wasn't much of a couch, as the make was firm and you hardly sank. I remember the giant shell on the side table. I would put it against my ear to listen to the sound of hollow. The sound of hollow. Empty has a sound. Empty takes aural space. Space is funnily fleeting, like time. My thirty minutes is over. My ferry is about to dock. Good day.

and i thought it was gonna be the worstest

2007-09-05T02:02:00.001+08:00

don't fence me in : david byrne

click here or on the image below to listen

Summer is officially over; how was it for you? I have to say it was good for me, too. I didn't think it would be, what with the new job cutting my annual leave days in half to a miserly 12. A change in company policy brought it to 15, and that was good enough for me to go somewhere far for a few days in July. So I spent my birthday in Prague, followed by a series of trips that were small in scale but surprisingly big on fun. Right after returning from the city of a hundred spires, I played host and tour guide to a few friends whom I met at an internet travel forum, then wore a black shirt, black jeans, and black eyeliners to watch the reunion concert of The Cure. Shortly after, I went to Manila to attend the wedding of a friend, saw Gwen Stefani in concert (please keep that thought to yourself), then went to Singapore, China and Japan, both for business and, with careful planning, weekends of pleasure. My legs are still hurting after climbing Mt. Fuji last Saturday. Needless to say, I'm not complaining. So it is with great pride that I present to you this song – one of the few that I promised to deliver during the Triassic period. Don't Fence Me In is a cowboy song extolling the freedom of the open space, and that's enough for me to call it a travel song. Written by Cole Porter, this version is by David Byrne – one of the guys in the picture above – who also wrote what I call the best. travel song. ever!

hello, what's this?

2007-06-12T23:47:00.002+08:00

everything hits at once (for discos) : spoon

click here or on the image below to listen

Okay, so I'm still officially off the air, but as I was cleaning my iDisk last weekend, I found quite a few songs I had uploaded but have somehow forgotten to post. In fact, there are seven of them, and I'm putting them up here in single installments, for added suspense. Or something. This here is the funkier version of the first song off Spoon's 2001 album, Girls Can Tell. Everything Hits At Once is a post-breakup song that captures the unease that sets in right after the end of a relationship. It's not quite sadness, but an emptiness that's almost corporeal. You actually feel something hollow in your chest. A chasm that grows every minute you're made aware of your sudden solitude. A vacuum that turns into a whirlpool that sucks you in with every memory of your own mistakes. You want to plug this hole. You want to save yourself. You try to do something, anything – a haircut, a singles bar, a pornographic site – just to take your mind far away from your insignificant reality, but you only end up being spaced out, making a fool of yourself as a matter of course. You catch your own reflection in the elevator door, and it mocks you. Get a grip, for heaven's sake! And you let out a laugh, a sob, a drawn-out sigh. It feels good. You close your eyes, breathe in, breathe out. And tomorrow you'll get over it. Best line: Merging in traffic, cross the lanes, and then we become something bigger than just anyone. Best part: The xylophonic loop that's absent in the original.

alternative sounds takes a break

2007-05-04T01:21:00.001+08:00

As if this blog wasn't irregular enough, I'm taking a break for about a couple of months.

My iMac, which has the program that converts my songs into the Flash format you listen to here, has died on me. I'm still thinking whether to buy a new one or have it fixed. Either way, it'll take a while before my online life is back on track. If you wish to know when I start blogging again, please e-mail me at alternativesounds {at} gmail.com

Now as to why I've been quiet for a longer while than usual, yes, that was a bit rude, not making good on my promise of a diverse all-woman March. Weird as it may sound, my frame of mind has just been focused on something else. Since my last post, I've not only quit my job, but I've also left the world of journalism where I spent many happy years. Truth is, I had long been wanting to shift careers, but it was never easy for me to do, being in a place the language of which I don't speak, and not having letters of higher learning after my name. You can imagine how happy I was when I got this new job – the title and description will bore you, but it's exactly what I'd been looking for – and so I wanted to make sure that my mind was a fresh, clean slate before my first day. I'm still going through a learning curve, but I think I'll be fine.

In other news, I had 10 days off in between jobs, and during that time, I finally had the chance to organize my CDs. I think I overdid it. I separately alphabetized my English-language and world-music albums by artist name. Then I stacked my compilation CDs by genre and alphabetized them by album title, then my soundtrack albums by film title, and then my freebie CDs by the names of the magazines they came from.

I've also been buying a lot of new albums. Here are some of them, and it pains me that I can't blog about them just yet:

Air : Pocket Symphony
Andrew Bird : Armchair Apocrypha
The Arcade Fire : Neon Bible
Archie Bronson Outfit : Derdang Derdang
Arctic Monkeys : Favourite Worst Nightmare
Bright Eyes : Cassadaga
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah : Some Loud Thunder
Everybody Else : Eponymous
Grinderman : Eponymous
Kings of Leon : Because of the Times
LCD Soundsystem : Sound of Silver
Low : Drums and Guns
Matt Costa : Songs We Sing
Modest Mouse : We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Rodrigo y Gabriela : Eponymous
The Shins : Wincing The Night Away
Tracy Thorn : Out of the Woods

Anyway. I was actually able to convert three songs into Flash before my iMac died. Here's the rest of what I promised last month.

fall at your feet : mary black

click here or on the image below to listen

Fall At Your Feet by Crowded House ranks high up in my favorite songs of all time, and this cover version doesn't disappoint. Mary Black, an Irish folk artist, made it her own and even infused a lot more emotion than the original.

zomaye : gigi
click here or on the image below to listen

A strong reminder that some of the best beats in music can be heard outside the English-speaking world. Gigi is from Ethiopia.

recovery : new buffalo

click here or on the image below to listen

I saw this act in Sydney last year. Very good.

women's march : part 2

2007-03-19T01:29:00.002+08:00

I uploaded these songs a few days ago with the intention of writing some kind of a tribute to each of the artists, but I realized that it was too big of a job for the amount of time that I had. These are some of my favorite female artists from the 90s whose work I still find immensely relevant to this day. The 90s was a great era for women in music. There was so much diversity in rock alone: from Hole to Mazzy Star to PJ Harvey to Tracy Bonham. These are the ones I listened to the most.

sinéad o'connor : red football
sinéad o'connor : sacrifice
click here or on the image below to listen

Did you know that more women aged 15 to 44 suffer death or disability from domestic violence than from war, cancer, malaria, and road accidents combined? Sad but true. I grew up in a household full of strong, nurturing women, who selflessly raised, educated, and provided for me and my siblings. It's simply beyond my understanding why women should suffer from violence at home and from biases in the workplace, politics, and many other facets of society. Not a lot of female pop artists take up these issues in their work, and you can't blame them. Any form of entertainment is less likely to have mass appeal when its content is heavy. Never one for commercial success, Red Football is doubtlessly Sinéad O'Connor's most up-front statement about women's rights. What this song achieves is it delivers an unequivocal message without being moralistic. Indeed, calling an end to violence against women no longer needs to simply appeal to people's morals. It needs to confront. It needs to provoke. It needs to agitate, as the ending of this song does. Of course, Sinéad is not only to be appreciated for her bravery, but also for her vocal uniqueness. Which is why I also have to post Sacrifice, her cover of Elton John's song about infidelity, which Sinéad delivers with unfurling anger. You will notice the change in her tone when she sings "We lose direction, no stone unturned." Even for a Sinéad song, Sacrifice is heavy on the reverb, but it only highlights what she can do with her voice.

paula cole : happy home

click here or on the image below to listen

If you knew Paula Cole from her breakthrough album, This Fire, you would know that Happy Home, from her debut album Harbinger, is anything but happy. In fact, it's about the opportunities women miss and the compromises they make, willingly or otherwise, when they carry out the roles of wife and mother. But what's good about this song is it's a story of two people: the mother suffering a crisis of what defines her identity, and the well-meaning daughter trying to figure out what is going on. It reminds me of the relationship between the young Ed Harris and Julianne Moore in that excellent film, The Hours. Best line: But everybody could feel the suffocation underneath the façade of a happy home. Best part: The mix of acoustic and electric after the bridge where she sings "Home sweet freedom, flowing in my mind."

crossroads : tracy chapman

click here or on the image below to listen

Yes, I know Crossroads came out in 1989. But like many, I had dismissed Tracy Chapman as a one-hit-album wonder until she released Give Me One Reason in 1995. The album where it's from, New Beginning, renewed my interest in her music. So while I listened to the spawns of the grunge era in the 90s, I was also rediscovering her sound, which is why I will always associate this song with the 90s. There's a lot of sorrow in her music, but she never makes them sound hopeless or desperate. Her voice doesn't have the range or versatility that the rest of the artists here have, but it beats in itself, not with anger, but with willpower. Hers is the voice of quiet defiance, which you will hear in Crossroads, a song about a woman's refusal to make compromises. Best Line: Standing at the point, the road it cross you down, what is at your back, which way do you turn. Best Part: The intro hooked me to the rest of the song.

caught a light sneeze : tori amos

click here or on the image below to listen

I'm not a Toriphile, but I did enjoy her music immensely from Under the Pink to Boys for Pele. The albums that came after were just too labored for my taste, until she released Scarlet's Walk in 2002, where she became a watered-down version of her old self. That said, what I like most about old Tori is not so much her lyrics as her voice and sound, from the restraint of Merman to the more elaborate arrangement of Tear In Your Hand. Most of the time, her lyrics are too coded for me to comprehend; I don't think I've ever agreed with anyone about what Silent All These Years means. Caught A Light Sneeze is no less difficult, but there are enough hints to say it's about the meltdown of her relationship with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The reference to Pretty Hate Machine, the album that catapulted NIN to fame, is a giveaway. Best line: I need a big loan from a girl zone. (I have no idea what it means, but it sure sounds good the way she sings it.) Best part: How she stretches "building tumbling down" at the chorus.

ghost : indigo girls

click here or on the image below to listen

I first learned about the Indigo Girls when their album Swamp Ophelia was given to me as a birthday present by someone I dated. While the relationship didn't last long – it was in fact my shortest ever – the impact of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray's music on me did. I was so impressed by that album that I immediately looked for their prior work and discovered Rites of Passage, where Ghost is from. Where do I even begin to talk about this song? It's a gem. It captures you with its quiet start, then with the lyrics bit by bit, and then ultimately with its totality. Your appreciation of it grows the more you hear it. There's so much beauty in this song that every time you listen to it again, you're touched by one aspect that's different from the last – a poetic line, Emily's tearful wail, Amy's somber backing, or the way their fingers slide on their guitars. What first struck me was the first line in the chorus – There's not enough room in this world for my pain. It sounds so sincere that it reaches out to your own sense of pain and longing. The best line? It's hard to choose, but it would probably be from the final verse: This bitter pill I swallow is the silence that I keep, It poisons me I can't swim free, the river is too deep. The best part? I love the bridge, where Emily delivers an evocative wail, followed by a reversal of the duo's vocal roles.

women's march : part 1

2007-03-10T23:30:00.002+08:00

March is all-women month at Alternative Sounds, being that part of the year when we celebrate International Women's Day, which is on the 8th. I thought I'd make a conscious attempt to increase the representation of female artists in this blog. This first installment consists of artists from the 80s. The next one will be from the 90s, followed by women of folk and women from around the world.

all i want : susanna hoffs

click here or on the image below to listen

Before there was Lisa Loeb, before there was Natalie Imbruglia, before there were Frente!, Luscious Jackson and The Corrs, there was Susanna Hoffs. The most prominent one-fourth of The Bangles was the original pop-rock sweetheart, who exuded vulnerable sexuality with her delicately saccharine voice and wistful acoustic guitar. To someone growing up in the 80s and who was just beginning to form his own hormonally influenced notion of an ideal woman, Susanna Hoffs was the definitive girlfriend material. Madonna was too wild. Cyndi Lauper was too weird. Bananarama were just too...bleached. With her hoop earrings, tapered jeans and Aqua Net-architectured curls, Hoffs came out of VH1 and MTV like a singing porcelain doll, a small, shapely creature with the face of an angel, graced by a full set of lips that broke into a disarming smile, and wide eyes that charmed every time they half-closed. In other words, Susanna Hoffs was the first female artist that gave me the bone. She came to her peak in 1989 when the band released Eternal Flame – that irresistibly mushy ballad to undying love, the first three words of which provoke a universal sigh. But at age 48 – basking in the acclaim of Under The Covers, her 2006 album of duets with Matthew Sweet – Hoffs is still beguiling as ever, outlasting her 90s facsimiles, while her voice has hardly changed. I'm posting her 1996 cover of the Lightning Seeds classic All I Want, which she manages to make cute and edgy with her trademark rasp at the chorus. She only changes the instrumentation, giving it an minimalist treatment but keeping to the pace and form of the original. Best line: Confidence, coincidence, call it a sin, it's just like people say. Best part: I love the drums at the intro and the jangle of acoustic guitar at the first chorus.

soap and water : suzanne vega

click here or on the image below to listen

If you're not new to this blog, you may have noticed the new personality in the header art. Why didn't I think of putting Suzanne Vega up there in the first place? I've been a fan since Luka, which I realized even at 13 or 14 was a remarkable song. I had been exposed to pop music dealing with social issues before, or since I cared enough to actually mull over the lyrics – from famine (Do They Know It's Christmas?) to war (State of the Nation) to teen pregnancy (Papa Don't Preach) – but somethig was different about Luka. For one, whoever thought of writing a song about child abuse from the point of view of the child? (If you hear something late at night, some kind of trouble, some kind of fight, just don't ask me what it was) The words are haunting enough; the melody couldn't have accompanied them better. The brilliance of the songwriting becomes even sharper when compared with What's The Matter Here? by 10,000 Maniacs, about the same theme, released on the same year (1987). (I'm tired of the excuses everybody uses, he's your kid, do as you see fit.) Make no mistake – the song, written by vocalist Natalie Merchant, is equally brilliant, but Luka is more poetic and empathetic. In fact, a poet who happens to sing is what Suzanne Vega is. Her songs are always full of symbolism. It's not always obvious, but it speaks to you in ways only you can understand – just listen to Gypsy. Luka is one of the easy ones; Soap And Water is another – a song about a couple's separation and how it ravages the emotions of the child. But see how beautiful she illustrates tragedy: Soap and water, wash the year from my life, straighten all that we trampled and tore, heal the cut we call husband and wife. It's hard to think of another female singer-songwriter who approximates her intelligence. Best line: The verse I just quoted. Best part: The six guitar notes that run throughout the song.

circle dream : 10,000 maniacs

click here or on the image below to listen

Resolute is one of the words I use to describe Natalie Merchant's voice. It's an amazing instrument she has. You hear her sing, and you know she's out to make a statement – from depression (Like The Weather, which you can listen to right here) to media desensitization (Candy Everybody Wants) to unwanted pregnancy (Eat For Two). Or at least that's what I think the last song is about. Motherhood is a theme that Merchant writes about with emotional acuity, free of clichés and mawkish testimonies. Circle Dream, from the band's 1992 album Our Time In Eden, is a celebration of life – and here you'll see some parallelism between her and Suzanne Vega's songwriting, because it's written from the voice of the unborn child. Best line: Her warmth coming near, calling me "Sweetness," calling me "Dear." Best part: Natalie's own backing and harmony vocals.

say, whatever happened to...

2007-02-28T17:44:00.002+08:00

I had this idea for a post after watching the Grammys a few weeks ago and seeing Dixie Chicks receive their award for Song of the Year. The award is a songwriting honor, and it was nice to see a long-lost face go up on stage. Dan Wilson, of the post-grunge band Semisonic, co-wrote the song with the Chicks. The sight of him made me wonder what has become of him and his contemporaries. Semisonic emerged in 1998 with the hit Closing Time, and disappeared soon after. A song Wilson wrote was included in the soundtrack to American Pie in 1999 – a duet with Bic Runga which you can listen to right here – and that was the last I heard of him. So now he appears to be back, not just as a songwriter, but also as a solo artist. MTV.com reports that Wilson will release the album Free Life this summer. Anyway, Dan looks like a good guy, and sounds like it too, and I wish him luck. In the meantime, here are a couple of his contemporaries who have gone up in smoke:

pathfinder : gay dad

click here or on the image below to listen

Also known as Cliff Jones, Gay Dad released Leisure Noise in 1999, which was decent enough to make it somewhere at the bottom of a few year-end-best-albums lists. But with a name like that, and a sound that was neither original nor innovative, Gay Dad was never taken seriously. Their sophomore album, Transmission, was a considerable flop, although some thought it to be better than the first. The band has split up since, and I have no idea what Jones is up to now. I have the full Leisure Noise in my iPod; I think the songs are pleasant enough to keep. Pathfinder is my favorite, because it manages to be emotionally playful – a rousing intro, a wounded refrain, a carefree chorus, and a torrid bridge – without being messy. The post-Siamese Dream Smashing Pumpkins is a bit like that, and Pathfinder actually reminds me of the pacing of Perfect and 1979 – not to mention that Jones occasionally sounds like Billy Corgan. Best line: You know that crying won't help you now, if it ever did at all. Best part: The torrid vocals at the bridge, 2m 08s into the song.

someday we'll know : new radicals

click here or on the image below to listen

Now here's a band whose loss is regrettable. The New Radicals burst into the scene in 1999 with their album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, and their debut single, You Get What You Give, was a smash hit. I loved its video of chaos in a mall. The song was a standout, and the album brought a freshly loose pop sound that was clearly veering away from the angst that had defined rock for the most part of the decade. Sadly, the New Radicals disbanded before the release of the second single, which is this song. Band leader Gregg Alexander went on to become almost a Grammy winner. Like Dan Wilson, he worked behind the scenes, and wrote and produced The Game of Love, the 2002 duet between Santana and Michelle Branch, which won the following year for best pop collaboration with vocals. In Someday We'll Know, Alexander gives a jocular twist to the familiar sigh over a star-crossed relationship – both in lyrics and in tone. The song is full of wit – Did the captain of the Titanic cry? Someday we'll know – and he delivers it with unsentimental sincerity. Best line: Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart? Best part: Where he sings "Why aren't you here with me?", 2m 47s into the song.

with love from bollywood

2007-02-17T09:29:00.001+08:00

dil kya kare : adnan sami

click here or on the image below to listen

This was supposed to be a Valentine post. The last month has been both hectic and nerve-wracking. I had a fascinating business trip to India to report on the business of Bollywood, which sort of explains why I'm putting these two songs up. You probably know that the Indian film industry is the largest in the world, producing over a thousand films a year, or thrice as much as Hollywood. But did you also know that it used to be funded in large part by the underworld? That changed in 2001 when the government officially recognized film-making as an industry, which meant financial institutions could now lend to film-makers. Also, Bollywood actually refers only to the Hindi-language film industry, which is based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay, hence Bollywood). Hindi films make up just a fourth of the total output; the rest are in the couple dozen other languages in India, but largely Tamil and Malayalam, spoken in the south. Anyway, it probably is true that most Indian films stick to the formula of boy meets girl, are pulled apart, but end up happily together – with often outlandish song-and-dance numbers in posh MTV-like sets or against Alpine mountains (yes, some of them do film in Switzerland in lieu of Kashmir, an area of conflict between India and Pakistan). And because music from films is so pervasive in India, the two industries are hard to separate. But before I bore you with any more detail, let's get on with the songs, and the movie they're from.

salaam-e-ishq : various artists

click here or on the image below to listen

These two songs come from the film Salaam-e-Ishq, or Tribute to Love, a minor hit in spite of the number of A-list Bollywood actors in the cast. I was told that part of the reason is it veers away from the formula described above, following instead the lives of six couples intersecting in the end. (Critics liken it to Love, Actually, which I haven't seen in full.) I saw it in Mumbai (without subtitles, but the plot was easy to follow) and I thought it was way too long at 3h 45m, and some of the story lines are simply not compelling enough. (I especially liked the couple living in London where the middle-aged husband falls for a much younger dance instructor, the Delhi man who can't commit to marrying his girlfriend, and the British girl who goes to Udaipur to stop her boyfriend's arranged marriage with an Indian girl.) But I think it's pretty much universally agreed that the soundtrack is outstanding. I love these two songs the most: Dil Kya Kare because it's tender and sweet, and the seven-minute title track which is a dance tune that still has a largely traditional sound. (Quite a number of Bollywood songs are actually funky enough to put Western dance tracks to shame.) I'm posting the lyrics to Dil Kya Kare below, because I asked what it's about in a travel forum, and someone was kind enough to translate it for me. Below is his translation, which I have liberally amended in some parts.

We're back to regular programming after this post.

Dil Kya Kare
(What's the Heart to Do?)

In the slow searing night
I burn in the rain
I drown in memories
What's the heart to do?
I am lost in myself
There is something I wish to say
But another thing escapes my mouth
I endure this strange pain
What's the heart to do?

Through a meeting of the eyes
Through an exchange of words
Someone has taken
Someone has given
Salutations to love

Everyday it feels as though I'm missing something
I do not know what it is I wish for
I am alone in the crowd
What's the heart to do?

I have forgotten the day, the month, the year
I sweat in January
I am not comfortable anywhere
If I sit I forget to get up

I head for the door but I keep walking about
Restlessness has set in
I laugh while I cry
Someone moves about in my memory
Whether I am asleep or awake
Why do I lose my way?
Why do I hum endlessly?

I set out in tattered jeans
Unaware whether I'm wearing a shirt
Or if a button is undone
The heartbeat plays all kinds of tunes
What's the heart to do?

the rest of the best of 2006

2007-01-10T00:37:00.001+08:00

arizona : alejandro escovedo

click here or on the image below to listen

An outstanding Nick Cave proxy. A song about passion and restraint, Arizona is very personal to the singer-songwriter who overcame Hepatitis C from over-boozing. I just love its manly-man sound.

black and white : upper room

click here or on the image below to listen

Upper Room is a new British band with a sound that harks back to the best of the 80s, but with a fresh twist. While the songs in their album deal with the typical alienated-youth themes of apathy, rejection and pain, there isn't a lot of emotional baggage in their sound, thanks to the light arrangement, swirling with catchy guitar melodies and smooth vocal harmonies, and Alex Miller's voice that's at once glum and sanguine. It's like drinking mint tea in bad weather.

half-assed : ani difranco

click here or on the image below to listen

Amazing guitar work on this one – raw, hasty, arrogant.

no use crying : embrace

click here or on the image below to listen

They weren't exactly the popular choice to record the World Cup anthem for England last summer, but Embrace gets my vote for their rally-the-troops instrumentation.

patience of angels : boo hewerdine

click here or on the image below to listen

A great song returns to its owner. Popularized in the early 90s by Eddi Reader, Patience of Angels is written by this former The Bible frontman. What smart songwriting this song has. She's all Tuesdays and forgetfulness, and a little money saved. The sentence doesn't make any literal sense, but it hints enough of the subject's character that you can almost create a story about her life. The song could have done without the sprinkler-from-outer-space intro, though.

peace and hate : the submarines

click here or on the image below to listen

One of the most impressive debut acts of 2006, The Submarines are US couple John and Blake, and their album, Declare A New State, is a collection of songs each of them wrote during a prolonged break-up. Theirs is a feel-good-movie rather than a rock-and-roll kind of love story, and the outcome is a sweet and clean work of art, illustrated in vivid lines by their simple lyrics that are tangibly real-world even in their clichés. Take the chorus: Still I love you with all peace and hate. With my series of break-ups and get-back-together episodes in the past, I could have written that!

safe in your arms : beth orton

click here or on the image below to listen

somewhere down the river : elf power

click here or on the image below to listen

the yeah yeah yeah song : the flaming lips

click here or on the image below to listen

The second-best first song from any album in 2006.

you only live once : the strokes

click here or on the image below to listen

The best first song off of any album last year.

yours and mine: calexico

click here or on the image below to listen

merry christmas, i'm sorry

2006-12-24T11:43:00.001+08:00

Though that sounds like a title for a Morrissey song, that's basically what I have to say. It's Christmas eve and this is my last post for the year, and I'm sorry I didn't even get to finish my Best Songs of 2006 list. But that will be the first thing I'll do in the new year. I'll be back on January 4th and add 6 or 11 more. Please send me an e-mail at alternativesounds{at}gmail{dot}com if you would like to receive updates of this blog. In the meantime, enjoy this song that I posted a few weeks back to spruce up my profile in a travel forum. It's called Yumeji's Theme by Shigeru Umebayashi, used in the Hong Kong film In The Mood For Love.

new in my top 25

2006-11-19T23:08:00.001+08:00

Most played songs in my iPod, that is.

mid-november : johnathan rice

click here or on the image below to listen

A fitting post given that we have just crossed that part of the month. There seems to be so much Johnathan Rice is trying to say in this song, but I can't get through the lyrics. What's the story behind it? While it speaks of war, I can't make out if it's literal. The mention of death and coins on the eyes – a reference to the ancient practice of placing copper coins on the eyes of soldiers who died at war, according to the movie Troy – made me think it is. I have an outrageous theory. The narrator is the spirit of a soldier in a war, wounded and fighting for his life. He visits his loved one, finds her restless in her bed, and wonders if she somehow knows of his condition. This is probably nowhere near what Rice had in mind, but nonetheless I find Mid-November gravely sentimental, especially with that voice that seems to have just been squeezed out of clinical depression. Feel free to share your ideas.

please don't send me away : matthew jay

click here or on the image below to listen

Here's another song that breathes with trouble and secrecy. Following the lyrics, one might immediately look at it as a paternal discourse. But Matthew Jay was not even 24 when he wrote the song – that was his age when he died from falling from the seventh floor of a building – so it might be that it was his conscience, personified by his father, speaking to him. Torment, after all, comes in many voices. I'm not familiar with Jay's life story, but it looks like suicide was never ruled out as a cause of his fall, and I think his family even volunteered the information that he left no note. It's probably just me, but the words, especially the last three lines of the song, read like a self-addressed farewell from someone who expected way too much from himself and failed to meet his own expectations. Ah, but I think I'm being too morbid.

way of the sun : archer prewitt

click here or on the image below to listen

I don't normally like the sound of everyday objects or even nature being used in a song, and the chime or music box effect at the intro of Way Of The Sun is no exception. But the rest of this clever and striking post-apocalyptic song makes it a worthwhile listen. Think of a massive disaster that cost lives and property and imagine people huddled on rooftops waiting for evacuation. That's the image I get from the third and fourth verses of this song. And as if the lyrics weren't enough to hint at salvation, "Ave Maria" is invoked. I thought it was an unnecessary turn, but here I am talking about it, which means it did its job of calling attention to itself. But what follows after that – a series of claps – is a charming melodic transition to the gradual, restrained ending of the song.

Anyway. I'll try to post newer songs next. I'm off to get Teitur's latest album. I can't wait.

grumpy old men

2006-11-15T00:34:00.001+08:00

end the vietnam war : allen ginsberg

anarchy : utah phillips

click on either title to listen

Off to Singapore for a business trip; I will be back this weekend. Here are a couple of old anti-war records, which are as much as I can say about the war in Iraq right now. The Democratic Party's midterm election victory pleases me; I would love to see a reduction of troops there, along with a decisive strategy as far as the government of the country is concerned – one that takes into consideration the differences of the domestic political forces there, and that will preserve lives and prevent Iraq from spiralling further down the hell hole the Bush administration has buried it in. I am now especially eager to find out what happens about Iran. As far as I know, an attack on the Islamic Republic has been a done deal even before the midterms. I count on the Democrat-led Congress to change that. Iran, and more importantly the Iranian people, does not deserve any form of military hostility regardless of the government's claim that its nuclear program would be completed by March. To be sure, Iran does seem to want to annihilate Israel – I've seen the propaganda posters all over Tehran myself, having visited Iran last July. But my feeling is, the intent is nothing more than that: a propaganda perpetrated by the mullahs for whatever purpose they are trying to achieve. To preempt this empty threat by attacking Iran on the back of the failure in Iraq is neither morally nor politically astute.

introducing alternative tales

2006-11-12T17:56:00.001+08:00

Alright, as some of you know, I write for a living, and that what I do is nowhere near what I want to be writing about. I used to write a lot fiction and poetry, but I've stopped. I plan to change that, and just to make it more fun to do, since music is my foremost interest, I've decided to combine both music and fiction.

Introducing alternative tales : stories from my ipod. Essentially, this is my self-imposed mental exercise, and it will only work with your help.

Here's what you do: Give me a song, pick a line from that song, and then give me a name, place, or object.

And here's what I'll do: I'll write a flash fiction* about or inspired by that song, throwing in the line and name, place, or object you picked.

Anything but rap, metal, country and bubblegum pop.

*It's basically a very, very short story of 250 to 1,000 words. I have one online: Here. (No, that's not my real name.)

I'll post the stories – and the songs so you can listen to them as usual – at alternative tales.

To start, I give you Rudie Can't Fail – from the song of the same title by The Clash. A member of a forum I often visit suggested it, and he chose the line "How you get a rude and a reckless, don't you be so crude and a feckless, you been drinking brew for breakfast, Rudie can't fail." His person is Mother Teresa.

And so it is. Let me know what you think, and don't forget to make your own suggestions.

holiday pics anyone?

2006-11-05T02:51:00.001+08:00

I'm taking care of a backlog project here. Apart from the songs, below are links to picture galleries from my last two summer holidays. The first is from the Cyclades Islands in Greece where the significant other and I spent about a couple of weeks this July; the second is from Oaxaca, part of my three-week Mexico trip in July last year. Oaxaca isn't actually in good shape right now, and I sure hope they sort things out pronto.

Listen to the songs I'm posting while you, it is my hope, enjoy the pictures. The songs and the pictures don't exactly go together, but these are the bands I've been listening to lately, having just bought their latest Best Of compilations. The Tragically Hip and Gomez are underrated bands I like. TTH live up to the tragic in their name. These talented Canadians, who pre-date the recent wave of bands north of the border such as The Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade and even The New Pornographers, should be bigger than they are. In fact, they've been around since 1983. Gomez, likewise, came before the Brit wave that we are still seeing. And even though they have a Mercury Prize to prove their worth, admittedly, I think they were never as exciting as the fresher lot are. They're finding new popularity, however, after Grey's Anatomy used one of their new songs, a boost they can certainly use.

So. Click on the titles to listen to the songs, which will pop up in a new window as usual, then click on the pictures to go to the galleries. They will open in this same page, but there's a link back if you want to return.

scared : the tragically hip

click on the title to listen

click on the picture to see greece

diskoloadout : gomez

click on the title to listen

click on the picture to see oaxaca

sometimes i am such a wuss

2006-10-28T08:01:00.002+08:00

auto rock : mogwai

click here or on the image below to listen

Has a song ever made you cry, and not in a contemptuous smart-ass kind of way? In the wide range of human emotions, nothing is as confusing and unreal as shedding a tear over a song that has no sentimental meaning to you. I was standing at a bus stop the other day, staring at nothing, listening to my iPod as usual. The morning had been perfectly ordinary: a slice of bread, a swig of orange juice, fumbling for my keys, waiting for the elevator, a foggy distance, an old man walking his dog, a breath of autumn, missing the 8:40. I could have called for a cab but instead I decided to wait for the next bus. Alone at the shed, I crossed my arms by force of habit, and rested my back against the billboard. There was nothing in particular to occupy the mind. I focused on the music. What was this quiet intro? An 18-second soundtrack to the birth of the universe? And then came the piano, calling, heaving, a stirring succession of notes pulling me out of my early morning indifference. And before I knew it, an invisible lump had built up in my chest, pounding with every beat of the drums, growing larger as the volume rose, and finally forcing a tear from the corner of my eyes. I looked down and pressed my lips against my fist. Another tear fell. I turned my back to wipe my cheek. The pounding only grew louder. Was this a never-ending crescendo? All I could do was wait for the song to end, and it did with little warning, a sudden break after a rush, like a rug pulled from under my feet, throwing me into a wall of questions that spelled the same: What the fuck just happened?

alone in kyoto : air

click here or on the image below to listen

I will never know, and I don't care enough to find out. All I know is that Auto Rock continues to haunt me, minus the tears. I can't connect the song to anything in my memory – unlike Alone In Kyoto, which comes from the soundtrack to the film Lost in Translation. I saw it shortly after it came out and really liked the score, especially the intro where Bill Murray was being driven from the airport to his hotel. I remember the part of the film where this song was used. Three scenes, in fact: a couple in kimono marching to their wedding holding hands, Scarlett Johansson tying a strip of white paper on a wishing tree, and again her character half-bouncing on a trail paved with round stones. The film succeeded in resonating the isolation and alientation of travelers. This song brings to me that kind of sentiment; it doesn't make me weep, but it sure isn't happy. Even without the memory of the film, the song actually stands on its own as a mild blow to the heart. If the trilling vocals don't release butterflies in your stomach, then congratulations for not being the wuss that I am.

the most common song title ever

2006-10-12T09:40:00.001+08:00

I have a point, I promise.

Okay. Having unpacked the last box in our new flat, I thought that now is the perfect time to post this. I've long been curious about what's the most frequently used song title ever – not the most frequently used word in a song title (in which case, it would probably be the pronoun "I"), but the most frequently used song title, period. And they have to be unique songs, not covers (in which case, Help! by The Beatles would be the hands-down winner). Unfortunately, I don't know of any authoritative source that keeps track of these things. The closest I could find is allmusic, which has a massive song database; you just have to know what you're looking for. One Googly afternoon, I found a web forum that discusses this very subject, and the list gathered by members looks like the following. (I've added their allmusic count for reference. I doubt that allmusic only counts unique songs, but what, pray tell, is the alternative?)

Hold On - 963
You - 885
Freedom - 742
Stay - 703
I Want You - 658

Not a bad sample. We can all think of songs with those titles. Hold On was actually the first thing that came to my mind; I first noticed how popular it is as a song title after Sarah McLachlan released her album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. I compared the forum members' list with my iTunes library (at 15,646 songs as of today, this is larger than the average, but still small by collectors' standards), and then I ran the most frequently used song title in my library by the allmusic database. The result: Home, with 11 unique songs in my iTunes, and 971 mentions in allmusic. Here is one of them:

home : cary pierce

click here or on the image below to listen. 3m 46s

I was surprised by the result. How many Home songs do you know? How many Home hits have there been? Not much, I would wager. And yet, a lot of major artists have one, from Louis Armstrong to Alan Jackson to Depeche Mode to Sheryl Crow. But my point – and I apologize for taking so long to get there – is that home is something we always think about, but not something we choose to bring out in the open. Who wants to broadcast every little dysfunctional thing about their family? Which brings me to my next point: that the concept of home is quite distinct from the family unit. Many of the Home songs you will hear are not about family relationships but the nostalgia of growing up, the comfort of the familiar, the return to proverbial innocence. Home as your personal world, as you choose to see it, as you want it to be. In this song, Cary Pierce calls home "the way things were," "a place where no one ever lets me down," and a place that he can come back to to keep his life on track. (Can you guess who the female back-up is? The answer at the bottom.)

this world is not my home : his name is alive

click here or on the image below to listen. 2m 40s

Not that I'm saying Home is the most common song title ever. To be sure, love is still the overriding theme in music, and at 1,150 songs, I Love You has more allmusic listings than Home. But I guess you can make a case that after love in all its dimensions, songwriting is ultimately drawn to the idea of home and all its permutations. Apart from what Pierce describes above, home is also a represenation of – cue orchestral music – our place in the larger world, including the spiritual. Here, Michigan indie group His Name Is Alive borrows two lines from the gospel staple written in 1936 by Albert Brumley: This world is not my home, I'm just passing through, And I can't live at home in this world anymore. (Am I the only one to think this is a bit suicidal?) HNIA sings this version with clinical numbness, unlike the acoustic version in their myspace page, which is quietly unsettling.

broken homes : tricky feat. pj harvey

click here or on the image below to listen. 3m 35s

For the most part, of course, love is what makes a home, and its absence or betrayal destroys it. In fact, this theme often brings about some of the best songs in pop music. My favorite? Burt Friggin' Bacharach's A House Is Not A Home. I'm not meant to live alone, Turn this house into a home. I get all weepy just playing Brooke Benton's version of it in my head. An absolute classic, in spite of Luther Vandross's beautiful but overproduced rendition. This song I'm posting is not exactly about broken homes in the clichéd tradition of most ballad songwriters, but being Tricky, this one is freaking tremendous. Enjoy.

Oh, and the answer is Lisa Loeb.

where is my blog?

2006-09-29T21:37:00.001+08:00

I can't blog. We moved house two weeks ago, and my iMac, which has the program that allows me to stream songs, is still in the box. In the meantime, here is one of my favorite songs of all time, by one of my favorite bands of all time. I uploaded this a while back, but for a different reason. This song was best used in the ending scene of the film Fight Club, another personal favorite.

where is my mind : pixies

click here or on the old image of the band below to listen

hot girl-on-girl action!

2006-09-12T09:17:00.001+08:00

Douse your fantasies, perverts. These are songs by female singer-songwriters, each with a female name as title.

irene : rose melberg

click here or on the image below to listen. 2m 41s

Is it possible not to like Rose Melberg after hearing this song? Just like the way she looks, the voice of this former Californian has an endearing and innocent character that makes you want to find your inner knight and come to her protection. She is the quiet girl from high school whose very coyness made her naturally intriguing. Two things about Irene caught my attention. First. it reminded me of the song Fascination by Everything But The Girl, especially its piano intro. Basically, it's a peppy, higher-key take on the lethargic plucked-guitar opener of the much-older song by the British duo. It's only a slight similarity, but it would be hard to listen to Irene without wondering if Melberg had just heard of Fascination and been subconsciously inspired by it. The second is its lyrical wit which manifests itself even in the first four lines of the song: So tired waking up uninspired; Too bored; you could change – but what for? I would be lying if I said I haven't felt that way before. That said, the song doesn't speak to my demographic, but to the same self-absorbed adolescent that Melberg's voice made me imagine. So dumb, what you wait for will come; Oh Irene, no one's strong at sixteen. The highlight of the song? The backing vocals, which circle her voice like a halo. And yes, they are her own – the album where this song comes from, Cast Away The Clouds, is after all almost entirely a one-person affair, with Melberg playing the guitars, piano, flute, ukelele, and drums.

eleanor : shannon worrell

click here or on the image below to listen. 5m 39s

Let me get one thing out of the way: Dave Matthews sings back-up in this song, and he does it extremely well as his voice seems to be the equivalent of a soul mate with that of Worrell. My knowledge of Worrell, however, is limited to this song, which comes from an old compilation CD from the Aware record label, but is also enough for me to admire her both as a singer and songwriter. I love the quality of her voice. It is vulnerable but disarming, especially when she seemingy breathes in the sharp notes at the start of some lines of the song – intermittent fragments that tug at the heart. The melody and imagery are beautiful, at turns heartwarming (especially when she sings the lines You're no empty shell and Plucked from the sky like spring's new leaf) and saddening. That part about approaching her indifferent father while he read a book – Why even bother? she asks herself – almost gave me a few goosebumps. It also made me wonder what the song is about. At first I thought it was about a young woman so full of passion, so willing to throw her love around, but who in reality is in search of purpose or self-discovery. But then she talks about her father – He thinks he knows me well; He thinks he knows this heart – and it made me wonder why she would need affirmation from him. And why is she almost an angel? I want a sequel to the song, dammit!

lydia : kathryn williams

click here or on the image below to listen. 2m 45s

I get instantly wary when critics say that an artist resonates Nick Drake or Joni Mitchell. Often I wouldn't see the similarity until someone pointed it out to me, and that's the case with Kathryn Williams. I like her unembellished songs. Not a lot of female solo artists today are confident enough to have such spare arrangements. Here, it's just Williams and her guitar, with minimal instrumentations in the background. Her voice is not really unique. It has that sleepy, wispy tone that you hear more often in anonymous chill-out or samba music. At best, her music is quietly arresting, which is probably how she won those favorable comparisons with Drake (less so with Mitchell, who has a strong, piercing voice). But this is the most credit I can give Williams, because her music lacks intensity, and when her songs are sunny, like Lydia is, she becomes, well, just cute. Like she is in that picture above.

25 planes this year and it's only july

2006-09-01T00:54:00.001+08:00

one place : everything but the girl

click here or on the image below to listen. 5m 01s

When I first heard that line from the second verse of this song (lyrics below), I wondered if I would ever be able to achieve the same. Well, pop the champagne because I've just realized that I have! I even exceeded it by one: 26 flights from January to July, taking me to Australia, Vietnam, Dubai, Iran, Greece, and twice each to the Philippines, China and India. I'm tempted to count the UK, but I flew there on August 1st. Bummer. Anyway, I thought this was the perfect occasion to share this song by Everything But The Girl, a sappy pop duo from London who I happen to like. One Place is one of my favorite travel-themed songs (as opposed to songs for traveling – I have separate playlists for that one) and it comes from their mid-90s concept album Worldwide. Love the words, which demonstrate what good songwriters the couple of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn are – or were, before EBTG went techno. Thorn's voice here is gold. Well, it always is.

One Place

A summer evening, I walk past the window

A baby crying, someone's cooking dinner

There's laughter on the TV

And someone's learning the violin

And how that home appeals

At times like this I feel that

I would like to live like anybody else

In one place

And I could be happy and fulfilled

In one place

So I get the map out

And draw a line of where we've been

It goes thru sea and sky

Twenty-five planes this year

And it's only July

This is not some bible like On The Road

It's just a song about coming home

And whether

I could live like anybody else

In one place

And I could be happy and fulfilled

In one place

And you know that I have found

I'm happiest weaving from town to town

And you know Bruce said

We should keep moving around

Or maybe we'll all get too tied down

I don't know

In the end if you take care

You can be happy or unhappy anywhere

is it the end of the line?

2006-08-25T21:49:00.001+08:00

all i ever wanted : train

click here or on the image below to listen

mississippi : train

click here or on the image below to listen

Pat Monahan is one of my favorite male voices in rock. I think his voice has a rare combination of passion, power and distinctiveness, with a sharpness that cuts through jaded ears – as rousing, brooding or numb as he wants it to be. And edgy as it is, his voice is best suited for materials of a similar nature, which is why I find it difficult to like Train's latest album, For Me, It's You. The band has been accused of being faceless and middle of the road, and I can understand that given the lack of consistency in every album they've released so far. Monahan seems comfortable straddling the border between radio-friendly rock and rock that just doesn't give a damn. He's better at the latter when he writes songs so personal, even cryptic, that they're almost mystifying, not just in words (songwriting is not actually Monahan's best suit) but also in melody. Mississippi, from Train's second album Drops of Jupiter, is a midnight musing over an unattainable relationship, aptly laid with an aching opening bass line and slow, rippling guitar. In All I Ever Wanted – and, in fact, the entire new album – Monahan sides with the universal as opposed to the intimate, resulting in some of the most mediocre lyrics he has ever written. Take this from Cab, the album's first single: New York snow this time of year/There’s nothing more beautiful to me/Except for you. Wow. Deep. That said, I like the arrangement of All I Ever Wanted, especially the diversity of its melody and how Monahan flirts with the falsetto which he hardly uses. This song must kick ass live.

folk everybody

2006-08-12T04:08:00.001+08:00

As you may have guessed from the post prior to this, the week since I came back from my holiday has been very stressful. Yes, there's the lost luggage which remains unfound, but there's also the jetlag, the persistent coughing, the catching-up with everyone and everything else, not to mention work, which brings me once again to India where I am right now. So I have been making a conscious effort to calm my nerves, partly by listening to folk music or the many rock varieties of it anyway. Here are three from a playlist I call Folk Everybody!

thin blue flame : josh ritter

click here or on the image below to listen. a whopping 9m 38s

This is the most impressive track from The Animal Years, the latest album by Idaho native Josh Ritter. It becomes a commendable work if you take it for what it is and look past the obvious influences from the more familiar names in the genre. In short, it lacks originality, but is worth a listen anyway. Ritter has been compared to Dylan and Springsteen, not just for the way he sounds but also for the maturity of his perspective on the themes he explores. The Animal Years is a politically charged album, a sharp (thanks to a weathered voice that also sounds like he would knock your teeth out at a slight provocation) and highly literate jab at things that make you throw your hands up and wonder how the world fucked up. "I just felt so angry; I felt like something was on my back," he told an early interview with Billboard, when asked why his new album differed from his prior autobiographical work. "These are a collection of songs about confusion and about where this country is going. It's not as much a political record, but just a diary of things I observe, how divisive everyone is, no matter whose side you're on." I just have to say, however, that there are tracks where, musically and vocally, he channels Grant McLennan more than anyone else. The intro to Girl in The War is practically torn from the same chord sheet as McLennan's One By One. Where Ritter excels is in his songwriting, and you can get a load of how much he has to say in Thin Blue Flame, a surreal vision of what becomes of the universe when its inhabitants and creator stop giving a damn. My favorite line: Now the wolves are howling at our door/Singing 'bout vengeance like it's the joy of the Lord/Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round. At nearly 10 minutes, you can call the song overstretched and contrived, but it intrigued me on first listen and it interests me up to now. Try to see how much of it you can handle.

i got nobody waiting for me : m. craft

click here or on the image below to listen. 3m 48s

The problem with the one-act-one-guitar route is that there is very little room for innovation. Here's a theory with no scientific backing whatsoever, because to have one would require reading a good sampling of album and artist reviews since Mr Zimmerman became the benchmark of the genre since, oh, 1963? The theory is: Music critics make more artist comparisons when they review works by acoustic singer-songwriters than by full-on rock bands or even pop newcomers. Count the number of comparisons in this review of Silver and Fire by M. Craft (it stands for Martin). I counted six. Six! Now count the same in this review of St Elsewhere by the breakthrough duo Gnarls Barkley. How many? Just three. What accounts for the difference is rather obvious: How many ways can a solo act express the same thought or emotion with the same minimal instruments? Not a lot, I suppose, but then again, does it really matter? In this song, Craft, a London-residing Australian, pays homage to the late Elliott Smith, with his guitar as crisp and his vocals as wispy as Smith's in Between The Bars. In the end, what matters is whether the song, album or artist speaks to you or not, and in this case – in my case – Craft is a good companion indeed.

duet for guitars #1 : m. ward

click here or on the image below to listen. 2m 15s

Now here's a brave take on folk innovation. M. Ward (it's Matt this time) describes his own work as "guitar music," and in this song, guitar is what it's all about. It's a short instrumental piece that's equal parts embracing, paranoid, acerbic and spooky. The parallel playing of notes high and low from the middle toward the end of the song is almost grating to the ears, but it also plays with your senses and conjures up a dream populated by bad characters. And no, I'm not taking anything. I don't have an M. Ward album – this song comes from the excellent compilation Matador At Fifteen, referring to the venerable indie label – but the three songs of his that I have are enough for me to put him in the genre-busting category. Sweethearts on Parade starts off like an intro to an electronica track, until the strums of an acoustic guitar come in and his near-falsetto voice croons old-school style. Four Hours in Washington starts grunge-like, until a flamenco-inspired guitar breaks in, followed by successive infusions of deep percussion, trumpets, cymbals and piano. It's confusing. It's weird. It's an acid-and-base solution that stirs you up and can either rip your guts or blow your brains out. In other words, it's good for you.

a not-so-little luggage saga

2006-08-08T23:44:00.001+08:00

great car dealer war : drive-by truckers

click here or on my backpack below to listen

I hate to start my first post-vacation blog on a negative note, but I feel that I have to publicly vent my frustration with Emirates Airlines just to get some form of revenge. I am by nature a very patient person – to a fault, my best friend would say – but the Dubai-based carrier rattled my nerves for a good part of the last two weeks. For reasons you will learn in a bit, I am still unsettled, but to a much lesser degree now. Hence this song that rings of understated rage by Drive-By Truckers, who have been dubbed by All Music Guide as "the greatest hard-rock band in America today." Even for someone who doesn't listen to hard rock very much, I think that's a bit of a stretch. Anyhow, Great Car Dealer War is a previously unreleased outtake from their excellent 2004 album The Dirty South. I got it from a free CD that came with Comes With A Smile, a small British magazine that seems to focus on American indie acts – a good but very niche idea.

First, a little bit of background. As I said in a previous post, my significant other and I went to Greece for our summer holiday, flying Emirates Airlines with stops in Dubai both ways. At the end of our holiday together, R and I separated in Dubai, with her going home and me proceeding to a solo trek in Iran and then a visit with friends to the UK. I flew with Iran Air to Tehran, and with British Airways to London, using Dubai as my hub. Why? It was a cheaper proposition than using Emirates for my entire itinerary. The BA flight, for one, was free, because I used some of the frequent-flier miles I have accumulated. First class, no less!

Now count with me from 1 to 10 and exhale ... bloody mother@#&^%# Emirates! I checked my backpack in Athens on the way to Dubai on July 22nd. They were supposed to have transferred it to my Iran Air flight to Tehran the next day. Lo and behold, there was no luggage on my arrival in Tehran. This was a major hassle for me, as I was scheduled to go straight from the airport to the foot of Mount Damavand on the same day and start my climb on the next. Given my limited time, I had no choice but to file a report with Iran Air, go without my luggage, and rent my clothing and gear from my guide, a US$50 damage to my wallet.

I called Iran Air as soon as I came back from Mount Damavand on the 27th. After about 15 minutes of listening to the phone ring, being put on hold, and hearing a long-winded explanation, I was told that I would be better off just picking up my luggage in Dubai when I came back. That would be four days later, which meant I had to shop for new shirts, underwear and socks, because I had been wearing the same clothes I arrived in five days ago. (That was the longest stretch of time I wore the same items of clothing straight without taking them off.)

Flying back to Dubai on the evening of the 31st, I had five hours to nag Emirates about my luggage before heading to London. Apparently, one of their ground crew had put in the computer system that my luggage had been transferred to Iran Air, but they failed to physically do so. They offered an awful lot of excuses, the most outrageous being they didn't have enough time to transfer my backpack between the two aircraft. I was on a 12-hour layover! They had half a day to move one bag from one plane to another plane! In the same airport! I nearly blew my top upon hearing this, but in my typical character, I simply took a deep breath and said it calmly but firmly. Other excuses were given, and I ended up feeling sorry for the person I was dealing with because he was miserably covering for his incompetent colleagues. He suggested that to speed things up, I could look for my luggage in their storage myself – and then he realized it wasn't feasible because it meant I would have to get out of passport control and I didn't have a proper visa. With that, he promised that their luggage crew would look for my backpack and transfer it to my British Airways flight.

Needless to say, that didn't happen either. Without really thinking, I asked British Airways if they could message Emirates to send my bag to London. The staff seemed to be accommodating of my request, and asked for my file reference number. Looking it up in their system, the BA staff saw that the file case had been closed – it said the bag was transferred to Iran Air and that if it was really missing, then my only recourse was to chase Iran Air. For a while, I thought he even gave me a look as though I was making up a lost-luggage story to make a fake claim. Wanker! My other option was to go to the Emirates counter, but it was in another terminal. At that point, I had lost my patience to narrate the snafu perpetrated by the stupid bumbling Emirates ground crew in Dubai, and so I said to myself, Fine, I will just deal with it when I get back there – again – for my final trip home.

Back in Dubai on the morning of August 6th, Emirates told me the same story: that the luggage was in Dubai, that perhaps the claim tag had been accidentally removed so it never got to London, that they were going to look for it, and that they were going to load it in my Emirates flight home. As expected, it didn't turn up. So I went to the luggage-services desk at my home airport and asked them to deal with it with Emirates.

Just hours ago, I called the airport people and received promising news: Emirates found a "definite match" of my lost luggage, but offered no word of when they would send it to me. The airline flies here once a day – if all goes well, the soonest my bag would get here is Thursday morning. To be honest, I am ready to charge everything to experience, after claiming with insurance, of course. Perhaps I wouldn't be having this problem had I taken the costlier Emirates flight to Tehran instead of the cheap Iran Air. You live, you learn. But R is getting positive vibes, and I sure hope she's right.

Watch this space.

my nine songs for july

2006-07-11T03:57:00.001+08:00

Hi, everyone. I am currently in the lovely town of Hora (or Chora) in Naxos, Greece, at the start of the second week of my summer holiday. Got here yesterday after four days in Santorini where R, my significant other, and I stayed in the sleepy but postcard-perfect town of Oia, and a three-day stopover in Dubai. That city by the Persian Gulf is just booming. Cranes and buildings and malls everywhere, right smack in the middle of the desert. There are no limits to the things you can do with oil money, especially these days, I suppose. Anyway, this is one of our strike-off-the-list trips. We will be here for three more days, and then on to Athens where I will be spending my birthday. I will then move on to Iran by myself, and finally, to London. It's safe to say that I will be out of touch until the 7th of August. Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy these nine songs I uploaded before I left. I meant to write about them decently, but I ran out of time, and so here they are, without the blah.

three sounds of summer

on saturday : the clarks

the blues are still blue : belle & sebastian

sahara night : f.r. david

three sounds of sexy

oh lately it's so quiet : ok go

gold for the price of silver : kings of convenience

don't look back : youssou n'dour

three ways to chill

the word : prince

familiar feeling : moloko

stripped down : ben horn

whatever happened to rock duets?

2006-06-30T09:08:00.001+08:00

good morning baby : dan wilson and bic runga

click here or on the cool guy in glasses below to listen

someone new : eskobar and heather nova

click here or on the jean gray lookalike below to listen

I uploaded the first song for a specific person to hear, but I thought you might enjoy it here as well. This is a duet – more like a collaboration, really – between the vocalist of Semisonic who had the hit Closing Time in the mid-90s (gosh, that was a decade ago – a decade!) and the pretty New Zealander who made it big with her beautiful pop ballad Sway. Good Morning Baby comes from the soundtrack to the 1999 goofball high-school comedy American Pie. Listening to this sweet song got me thinking, How come there are very few rock duets happening these days? A lot of what's out there are, as I said, collaborations where a guest artist sings back-up in the chorus. There have been very few he-said-she-said duets (and probably even less same-gender combinations) lately, and I hate it that the first song that came to my mind when I had to think of one was the sappy Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough (by former Eagle Don Henley and Patty Smyth). Even Someone New – by Daniel Bellqvist, lead singer of the Swedish band Eskobar, and Heather Nova of London Rain fame – is four yeas old. Anyway, I really like this one, which is a break-up song with lyrics so humanly worded they could have come straight from the journal entry of either lover. The only thing I don't like here is the voice of Bellqvist, which I think is rather effeminate. If you know of any good rock duets, please let me know and I'll find the time to post it up here.

hot off the charts

2006-06-24T19:45:00.001+08:00

into the ocean : blue october

click here or on the image below to listen

This song is well on its way to becoming one of the Top 25 most played songs in my iPod. Blue October is a Texas band that has been around for a few years, signing with, being dropped by, and then signing again with a major record label. They finally found commercial success with the release of their latest album, Foiled. The first single, Hate Me, is currently #6 after peaking at #2 in the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks. This is not usually the genre I listen to, but after sampling the CD at a record store, I was immediately hooked. Blue October certainly knows the power of the chorus, making it quite distinct from and more infectious than any other part of the song. Into The Ocean, a song about failing, is a great example. The emotive cry of the chorus is introduced by scratches of electric guitar and a bit of a pause at the tail of the refrain. The tone of voice used is different; the chorus is strong yet desperate, but the rest is near falsetto, effectively effecting weakness without being effete. The best part of the song, however, is the lyrics. The words are very visual – drowning as a metaphor for being left behind – which makes it easy to empathize with vocalist Justin Furstenfeld. I can imagine myself in distress when he sings: I keep looking each direction for a spotlight, give me something, I need something for protection, Maybe flotsam junk will do just fine. These guys are sharp – almost smart. Congratulations is another pop masterpiece in the album. Featuring the breezy backing vocals of Imogen Heap, it is a passive take on the old story of a best friend's betrayal. There is no bitter anger or sarcasm, just a sad surrender to something he no longer has the strength to pursue. I can't change this, I can never take it back, But now I can't change your mind. Furstenfeld easily gets you on his side.

let's make a list : narrated songs

2006-06-17T04:49:00.001+08:00

Let's make a list of songs whose lyrics are entirely narrated instead of sung. So this excludes songs like Belong by R.E.M. where Not Michael Stipe – or maybe it is him, I can't tell – speaks the words and then Stipe goes all "Oooohhh" in the chorus. Here are three from my collection, and guess what? They're all Scots. (A note on the playback: the second plays softer than the first and third. I don't know why that is, I encoded them at the same bit rate.)

the ghosts : money can't buy music

click here or on the image below to listen

This blog has been in a lull for a while, but this song made me want to write again and share it with you. What struck me most about The Ghosts is its powerful use of simple language to describe complex but universal feelings that perturb. In less than four minutes, Gordon McIntyre parades before us a lifetime of ghosts that live quietly at the back of our minds, memories that somehow nag us with the very regrets that we try to deny or conceal. I transcribed the lyrics the best I could; I could not find them on the web, not even his website. Which ghosts inhabit your lives? Mine are the ghosts of people I took for granted.

The Ghosts
Money Can't Buy Music

We all have our ghosts, and they're with us all the time, everywhere we go, enduring everything that we do. Some of them are people. Some of them are feelings or memories of past things, and some of them are just things. Some of them are the people that we were born instead of the ones who've missed out because of chance meetings at random times, between the parents and the grandparents that we know. The ones who had lives before us that we forget to ask about. They're the ones who were left behind by last-minute decisions, missed trains or one-more drinks or one-last drinks. They're the ones who are so close that we can feel them even now, everywhere we go.

But there are other ghosts too. The people that we loved but we didn't really know, or we knew them too late. The people that we loved that didn't love us back, or who loved us back too late. And then there's the other ones. The ones who loved us even beyond the point where we failed them. Even beyond the point where we gave them no reason to love us.

And the other loves. The secret ones. The ones that never took hold because of wrong places or wrong times, or just wrong somethings. They spawn a whole new generation of ghosts. And they are ghosts too. They’re never quite alive and they’re never quite dead. But they are real. They last and they endure. They live in the tiny moments. Accidental touches and the joys of looking, the joys of being close.

And they live in our eyes, and the hoping and the wishing. And they die in our hearts with the knowing and the hurting. But they're real loves. They last and they endure. And who's to say that secret loves are not the deepest loves of all? And though they live in our eyes and they die in our hearts, who's to say that secret loves are not the deepest loves of all?

a space boy dream : belle & sebastian

click here or on the image below to listen

This song is more fun to me than anything else. You just cannot make up a dream like this. I envy the level of detail in it – not just the visual ones, but the feelings associated with them. I'm always kidding on about going to Mars for the day, but faced with the reality of it, in a dream, I was terrified. If there's one thing I wish I had, it would be the ability to remember my dreams. Put simply, I just don't. I would wake up from a dream, often all bothered, but in literally a span of five seconds, I would lose all recollection of what it was about. My dreams are as transient as waves. They build up in slow motion, freeze for a split second the moment they come to their farthest reach, and then swifty pull back. Do you remember your dreams?

A Space Boy Dream
Belle & Sebastian

I dreamt I had to go to Mars. I'm always kidding on about going to Mars for the day, but faced with the reality of it, in a dream, I was terrified. And it wasn't going to be like a moon trip - there was three of us going, but we couldn't all go on the same ship; we had to go one at a time with a day between us. I had to go first, and it was the thought of passing through all that black space, all the darkness with nothing in it, and then being the first one to land there, all alone... I knew it was supposed to be all dark around, with just a red surface, but what if I got there and it was light, all civilised and populated and stuff? So I made a plan.

The other astronauts were gonna be my dad and my sister, and my dad would come first after me, so I decided when I landed I would just stay in my seat until he got there, and then we could get out together and have a look around and see what sort of things were there.

And when I woke up and I was lying in the darkness, I thought I had landed. And I just lay still for a while, waiting for my dad to get there too.

love detective : arab strap

click here or on the image below to listen

The Belle & Sebastian album where the previous song comes from is called The Boy With The Arab Strap. Interestingly, it bears the name of the band that did this song. I didn't think much of Love Detective at first. With its masked vocals and Scottish accent, good luck trying to understand it. Only after Googling its lyrics did I realize what a fascinating conversational narrative it is, about a man in the room of a one-night stand, discovering her sexual adventures in her diary, and realizing she's too much for his liking. That's something I have trouble understanding in a relationship. Why dig up the past knowlingly? It's like asking for trouble.

Love Detective
Arab Strap

We slept in this morning and she had to get ready in a hurry - no time for her usual attention to detail - and she ran out the door, slamming it behind her, leaving her keys swinging and jangling. I stayed in bed until I heard the downstairs door shut, then peeked through the blinds and as soon as she was out of sight, I went for the keys. She never tried to make a secret of the box or the fact it was locked or even where she kept it. But as I said at the time - "If you've nothing to hide, why hide it?"

It's one of those wee red cashbox things and she keeps it in a drawer by the bed, under some pictures and books. Every key she has is on the same keyring - it took me a while to find the right one. I don't know, I suppose I've had my doubts for a while. There's been hushed phone-calls virtually every night, her friends stop talking when I come in the room and they look at each other, and I don't know, it's just a feeling. Anyway, I eventually found the right key and it fitted perfectly in. I put the box on top of the bed and opened it up...

There were these pictures of friends and ex's, letters, postcards, doodles, nothing bad - and then I found some sort of sex diary and I went to the latest entry. It explicity detailed a recent adventure up the park with a boy she said she had forgotten about...

And it got worse as it went on. The dates never made sense, there were people I had never even heard of. Eventually I had to stop reading it because I started to feel sick. So I put everything back the way I found it, shut the drawer and phoned you. See, I don't know what to do. I keep having fantasies about leaving her dictaphone under the pillow or following her when she goes to work. I've been lying about where I'm going, just in case I can bump into her.

filler post #87458956

2006-06-06T02:00:00.001+08:00

I am around. Just been busy and distracted. Thanks for dropping by. Here are three heart-tugging songs from movies I saw not-so-recently but have been stuck with me. All three films are great too, especially Transamerica.

orange sky : alexi murdoch

click here or on the image below to listen

From the movie Paradise Now. Incidentally, Alexi Murdoch releases his full-length album, Time Without Consequence, today. It follows the success of his 2003 EP, Four Songs, where this song comes from.

kothbiro : ayub ogada

click here or on the image below to listen

From the movie The Constant Gardener

travelin' thru : dolly parton

click here or on the image below to listen

From the movie Transamerica

three rockin' beats

2006-05-26T14:19:00.001+08:00

I'm trying out an update of my Flash music player. You can now slide that thing under those jumping yellow bars to fast-forward or rewind the song, and control the volume. Don't mind those symbols on the left as they only work when there are multiple songs in the file.

have a good time : morning runner

click here or on the image below to listen

Although Morning Runner released their debut album Wilderness Is Paradise Now just a couple of months ago, Amazon UK says their early work inspired the creation of the album X&Y by Coldplay. Never forceful, Morning Runner switches comfortably between the urgent electric guitar of Be What You Want Me To Be and the piano balladry of Broken Benches and Hold Your Breath. What the band suffers from, however, is the comparison with other acts – Elbow, Keane, Coldplay, Athlete – which essentially questions their originality. I think Britons are split in the middle whether they actually like Morning Runner or not. Well, I do, and I don't mind the comparisons, which are accurate, although Morning Runner has a stronger blow and a sharper bite. Have A Good Time is easily my favorite track. I never expected it to take a drastic turn to lacerated guitars and vocals right after the frantic and funky drum into. I was hooked, goosebumps and all. These kids will have a great future if they can get past the pigeonholing and people take them for their versatility. Wilderness certainly covers greater emotional range than Hopes & Fears (Keane). Gone Up In Flames is a vigorous track that can find itselt at home in any bar today or any 80s dancefloor, with smart songwriting to boot: Going to the race track to try and get your money back/You got caught trying to break in, but you just laughed and said 'It couldn’t have been me.' The Great Escape, despite its unnecessary intro (they would probably edit it out if they releae it as a single), gives you an expectation of standard-issue schmaltz until it fires up with umbrage at the chorus. In fact, the fast-slow switch seems to be the common denominator of the songs in the album, but it's not too premeditated to sound pretentious (like the word "umbrage," I know).

brilliant sky : saybia

click here or on the image below to listen

Saybia are a good reminder that diversifying your sources of rock music to countries outside of the English-speaking world can be rewarding. Coming from Denmark, the band has been around since 1993 as an independent act, going through the familiar struggle of striking a record deal. From their roots in a seaside village 130 kilometers from Copenhagen, the band toured the country until recording their own six-track EP in 2000. Their record-label aspirations were realized the following year, releasing their debut album The Second You Sleep in 2002, and Saybia have been breaking Danish charts since. The bio in the band's website has an interesting confession: "Success extracted a price and the five musicians were drained of energy. They forgot what it was like to be friends and none of them could spell the word communication, or for that matter, even remember what it meant." But instead of tearing apart, the band bought a house outside Copenhagen, renewed their bond, and wrote some songs together about the experience, resulting in lyrics that are either honest or affected. I get visions of the five of them forming a circle with their arms locked together, chanting oms, and then sitting down in the living room to write cringe-worthy words like, Do you remember the exact time we went dry on gasoline/Just the five of us against the rest of the world? (Guardian Angel) and Stayed together through stormy weather/Still divided but soul united (Soul United). Poor lyrics aside, Saybia's second album, These Are The Days, has the sound of seasoned musicians, from the timid yet self-assured vocals of Bend The Rules to the fetching bass line of Flags to the sweet-tempered acoustic guitar of The Haunted House On The Hill. The band managed to make every song in the album catchy and radio-friendly, although the promise of exuberant rock in the opener Brilliant Sky is not sustained. The rest is a mellow affair, as the band has apparently made These Are The Days a personal, emotional undertaking.

wimp soufflé : phantom buffalo

click here or on the image below to listen

Forgive me as I use the word "funnest" to describe this band. Even though the word gets 1.5 million Google results, I can never get myself to use it. But here I go: Phantom Buffalo is the funnest unknown band I've heard in a while. Apparently from Portland and formerly called The Ponys, they released Shishimumu, the album where Wimp Soufflé comes from, in 2002. They have managed to stay undetected since, in spite of sounding like many of the stateside indie bands of late. Although they're starting to break out – check out their busy gig schedule in their myspace page – it's still hard to find any information about the band, or even images of them in Flickr. I guess they're living up to the phantom image. But what the hey. Listening to Wimp Soufflé or Killing's Not OK (a single downloadable from their site – wait for the mad drumming in the middle) is great fun. The band is amateurish; it feels like they just learned to play their instruments from boarding school, decided to form a band after graduation, and somehow struck gold while goofing off. Songs like Domestic Pet Growing Seeds and Ask Your Grandmother are as clever as the titles are witty. Heck, the songs are funny, paying homage to bugs and ghosts. From Wilamena: Wilamena, you're a bug crawling on my knee/It's not a metaphor, I mean it quite literally. I'm happily sharing their record label's description of the album here, because it's quite accurate: "The sounds of the past and present meeting to create a unique and uplifting timelessness. Merging rock instrumentation, acoustic guitar, electric slide, moog, wurlitzer, and gorgeous vocals into a cluster of irresistible, catchy, and haunting songs. Flowing through droning psychedelia, velvety instrumentals, quirky indiepop, country twang, and distortion fueled rock." Sounds like a mouthful of balderdash, but have a listen and you'll agree.

know where you're goan

2006-05-17T23:53:00.002+08:00

pink india : stephen malkmus

click here or on the image below to listen

Did I tell you I was going to India? I think I did. I just got back today from a one-week work trip that included the weekend. In between meetings in Bombay and Delhi, I thought at first of going to Jaipur, also known as the Pink City, the capital of Rajasthan. However, I chickened out due to the temperature, which continues to be somewhere around 45 degrees C (about 115 degrees F). I didn't want to fry myself, so I decided to go to Goa instead. You might know the reputation of Goa as a former hippie haven in the 70s, now a commercialized strip of sand infested by dreadlocked trustafarians. Well, that only applies to the northern beaches. Going far south of the airport, you can still find tranquility in Palolem Beach, although this itself is lined with shacks now. One needs to cross the small and rocky Colomb Beach to its south to find the ultra-quiet Patnem Beach, which only has two restaurants and a couple of cottage resorts so far. I counted no more than five people swimming on the day I was there. Even beyond Patnem, separated by a hill and massive rocks, is Rajbag Beach which fronts the Intercontinental Hotel. Perhaps because the five-star property encompasses the entire beach, Rajbag boasts an atmosphere of exclusivity although it is open to everyone. The beach ends south to make way to a river, and crossing the narrow mouth of Rajbag River will take you to fishing villages that lead to Talpona and Galgibag beaches. Both are even more isolated, from tourists anyway, due to lack of infrastructure. So yes, peace and quiet can still be had in Goa. Pictures below, and while you're looking at them, listen to Pink India by Stephen Malkmus. No need to care what the song is about – it's filled with clichés and characters associated with the past – bit it's Malkmus of Pavement, and Pavement is über cool.

I stayed at an eco-lodge called Bhakti Kutir, where every material used to build the cottages was made with the hands of local villagers. Luxury is not the selling point of this property: it's back to basics, with mosquito nets, bucket showers and squat toilets (you read that right). Doors? Who needs them when curtains are enough to give you privacy? My Room 13 has a porch with a long lounge chair and a hammock.

This is Palolem Beach, which is not yet the concrete jungle the beaches to the north are, although it is certainly on its way there. How can you tell, apart from the mushrooming of lodges and beach shacks an arm's length from one another? Restaurants actually play Buddha Bar and Cafe del Mar CDs. Nonetheless, it is a good place to have a meal, given its variety of cheap restaurants (US$3 will get you a generous meal with a drink) that are not available in the more southern beaches.

Indians easily outnumber foreigners in Palolem during the daytime, at least during this low-season month of May. The best time to visit Goa is during the cool months of November to March. The rest of the year is either hot – it was easily above 30 degrees last weekend – or sees consecutive days of heavy rain. But I can imagine liking to drive the stretch of Goa in the rain. Supposedly, you can drive its entire length in three hours. The two-lane highway crosses rivers and small towns, and overlooks the green tops of coconut trees and the sparkling aquamarine of the sea.

No dramatic sunsets in Palolem, which actually faces southwest. To get a view of the orange sun melting into the sea, you need to go to the northern tip of the beach and follow an uphill trail made unsavory by day-trippers who answer the call of nature in its bushes. The trail leads to angular boulders that fall steeply into the Arabian Sea. Lying on a flattish surface, I saw what looked like an eagle chasing another, swerving from underneath to lock its claws with those of its potential mate. They swirl down fast around three times before letting go. I guess there was no late-afternoon nookie for either of them. But it was about ten seconds of fascination for me, as I had never seen birds do that before.

The trail from Bhakti Kutir to Patnem. I counted four cows, one pig, and about five dogs along the way. Oh and one internet kiosk too. I also saw signs for yoga classes and Ayurvedic treatments. In fact these are also available in Bhakti Kutir, but only during peak season.

Patnem beach from the top of the hill that separates it from Rajbag.

A lonely fishing boat along Patnem.

In front of Sealand Restaurant in Patnem.

Rajbag beach in front of the Intercontinental, from the same hilltop I mentioned above.

I guess these are only for guests of the hotel.

His name is Dilkhush, a 30-year-old fisherman and father of three daughters aged 7, 5 and 2. Because his small boat needs a bit of repair, this is how he catches fish for the family's daily meals. During the monsoon and the latter months of the year, he says the river turns reddish in color and he can catch fish longer than his forearm. He lives on the banks of the Rajbag river outside the Intercontinental. He wants me to come back to Goa so he can take me on a cruise when his small wooden boat is fixed.

in his bright ray : grant mclennan, 48

2006-05-09T02:24:00.001+08:00

Okay, so I'm not the most indefatigable blogger around. I said in my last entry that I'd be writing about Grant McLennan "in a couple of hours." That was two days ago. Don't you just hate it when work and stuff get in the way of blogging? Now I'm off to India in a few hours, so forgive me as I yak my way through another post. Let's carry on. Here are three songs by Grant in honor of a great man of music from Down Under. That's the least I can say about one-half of one of my all-time favorite bands, The Go-Betweens. Those of you who have read this post will know that Grant had me hooked from the time I heard the first five notes of his song In Your Bright Ray. McLennan died in his sleep in his home in Australia on May 6th. And so The Go-Betweens – one of the most under-appreciated bands in the history of pop music – is no more.

streets of your town : the go-betweens

click here or on the image below to listen

Grant wrote Streets Of Your Town as an homage to Brisbane, his hometown and also the place where he met his maker. After Cattle and Cane, I think this is the next quintessential McLennan song. He had always been on the pop side of The Go-Betweens, which he formed in 1978 with University of Queensland buddy Robert Forster. Although for the most part they never glossed over their rugged sound to befriend the charts, Grant wrote this song, from their sixth album 16 Lovers Lane, with the intention of finally making it in the UK charts. It got close, but not quite, and that is the singular curse of the band. "I think we are a pop group, but we're the most unusual pop group there's ever been," said Grant in an interview before the album was made. Recognizing the lack of immediacy in their sound, Grant added: "Although we work with melody, we sometimes work against it, and that's like one of the cardinal sins of pop music. People often mistake subtlety or reticence for naivete or wimpiness. If people do that, then it's quite pathetic. You just can't have those two qualities if you want to be in the charts, so that's our dilemma."

haunted house : grant mclennan

click here or on the image below to listen

Following record-label woes over the years, and perhaps out of burnout, the band called it quits in 1989, although after reforming in 2000 they said it was a mere hiatus. During the 11 years in between, Grant proved how prolific he was with his sedate acoustic guitar and nostalgic songwriting, releasing four solo albums, starting with the confident Watershed in 1990. To me, Grant was at his writing best when he drew sketches of his past with the sharpness and pathos of a sepia photograph, as he did with Cattle and Cane. Lost love is a theme he wrote often about, and I prefer his imagery to abstract thought and straight-from-the-shoulder storytelling. In Dream About Tomorrow, from Watershed, he sang: Nothing much happens here anymore; They're shutting down the lines; they're boarding up the stores. Their shotguns and their pick-up trucks; the railroad and the rolling stock. During his solo years, Grant also took liberty with melodic experimentation, incorporating the tumbling sound of country music in his double-disc album Horsebreaker Star in 1994 – just when grunge music was crossing over to the mainstream. While anger filled the airwaves, Grant wrote, as he said in an interview, "a bunch of songs about footsteps and change and, kind of, dirt roads, you know, underneath a sky full of stars." Was he being irrelevant, or just timeless?

do you see the lights : grant mclennan

click here or on the image below to listen

Regardless, Grant struck the right notes with my acoustic-guitar-loving ears. And that voice that half-sings and half-recites poetry – a vaguely familiar blend of passion and fury – manages to pull you in without actually calling attention to itself. It's probably best heard in his live acoustic version of the grave ballad Quiet Heart, from a session at KCRW in 1989, while promoting 16 Lovers Lane. You can easily imagine him singing it with his eyes closed, drawing power from his guts. "They're pulling the record back and putting that version in," joked Robert Forster. I think Grant reached his vocal peak in his last solo album from 1997, also called In Your Bright Ray, where Do You See The Lights comes from. By the time he and Robert reunited to make The Friends of Rachel Worth in 2000, the strains of a more mature age had become evident, although that was of little consequence to the fact that The Go-Betweens released some of their best songs during this decade. Now that the indie reign of the band is over – I'd hate to see Robert Forster bring a stand-in – Grant is for our memories and this humble post to keep alive.

dear god please don't make them reunite

2006-05-01T01:14:00.001+08:00

Today is May 7th. I started to write the post below six days ago, but never got to finish it until today, when Grant McLennan's passing prompted me to sit down and blog again. You'll read about and get to listen to Grant in a couple of hours.

Anyway, I was reading the May issue of UNCUT magazine with Morrissey on the cover, and in the interview he talks about why he sees no point in reuniting The Smiths. The latest offer was for them to perform together at Coachella this summer for US$5 million, which guitarist Johnny Marr says was double a prior offer for them to play in New York and London. Says Moz: "It has been 18 years since it ended. I don't know them; they don't know me. They know nothing about me; I know nothing about them. Anything that I know about them is unpleasant, so why on earth do we want to be onstage together making music?"

Interestingly, in its March issue, UNCUT talked to other former members of The Smiths (for an article on the 20th anniversary of their album The Queen is Dead) and asked them the same question of why wouldn't they reform. Johnny Marr answers: "There's been an awful lot of very dirty water gone under the bridge...I think we'd have to go to some new-age retreat in Arizona, all wear muslin and get up every morning to share the dawn. For several months. Go on some meditation walks and then share. Share! Share! Share! Or we could all go for a walk around Ancoats. And sort it out." Says drummer Mike Joyce, who successfully sued in 1996 for a higher share of royalties (leading Morrissey and Marr to each pay him somewhere around £1 million): "Because of Morrissey's hatred towards me, I suppose. Musically, it'd still be fucking brilliant...but it's too hypothetical." And from bassist Andy Rourke: "That's a tough one; it really is. I'd like to say 'never say never', but I think it's pretty unlikely, for one reason or another."

I'm probably the only fan to agree and say, Let lying dogs sleep. With their acrimony running deep, any Smiths reunion is only going to be half-arsed. Sure, there is a genuine interest among fans to see if Morrissey, Marr, Joyce and Rourke could still make great music together, and The Smiths can very well still blow us away (I doubt it, for reasons I'll say in a bit) but I think curiosity and commercial demand are never good enough reasons to mess with something that's been held sacred for two decades. As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't want a dispassionate reunion to taint my memory of a band that affected me so much in my youth.

dear god please help me : morrissey

click here or on the image below to listen

This is the most talked-about song from Morrisey's latest album, Ringleader of the Tormentors, thanks to one line that's rather uncharacteristic even for a man who once wrote And when we're in your scholarly room/Who will swallow whom? But in this song where his Mozness reveals that there are explosive kegs between his legs, Dear God must be one of the most liberating records he has written since going solo. Long a resident of Los Angeles, Morrissey has found greater freedom since moving to Rome last year. Past its narrow streets, Moz is finally able to look at lust squarely in the eye (Then he motions to me with his hand on my knee) and within the city's cramped quarters, he lets it all out without restraint (Now I'm spreading your legs with mine in between). And no matter how fleeting the encounter may be, he leaves ultimately satisfied. The heart feels free, he sings in the ending, in a rousing voice that strips away the bitterness of age. It's the voice of rebirth, something he actually sings about in At Last I Am Born (which is strategically assigned as the album's last track).

That's pretty much the theme of the album. Although Morrissey continues to use up the lexicon of misery in his song titles, Ringleaders is an exorcism of demons, a declaration of freedom from repression. Almost every song is optimistic in some parts and yielding in others, but it is all a variation of one theme: being at peace with himself by accepting what can and cannot be. From Life is a Pigsty: It's the same old S.O.S./But with brand new broken fortunes/I'm the same underneath. From I Will See You In Far Off Places: It's so easy for us to sit together/But it's so hard for our hearts to combine/And why? And in The Youngest Was The Most Loved, he warbles with a chorus of children's voices: There is no such thing in life as normal. Something tells me that Morrissey's next album will have far less torment. I'm just not sure whether that's good or bad. Although – or probably because – it's his most self-effacing album, Ringleaders doesn't have the lyrical riddles of his previous work, and fails to reach even half the stature of the complex Vauxhall and I.

caught up : johnny marr + the healers

click here or on the image below to listen

Now back to my point about the reunion. There's a dollar price for everything, so no one can say it's not going to happen, but my hope is for the contrary, simply because ~~they have grown so far apart~~ Morrissey has outgrown his bandmates so much it's hard to imagine them even looking at one another on stage. Need proof? Listen to Caught Up, the best track from Marr's 2003 album Boomslang and be amazed with the shallowness of it. Catchy? Check. Good guitar? Check. Grown-up? Like can you even understand what he's saying? Come on, can anyone actually picture The Smiths playing their songs with the same intensity as they did 20 years ago? The Smiths is about Marr's guitar complementing Morrissey's words, and vice versa. Their connection was a prerequisite to their sound. They don't have that connection now, and I doubt if their technical expertise – if it's still up to par at all – can compensate for it. Put them together and they'll amount to a circus act people will see only out of curiosity. Can they cross the wire without falling? Yeah, no thanks, whatever.

an obligatory jesus post

2006-04-16T04:01:00.001+08:00

Something for Easter.

jews for jesus blues : clem snide

click here or on the image below to listen

Sometimes random purchases can turn into wonderful surprises. I only knew Clem Snide from their 2005 album, End of Love, which I picked up blindly at a bricks-and-mortar record shop late last year. I do that sometimes, without even sampling the CD, just hoping the album would be good enough for me to like. Needless to say, not all of them have been worth the dough, but End of Love made up for some previous disappointments. If you like folk-rock with a maniacal twistedness, you will be happy to know that Clem Snide have been at it for five albums now. Like most of the songs I post here, this one just doesn't encapsulate the band. My favorite track from End of Love, the upbeat Something Beautiful, is funny, sexy, and dangerously perverted all at once. Get this: You make me wanna/Soak it in gasoline, stain my new shirt/Sip lysol from a cup, so clean it hurts. Jews for Jesus Blues, on the other hand, resonates the confusion of a middle-aged fuck-up who thinks God is playing a joke on his or her good intentions. I don't wanna suffer and I don't wanna die/I want the clouds parted in an endless, blue sky/But someone up there has a different plan/Now that I'm saved I wish I was damned. As you will hear, it doesn't come off as tongue-in-cheek as it was probably intended to be.

Anyway, by pure coincidence, I learned about the Jews for Jesus movement not because of this song but after seeing the film Everything is Illuminated on a plane last month. Not that there's any reference about it in the film (or the book, which I've read, and yes, the book is way better). I just found myself searching the web about Judaism after watching the Elijah Wood movie, and as it is with Google, one thing led to another and I found myself here.

rounding out the alphabet part 2

2006-04-09T16:42:00.001+08:00

This post was brought to you by the letters V, X, and Z, and by the number 120. That's 120 songs since I started this blog. Go me!

troubled so hard : vera hall

click here or on the image below to listen. 1m 37s

image taken from the vera hall project.

Like nearly everyone else, I knew nothing about the late Vera Hall until I heard Natural Blues by Moby, which samples this grievous acappella. Born near Livingston, Alabama sometime around 1902, Hall was a great folk and blues singer that the recording industry seems to have forgotten. There is not even a word in Wikipedia about her, or any of the other names she was known as in her lifetime. Save for a few songs on iTunes, a couple of compilation CDs on Amazon – this and this – and audio archives with downloadable MP3s from the Library of Congress website, her repertoire seems to be of quite limited availability. Nonetheless, thank people like Gabriel Greenberg, who runs The Vera Hall Project, for keeping awareness of Hall alive. Check out this interesting article from the website about the impact of Natural Blues on her estate, while listening to what is now her most popular song. Troubled So Hard is so raw you can imagine it being sung by someone in the midst of heavy toil, or penitence.

light the shade : xavier rudd

no woman no cry : xavier rudd

click here or on the image below to listen, then click on the left- and right-pointing arrows to switch between songs. 6m 44s total.

Xavier Rudd is an Australian multi-instrumentalist who makes music like an artist with little regard for commercial success. He writes about social issues – from rights of Aboriginies to the environment – and lays music using a host of indigenous instruments, from didgeridoos to djembes to banjos, all played by himself, often simultaneously, to various degrees of expertise. Yet this deviance is what has made him a commercial success, both in his homeland and in festival circuits abroad. Last year, his fourth album Solace, which he put out independently in 2004, was picked up and released by a major label. Despite a growl and drawl that approximates Dave Matthews, there is nothing rudimentary about Rudd. The intensity of his singing reaches you in strokes, not in blows, and he sings with vocal control as if he's about perform before an audience for the first time.

time of the season : the zombies

click here or on the band image below to listen. 3m 34s

Can there be a cooler intro than this? And had people been asking "Who's your daddy?" before the band released this song in 1968? Ah, but the Washington Post has an answer to that.

rounding out the alphabet part 1

2006-04-08T23:36:00.001+08:00

Out of sheer whim, I'm posting songs by artists starting with letters I don't already have in my list of songs you can listen to. I'm manic that way. Let's start with Q and U, and tomorrow I'll deliver V, X and Z.

burn the witch : queens of the stone age

click here or on the band image below to listen

Not being a big fan of Queens of the Stone Age, I can't tell the difference between their pre- and post-Nick Olivieri sound. Lullabies to Paralyze, the album where Burn the Witch comes from and which marks the end of the relationship between vocalist Josh Homme and his long-time pal and bassist Olivieri, sounds every bit as good as any of the band's three albums prior. Despite their ever-changing line-up (Homme is the only original member left now) the Queens have maintained a consistent sound: hard rock you don't have to get stoned to enjoy. I don't take them seriously; I just love their pounding riffs, and this one's one of the best.

the white spirit : uman

click here or on the image below to listen

Yeah I had a New Age phase, mostly music from the Windham Hill record label. Although I've outgrown them I still enjoy listening to the albums of a couple of their artists, one of them being French siblings Didier and Danielle Jean, together known as Uman, supposedly from the native American word "umane" meaning "Earth forces." This is the song that attracted me to them, and the artwork in the album, done by a painter known as Zad, captures the feeling it evokes quite well. In fact Zad is the unofficial third member of the team, since Didier's idea is to combine music with visuals. In itself, though, Uman's music is transcendental. Not quite world, not quite ambient, not quite electronic. Just French, I guess?

things you told me about : part 3

2006-04-04T09:11:00.001+08:00

come with me tonight : bob schneider

click here or on the image below to listen

This is how All Music Guide describes Bob Schneider: "His music is redolent of singer/songwriters of the '70s from Neil Young to Paul Simon, with a slightly more modern musical sensibility reminiscent of Beck." I don't hear any of it, but if I may venture with my own off-the-wall comparison myself – the more I listen to this Austin-based artist, the more I think he sounds like Jack Johnson or Pat McGee after downing shots of tequila. You're not going to hear it in this song I'm posting, which is more along the lines of Vertical Horizon, but it's all over in songs like Round and Round, Captain Kirk, and Gold In The Sunset. Pleasant pop music that hardly makes an impact, sure, but at least you can hear some capability that he can make great music if he only tried harder. Listening to his albums I'm Good Now and Lonelyland, it seems to me like Schneider is more preoccupied with paying tribute to his influences, which are quite diverse, rather than crafting his own sound. Like McGee, he is...elastic. That said, there's no denying his talent, which can take him anywhere. His coffee-and-cigarettes voice is quite impressive; it can be dark and morose or light and humorous, and that gives him a range that allows him to tackle a wide spectrum of rock genres, and country to boot. He makes interesting, catchy rhythms, and his songwriting is witty. Take this from Gold In The Sunset: She got the gun/She got the gun again/Sipping on a pipe razor backed up and smoking Indochina/If you're thinking what I'm thinking, it's quite funny.

things you told me about : part 2

2006-04-03T03:59:00.001+08:00

i'm confessin' : lizz wright

click here or on the image below to listen

Melt your heart with this song from the 26-year-old R&B/jazz artist from Georgia. That makes her only a year or so older than Britney, Christina and Beyoncé, but the maturity she exudes is far beyond her years. Lizz puts my pants on fire better than Norah Jones does. If she got any sexier, I woud probably spontaneously combust. She does it for me in a slow, subtle way, with lots of caressing and quiet conversations. In short, her music is romantic, not dirrrty like that of the chart-topping R&B artists her age. I know I'm not making the right comparisons here, but that's partly the point. If you're a 20-something African-American female artist, you either hard-sell sex to get to the charts, or be a jazz vocalist, or carve a niche in some fusion of gospel and R&B. And if you choose the latter routes, then you're going to have a high benchmark, being measured against legends such as Cassandra Wilson or Dianne Reeves. And that's exactly what I'm doing, wondering whether Lizz will have the longevity and reach the status of the two women just mentioned, or fade into obscurity, or sell out. Vocally, she's neither strong nor original, but she has that X factor. Anyway, this is I'm Confessin' from her 2005 album Dreaming Wide Awake. It's got five stars on iTunes' customer ranking (plus the album is critically acclaimed) so she's doing something right.

things you told me about : part 1

2006-04-02T15:10:00.001+08:00

What a month! March was no doubt the busiest I've had in, um, months. I went to Sydney. I went to Manila. I went to Shanghai. I started our corporate blog. I wrote a feature story. I acted as moderator at a conference. I judged a category in an industry awards thingy. My iMac had kernel panics – bad RAM. My iPod died and I had panics – when you see that "Do not disconnect" sign while updating your iPod, trust me, they mean it. But my precious is OK now, just like March is all over now. April looks relatively easy, but I might go somewhere during Easter. Anyway. Here are some songs or artists that have been recommended by some of you guys. I should have done this a long time ago, so you can bet there'll be more like this in the future. Just let me know what you think I should hear by e-mailing me at alternativesounds {at} mac {dot} com. Thanks, you know who you are.

river of gold : eliza gilkyson

click here or on the image below to listen. 3m 20s

This woman has vocals to break your heart. An Austin, Texas-based folk artist, Eliza Gilkyson has been making music since 1979 and her last two albums, Land of Milk and Honey from 2004 and Paradise Hotel last year are quiet, emotional statements to issues she feels strongly about, from the war in Iraq to that freak in Washington to separation to spousal abuse. In spite of the intensity of these subjects, Gilkyson sings with a calmness that can only come from someone who is firm in her beliefs but looks at things with a level head. Nothing is oversung; all you get is an honestly passionate rendition of songs written with wisdom and from experience. River of Gold comes from her 1997 album Redemption Road, and as the album title suggests, it is about moving on after a personal failure, in this case, her marriage. It is a light take – note the sarcastic chuckle at the intro – on a bitter theme, but only just so. When she sings "I just want to get going before I'm too old," you can tell how much hurt and how broken she still feels in spite of keeping up her pride. She marches on with uncertainty, continuing to believe in fate. Just like many of us.

crank : catherine wheel

click here or on the image below to listen

Catherine Wheel vocalist Rob Dickinson had his solo debut album out last year, and you can sample three of the songs there in his myspace page. Meanwhile, here's the second most-downloaded song of the band on iTunes. This English band was formed in 1990, and it's very clear from the way they sound how stuck they were between the paranoia of the 80s and the anger of the 90s – take Gene Loves Jezebel or Echo and the Bunnymen and mix them with any of the guitar-heavy grunge bands of the 90s. In Crank, Dickinson has a brooding voice, with a depth and reverb of someone trapped in a cave. It's as menacing as an approaching storm, but if you're the type who, like me, finds even a little bit of thrill in dark clouds rolling in, then this is for you. It's just sad that the talented band never shot to fame, and it seems Dickinson is bound to have a similar fate solo in spite of his obvious attempt to sound this side of mainstream.

let's go karaoke!

2006-03-25T11:41:00.001+08:00

Been really busy this month so I'm just gonna let the songs speak for themselves...or not. Here are a couple of instrumental versions of popular songs by The Smiths and Chris Isaak, two all-time favorites of mine. See if you can find yourself around them. This Charming Man is tricky, but you'll catch up. Lyrics below. Come on, what better way to start your Saturday, huh?

this charming man : new york instrumental : the smiths

click here or on the album art below to listen.

This Charming Man

Punctured bicycle

On a hillside desolate

Will nature make a man of me yet ?

When in this charming car

This charming man

Why pamper life's complexities

When the leather runs smooth

On the passenger seat ?

I would go out tonight

But I haven't got a stitch to wear

This man said "It's gruesome

That someone so handsome should care"

A jumped-up pantry boy

Who never knew his place

He said "return the ring"

He knows so much about these things

I would go out tonight

But I haven't got a stitch to wear

This man said "It's gruesome

That someone so handsome should care"

Na, na-na, na-na, na-na, this charming man

Oh, na-na, na-na, na-na, this charming man

A jumped-up pantry boy

Who never knew his place

He said "return the ring"

He knows so much about these things

wicked game : instrumental : chris isaak

click here or on the album art below to listen.

Wicked Game

The world was on fire

No one could save me but you.

Strange what desire will make foolish people do

I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you

And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you

No, I don't want to fall in love

(This love is only gonna break your heart)

No, I don't want to fall in love

(This love is only gonna break your heart)

With you

What a wicked game you play

To make me feel this way

What a wicked thing to do

To let me dream of you

What a wicked thing to say

You never felt this way

What a wicked thing to do

To make me dream of you

And I don't wanna fall in love

(This love is only gonna break your heart)

And I don't want to fall in love

(This love is only gonna break your heart)

Nobody loves no one

i hope this doesn't become a habit

2006-03-17T08:32:00.001+08:00

I'm posting a couple of songs again sans commentary. I'm flying tonight to read at a wedding on Sunday, and then on Monday for business. See you all when I recover from this torture. Have a great weekend.

when finally set free : copeland

click here or on the band image below to listen. 3m 55s

A near perfect ambient/alternative rock song. I don't like the effete Death Cab For Cutie-sounding vocals. Other than that, it's a great one. Brave, kick-ass, start-up-the-engine intro.

a single wish : this mortal coil

click here or on the album art below to listen. 2m 27s

A song from 1984. Speaking of weddings, with its title and the way it sounds, this song could be a good background music for a wedding toast. Except that the lyrics toward the end says "It will all end in tears." Ha!

my soundtrack to sydney

2006-03-12T12:40:00.002+08:00

ibi dreams of pavement : broken social scene

click on the image below to listen

I'm posting this song as my soundtrack to my visit to this great Australian city because I saw these guys live at The Metro on March 4th, right after the famous Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. I didn't know they were playing; I was just walking down George St earlier that day when I saw their gig poster. I don't particularly like the band, which is actually an ever-changing collective of Toronto musicians led by vocalist Kevin Drew. I thought their only album that I have, the eponymous Broken Social Scene, is so technically contrived that it rendered the vocals – which are weak to begin with – nearly incomprehensible. It seems to me that each instrumentalist was playing so self-consciously that they completely lost coherence – and you can sense this immediately in Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day). Whether or not all that is deliberate, the album makes for a cacophonous listening experience, which is a shame because each song is rhythmically promising.

The concert – check out someone's flickr pictures of it here – did not change my mind; it was just as I described the album above. That didn't stop me from enjoying the live performance, though. There must have been 12 or 13 musicians that night, 10 of them on stage at any given time – two drummers, three guitarists who also play the trumpet, one bassist, one violinist, Kevin who also does guitar and keyboards, a saxophonist and a trumpeteer, plus two or three females doing the occasional lead and harmony vocals. For a group that has a very short discography, they basked in the warm welcome of the mostly teen-aged Sydneysiders and played for two-and-a-half hours, with Kevin jokingly telling the crowd not to leave yet because they had more songs in store. It was the last of their Australia tour and they were intent on having a good time, which they and everyone in the audience sure did. A few songs stretched beyond 10 minutes, with the rousing finale It's All Gonna Break going well above 20. That to me was the highlight, as well as the Joplinesque Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl and the crusty Superconnected. I played the album in my iPod for practically all of the next day.

a visual impression of sydney

2006-03-11T12:01:00.002+08:00

Click here to listen to my Sydney soundtrack and here to read my post about it.

That was fun! It was my first visit to Sydney, in fact to Australia. It was only when a work-related trip was confirmed that I realized I had no idea what the city is like. Unlike other major world cities, I had absolutely no mental picture of it other than the famous harbor with its Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. In many ways, it was a good thing because I had no expectations, and when you have no expectations, you can be easily pleased. But I was more than pleased with Sydney, in fact I was blown away. Beyond the harbor, it has a mixture of 1) understated charm in its tree-lined streets with al fresco dining, hidden gardens with lazy sunbathers, and characterful suburbs with interesting subcultures, and 2) a big-city vibe with its outrageous gay and red-light districts and dizzying shopping streets, populated by an ethnically diverse population that rivals anywhere in the world. Not to mention the beaches – take a short bus ride from the city center and you can spend an entire afternoon people-watching in Bondi Beach, or catching the waves in any of the breathtaking Northern Beaches. For these reasons, Sydney struck me as being homely – the city has a very high livability factor for me. I was there for five days, two of them on business, and this is my impression of it in three plus plus days.

sinfully red in goulburn st

No, I didn't go inside, but I saw an old tourist couple, each about 75 years old, step out of this shop and it turned out that they were staying in the same hotel in Darling Harbour as I was.

feeling the love in hyde park

I got to Sydney on the day of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. (It was actually a Saturday, but Samedi Gras doesn't sound right, does it?) To void having to crane my neck amid the 700,000 other tourists who went to see the event, I got a reserved seat (a A$103 damage to my wallet) at the southern end of Hyde Park. We had our own mini concert before the event, when this picture was taken. The paraders and the floats were unsurprisingly fabulous, but my favorite was the mostly middle-aged Federal Police who paraded in their pale blue uniform, holding hands with their equally butch-looking partners.

bondi dude

Bondi is not the place to go if you want to read a book by the beach – it can be crowded and the vibe of surfers and sunbathers is too infectious. It's a place to see and be seen.

i wanna be jack johnson

Taken from the northern end of Bondi Beach. To the south is the short but wide Tamarama Beach, and farther down, the more family-friendly Bronte Beach. It's a good four-kilometer walk from end to end – very rewarding especially if you do it late in the afternoon when you can enjoy moments of solitude with an arresting view of the Pacific Ocean.

love to love you baby

A couple, probably still in dating phase, enjoying the sunset over Tamarama Beach. I finished my Bondi-to-Bronte coastal walk with a beautiful dinner at Brio, a seafood-and-vegetarian Mod Oz restaurant along Bronte. I had a red beet salad, green-peas-and-mushroom risotto, and a very generous glass of Pinot. The salad was huge and the risotto this close to perfect. The staff was fun too – the waitress was a chatty Eastern European (I can't remember which country, but "not Russia," she said) hopping from table to table, constantly interrupted by a broken Billie Holiday CD. At the table across from me was a young googly-eyed Italian couple who each ate with one hand because they were holding hands the whole time. I bet the rest of their evening was more exciting than mine – I went back to the hotel with a throbbing head, thanks to the strong wine.

a diva of a building

I saw my first opera at the Sydney Opera House. It was Madama Butterfly by Puccini, presented by Opera Australia. I was a bit underwhelmed by the performance of the singer who played Pinkerton, and I was thinking maybe I just didn't know how to appreciate the art yet. During curtain call, however, the old man right behind me, and a few others at the back, booed the male lead. I felt sorry for him because the rest of the cast was very well received. I got in out of luck – the opera was almost completely booked for its entire run, and mine was the last seat available for that day. It cost me A$177, but I can't complain.

a looming presence

Taken from the observation deck above the row of quayside restaurants at The Rocks. I promised myself to do the three-hour Bridge Climb or the shorter Pylon Lookout climb, but I just didn't have the time. I caught the Saturday market at The Rocks, and it didn't give me a very good impression of the oldest, colonial-era part of the city. It's all tourist fare – the shops, the pubs, and the market itself. I guess had I walked beyond I would've seen the more authentic parts of this cobbled neighborhood where the Europeans first settled.

dream of the humping turtles

Taken from the same observation deck. It's above a fancy Mod Oz restaurant in The Rocks called Quay, where I had the priciest vegetarian dinner ever: A$102 for a fig salad, a polenta with zucchini, and a glass of Riesling. I was having a quiet dinner by myself with a view of the Opera House right in front of me and the bridge to my left, until a group of five young MBA types sat at the table next to mine. Dominating the conversation with his loud voice was – surprise! – an American who I guess studied in the UK because he kept referring to university as "uni." A Bostonian, he was recently married to a New Yorker from Ellis Island named Ellen, and has a brother Scott who works at PwC, apparently in Sydney because Scott flew all the way from Sydney to attend his wedding. At one point, our hero asks the sheila, "Do you use the word lettuce in Australia?" To which she replies, "Yeah, although when I hear lettuce I don't normally think of, you know, rocket, just the normal one," with her palm up and slightly curled, as if holding a cabbage. Moving on...

whoosh

Skateboarders breeze past a relaxing tourist in front of St. Mary's Cathedral next to Hyde Park. There is an overrated Chinese vegetarian restaurant at the Cook and Phillip Park across the church, called Bodhi. I had spring rolls and a mock Peking duck for dinner, and it was nothing more special than the mom-and-pop lunchbox corner shops selling similar fare in Chinatown. Maybe I just didn't order the right food. The cool decor and outdoor seating, however, are really nice.

smooth sailing

A perfect day for a quiet sail in the Northern Beaches. A drive around this part of Sydney was the highlight of my trip, thanks in large part to an Internet friend whom I hadn't met before, but who had the kindness to spend a good part of his day to take me to its best parts. Sydneysiders are so blessed to have such natural beauty at their doorstep – and there are 14 of them!

palm calm

This is Palm Beach, the northernmost of the beaches, and I think one of the longest too. One great thing about Sydney's beaches is that they're not just long, but most of them seem to slope very gradually too. Also, the beaches usually have a pool with seawater where families can introduce kids to swimming, and where the elderly can still enjoy the beach atmosphere without ~~losing their teeth~~ getting overwhelmed by the waves. Very thoughtful.

birds beach buddies

You got your friends, you got the beach, you got fish, you got all you need. This one's from Whale Beach. With its prime views, owning property in the Northern Beaches is apparently a very expensive proposition.

room with a view

A couple enjoying the view of the city skyline from Sydney Harbour National Park, north of the Harbour Bridge. Apart from its huge parks like Hyde and the Botanical Gardens, the city has lots of green spaces and plazas you could just stumble into to find sunbathing locals sharing the space with map-reading low-class backpacking loooooosers.

work those abs

Crunch time at Hyde Park.

hop on hop off

Like every major city, Sydney has tourist buses that take you to the top attractions in about a couple of hours.

just two final beach shots

The tucked-away Turimetta Beach, a short downhill walk off the main road. The most popular of the Northern Beaches is no doubt Manly, the southernmost, and having a drink at the wharf is probably the best way to end a trip in this part of Sydney, just before catching the half-hour ferry ride back to Circular Quay which gives you an unbeatable view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

can't wait to go back

With proper swimming attire.

off to sydney i am i am

2006-03-03T17:09:00.001+08:00

I'm flying to Sydney in four hours. I haven't packed yet, so I'll just leave you with a song from my favorite Aussie band, The Go-Betweens. This song is especially for those who visit regularly – you rock! Oh and also here's a Spanish pop ballad I've been meaning to post but keep forgetting to. It's by Laura Pausini, an Italian singer who won this year's Grammy for best Latin pop album. Other than having a powerful voice, she's also quite yummy.

rock and roll friend : the go-betweens

click on the band pic below to listen. 3m 33s

como si no nos hubieramos amado : laura pausini

click on her pic below to listen. 4m

the title translates to as if we never loved each other

coldplay and immy for a saturday night

2006-02-25T14:44:00.002+08:00

white shadows : morgan page bootleg remix : coldplay

click on the image below to listen. 8m 24s

My first and probably last Coldplay post. The anti-Chris Martin campaign has infiltrated my brain. I think Mr. Paltrow has a really annoying face and can't shave to save his life. Besides that, I really have no strong feelings about the band. I liked the first album, listened to the second a few times, and couldn't get myself to pick up the third. It was only the completist in me that finally made me buy X&Y a couple of weeks ago. Blah, tired and tiresome. Which is why I'm excited to share this remix with all you wonderful people. Morgan Page is a brilliant young DJ from Los Angeles, and Cease & Desist is his latest work of bootleg remixes of big-name acts, from Coldplay and The Kills to David Bowie and Morcheeba. Morgan's claim to fame is the remix of the song Angel by Wax Poetic, featuring the vocals of Norah Jones. The band and the singer loved the mix and put in a good word for him with Atlantic Records. Morgan has since recorded legitimate mixes – he has a few EPs on sale on iTunes – but still does bootlegs, and with White Shadows, he makes Coldplay listenable again.

hide and seek : morgan page bootleg remix : imogen heap

click on the hiawatha headdress below to listen. 6m 04s

At 24, Morgan has only a good future ahead of him. His mixes ooze with confidence. Every song in Cease & Desist is so polished and fluid that it's impossible to tell it's not the work of an industry veteran. Where Morgan excels is his unpredictable choice of materials. The Kills! Tegan and Sara! Sam Phillips! I like what he does with Hide And Seek, an electroacappella – yeah, I made that word up – by British artist Imogen Heap, because like all of Cease & Desist, it's innovative, fresh, and original, which is kind of an odd thing to say about a bootleg remix. And what does Morgan have to say about it? “Actually, looking for permission to remix other people’s music is usually the worst thing you can do,” he tells The Boston Herald. “I admit I was concerned about a legal backlash at first, but I got so much positive feedback about these mixes – which were basically just taking up a lot of space on my hard drive – I felt like I had to release them. Nowadays, remixes are more of a marketing crossover tool than anything else.” Damn right. Tracks from Cease & Desist are playing on a number of radio stations, including KCRW.

Obviously, the album isn't available for sale, and you can no longer download it from Morgan's website. (It was such a hit that the downloads exceeded his bandwidth.) But you can sign up on his website and he'll e-mail you the whole album. I think. I actually found out about it when Morgan e-mailed me a link to the downloads. (So apparently he has visited this site...which shows how much good taste this guy has.)

sinéad and matisyahu : two white takes on marley

2006-02-19T12:29:00.002+08:00

war : sinéad o'connor

click on the image below to listen. 4m 06s

It wasn't a surprise to me when Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor came up with a reggae album late last year. In one of the earliest interviews of hers that I read – and this was way back in 1990 when she burst into the charts, thanks to her cover of Prince's Nothing Compares 2U in all her glorious baldness – she said that Bob Marley was one of the people that made her want to be a musician. For a woman known for being daring, there was never any doubt she could and would do it, and Sinéad hinted at it around 1995 when she lent her vocals to the song Empire, written by Rastafarian dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah and produced by Bomb The Bass, a.k.a. Tim Simenon. And let's not forget when she sang War by Marley a cappella on Saturday Night Live in 1992 – a performance better remembered for her tearing a picture of Pope John Paul II and delivering the infamous line, "Fight the real enemy."

Sinéad has subsequently regeretted the act, so don't count on Pope Benedict being given the same honor should Sinéad ever perform the song in public again. In Throw Down Your Arms, her first album since her second retirement, Sinéad finally makes a proper tribute to reggae, and she fittingly caps the 12-song cover album with a new version of War. It's a faithful tribute, with near identical instrumentation flawlessly swirling around her never-do-wrong vocals. She changes the lyrics a bit, substituting "sisters in Africa" for "brothers in Angola" in the third verse. A feminist and human-rights advocate, Sinéad probably did that to stress not just the usual abuse that women everywhere suffer, but also to address female circumcision in some African societies, a practice done to suppress a woman's sexual desires and perhaps to also symbolize a woman's faithfulness to her husband. That slight change gave to me a new meaning to the phrase "sub-human bondage" in the same verse. Mad props to Sinéad for this work. I'm forever a fan.

chop 'em down : matisyahu

click on the image below to listen. 4m 03s

When you hear a lanky 26-year-old Hasidic Jew from New York singing reggae with beat-boxing and hip-hop twists, you can probably say you've heard it all. Matisyahu is Matthew Miller, who had had a non-Orthodox upbringing until he went on a school-sponsored trip to Israel. A big fan of Bob Marley with dreadlocks to prove it, Miller ended up staying for two years to deeply immerse himself in Judaism. He returned to New York at 19 with a big idea: to marry the sound of reggae with rhymes from his faith. It sounds like a joke, but Miller mastered it in a few years, and last year he announced his arrival with a new name and a debut ablum, Live at Stubb's, which received rave reviews. His new album, Youth, will probably take him mainstream. Look beyond the idea of a white man effecting a Jamaican accent (thanks to Sting, the association hasn't been positive) and you will find that his voice is not only powerful but also soulful. Like his onstage performances infused with madman vigor, Matisyahu's singing is compelling. Reggae has always been associated with resistance and dissent, but neither seems to be the subject of Matisyahu's music. In Chop 'Em Down, from the live album, he tells the story of Moses and Joseph, two unlikely people – both strangers in their kingdoms – who cleared their own paths to become leader or savior of their people. I love this line: Strange ways running through the maze, strange ways always lost in the desert trying to find your place. Matisyahu flies straight in the face of today's reggae artists, and that's a good thing. Watch an 11-minute short film on Matisyahu here, and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live here.

the evolution of david gray

2006-02-16T02:36:00.001+08:00

lately : david gray

click on the image on the left to listen. 4m 13s

january rain : david gray

2m 44s

It took a while for me to fully appreciate David Gray's latest album, Life in Slow Motion. I bought it last October and had not listened to it again until about a week ago. Here, Gray eschewed recording in his basement as he did for his six albums prior, and hired producer Marcus deVries, who has worked with Björk and Rufus Wainwright, to deliver this wannabe epic. The result is 45 minutes of music to scratch your head with and wonder what the hell happened. His formula of unadorned acoustics rolling with a drum machine worked for him very well. But probably because the air space for guitar-hugging singer-songwriters is getting crowded, Gray decided to go for the antithesis: a highly dramatic orchestral arrangement where his voice could soar higher than it did before. He drives this point with the funereal opening song, Alibi, which makes me draw some parallels with Agnus Dei, the opener of Wainwright's Want Two. Lately is probably the only song in Slow Motion that harks back to the old formula, which also makes it my favorite track. And just for good measure, I'm also posting the heart-tugging instrumental January Rain from his Lost Songs album. I think it was also used in Serendipity, the movie that helped popularize Babylon, from White Ladder.

cover your head

2006-02-07T14:34:00.002+08:00

every little thing he does is magic : shawn colvin

click on the couple below to listen

Okay, so we are still in the covers phase. Listen to this one by Shawn Colvin from her 1994 album Cover Girl, which came two years before she hit the big time with A Few Small Repairs. The original by The Police is still eminently better, but I like the simple, unpretentious arrangement of this version. In fact, it would take a major fuck-up for me not to like a professional cover of this song, which I love for its lyrics. I can even specify which line is my favorite: It's a big enough umbrella, but it's always me that ends up getting wet.

I find that line very graphic, and I take it almost in isolation from the rest of the lyrics. This may not be the intended meaning when Sting wrote it, but I think that line is a great analogy for someone who gives so much in a relationship but still ends up getting the raw end of the deal. And yet there he is, devoted as a dog. Another line I like from this song: I resolve to call her up a thousand times a day, And ask her if she'll marry me in some old fashioned way. I thought that was maddeningly obsessive, and I thought I was the only one who thought so, so imagine my surprise when that line was actually uttered by a stalker in a movie. Remember Conspiracy Theory? The paranoid Mel Gibson character recited that line to Julia Roberts in a train station, if I remember it right. And yet, it's Every Breath You Take that came to be known as "the stalker song."

'tis the month of luuurve

2006-02-02T00:30:00.001+08:00

Someone said in a comment here many months ago that most of the songs I post are full of depression and anger and I don't necessarily disagree. So for this month (um...maybe until the 14th) the theme of this blog is love: music for moments when your heart skips a beat. Starting with:

thinking of you : paul weller

click on the teddy to listen

It's a bit surprising to me that the prolific former singer and songwriter for punk-rock legends The Jam would turn to a Sister Sledge song for a pop ballad he could easily have penned himself. It's a good complement to You're the Best Thing which was a big hit for Weller's 80s band, The Style Council. Like any Top 40 cheeseball, this song is laden with clichés and cookie-cutter platitudes and promises – the part about his love being "fully equipped with a lifetime guarantee" always makes me laugh. But I like it. It actually makes for a good wedding song, which is sort of why I rediscovered it – a friend who got married last month asked me for song suggestions to play at his wedding. Enjoy the song.

this is how he do it

2006-01-30T09:00:00.001+08:00

tiny cities made of ashes : sun kil moon

click below left to listen. 3m 41s

tiny cities made of ashes : modest mouse

click below right to listen. 3m 13s

It's not often that you find a cover version of a song that's practically unrecognizable from the original. In most cases, what differentiates one from the other is the genre of the respective artists, like the White Stripes doing a demented rock version of Dolly Parton's country classic Jolene, or Skinny Puppy transforming Borderline by Madonna into an electro-rock travesty. Still, the rhythm, the pace, or sometimes both are usually the same, and anyone who knows the words would be able to follow. That's not the case with Mark Kozelek's cover of 11 Modest Mouse songs in Tiny Cities, his latest album under his band Sun Kil Moon.

Kozelek is not new to covers; he's done tributes to musicians as varied as John Denver, AC/DC, and Simon and Garfunkel. But this is the first time he took only one element of the songs – the lyrics – to create his own versions of them. In each song from Tiny Cities, gone are the electric guitars and Modest Mouse vocalist Isaac Brock's verbal vomit of philosophical thought. Kozelek placates them with his own brand of acoustic-guitar wistfulness and tempered, if slurred, singing. In some, he cuts the length of the songs down to a third. "If you listen to a song like Exit Does Not Exist, those words are coming out like an automatic weapon. It's really, really fast," he tells Pitchfork. "It's beautiful, but it's something that, if you're not into Modest Mouse, it's just going to go right by. I've slowed them down, and there's enough space in there that you can really hear what's going on. It becomes my own colors, you know?"

In Tiny Cities Made of Ashes – click here for the lyrics – what was menacing and foreboding has become a mixture of irony and resignation. It made me wonder, How many ways can the same set of words be expressed differently? If three different people sang Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 in three different ways, the outcome would probably be the same: they would all be sentimental and overflowing with love. With musicians like Kozelek, that may not be the case.

she whose name must not be spoken

2006-01-12T00:59:00.001+08:00

Been busy and lazy this past coupla weeks, though I've been listening to a lot of good new(ish) music lately, like the four songs below. Not much to say, really, but I thought posting songs with little or nothing to say about them is better than not posting at all. So here you go.

unsingable name : mike doughty

click on the image below to listen. 4m 17s

complicated situation : black rebel motorcycle club

click on the image below to listen. 2m 37s

over and over again : clap your hands say yeah

click on the image below to listen. 3m 09s

no woman no cry : jonathan butler

click on the image below to listen. 6m 05s

happy new year all, and wish us well.

2006-01-04T01:49:00.002+08:00

pocketful of rainbows : elvis presley

click on the image below to listen

For the reason I'll say in a while, I'm starting the year with a comfort song. With a title that suggests of childlike cheer, complete with pre-recording banter between Elvis and his producer, this song is so blissfully infectious it makes you want to reach into your pocket and hope to find something candy-colored. You also gotta love the man's voice here, playfully alternating three or more vocal ranges, which is so unlike the crooning Elvis we know from his more popular ballads. It's a comfort song for me because (much like comfort food) it's something I know by heart and that lightens up my mood. R, my significant other, and I could wrap ourselves with the warmth of this song for what we have before us. No, scratch that. We choose to be as optimistic as this song because of what lies ahead. Of her, especially.

Just days before Christmas, R was diagnosed to have breast cancer, and was told that surgery was need within about a month, which today means some time in the next couple of weeks. We're being very positive about it. R is very strong emotionally, more so than I am, I must say. Naturally, she was devastated at first, but my love and admiration for her grow everyday as I see how she deals with it with unflinching spirit, never losing her humor and grace, never shedding a tear or breaking her voice even as we speak about what she will go through in the next few days, and the weeks that will follow. Lumpectomy, radiotherapy, possible chemotherapy are words we never thought she would have to deal with. But we have accepted the fact and we're together in all respects in getting through this. This is just another trial which we have the strength and faith to bear. Our pockets are filled with rainbows, and our hearts full of love.

my last post for the year. maybe.

2005-12-16T16:05:00.001+08:00

thank you : china crisis

click on mona below to listen

I’m blogging from the airport, waiting for my flight for a two-week break. I had planned a proper year-end post with my own list of the best songs of 2005 (everybody else does albums) but it looks like that will have to wait. The past couple of weeks have been quite hectic.

Looking back on the past year, this blog has been one of the highlights for me. I started it primarily as a very personal project – I just wanted to have a creative outlet. I write for a living and this is a good counterbalance to the kind of material I deal with every day. I enjoy sharing the songs I like, I enjoy writing about them (most of the time), and I’m overjoyed that nearly every visitor who sends feedback through comments or e-mails appreciates my posts. Hence, this song, by China Crisis. Best known for their 80s hits Wishful Thinking and African and White, China Crisis continued to produce songs through the 90s, albeit in obscurity. Thank You comes from their mid-90s album Warped by Success, which is an excellent adult-alternative effort that’s very different from their New Wave days. Enjoy the smooth vocals and soothing melody of the song, which is just the kind of sound we need for the holidays.

Have fun and enjoy the season, whatever it is you're celebrating. And have a great new year, too.

this title will change

2005-12-08T03:23:00.002+08:00

I wish I had the time to write more about the following songs. But I've wasted enough time surfing already and it's time to go to bed. Oh well. Enjoy.

burn that broken bed : calexico | iron and wine

listening time : 5m 06s

Listen to this song with noise-cancelling earphones. Burn That Broken Bed – and in fact all songs in In The Reins, a collaborative project of Joey Burns of Calexico and Sam Beam of Iron and Wine – is an interplay of hushed vocals and instrumentations that the best way to appreciate it is in isolation in a dark corner of the room. Every lilt, pluck, beat and hum brushes like a young feather against your skin. This seven-song, 27-minute EP has been on repeat in my iPod for a few days now, and it only gets better each listen. Beam and Burns are (often wrongly) labeled as sadcore, but In the Reins is celebratory. A review from Pitchfork.

homesick : the finn brothers

listening time : 3m 48s

This is my anthem for the month. I'm flying home! I'll be reading at my best female friend's wedding on the 17th in a chilly mountain resort, and I will have the chance to go around before I see my family for Christmas and New Year. So I'm using the occasion to post this song by The Finn Brothers, the guys responsible for the great Crowded House. Whether solo, part of a group, or working with brother Tim, New Zealand-born vocalist Neil Finn has always written songs about journeys and coming home, no doubt because he has been in exile most of his life, in Australia where Crowded House hit the big time in the 80s, and then touring and recording everywhere since. Everyone is Here, for example, was recorded last year in LA. A review from The Guardian.

winter in the hamptons : josh rouse

listening time : 3m 08s

I like Josh Rouse. He's filled with goodwill. Winter in the Hamptons is probably the least country of all the songs in his album Nashville, which seemingly is a departure from his alt-country roots, but I love its mixture of energy and lethargy. Probably half the songs in the album show that Rouse doesn't always write the most interesting melodies, but he more than makes up for it with witty songwriting. My favorite line from my other favorite song, It's the Nighttime: And maybe later on/After the late Late Show/We can go to your room/I can try on your clothes. How fun is that? A review from Stylus magazine.

sub-one minute stuff : interludes and fillers

2005-12-04T14:52:00.001+08:00

click on the corresponding number for instant gratification!

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1 : are you coming down this weekend? : his name is alive : 18s
2 : roi (reprise) : the breeders : 42s
3 : pantala naga pampa : dave matthews band : 40s
4 : germaine : sinéad o'connor : 38s
5 : go free : moby : 38s
6 : enormously wealthy : utah phillips : 43s
7 : country mike's theme : the beastie boys : 35s
8 : rollercoaster : shoestrings : 49s
9 : i'll kill ya : dialogue from lock stock & two smoking barrels : 42s
10 : parachutes : coldplay : 46s
11 : let's hear that string part again, because i don't think they heard it all the way out in bushnell : sufjan stevens : 40s
12 : like a virgin : dialogue from reservoir dogs : 58s
13 : dead duck : badly drawn boy : 46s

three songs this weekend!

2005-11-27T00:01:00.001+08:00

Click on the image below each title to listen.

aerial : kate bush
listening time: 7m 52s but well worth it

This is the title track from Kate Bush's first album in 12 years, and the one I love the most. Nothing should stop me from calling it a perfect album. It deserves all the praise it has so far received. Aerial is a deliberate work of sophisticated art. Every note, instrument and pause is arranged to fulfil both contrast and complementarity, and Ms. Bush at 47 has only matured with age, sounding more in control of her style and being more compelling in her songwriting than she ever has been. I can't think of any other artist who can sing the words "washing machine" repeatedly and convey the little tragedies of domestic life. Her greatest asset of course is her voice, which she uses in great variety in Aerial – from the anthemic highs and lows of A Coral Room, a solo piano number reminiscent of This Woman's Work, to the soft sensual warbling of Somewhere in Between. There is no dull moment in this album; just when you think a song has hit that point, as what happens halfway through Sunset, she picks up the pace and injects a dose of flamenco. In Aerial, the final song in the two-CD set, Ms. Bush pushes her talent for dance tracks that she has long demonstrated in songs like Heads We’re Dancing from the album This Sensual World. Here, she morphs into queen of trance, and closing your eyes while listening to its beat, you can imagine yourself being slowly lifted off the ground, shutting off external noise that when she sings "I can't hear a word you're saying," you can feel exactly what she means. The original is great in itself, but Aerial is just begging to be remixed...

vox : extended version : sarah mclachlan
listening time: 6m 50s

...which reminds me of Sarah McLachlan, who isn't new to remixes. In fact, her last album of originals, Afterglow, is now sandwiched by two albums of remixes: Remixed from 2003 and this year's Bloom, which digs deeper into her short but distinguished discography. The former is tolerable; the latter is just awful, especially because it butchers some of her best songs, like Vox. With the exception of Dirty Little Secret done by Thievery Corporation, Bloom reduces her songs to nothing more than the babbling of a woman with a fine voice, then muffling them with relentlessly pounding beats or pointlessly looping them with pointless echoes. Did I just say pointless twice? I guess I can't stress that enough, and that is why I'm posting this early remix of Vox, coming from her album Rarities, B-Sides and Other Stuff. It is invigorating, as opposed to numbing, which is what Bloom is.

bedtime story : madonna
listening time: 4m 53s

Now I'm posting Bedtime Story because for some reason Aerial also reminded me of this song. Well, I guess not just for some reason. It's also a beautiful trance/electronica track, done to perfection with production by Bjork. This is how it should sound if Kate Bush's song is to be remixed. Bedtime Story comes from Madonna's underrated album, Bedtime Stories, which is her transition from I'm-here-to-shock-you (Erotica) to take-me-seriously (Ray of Light) diva. Unfortunately, everything after Ray of Light has been downhill, and even her fine physical form in the video of Hung Up can't mask the fact that she's lost it. As I've said somewhere here before, Madonna can't hold it on her own anymore, and her sampling of ABBA is just a more creative variation of her onscreen liplocking with Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. And to think she's the same age as Kate Bush.

Feel free to agree.

Artwork for Kate Bush and Madonna came from New York Magazine. I normally use publicity shots for this blog, but this one seemed convenient.