I actually have quite a few songs to share today, two of which aren't even the artist/band that I intended to talk about. In fact, the artist I'm going to talk about isn't even the artist I originally intended to talk about. Anyway, what this all means is that today you get lots of music. I'll break it up, though, starting with Jamilah Barry, and interspersed with stories. All I know about Ms. Barry is that she's from Leeds and has a beautiful voice. This song was posted on Facebook last week by Kwabs, another artist who I learned about in much the same way when a video of him performing for the Queen was making the rounds of the internet a couple years ago. Since then he's released a few singles, and should be releasing an album soon. Hopefully it takes less time to hear more from Jamilah Barry, because Brother is a great song, and it doesn't hurt that she's mixed in a bit of Lauren Hill.
So there's song number one for the day. And now story number one.
As you may know, I'm currently living in a tiny German village. Luckily I won't be here much longer, just 2 weeks, then it's back to Asia. I guess the bad part is that I won't be traveling around as much anymore, and far fewer friends end up visiting Asia than Europe, but I'm really looking forward to being back in Asia and hopefully getting somewhat settled for the next few years.
Anyway, Germany is extremely safe. Schrobenhausen is probably even safer than average. I feel like this is the type of place where crime actually can't happen, because everyone knows everyone else, and if you commit a crime, everybody's gonna know about it. So I was very surprised to learn that just a few weeks ago, a store was robbed downtown at 10am on a weekday.
Let me go into a bit more detail about what "downtown" means in Schrobenhausen, because it's anything but what you're thinking. It basically means one long street, maybe about 500m long, with old buildings on either side, where the ground floor is filled with shops and people live above. See Exhibit A below.
Considering the layout and size of this place, I was pretty surprised to hear that someone had the balls to break into a tobacco shop at 10am on a Tuesday morning and rob them. Of course, this is still Germany/Europe, which means no guns were involved so it probably wasn't all that exciting. They also made sure to only take €3000, which is apparently too little for them to receive any real punishment if they're caught. Apparently one of my colleagues has also had their car broken into in town. So I guess I'm living more on the edge than I thought out here in the village.
I was going to share another song here, then tell another story, then talk about Ry Cuming, but I think that'll be getting a bit long. So I'll just move on from here and talk about music, and save the rest for next time.
Ry Cuming is an Australian singer/songwriter who seems to have come very far in the last couple of years. I first heard about him late last year when he released the song Berlin, the title track off of his Berlin EP, under the stage name RY X. Great song, great EP, and at the time that was all I knew about him. I didn't even know RY X was Ry Cuming.. But with a sound somewhere in between Bon Iver and James Vincent McMorrow, he'd caught my attention with just the one song.
It was just a couple of weeks ago that I was listening to his EP again and did a little searching, and found a bit more information. This was the first time I found out that RY X is Ry Cuming, and then I also learned that Ry Cuming had released an album back in 2010. So I went to listen to it, and it's horrible. Absolutely nothing like the music he's making now, luckily. My only recommendation with regards to Ry Cuming's old work is to avoid it.
I then figured this was the last I'd hear of RY X until he started gearing up for an album or new EP release, but luckily I was wrong. He has another side project with a group called The Acid, who just released their first album, Liminal. When I first heard them, I had no idea he was involved, and it was only when I knew the vocal sounded familiar and I did some googling that I figured out it was RY X doing the vocals, which made me like The Acid even more than I did before.
The album may not be anything groundbreaking, but it's a great album. It's basically the same vocal style you heard with Berlin, but it sounds like it was produced by James Blake or Thom Yorke instead. Plus they have a somewhat creepy album cover that I really like.
So I guess I went from not having enough to say last time to having too much this time. So maybe I'll write another blog this weekend. I don't have any big plans, I feel like just relaxing. So we'll see if I can peel myself away from movies and write a bit.
So there's song number one for the day. And now story number one.
As you may know, I'm currently living in a tiny German village. Luckily I won't be here much longer, just 2 weeks, then it's back to Asia. I guess the bad part is that I won't be traveling around as much anymore, and far fewer friends end up visiting Asia than Europe, but I'm really looking forward to being back in Asia and hopefully getting somewhat settled for the next few years.
Anyway, Germany is extremely safe. Schrobenhausen is probably even safer than average. I feel like this is the type of place where crime actually can't happen, because everyone knows everyone else, and if you commit a crime, everybody's gonna know about it. So I was very surprised to learn that just a few weeks ago, a store was robbed downtown at 10am on a weekday.
Let me go into a bit more detail about what "downtown" means in Schrobenhausen, because it's anything but what you're thinking. It basically means one long street, maybe about 500m long, with old buildings on either side, where the ground floor is filled with shops and people live above. See Exhibit A below.
 |
| Exhibit A: Downtown Schrobenhausen |
Considering the layout and size of this place, I was pretty surprised to hear that someone had the balls to break into a tobacco shop at 10am on a Tuesday morning and rob them. Of course, this is still Germany/Europe, which means no guns were involved so it probably wasn't all that exciting. They also made sure to only take €3000, which is apparently too little for them to receive any real punishment if they're caught. Apparently one of my colleagues has also had their car broken into in town. So I guess I'm living more on the edge than I thought out here in the village.
I was going to share another song here, then tell another story, then talk about Ry Cuming, but I think that'll be getting a bit long. So I'll just move on from here and talk about music, and save the rest for next time.
Ry Cuming is an Australian singer/songwriter who seems to have come very far in the last couple of years. I first heard about him late last year when he released the song Berlin, the title track off of his Berlin EP, under the stage name RY X. Great song, great EP, and at the time that was all I knew about him. I didn't even know RY X was Ry Cuming.. But with a sound somewhere in between Bon Iver and James Vincent McMorrow, he'd caught my attention with just the one song.
It was just a couple of weeks ago that I was listening to his EP again and did a little searching, and found a bit more information. This was the first time I found out that RY X is Ry Cuming, and then I also learned that Ry Cuming had released an album back in 2010. So I went to listen to it, and it's horrible. Absolutely nothing like the music he's making now, luckily. My only recommendation with regards to Ry Cuming's old work is to avoid it.
I then figured this was the last I'd hear of RY X until he started gearing up for an album or new EP release, but luckily I was wrong. He has another side project with a group called The Acid, who just released their first album, Liminal. When I first heard them, I had no idea he was involved, and it was only when I knew the vocal sounded familiar and I did some googling that I figured out it was RY X doing the vocals, which made me like The Acid even more than I did before.
The album may not be anything groundbreaking, but it's a great album. It's basically the same vocal style you heard with Berlin, but it sounds like it was produced by James Blake or Thom Yorke instead. Plus they have a somewhat creepy album cover that I really like.
So I guess I went from not having enough to say last time to having too much this time. So maybe I'll write another blog this weekend. I don't have any big plans, I feel like just relaxing. So we'll see if I can peel myself away from movies and write a bit.
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