12 Aug 2009

Techno-fabulousness

Waiting from My Robot Friend and Alison Moyet. Moyet at her most Yazoo-like since Yazoo

10 Aug 2009

The shake and shuffe game

Not as tragically gay, 80s, or pop as I feared it might be...


(1) Turn on your MP3 player or iTunes or whatever.
(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
(3) Write down the first 25 songs that come up--song title and artist
--NO editing/cheating, please. Doesn't have to be 25. Could be 20, 50, whatever.
(4) Choose some people to be tagged. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you.

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Who'd have guessed my iTunes is such a moody bugger, ha!

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And on Yazoo
Yazoo, 'Yaz' were definitely on the soundtrack to my youth and this song about a friend's funeral fit my teenage black mood.

Icct Hedral Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin doing Phillip Glass. Good for moments when you need the mood to go absolutely creepy

Ceux qui n'ont rien, Patricia Kaas
'Moi je connais le bleu, des matins malheureux' and she's sexy as hell

Airplane, Indigo Girls
The Indigo Girls came to UC Davis with Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey, Jr. to raise awareness for some campaign issue or other. We were all shocked at how bad his skin was. SJP wasn't yet SATC so no one really said much. The Girls sat with the students, listening to other bands play, signing autographs and hanging with whomever, which I thought was pretty cool

Weird Fishes / Arpeggi, Radiohead
A love song as only Radiohead could write

Early Autumn, Ella Fitzgerald
Tell me about it, Ella. She's definitely my go-to-girl on Sundays and it's been a really long Autumn here, already.

Some people, Belouis Some
There was a music video show on channel 36, only on Summer afternoons, that played music from the UK this was one I remember from it.

China, Tori Amos
I have way too much Tori Amos on my iTunes. I blame my need for medication on her, but I like this song.

This House, Alison Moyet
My most favouritest-ever singer. Another depressing song but one of the best. "Under these fingertips a strange body rolls and dips I close my eyes and you're here again. Later as day descends. I'll shout from my window. To anyone listening, "I'm losing"'

Overground, Siouxsie and the Banshees
I used to listen to KROQ at nights in my room with the lights out. It really bugged my father for some reason, but it introduced me to Siouxsie Sue and although I was probably clinically depressed, I remember it fondly.

Trains to Brazil, Guillemots
Most likely a iTunes song of the week, but I like the rawness of it.

Ay fond kiss, Eddie Reader
From the poem by Robert Burns. 'Had we never lov'd so kindly, Had we never lov'd so blindly! Nor never met nor never parted, We would never be so broken-hearted.'

Am I the Only One (who's ever felt that way) Maria McKee
We saw this pinup of AltCountry play at a club in Santa Cruz. When the first song applause didn't meet with her approval she shouted down the mic 'This ain't no f***ing folk band'

Promise, David Sylvian
My friend Tim turned me onto David Sylvian, former lead singer of 80s band Japan. Now, I go with him every time David plays in concert (and he gets dragged with me every time Alison Moyet plays.) His album with Nine Horses is brilliant.

Radio, Robbie Williams
Cheesy, cocky and currently out of favour, but I like him anyway

To the workers of the Rock River Valley Region, Sufjan Stevens
I love that someone's writing chamber music these days. We'll see if he manages to write an album for each of the 50 states, but I think he's a brilliant lyric writer.

Country Mile, Camera Obscura
From the music researcher in our office. Obscura, indeed.

If you leave, OMD
RIP John Hughes

Beds are Burning, Midnight Oil
I've no idea I had this song. I liked the anger in his voice

Pleasure is all mine, Bjork
From the difficult to like album Medulla even though I like Bjork immensely. I saw her once at the local butchers in Maida Vale, dressed head to toe in pink fleece

Feel Good, Inc, Gorillaz
I always feel good hearing this song. It's on my gym playlist.

Cavaleir Monge, Mariza
Mariza is arguably the world's most famous singer of Fado, a Portugese folk music born in the taverns of Portugal. Haunting and beautifully sung

Optimistic Radiohead
Radiohead? Almost never.

Ich bin der Welt Abhanden Gekommen, Kathleen Ferrier
Ah, nice surprise. I've been working my way through Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise, a majestic survey of 20th C. music, and downloaded this scratchy recording of Mahler's lied because no newer ones bested Ferrier's mournful voice. " I am lost to the world with which I used to waste so much time, It has heard nothing from me for so long that it may very well believe that I am dead."

7 Aug 2009

Sand drawing

Obsessive and beautiful


Via ZeFrank