MTNS

I bought this album by Wild Cub the other day. I wasn't sure I was going to, but then I realized that I'd listened to it like 5 times in 3 days on Spotify, so I figured that meant I liked it enough to buy it. And there are some great tracks on there. I'd only been listening to it on my computer at work, which didn't stop me from loving the song Thunder Clatter. But then this morning I listened to it on my iPod for the first time with my headphones, and I liked it even more. I love that. I love listening to a song I love with great headphones and hearing all these details I never noticed before and loving it even more. Same thing happened with Alt-J. Anyway here's the track. Listen on your computer, listen on headphones, listen wherever you want. It's a great track all around.





Ok, now that my random thought of the morning is out of the way, I can actually write the blog I intended to. Chinese New Year starts tonight, which means I get to go home early. Which is great, cause I haven't packed yet and I leave tonight for Australia! First time going. Well, technically I've been before. I have the stamp in my passport. But it's only because I missed a connecting flight in Sydney a couple years ago and had to clear customs to buy a new one, so I actually only stayed in the airport for like 3 hours. But I digress. I'm going to Australia tonight, and I'm really excited. Like, really fucking excited. I haven't been this excited to go somewhere in a while.

I've been traveling a lot for work over the last few years, but it was really only when I moved to Africa that it really got crazy. I spent 200 days out of South Africa in 2012. And with about 250 work days in a year, that is a significant amount of time. But the problem with traveling in Africa was that I was always going to capital cities, and an African city is an African city. It generally doesn't matter which one you're in, they're all more or less the same. And there generally isn't that much to do in African cities. Most of the good stuff is out in the bush, which I generally didn't have time for. Add to this the fact that a lot of these cities are not exactly safe to be walking around alone, and the fact that I was generally outside the city center since construction machinery requires a lot of space which is hard to come by and expensive inside a city.

That's not to say that all African capitals are no fun, I do enjoy some. Maputo, Kigali, Addis Ababa, Antananarivo, Bamako - there are some good cities. But generally, I knew that traveling in Africa meant lots of time to sit alone in my hotel room. I could've gone to hotel bars, but most of the other business travelers, which is what my hotels were generally filled with, were guys in their 50s and 60s and they came in groups. I did not.

It got to a point where I was traveling so much with nothing to do, that I was no longer excited about traveling. I even had a couple friends come visit and we went to Madagascar for like 10 days, which was one of my top countries in the world to visit. And I wasn't excited. It was like I'd become trained to not get excited about travel, even though it wasn't for work. We had a great trip, but going into it I felt nothing. I made it to over 25 countries in Africa, and most of them I didn't really care about being in. Luckily that is no longer the case, I'm starting to realize. I think a lot of it has to do with being back in Asia and traveling to places where I don't have to sit alone in a hotel room. There are actually things to do, and I can get out and walk around. And I have friends in a lot of the places I'm visiting, which was not generally the case in Africa.

With Australia, I'm definitely excited about the people I'll be seeing. A couple Japan friends, a couple China friends. And my friend Rei is coming down from Tokyo to spend the week, since she's currently funemployed. This will actually make 4 continents that we've been on together, which means she now needs to come visit me in Europe, too. In fact, she's probably sitting at the airport in Kuala Lumpur right now on her way. I'm sitting at the office, bored. Thank God for that early finish.

I'm also very excited about activities. I generally don't really look into what to do in a place until I'm on the way there, but since I'm not so busy I've been trying to figure stuff out. Which means we've already got plenty of stuff planned. Laneway Music Festival (again) this Saturday, wine tour on Monday, performance at the Sydney Opera House next week, mini road trip to the 12 Apostles... It's gonna be good times.

Since I'm headed to Australia, I might as well share some Australian music. I've heard a fair bit, in no small part thanks to one of the blogs I like having a section dedicated to Australian music. I found this band MTNS a couple weeks ago. It was actually not through the aforementioned Australian music section of that blog, but through another site I check. Anyway, the first song I heard was Lost Track of Time, which is a fantastic song.




I've been listening to a lot of this kind of chilled-out music lately. Artists in the vein of James Blake, mixing pop and electronics and other weird sounds. Think Banks (who is probably my favourite new artist of the year so far. In addition to the amazing track in my blog, you should definitely also listen to Change. I'm a bit obsessed. And buy her debut London EP.). I actually was unsure at first if it was a male or female vocalist. Well, that's not completely true. When I first heard Lost Track of Time, I was sure it was a woman. Then I heard this next song, Crave, and started to have my doubts.




I eventually had to look it up. It's a man. I do really like his voice, though, especially on the chorus of Crave. These guys currently have one EP out, Salvage. Careful not to listen to the other MTNS you might find, because it's horrible punk rock and will leave you very disappointed if these guys are who you're looking for.

James Blake

The tale of my meeting with Haim has come to a sad end. Last weekend was the weekend in Singapore when we were supposed to hang out, and we did not. I didn't even get so much as a text in response. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

But let's not dwell on it. I went to my first music festival this weekend, too (the reason Haim was in Singapore in the first place). I have no idea how it took me so long, especially having grown up so close to Coachella, but it did. And I'll actually be getting 2 in 2 weeks. I have been to electronic music festivals in Beijing, but not so much because I wanted to, as they were there. Also they were generally in awesome locations (like an old battleship, an abandoned steel factory and the Great Wall of China) and lots of fun. So I can't really say I didn't want to go to those, but I have never been to a music festival where I went because I was actually excited about the lineup.

And this was quite a lineup. I was there to see CHVRCHES, Daughter, Haim, Jagwar Ma, Frightened Rabbit, James Blake, Savages, The Jezabels, Vance Joy and Youth Lagoon. And thanks to the wonderful layout, I saw all but Jagwar Ma. They had 3 stages, but 2 of them were each half of the main stage, which means while one band performed on half, they set up the other half, and so we only had to wait like 5 minutes between sets. Jagwar Ma was the only one playing at the other stage, and it was at the same time as Daughter, so it was a no brainer for me.

I'd say the biggest surprises last weekend were Savages and Youth Lagoon, both of which were much better than I expected. Jehnny Beth from Savages is pretty bad ass. And Youth Lagoon is pretty weird, but in a good way. He was wearing what seemed to be black plastic pants with more than enough space between the hems and his shoes so that you could see his hot pink socks. It was pretty great, though I'm sure he was sweating his ass off in the Singapore humidity. Also he closed with July, which I was hoping he'd play, and it was incredible. One of my favorite performances of the entire day, in what surprisingly turned out to be one of my favorite sets of the day.

We got right up to the front for Daughter, which would have been great except apparently Daughter is like the most popular band in Singapore and there was a lot of squishing and screaming, things I'm probably too old to enjoy, especially in that humidity. I don't think there was as much screaming for any other band. Every time Elena would go to the wings to talk to the sound people before her set, people would be screaming like mad. It got to the point where Jehnny Beth actually commented on it when she announced their last couple songs. Haim definitely wins for being the most entertaining, joking around and talking with the crowd the most, and at one point Alana actually jumped off the stage and crowd surfed for a couple of minutes. And Lauren Mayberry from CHVRCHES is adorable. Not at all what I expected her to be like. Also they may have been the only band to play all the songs I wanted to hear.

Top prize for the day definitely goes to James Blake, the day's headliner. Sadly the crowd did not seem to agree. It seems like a lot of people had no idea who he was and didn't seem to get it. I heard a lot of people complaining about him being the headliner, and about it being too slow. Fucking philistines.

I, however, loved it. At this point my friends had already left, so I was on my own, which was fine because I didn't particularly want to talk to anyone during his set anyway. It was too good. The guy sounds amazing live, he really has an incredible voice, which I think is easy to miss when you're listening to his albums. With all the synthy stuff it's easy to get distracted. And it was a great set. He opened with I Never Learnt to Share, which may be my favorite track off his first album.





He then proceeded to play pretty much all my other favorites off the first album throughout the set, including Unluck, Lindisfarne I/II, and Limit To Your Love. The only one missing was I Mind. Obviously there was plenty off of last year's album, Overgrown. I'd say the most crowd pleasing performance was probably Voyeur, which is actually one of my favorites off of Overgrown, because it was like the only upbeat song of the entire set. And towards the end he slotted in Retrograde, which I think is one of he best songs of 2013.




He closed out the night with Measurements, off of his first album, which was kind of perfect. His band left the stage and he was on his own, and asked the audience to be quiet so he could loop the vocals. He wasn't too direct about asking us to quiet down though, so it took a bit of shushing from the audience, but in the end it managed to work.




All in all, it was an awesome day. I was there for like 12 hours, on my feet most of the time, and was extremely sore and somewhat sunburned at the end, but I can't wait to do it again. And I don't have to wait long. I'll be at the same festival next week in Melbourne during my Chinese New Year vacation. The lineup is mostly the same, but with a lot more. Sadly James Blake won't be there, but there are two bands I'm very excited about that weren't at Laneway last weekend that will be there next: Four Tet and Warpaint. This time around I also have a few choices to make. I'm torn between CHVRCHES and Daughter, who play at the same time. And the worst thing ever is that the two bands that did not play this last week that are playing next week that I really want to see are both at the same time. Though I'm pretty sure I'm leaning towards Warpaint, because Warpaint.

Kevin Drew

I've always loved music, but it wasn't until I was almost finished with high school that I really started devoting time to music. And there are a couple of artists/bands who were extremely influential on my knowledge of and preference in music.

It wasn't until senior year that my eyes were opened to the fact that there was music available outside of what you hear on the radio, and it was all thanks to John Mayer. When his first album, Room For Squares, came out, I was pretty much obsessed. I listened to it for like a week straight. On CD.

I don't remember how I realized it, but I found out that he had a lot of songs that weren't on the album, so I started poking around online. This led to my entry into a few worlds, those being 1) live recordings, 2) singer-songwriters, and 3) illegal downloads. I've pretty much moved away from all of these, now preferring recordings to live music (if I'm listening at home, anyway), expanding far beyond singer-songwriters, and actually paying for all of my music. But point being, I started downloading a bunch of live John Mayer tracks, plenty of which weren't on the album. And I started finding all kinds of new artists, mostly singer-songwriters, through sites I was led to by looking for more John Mayer music. So I definitely owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Mayer, who I am still a big fan of. And I can't even tell you how many live tracks I have by John Mayer, Jason Mraz and The Dave Matthews Band. It should be embarrassing, but it's not at all.

The step away from singer-songwriters into a more eclectic range of music probably started when I was studying abroad in China. I was introduced to the band Stars, which still remains one of my favorites to this day, and it was like opening Pandora's Box. Stars, being part of the whole Broken Social Scene/Toronto indie rock circle, opened my ears to all kinds of new music and resources to find new music. And now here we are. I guess the only differences are the range of sounds and the smaller number of indie dance parties in my room. I should do that more.

It was a sad day when Broken Social Scene decided to go on hiatus, though I guess with all the side projects I'm still getting plenty of music out of them. One of those side projects being the solo efforts of Kevin Drew. He put out an album, Spirit If..., back in 2007, which was alright overall, but had a few great tracks. One of my favorites off the album is Lucky Ones, which is probably also the longest, a trait not uncommon to Broken Social Scene and it's members.




And now, seven years later, he's getting ready to put out his second solo album Darlings. The first track, Good Sex, was released like last week, and it's great. Definitely maintains his/Broken Social Scene's sound that I love so much, so I'm very much looking forward to the album being released.

Wild Beasts

I finally made it back to Japan after about 4 years. What was supposed to be an extended layover for 24 hours on my way back to Singapore from the US turned into a 5 day stay. I convinced my supervisor to let me work out of the Tokyo office for a couple of days, so the Friday night layover turned into Friday night until the following Wednesday. And I'm very glad it did.

First, I got to see a bunch of friends from Beijing and elsewhere who I haven't seen in a while. I spent a good amount of time with my friend Tama, who is the coolest Japanese person I know. And if you know any Japanese people, you know that's pretty high praise. He organized our night out on Friday night, which started at a great izakaya, after which he decided we all needed costumes. So we bought costumes and proceeded to walk around Tokyo all dressed up for the rest of the night, making a stop at a temple to get our Hatsumoude (first temple visit of the year) out of the way, before ending in a Maid Bar. I think it's also worth mentioning that all of this happened within 8 hours of me touching the ground. Only in Japan.

Saturday followed with 3 lunches and 2 dinners, before a Sunday day-trip back to Iwaki, the town I used to live in on JET. It was great to get up there and see some of the families I was close with when I lived there. And even better to see Baba, creator of cosmic curries and perpetual purveyor of good vibes and beer. The man is a legend and he makes the best Indian curry in the world, hands down. Ask anyone who's eaten there, it's an indisputable fact. I ended up having both lunch and dinner with him and getting a bit of take away to share with my hosts in Tokyo when I got back. The only disappointment was that due to the early sunset I wasn't able to get out to some of the coastal communities and see the damage from the earthquake like I was hoping, but I guess it means I just need to get back again soon.

Even the couple of days I spent in the office were great. There's an office dog in Tokyo, so how could it not be? I was a bit concerned about having to work in Japanese after not having spoken Japanese regularly in a very long time, but it all worked itself out. And my colleagues fed me very well. The manager even said if he was happy with the results that come of my current project, he'll take me for dinner at Jiro's next time I'm back. So that's some great motivation.

Nothing, however, could top my last night in Tokyo, when we finally made it to the Robot Restaurant. I found this place online a couple months ago and had been hoping to go on my 24 hour layover, or what then became my first night in Japan, which would have been ideal because then more people would have been able to join. The place wasn't open after the New Year holiday yet, though, so we had to postpone to my last night, and only 3 of us went. It was still as ridiculous as I had hoped. It was an hour and a half spectacle, which, from the audience, you would guess was tailor-made for foreigners to give them exactly what they think of when they think of Japan. And that is exactly what we got. There were like 5 performances over an hour and a half, which included a Christmas performance with pole dancing bunny girls (dancing on poles attached to robot legs, to keep with the theme) dancing and drumming to Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas." There was an epic battle in which the local inhabitants of a distant world, which included demons, kung-fu panda, women riding giant spiders, great white sharks and chickens, had to fight off the alien robot invaders who wanted to destroy their world. There was a robot parade with a roller-blading robot sporting a rainbow afro. And of course there were lasers. Lots and lots of lasers. You actually didn't know where to look throughout the show because so much was going on, and when I left, I felt drained, both physically and mentally. It was pretty fantastic. I highly recommend it. Worth every single yen. Just remember, you're not there for the food, which is horrible. There are plenty of other pictures and videos on Facebook, which I'm guessing is how you found your way here, so you can go have a look at the rest on there if you're so inclined.

So all in all, a great Japan trip with plenty of fun and friends. It reminded me why Tokyo is my favorite city in the world, and why I want to live there. So hopefully I can still do that at some point.

Now, moving from one weird thing to another, it's on to Wild Beasts. I think these guys are pretty weird, but in the best way possible. They make amazing music. I didn't like it when I first heard them a few years ago on their sophomore album Two Dancers, but I slowly came to love them more and more. The closest thing I can think of when I listen to them is Alt-J (or I should say, when I heard Alt-J, the closest thing I could think of was Wild Beasts), and you all know how much I love Alt-J. Or you should if you read my blog post about them here. There's plenty of fantastic songs on Two Dancers, so it's hard to decide which one to share, but Hooting & Howling always seems to stick in my mind. It's also a great track to hear the ridiculous vocal range from Hayden Thorpe, which never ceases to amaze me. I actually thought there might be two vocalists when I first heard them, but that is not the case. He just has a ridiculous falsetto.





The only problem with writing this post was not just having to pick a song to share, but even trying to decide which album to pick a song from. Their third album, Smother, made it into my Top 10 in 2011, and there's some amazing songs on there, too. I think it's also a bit more listener friendly than Two Dancers. Now they're getting set to release their 4th album, Present Tense, next month. They just put out their first single from the new album, Wanderlust. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. There are parts I really like, and parts I don't like so much. It's definitely a different sound for them, but apparently they have changed their production team from the last two albums, so that makes sense. You can be the judge for yourself, but even if Wanderlust isn't your thing, you should take the time to listen to Two Dancers and Smother.