New music for 2014

I would have thought my top 10 would be my last post for the year, but these lists always come so early. Everyone starts posting them like December 1, which makes me feel like I need to rush to post mine, then I get it up like halfway through the month, and then there's half a month left where I'm still listening to music but I feel weird posting again cause it just doesn't feel right. But screw it, I'm doing it. And this one feels ok, since it's about what I'm looking forward to in 2014, so it's fitting.

In the spirit of the New Year I guess I could discuss New Year's Resolutions, of which I have none. I've always found it kind of arbitrary to pick the year end to resolve to do something or change something in your lifestyle. It makes sense, what with the new year and all that, but I've always thought that if I want to change something or resolve to do something, then I can do it anytime I want. So I don't bother racking my brains trying to come up with something to change for the next year, and just go for things as they come to me. But there are things I'm excited about for 2014, so here's a list, in no particular order despite those numbers trying to fool you:

1. The big three zero
2. Australia
3. My sister's graduation and possible subsequent trip
4. Traveling in general (Germany has been good for that, 2014 will hopefully include weekends to Copenhagen, Paris, London, Slovenia and Georgia)
5. Beth Brash's wedding
6. (Hopefully) moving back to China
7. Food. Always food.
8. (Hopefully) becoming BFF with Haim

And then there is music which I'm looking forward to for 2014. Artists who I've found in 2013 that I really like, but who have yet to release an album. Or artists who are releasing new music in 2014. I always go to BBC's Sound of... series to see what they have to say, and there's some good ones this year. In fact one of mine is on there, as are a few others that I'm enjoying at the moment. I guess there's a lot of stuff I'm looking forward to, but there are two that come to mind when I try to think of stuff I'm looking forward to. But not to fear, there is a whole list at the bottom.

The first one, and the one that made it to the BBC's long list, is Banks. She's released a couple of EPs, and apparently has been described as Ellie Goulding covering The Weeknd, which is actually pretty close when I think about it. Better than anything I could think of. And she apparently toured with The Weeknd too. Not too bad for a little girl from Tarzana (disclaimer: I don't know how little she is, but I imagine she's like 18. That's little enough). My favourite track by her so far is This Is What It Feels Like, which I just learned was produced by Jamie Woon, which makes sense when I listen to it.




The next one that I'm looking forward to is SOHN. I don't know so much about him, but I think he's British. That's about it. And he's worked with some other amazing artists, like the aforementioned Banks and Kwabs. Sometimes it feels like these Brits are taking over my musical life. Like half of my top 10 this year was British. What can I say, I guess they  know what they're doing. Anyway, here's Bloodflows, my favourite SOHN track.




Of course there are others that I'm looking forward to, some new, some not so new (complete with links to older blog posts!). On the not so new artist side, there's new music from James Vincent McMorrow, Sabina Sciubba (of Brazilian Girls, and possibly even some from Brazilian Girls), Warpaint, Broken Bells, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Jezabels, and St. Vincent. And on the new artist side, aside from Banks and SOHN, there's Dan Croll, Kelela, Kwabs, Say Lou Lou, Bipolar Sunshine, and RY X.

And of course Jai Paul. Always Jai Paul. A boy can dream...

Top 10 Albums of 2013

I've spent the last couple of weeks going back over all the music I loved this year, and was pleasantly surprised. 2013 left me feeling like it wasn't an amazing year for music, but when I looked back at how many albums I loved this year, there were more than expected.

As always, it's hard to narrow it down to 10, but here we go. I have attempted to put them in some sort of order, though I make no guarantees that I might change my mind tomorrow. I leave it for you with no comment, but with links to previous blogs if they exist, and best of all, with a Spotify playlist of my favourite tracks from each album down at the bottom.


10. Local Natives - Hummingbird

As seen here.
















9. James Blake - Overgrown

















8. Haim - Days Are Gone

As seen here.
















7. Foals - Holy Fire

















6. Laura Mvula - Sing To the Moon

As seen here.

5. Daughter - If You Leave

As seen here.
















4. CHVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe

















3. Lucius - Wildewoman

As seen here and here.
















2. Laura Marling - Once I Was an Eagle

















1. Bonobo - The North Borders

As seen here.

And as promised, a playlist with my two favourite tracks from each album. Again, I make no guarantees that this will not change tomorrow. Not the list, I'm too lazy to update that, but my opinion about my favourites. And if you like it, I have other playlists on Spotify you can listen to.



All about Africa

I just got back to Asia after being gone for like 2 1/2 months. And as much as I don't love Singapore (it's fine, I don't dislike it or anything, but it's not the most exciting place), I actually could not wait to be back here. I think it was the food that did it. Food in rural Germany is not the most exciting thing, and there are not many options. And worst of all there is an utter lack of anything spicy. And if you know me, you know I rarely go a day without eating something spicy.

The point of the above paragraph was twofold: first to make sure you know how much I like spicy food, and second to inform you that I am jetlagged and my brain is not working properly, so I'm going to forgo the storytelling and my usual poor attempts at wittiness and just get on to the music. But not to worry, I will get slightly off topic below.

It's a bit of a medley this time. I've found a few African artists I really like lately (of course I would do this when I'm no longer living in Africa), so I thought I'd just share a song from each of them.

The first is Rokia Traoré,a Malian singer who sings mostly in Bambara and French. On her new album, Beautiful Africa, she sings in English a bit too, which sounds weird to me. But she's great, and Mali is a great country, at least based on the little bit of it that I've seen. I would actually really like to go back and properly visit sometime. Kouma is one of my favourites off said new album.




Then there's Bombino, a Nigerien singer. From Niger, not Nigeria. Unlike Mali, Niger is not a great country. Granted I was only there for like 24 hours, but what I saw was pretty barren. Then we were meant to stay in what we were told was the second nicest hotel in Niamey, but there were cockroaches in the beds. Not just in the rooms, but actually in the beds. Like on my pillow. We changed hotels.

Also getting into the country was really sketchy. Technically you need a visa in advance, but our contacts set it up so we could get visas on arrival. This involved the police taking my passport at the border, sending it to HQ in Niamey to process the visa, and giving it back to me about an hour before I flew out of the country. So basically I had no passport the entire time I was there and almost missed my flight to leave cause we were waiting for the visa. I guess it's better than when I went to Cote d'Ivoire. Same visa situation as Niger, but they didn't even bother to give me the visa when I landed in Abidjan. Instead, they just kept my passport at the airport and told me to pick it up on the way out of the country. So I actually have on record in my passport of ever having visited.

But I digress. Bombino also put out a new album this year, Nomad. It's pretty fantastic Tuareg rock, sung in Tamashek (I only know this because of Wikipedia). I think it makes great driving music. Actually I think most African music I like makes great driving music. Here's Amidinine, the opening track.




And last but not least comes John Wizards. This is a group, not a person, from Cape Town. Much like Mali, Cape Town is also great. In fact, I'd say it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And not just Cape Town, but the whole surrounding region. The singer is apparently from Rwanda, though, another wonderful African country. In fact Kigali is one of the 3 cities in Africa that I would actually be happy to live in (the others being Cape Town and Maputo). It's safe, beautiful, the people are nice, and they've done an excellent job of recovering from their history. It also seems to have a really vibrant, young expat community full of people doing interesting things, and there's lots of opportunity in that country. But again, I digress.

John Wizards self-titled debut album came out this year and it's kind of weird, but I kind of really like it. And the more I listen to it the more I like it. My favourite track is Muizenberg, which also happens to be a small surfer town just south of Cape Town.

So to summarize: Mali, Cape Town and Rwanda - good. Niger - not so good. But still better than Senegal. Senegal is horrible. It's probably my least favourite country not just in Africa, but in the world. And I've been 3 times. I hope I never have to go again. But to end on a positive note, at least Senegalese food is delicious. I'll take Yassa poullet and a bissap any day.

Fink x Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

In a thought which is completely unrelated to the rest of this blog, it is always a conscious decision for me not to start sentences with "So." I feel like I do it too much. And every blog I write I type "So" as soon as I begin, then delete it go without it. Maybe it's just me. Now on to the story.

One of the most wonderful things happened to me the other night. I was down in Munich for a Haim and Phoenix show. I was actually there for Haim because I was extremely disappointed in Phoenix's new album. Luckily for me they played mostly songs from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (about half of the set) and only like 2 songs off the new album, one of them being Entertainment, which is actually a great song. Anyway point being, I was there for Haim and they did not disappoint. Those girls really rocked it, which was kind of surprising considering the level of poppiness there is in their album.

Aside from the show being all around fantastic, I had been dreaming about meeting Haim for a while now. I was even home talking to a friend about this about a month ago and what I should say if I get to meet them (you can read about that here). Then at the concert I was texting my sister somewhat joking about it, never thinking it would happen. But in the back of my mind, I thought I might try. I managed to be up front for their performance, but moved out of the crowd for Phoenix. This was done chiefly for 2 reasons: reason the first being I didn't want to be squished in with a bunch of screaming 14 year olds, and reason the second being I wanted to see if maybe Haim would come out to watch the set. So I stationed myself in a spot with a great view of the stage, plenty of space, and in direct line of sight to the backstage entrance. About half of the show had passed, and then I noticed Este, the oldest of the sisters, walking out towards the bathroom. I figured she was headed to the bathroom so I'd catch her on the way back and say hi. Which is exactly what I did. But on the way back she had somewhere picked up Danielle, the middle sister. And then the following conversation  (more or less) ensued:

Michael: You guys were fucking awesome
Este: Awww, thanks so much
Michael: Yeah I'm really glad I could make the show
Este: (shining her phone in my face for more light) Wait, have we met?
Michael: Umm, no, but I'm a Jew and I'm from L.A., so maybe?
Este: That's it, we can tell our own.  Where in L.A.?
Michael: Actually Orange County, but I went to UCLA so I was living there for a while.
Este: Me too! (chit chat about when we graduated, etc ensues) So what are you doing here?
Michael: I work for a German company so I spend about half my time here, but I actually live in Singapore.
Este: Oh cool
Michael: Yeah I actually have tickets to see you guys in January
Este: Oh yeah, at Laneway! Well (stops to think for a second), we're there all weekend, so if you want to hang out...
Michael: Yeah, definitely
Este: Do you have a phone?

And then the magic happened. She gave me her number and said to text her and that we'd hang out when they come to Singapore. I should also mentioned that Alana, the youngest sister, came up at one point and we said our hellos too. So my plan is working. That plan being to meet them, fall in love, and marry one of them - preferably Danielle.

Without knowing anything about them personally, they check off some of the big items on my list: Jewish, attractive, musician, from California. Not all of these things are required, but they are all worth extra points. So I guess we wait and see what happens!

I think it's also worth mentioning that the first girl who ever rejected me liked the status I posted on Facebook about meeting Haim and getting their number (that may not be completely accurate, but it was the first that mattered). Maybe this makes me a horrible person, but it gives me a small sense of superiority when this person likes my statuses, especially awesome ones such as that. I bear this person absolutely no ill will, after all this happened over 15 years ago and we don't talk at all, but can't help feeling this way. Oh well. I'm ok with it.

Now to share some completely unrelated music with you. I am a huge fan of Fink, a British singer-songwritery guy. Gold flows from his hands and mouth. And he just released the most incredible thing ever, which is a recording of a concert he did with the Royal Councertgebouw Orchestra for the Queen of the Netherlands. If you've heard Fink before, just the idea of him playing with an orchestra should excite you. And now it has happened. And it is gorgeous. I was actually quite concerned that I had missed this album, as the concert apparently happened in 2012. But luckily it only came out last month so I have not been missing this album in my life for too long.

I'll be honest, I haven't listened to the whole album. In fact I only listened to half of one song on Spotify before going to buy it. I did listen to a couple more, but only because one of my favourite tracks was coming up soon. Since I bought it I can listen anytime, like during my drive to Munich tomorrow when I can't listen to Spotify, so I moved on to other things in Spotify.

That track that I continued to listen for is the orchestra version of Yesterday Was Hard on All of Us, from his most recent album Perfect Darkness. The original is amazing and by far the best on the album, and the orchestra version is just incredible.

 

Seriously, though. Ridiculous. I wish I could have been there. And the album ends with a 10 minute version of Sort of Revolution, another amazing song by Fink. I haven't heard that track yet, but I am very excited. Go buy this album.

Lucius part 2

Just came back from two wonderful weekends that involved more reunions than anticipated. When I was in the US last month I went to see a Lucius show in Washington D.C. and found out that the band was coming to Europe. I absolutely love their new album, Wildewoman (more on that below), but I also know one of the singers from Jewy stuff in high school. This made it the perfect chance to not only see music that I love, but also see a friend I haven't seen in years. And of course a great chance to not spend my weekends in my tiny little town. So with that in mind, I headed to Paris last weekend and Utrecht this weekend for their Saturday night shows.

I thought I'd get to see a friend I studied abroad with while I was in Paris, but unfortunately she was out of town. That didn't stop her from letting me stay at her place, which has to be one of the nicest apartments I've ever stayed in. This girl has impeccable taste. The place was perfect. And perfectly situated. Even her umbrella was amazing. It had wind flap thingies so it wouldn't get blown around and break when it's windy. I didn't even know that was a thing. I will definitely be calling her one day when I live in one place for long enough to ever own anything larger than a t-shirt. Even though she wasn't there, I managed to spend a good chunk of the weekend with another old friend from back in LA who's been living in Paris for about a year now. We haven't seen each other for like 4 years, but I have no shame when it comes to reconnecting with old friends. I'm horrible at keeping in touch, so all I can really do is try to see people whenever we're in the same place, and feel zero awkwardness about messaging someone I actually enjoy if we're ever in the same place. On top of all this I was in Paris and got to eat macarons and beef tartare (which is probably one of my favourite dishes ever) so really a win all around.

Then this weekend was a bit of a whirlwind, but of the best sort. A good friend of mine from Beijing, Mark, happened to be in Germany for work, so we were skyping a couple weeks ago to figure out if we could see each other. He had the weekend free and was flying out on Sunday, so we though we might hang out near Frankfurt. Now, I've heard nothing good about Frankfurt. I've basically been told it's the asshole of Europe. So rather than do that I suggested we drive out to Utrecht in the Netherlands and see Lucius's show there. Then I kept thinking and decided that we should actually spend Friday night on an army base near Frankfurt with a friend from home's mother, who I have never met. This was probably one of the best decisions of the weekend. Her mother and stepfather were amazingly hospitable, cooked us a ridiculous good dinner, and they had a dog. We had the good chats and the good wine until late in the night, and only went to bed because we had to be up early to drive to Utrecht. But before going to bed I checked facebook, only to learn that another friend from Beijing was about to board a plane to Amsterdam. So I messaged her and got her to meet us in Utrecht as well for the night, which led to even more festivities, fun and croquettes. It was a short visit, but we made the most of it and saw Lucius's show, which was awesome. Really a great weekend all around. It's also worth mentioning that Mark and I have now spent time together on 3 continents, and yet never seen each other in America. Kind of impressive, if you ask me.

Anyway enough of the rambling, I promised music so here we go. I posted about Lucius when they released their eponymous EP a while back. They've just released their first album and I can't stop listening to it. I think of them as my Lord Huron for 2013. Not because they sound anything alike, but because when I first heard them (and Lord Huron) it was through EPs which I thought were ok, had a couple good tracks, but overall nothing I was crazy about. But then when their first albums came out I could not stop listening. I had Lonesome Dreams on repeat in 2012 and it ended up in my top 10, and this year it's Wildewoman on repeat (and likely ending up in my top 10 for the year).

I love pretty much every song on the album, but there are 3 stand out tracks to me. The first is Don't Just Sit There, but I already posted it on my last blog about Lucius, so you can just click on the little link above and go listen to it. Other than that one, I love Tempest, which I believe is the 2nd official single off the album. They just released the video for it, so watch it on repeat, please.





Hopefully you're hooked now. You should be. They're basically on every blog I read and everyone has been raving about them. I don't even know how many lists I've seen where they're listed as one of the best acts at some festival, or one of the acts the author is most excited about, or just one of the top bands to watch at the moment. I generally don't read or care about reviews, but I would agree with all of those sentiments.

The last track on the album, How Loud Your Heart Gets, is also one of my favourites, if not my favourite. Actually, what I really love about this track is the guitar in the background on the chorus. I mean, I love the song in general, but for some reason that guitar just gets me and it's what makes it my favourite. I'm not really sure it's a song for everyone, but I love it. I actually can't seem to find a non-live version of it online, so instead here's their NPR Tiny Desk concert which includes it, along with many other musical treats. Enjoy!

Glasser - Interiors

I just spent the last 24 hours trying to rack my brains for something interesting about my life that I could include in this blog post. While I try to keep my weekends pretty fun-filled, the weeks are rather boring. There is literally nothing to do in my town. Except an asparagus museum, but that's all in German and probably only open in Asparagus season (April in case you were wondering, high tourist season for Schrobenhausen, I think the population goes from 16,000 to 16,004). It is a cute little town, though, so my first week here back in July I decided that I wanted to go and explore the city a bit with my camera. I had to be finished by 6pm so I could get to the market or something before it closed (I don't actually remember what I had to do, but it was something that was contingent upon making it to some place before a ridiculously early closing hour). Problem was, I only left the office at 5:30 and didn't think I'd be able to see anything. But, in those 30 minutes, I biked home from work, changed, walked around the entire east half of the old town taking pictures, and still made it to wherever I had to be at 6. That's how tiny this place is.

So that should illustrate how exciting my weeks generally are. I go to work, sometimes I might have a German lesson in the evening, and then I just hang about in my apartment (Now taking TV show recommendations...). But I've managed to get some fun stuff lined up over the next couple of weeks, obviously all music related. I'm headed down to Munich (about an hour drive) 3 times in the next 12 days for concerts. The first one is tonight, with Half Moon Run. Then I'll be seeing Daughter next Wednesday (3rd time this year, and always in different countries!). And finally I'm going to see Haim & Phoenix on the 19th. Phoenix I'm actually not as excited about (unless they play stuff from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, but Entertainment! was a bit disappointing after the WAM), but I'm super excited about Haim. I'm trying to figure out something I can yell at them that will let them know I'm a California Jew and good marrying material. One friend back in the States recommended offering to take them for a Deli Burger at PKD (in case you're not an LA Jew, it's a really popular Kosher restaurant in LA that has a ridiculous hamburger with grilled pastrami on it. Grilled pastrami. It's like Jewish bacon, which means it's better than goyische bacon). Then they would invite me backstage, we'd fall in love, and life would be wonderful. I haven't decided which of them would become my special lady friend, but I'm open minded on the topic.

Ok, enough of that. I wrote about Glasser last January when I had just heard about her and knew next to nothing. Now I know a little bit less than nothing (she's from America), but she has new music in the form of the sophomore album Interiors.

This is the 2nd of the 3 albums mentioned which I had on repeat during my Switzerland trip, and the one that I actually wanted to blog about first. Similar to the other Glasser album, the first track, Shape, is probably my favourite. In fact, if I made a mix of my favourite opening album tracks, this would probably be on it (I think about this mix a lot, I should probably do it. The opening track of opening tracks would have to be Homme by Brazilian Girls off of Brazilian Girls, cause that's basically what made me think of this in the first place). Anywhere, here's Shape.





All kinds of comparisons to be made I feel, which are horrible but I keep doing because that's just what we do. A little bit Bjork, a little bit Grimes (though much better than Grimes. I was so excited for her album, then talk about a disappointment...). Then you get another favourite track of mine, Forge. I feel like this one could be a grower, took me a few listens to really love it.





This one brings in a little Frou Frou, and even a bit of this Japanese artist ACO, who I always think of as the Japanese equivalent of Bjork (explanation: I used to listen to a lot of Japanese music. I barely do anymore, but this is one artist I would still gladly listen to. Go find the album Absolute Ego from 1999 if you can, cause it's awesome. Or even Material (2001) or Irony (2003), all of which are very different albums but also great. In fact, I just checked and she has a new album on American Spotify which has really good reimaginings of some of her older songs, and a couple new ones).

And then one more stand out track towards the end of the album, New Year. I've name dropped enough to pique your interest and already played you two tracks, so if you're still here, then you're probably going to listen to this one as well. As you should.

Let's try this again (Alpine)

In the last week or so I've had quite a few people asking me for music recommendations, which got me thinking that it would be much easier to just give them a link to my blog than try to think of music to tell them about. Because obviously I go braindead anytime I have to actually share any information that's lodged somewhere in my brain. That got me thinking that if I wanted to do that, I would actually have to write in my blog. So here I am.

In fact, I'm going to try something new this time and actually talk about myself before the music. Weird... I realized recently that nobody seems to know what I do or even what country I live in. To be honest, it's kind of fun. In fact some friends and I recently decided that if anyone asks me, I should brush off the question with answers which are as vague as possible. This would lead to the logical conclusion that I'm either smuggling drugs or weapons. I prefer the weapons (and I think it makes more sense given all that time in Africa), but feel free to tell people whatever you like. Or make up something new, that's even more fun.

But, for those few of you who are actually reading, I will now reveal the truth (It's not very exciting, so feel free to skip down to the next paragraph if you like and leave the actual details of my life up to your imagination. I'd recommend it.). I'm writing this from my new company's headquarters in Germany, where I spend about half of my time. While I'm technically based in Singapore, I probably spend less time there than away from there, something I'm quite used to, visiting our other offices around Asia. While in Germany, I have the pleasure of staying in Schrobenhausen, a small Bavarian town with a population of 16,000, which is famous for it's annual asparagus production. It is supremely boring, and so every weekend I leave, which has led to some great travel opportunities in Europe. Also it's amazing how many places you can drive to in just a few hours from here. Which leads into my next topic...

I spent last weekend in Switzerland. Holy shitballs that place is beautiful. If you haven't been, go. It's probably become one of my favorite European countries (I'd just like to point out that my fingers got confused typing "favorite"/"favourite". I'm not sure who I am anymore...). Friday was a holiday so I drove down to Liechtenstein for lunch. I had a couple hours to burn, so I pretty much saw the entire country. It's really tiny and there's not much to see, but it sure is pretty. Then I drove up to Zurich. This is where the fun really began. Because - and I may be repeating myself here, but - holy shitballs Switzerland is beautiful. On Saturday I drove down to Lucerne then into the Alps and made a circuit around Lake Brienz, and pretty much spent the entire time again thinking to myself, holy shitballs Switzerland is beautiful. It's one of these places that probably shouldn't exist. I kind of felt like it couldn't be real. All these cute little European farmhouses spread across green fields with the Alps towering over them, some of them already topped with snow. Actually the only problem with Switzerland is that there are too many tunnels which interrupt the view while you drive. And it's stupidly expensive, but such is life. I need to go back, this time to Geneva to look at all the pretty watches (did I mention that there are watch shops literally everywhere? I kind of love it.)

Ok, enough talk of me. Music. In the spirit of the Alps, I'll share Alpine with you. I basically spent the weekend driving and listening to 3 albums on repeat, one of which is Alpine's debut, A is for Alpine. Actually, it wasn't my favourite of the 3 albums, but it felt fitting given this blog post (Alpine/Alps/Switzerland, get it?). And it's a great album. Also, it was much better suited to driving in the Alps than I would have expected from an Australian band. After all, Australia is quite far from Switzerland.

I actually heard them a few months ago, but their album was $11.99 on iTunes and I was being a cheap bastard and waiting for it to drop to $9.99, which it finally did. Also when I first listened on Spotify there was only one real stand out track to me, which was Gasoline.




Now, though, I feel like I should have bought it earlier. In terms of who they remind me of, closest would probably be School of Seven Bells, not only because they actually sound similar to me, but the 2 female vocalists helps (although SoSB is down to just one now). Having said that, Lucius also has 2 female vocalists and they do not remind me of Alpine at all (That was a completely uneccesary name drop, and a hint as to what an upcoming post will be. I already wrote about Lucius here, but now they released an awesome album and I will be writing about them again. Go listen to them now though, don't wait for me).

Back on track: one more song for you. Another gem I came to love upon closer listening, Hands.



I still haven't decided if this whole "write about me" thing will be regular, but I thought I'd try it for now. But the goal is to start blogging regularly again. And now I'm accountable to all 3 of you.

Costume ideas

Once again I forgot that I have a blog. But recently I've had a quite a few people asking me for music, which has made me remember it and maybe decide to start using it again. We'll see how this goes.

So today is Halloween, and since I'm in Germany I'll be going dressed as an American (true story, though, cause I've been telling everyone who asks that my Halloween plans are to sit around in my underwear, and my underwear is covered in hamburgers and french fries). Also, I don't think people in rural Germany will be dressing up, so I'd look pretty foolish if I did. Also, I'm the worst ever at coming up with Halloween costume ideas. One time I had a good one, it took me 3 years before I was able to wear it (again, living in rural foreign towns with no chance to celebrate), but I had friends steal it every year until I managed to wear it. I need inspiration like that more often!

If you're curious, the costume makes its appearance at the second chorus of this video:





And now for a (not-so) new song. Well, the original is not new, and this cover is not so new, but I just heard it, and I really like it. Not as much as the original, but enough to post it. And I guess one could say covers are the musical equivalent of costumes, no? No. That's just me trying to be clever and punny for Halloween. But music!

 

And just in case you didn't pick it up, that first song was Skeleton Boy, by Friendly Fires. Then a cover of Little Dragon's Twice, by Robert Glasper, ?uestlove of The Roots, and Solange on vocals.

Gentlemen Hall

I totally forgot that I was using this to save songs that I liked but couldn't find more about. Good thing I remembered. Here's another. Sail Into the Sun by Gentlemen Hall. Careful for the men, not the man. I keep making that mistake.

 

Bibio

It's been like 6 weeks since I last posted. In that time I travelled all over Europe, moved back to China, and turned 29. Fun times.

Now I'll make this short cause I have a champagne brunch to get to.

Bibio isn't all that great. Well, I only listened to one album, and it was ok, but there are a couple tracks I really like. I'm not going to buy them, so I'll just put them here so I don't forget about them.

First track I heard was You, which is a great one off his Silver Wilkinson album from this year.





A tout a l'heure is the other one I like, off the same album.

 

Matt Kelly

I'm posting two blogs today, cause I actually wrote the last one a couple weeks ago and saved it as a draft and never posted it until logging in now to write a new one.

I like this song, but not much out there by Matt Kelly. He's from Melbourne and got word of him via Hiatus Kaiyote, one of my favorites. This is a great track, can't wait for more.

Fractures

I don't remember where I found these guys/this guy, but I rather enjoy his two songs. I think he only has two songs. That's all I know. In fact, I don't know if his musical endeavours have been titled FRACTURES or //FRACTURES. Maybe even Fractures or //Fractures. English is hard. Especially when you're Australian.





I think he actually got shout out by Chet Faker. He said something about that on his Facebook. And he shouted out Daughter. I just want to point out that this is the 2nd time in a row that I've mentioned Daughter in a blog, and I previously wrote about them as well. And in two weeks time I'll be flying to Stockholm just to see them live. Take a hint.

Anyway, if you like that, maybe you'll like this too. Then I think you'll have heard all of his songs.

 

Bonobo

I just pre-ordered like 7 albums on iTunes the other day, which is rather exciting. I intended to pre-order Bonobo's new album, The North Borders, which I had read comes out April 1. Luckily for me that was wrong and it is out already. And now I own it and keep on listening to it.

In fact, this album may be my favorite album of the year so far. Sorry to some of my other favorites, like Daughter, Atoms for Peace and Local Natives, but this album is amazing. Here, hear for yourself.




Cirrus is definitely my favorite track on the album. I feel like he's taken everything I love that he does, and then mixed in elements that I love from Four Tet and Caribou to make something that is ridiculously good.

I managed to see him live in LA a couple years ago, after he released his last album. Which, coincidentally, was one of my favorite albums of 2010. I'm sensing a trend here. I went with my friend Jasmine, who happens to be the best concert buddy ever. So if you find yourself in LA and need a concert buddy, I'll introduce you. He was joined by Andreya Triana, who sang a few of the songs on the last album. I was a bit disappointed not to see her on this album, but he's got some great new vocalists, which is always great for finding new artists. Here's another track I love, with one of the aforementioned great new vocalists.




He even features Erykah Badu on this album. That got me rather excited as well.

It's still early in the year, and there's still a lot of albums I'm looking forward to this year, but I'm pretty sure this one will be in my top 10. Probably high up in my top 10.

Ghost Beach

I usually share music with my sister when I find something that's either really good or that I just think she'll like. Ghost Beach tick both boxes. This is fun music, and they're one of the closest things I've found to Passion Pit, which is always good. They've got 2 EPs so far, and I rather enjoy both.

It was also a perfect choice of what to listen to when I walked out of the office after my last day with my company yesterday. Obviously, I was already quite thrilled. Empty Streets, the first track off their first EP, matched my mood perfectly.






 So far, Crazy Heart is my other favorite. I just got the 2nd EP so haven't listened yet. I'm sure there will be other great ones, too.

 

NO CEREMONY///

Heard NO CEREMONY/// today and really liked it. I could find 3 songs, but that was about it. These guys know how to keep a secret, and in this case they are the secret. It would seem they don't want anyone to know anything about them. But when you're playing gigs with alt-J, I will pay attention, and so will others. But it would seem that the only information that's been given away so far is that they're from Manchester.

On a related note, I'm not sure I'm a fan of strange use of punctuation in band names. I'm also not sure if / technically counts as punctuation or not.

Well that was fun. Now you can listen to FEELSOLOW.

 

Miner

Heard these guys months ago and they still only seem to have two songs out. Kind of annoying, but at least they're great songs. Think Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Good stuff. Here's Hey Love.

 

And if you have trouble finding their music, try searching for "thisisminer" instead of just Miner.

And just for good measure, here's their other song, Golden Ocean. If you're in California, maybe you can catch them live.

 

Snakadaktal

Nobody reads my blog anymore. Literally nobody. Which is fine with me, honestly. Becuase of this I stopped writing for a while. But then I was having a conversation the other day and mentioned how I had re-found music via my own blog that I had forgotten about after posting. So I've decided to put the blog back into action, if for nothing else than for my own record.

So, from now on, it's probably bare bones notes for myself and some music. And that also means only one band per post, so I can just look at titles and easily be reminded. For today, Snakadaktal. One song in particular from this Australian band sticks out to me, and that would be Dance Bear.





Also, this remix of Dance Bear by Ta-Ku may actually be better than the original.





They've released an EP in their native Australia, but not many goodies for me yet. An album is supposedly in the works, though.

The Slow Revolt

I heard this song today. I like it very much. I hope you do, too. You now know everything I do about this song. Oh, and he (they?) is (are?) British. I do like those Brits. Now you know that, too.

The Slow Revolt. This Dark Matter.

 

Jai Paul

I think I'm still drunk from last night. In fact, I know I am. I think my shirt may even be on backwards, and I don't care. I have no idea how I didn't puke after drinking half a bottle of tequila.

In other news, I signed up for spotify, finally. It's still not available in South Africa, but I was just home and got all signed up while I was there. And I've purchased a VPN for my current trip to China, so I can fool the internet into thinking I'm still in America, or anywhere else really, and still use it. It's fun stuff. I'm a fan. I made a playlist of all the songs I could find that I blogged about in 2012. I'll probably do the same thing this year as I go.

Which brings us to the music. Jai Paul is pretty much a genius. Which makes it even more infuriating that he has only released 2 songs ever. BTSTU is the better one, if you ask me. But Jasmine is also pretty amazing. Here are both of them.

 

HAIM

Once again I'm sitting at the airport in Dubai. This time on my way to China for the first time in a year. Very excited about the people (friends, not the locals...) and the food. Not so excited about the work. Very much not so excited about the weather.

As it turns out, I'm here at the airport for about 8 hours. I thought it was going to be 3, but no such luck. Which means I get to shower. But it also means there is a very high risk that I'm going to go buy a watch just to kill time. Not that I'm ever opposed to buying watches, but I should maybe not buy it after spending so much money in the US and Mexico over the last 3 weeks. We'll see. I make no promises.

In order to put off the watch buying, I'll blog. And maybe upload photos to Facebook, which I'm about 9 months behind on.

One of my favorite sources of new music is the BBC's "Sound of..." series. They announced the shortlist of 15 artists a few weeks ago. I had a listen to a few, liked some, others not so much. But now they've announced the winners and I'm pretty excited about some of them. The top 5 is actually the most exciting top 5 I've seen in the "Sound of..." series. The longlist and shortlist always contain artists from all across the board, and this year is no exception, but this year's artists are all ones I've been waiting to hear more from for a while now. And the top artist is no exception.

The winner this year is Haim, a group of 3 sisters who are awesome. Really freaking awesome. And they're form L.A. And they've toured with Florence & The Machine. And actually, I think they could be Jewish. They haven't released an album yet, but they've got a couple EPs and a few awesome songs. And Forever is definitely the best.





Surprisingly, all of the artists who I'd heard of in the longlist were the ones chosen for the top 5. I've been waiting a long time for more AlunaGeorge also. And recently blogged about Laura Mvula, who's pretty fantastic and has an album coming out in the next few months.