So I mentioned that I had this great weekly playlist this week. I'm sure many of you know that Spotify makes a weekly playlist of recommended music, and I try to listen to mine every week. Generally I come away with maybe 3 artists who I want to hear more from, and rarely do I actually go on to like someone enough to buy their album and become a fan of more than a single song. But this week was great. Not only did I go away as a fan of 2 new bands (Y La Bamba and Vittoria Fleet, who I already blogged about), but I also got a bunch of other artists to follow up with, all of whom ended up having 1 or 2 good songs, but nothing amazing. But, since it was so good last week, I will share a few more of those songs that caught my attention.
The first one was Thin Skin, by Benedict Benjamin. Thin Skin is off of Night Songs, the Londoner's debut album that came out in March. Thin Skin is by far the best song, with a couple other standout tracks, and a generally pleasant sound. May be good for fans of Jose Gonzalez.
Up next, we have Jack Grace. The Australian's debut EP, River, also came out earlier this year. It was All Lost, the closing track, that caught my attention. Again, there's a couple other good tracks, but this one is the real stand out.
I don't generally go past 2 tracks, but today I will. So for number 3, we have Soft Glas, a Brooklyn producer who put out both an EP (Dos) and an album (Late Bloom) this year. He gets all kinds of people I've never heard of to feature on vocals, and Latency, the song I'm sharing today, is featuring Stalking Gia. Pretty great stuff, kind of like a chilled out Little Dragon or something.
Number four is Lunacre, a British band that's maybe between Radiohead and Lo-Fang (just to note, they are good but not Radiohead good. Just soundwise, it's close). Their second EP, Schtum, came out earlier this year and is pretty interesting. So here's [Re]Cycle.
And finally, we have Lina Tullgren. She's an American singer/songwriter, making quiet, sad, acoustic songs. She has one EP, Wishlist, which has a bunch of pretty songs, all of which are individually nice, but as a whole it's kind of a boring EP. But Grace is a really pretty song.
I am so tired today. I am getting absolutely nothing done at work. That's not completely true. I did do some stuff. But very little. I hosted a Chrismukkah party lats night, which went quite late, so now on top of it just being Monday, I am lacking in sleep and therefore brain power. But at least I have enough brain power to introduce you to Vittoria Fleet, the second band I came away from this week's Spotify playlist with. They put out an album called Greed back in 2015, but I have just heard it this week. And it starts out great right away from the first track, Mother Ocean.
So yeah, pretty heavy and dark stuff. I feel like it's a much less spastic version of Crystal Castles. So here's one more song for you, Brute, off of the same album.
It's coming to year end, and I have a few songs to share before the end of the year so I may have to up my game over the next few days. And to make things harder, I found a couple great things today thanks to my weekly Spotify playlist. In fact the whole weekly suggestions playlist was pretty on point this week. Probably more so than ever before. But the main take away was Y La Bamba. Y La Bamba is the project of Luz Elena Mendoza from Portland, and she put out her 4th album, Ojos del Sol, last year. Ulysses, the closing track to the album was on my playlist this week and I really like it.
So I listened to the whole album, and immediately fell in love thanks to the first song. Ojos Del Sol is the opening track and I can't get enough of it. I love the little warble in her voice, I live the simplicity and beauty, I love how the vocals don't ever really go where you think they're gonna go, I love how timeless it sounds, I love the lyrics. Seriously this song is amazing. It makes me so happy and I can't stop listening.
I am in southern China finishing up my last business trip of the year, which brought me to Shenzhen and Nanning for the week. Plus a quick hop over to Hong Kong for the day on Wednesday, ostensibly for a meeting so work would pay for my transport, but really just to see my friend Shuk-Wah and eat char siew bao. But it's back to Shanghai tomorrow! Yay!
I've got some pretty weird music for you today. First up is Soft Hair, a very strange band called Soft Hair. This is a duo made up of Connan Mockasin and and LA Priest, neither of whom I've heard but both of whom apparently also make music. They somehow got together and over a 5 year period recorded an album. That album, also called Soft Hair, came out earlier this year. And it is super weird. I'm not actually sure I like it, but it definitely caught my interest. Specifically the first single Lying Has To Stop.
And then there's Zamutto. This is another weird one, though probably a bit less weird than Soft Hair. But it is the solo project of one of the guys from The Books, so if you know The Books you know what to expect. It's still a lot of electro weirdness like what you'd expect from The Books, which is exactly why I probably liked it. Zammuto just put out an EP called Veryone, and I'll be sharing It Can Feel So Good off of that.
So I normally don't like talking about real things in a very public manner, but my friend Min passed away about a week ago, and I would feel wrong not mentioning it at all. Min was a friend of mine here in Shanghai for a bit over a year now, who died suddenly last week due to complications after having emergency open heart surgery. I don't really want to talk about it very much here, but it was rough and surprising and sad, and she will be missed. Everything is good now, but it was definitely a very rough couple of days when I first found out. Kind of a huge deal in my life this year, so I feel like I need to mention it even though I don't want to talk about it. So there you go. 2016 sucks. Very glad it's almost over.
But on to happier subjects. Now that I've written my 2016 best of list, it's time to look at 2017. One of the big artists who came out in 2016 was Maggie Rogers, who shot to a tiny little bit of fame when she produced the song Alaska as a student in Pharrell's production master class at NYU. As it turns out each student in the class had to produce 1 song, which she forgot to do, but happened to have a song on her laptop ready to go. And so she played it for the class, and brought Pharrell to tears. That song was Alaska, and it is great. Maybe not tear inducing great, but really great. She has one other song out now, but definitely one to watch for 2017. And the BBC agrees, as they have her on their Sound of 2017 long list.
Normally I wouldn't write anything for this blog, just give you a list, but when I post it on Facebook they're showing a preview that shows like the first five albums before you even click on the link. And I couldn't have that. So I needed some filler. Here's your filler. And now here's your list.
10. Solange - A Seat at the Table
9. RY X - Dawn
8. Anderson .Paak - Malibu
7. Warpaint - Heads Up
6. Bayonne - Primitives
5. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
4. Cross Record - Wabi-Sabi
3. Michael Kiwanuka - Love & Hate
2. Bon Iver - 22, A Million
1. Frank Ocean - Blonde
And if you like, here's the Spotify playlist with these 10 albums, and a few others that were on the long list (which are not presented in order after number 10).
This weekend was my Limmud conference. That's the Jewish conference thing I was volunteering with. It's basically this volunteer conference, all planned and run by volunteers, and with volunteer speakers. You have to pay to go, though, since there are conference rooms and meals and stuff that need to be paid for. Anyway, it started Friday night but I didn't go until Saturday. My friend Joyce was in town from London for the weekend so I went out to see her Friday night. And we went to my friend Jenny's Sichuan pop-up, which is always a priority if she's doing one. I thought it was gonna be a quiet dinner with Joyce and a couple other friends, enjoying delicious food from Jenny, and instead it was like 20 people I haven't seen in weeks or more that all ended up in the same place at the same time and we were there until midnight just talking and drinking. It was fantastic! Great start to the weekend.
Then from Saturday it was Limmud all day. Like literally all day. I was there from 8am to 1am. There were speeches and stuff I went to, but I was also busy helping out to run things and make sure stuff stayed on time and everyone was registered and in the right place at the right time. And then after the evening activities (for which my only volunteer participation was as a voluntary wine taster) I just stayed at the hotel with 3 people talking about political theory until 1 am. Again, fantastic! And more of the same Sunday, except with less volunteering and more just going to speeches.
There were some really interesting speeches. I went to one about the Jews of Gibraltar, which was nice since I'm probably gonna go there with my parents during Chinese New Year. And there was an awesome Chinese consumer trends panel. I also went to speeches on Ethiopian Jewry, Jewish Architecture and the idea of creating holy spaces, Hungarian Jewish humor, Jews in pop music, modern dance and much more. Actually, the modern dance one may have been one of my favorites. I wasn't planning to go to it, but the woman needed help with the computer so I got sucked in. She started out by going into a bit of history, which was interesting, and talking about some of the prominent Jewish figures who helped shape modern dance. But what I really liked was one comment she made about how modern dance is a moving painting in space. My sister has danced all her life and I just don't get it. I've never been able to watch a dance performance and really be inspired or moved or anything. I'm just like "whatever" most of the time. But the way that this woman talked about dance gave me a way to think about what I was seeing differently, which could really change the way I perceive and enjoy dance. I hope so, anyway. So for that reason it was maybe my favorite.
All in all a good conference (despite some organizational issues which became a pain in my ass). And what's the first thing to do after a big Jewish conference? Go to a Christmas Market of course. So I did on Sunday afternoon, at Paulaner. Traditional German Christmas market. Always a good time, especially with a ton of mulled wine.
Really great weekend of course calls for really great music. And today it will be Alek Fin. Alek Fin is the stage name of Alek Finkel from Calabasas. Given that information, he must be a Jew, so also fitting for this post. I first heard his newest EP, Strannik, which he produced over the internet as a collaboration with a Russian producer named Galun, and it is terrific. Case in point, Ionosphere.
So with a start like that, I had to go back and listen to his last two EPs, Mull and Án Mynda. Both fantastic. For track number 2, we're gonna go all the way back to his 2012 EP Mull, and listen to Rocks in Paper.
Thanksgiving went fantastically this year! We had so much food. It was at my house again, this year with 13 people, and we had a turkey and a ham and a duck and all the fixins. In fact, we had too many fixins. People made all kinds of things, including gravy and Austrian bread dumplings, so we kept some of the fixins that came with the turkey (we got it pre-cooked... but it was delicious!) in the fridge since we just had no room at the table. And we managed to cram all the food and all the people together around the table, which was really amazing. Last year we didn't try. We did the usual food on the running board and serve yourself thing, then sit wherever you like. But this year it was all just crammed in and so homey and wonderful. It definitely helped that it was fantastic people, but I really do think there's something about sitting around the table together and eating a big meal.
It was also very, very international. When I first moved here, for some reason most of my friends were American and Canadian. Now, many of my friends have begun to leave, and I'm moving into my own Shanghai 2.0 with a new round of friends. And these ones are much more international, which I'm used to and prefer. We had Americans, of course, and Canadians and Germans and Austrians and Chinese and French and Korean and Kenyan and Spanish all together at the table. It was the best. I like my life this way. Sadly our Brit was out of town, but I know she regrets it. How could she not?
And then on Sunday I saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them! It came out at the same time here as it did in the US, which is already uncommon. And movies here don't usually stay in cinemas that long. Well, that's not totally true. They can, but not in Imax or on the big screen. And I wanted to see it in Imax, not just a regular movie screen. With the trade show and Thanksgiving and this conference I have coming up next week, I wasn't sure I'd be able to see it like I wanted, but luckily I did. And I really enjoyed it. Very much looking forward to the next 4!
All in all a good week. And now time for good music. Today it's Flock of Dimes, the solo project from Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak. She just put out her debut album, If You See Me Say Yes, and it was a very pleasant surprise. I had no idea it was coming, and then all of a sudden I heard Everything Is Happening Today and thought it was great and somehow familiar, and I looked it up only to confirm my suspicion that it was Jenn Wasner.
Everything Is Happening Today is actually still one of my favorite tracks on the album. She's made a great album. In fact, it's in consideration for my Top 10, which I'm already working on. And it came as a very pleasant surprise following Wye Oak's release of Tween earlier this year. More wonderful Wye Oaky goodness! My favorite track is probably Semaphore, the lead single.
I had a super crazy week with as I as planning a trade show. Luckily this only happens once every two years, but it's probably the worst part of my job. It's been like 16-18 hour days for the last week. I am so happy to be home right now. I wasn't supposed to be home until later today, but actually got to come home last night, which was amazing. Then I slept for 10 hours.
Then I woke up to make coffee, put on some music, and The Japanese House came on. And what a perfect way to start the day, especially on a day like this where it's gross and rainy outside and I just want to chill out and do nothing. Because that is totally the feel of The Japanese House, and it was a perfect way to start the day. This day in particular Good side in, the first single off her newest EP Swim Against the Tide, was the first thing to come on, and it's totally made my day already.
Great music always makes my day great, but to make today even better, I'll be having a big Thanksgiving dinner with like a dozen friends. It's gonna be a good day. So until then, you can find me here listening to all 3 of The Japanese House EPs. And before I go start preparing, here's another song. Sugar Pill, off her last EP, Clean. Kind of reminds me of Totemo, probably because of the Asiany instrumentation
And since she only has 3 EPs, I might as well just do one song from each. What the hell. So from her first EP, Pools To Bathe In, here's Sister.
I'm just going to share a bit more music with you today, this time in the form of Angel Olsen. No stories.
This woman's been around for quite a few years, making quite a lot of music. I've never been so into her, but her new album, WOMAN, caught my attention much more than I expected. I can't think of any songs off of her last album (which I think is the only on I heard), but there's a few good ones on the new one. Starting with the very fun Shut Up Kiss Me.
And then there's Sister, the longest track on the album (although just barely). But we all know how I love a long song. This one is great all the way through, but it's really from about 4:30 that I love it.
My friends Josh and Kiera just came through town for 24 hours. Josh and I have known each other since 9th grade, and then he went and married this lovely lady Kiera. They planned themselves an anniversary trip to Japan, and since I used to live there and have been a few times they asked me what my suggestions were. My first suggestion was to come to Shanghai since it's so close, so they did! They flew from the US to Shanghai, spent about 27 hours, and now they're off to Hiroshima to start their Japan trip.
With only 24 hours in town, we did not have a moment to spare. And luckily they did not want to spare a moment. So we packed a ton of things into just a short visit. Obviously, the main attraction was food, starting with snack #1 (xiaolongbao. Duh.) as soon as we dropped their bags off at my house. But we also needed some scenery, so this was followed by a visit to the Bund (and drinks and snack #2: salmon explosion. Double duh.). And then on to more food and beer. Because that's what Shanghai life is all about.
This morning was a bit more chilled. Sort of. Not really. Not at all, actually. It seems more chilled because we just went for a walk in the French Concession. Except we walked from 9am until about 3pm, eating various snacks and lunch, drinking various coffees, and sighting various sights. Including the Propaganda Poster Art Museum, a first for me, and a fantastic one. But I am now exhausted, so I'm gonna sit here and do nothing for the rest of the day.
It was great to share my life here with old friends, which I sadly don't get to do much. They are probably the first friends that have come from America to visit me in China. And that's including all the years I've lived here. I've had friends come from various other places, and friends pass through town who I got to spend time with, but this is the first time a pre-college friend has come to China specifically to visit me. So that was really nice. And they've moved from California to Minnesota, so I don't get to see them when I'm home anymore. So this was great. You should come visit too. I promise you'll have as much fun (and delicious food) as they did.
For today's music, it's a bit of a surprising one: Solange. She recently put out her new album, A Seat At The Table, and it's wonderful. I was quite skeptical, because being Beyonce's little sister (and having heard her previous singles) I was expecting pop music. But that is not what I got at all. I got really great R&B. Case in point, Cranes In The Sky.
This song is not pop, this is like Meshell Ndegeocello. Which is always a good thing. Those strings and the beat are just beautiful. I also just watched this video for the first time, and there are some great visuals in there. And some great color. I'm a very big fan of this song. And it doesn't end there, there's plenty of fantastic tracks. So I'll share one more with you, Don't Wish Me Well.
I am shocked and angry and ashamed and depressed and all kinds of emotions all rolled up into one right now. I don't think I've felt this way since high school when I would have a crush on someone and would find out they didn't like me back. That's the closest comparison I can make. It's like you care so much about something and it just slaps you in the face.
I'm having a really hard time coming up with the words to express how I feel.
What it comes down to is that the majority of people in my country, and country that I used to be proud of but am unsure how I feel about now, have just voted to move in a direction which creates a society of isolationism, racism, hatred and bullying. This is nothing more than a backlash of fear by a white, uneducated, closed-minded majority that does not know how to deal with a changing world, and rather than talk and learn and adjust to create a society where everyone can prosper, has chosen to exclude the others for their own selfish, narrow-minded worldview.
I understand that a lot of this came from a backlash against the system, that people are desperate for change in our government. And that's not a bad thing. I'd like to see that, too. But they've taken this desire for change and rather than channeling it in a direction which would allow us, as a country, to actually change and move forward in a global society, have chosen to use this energy to try and turn the clock back to how they think things used to be in the "good old days," and push against the rest of the world. They have chosen to follow a man who lies with every other word that comes out of his mouth, that has no idea how to rake responsibility for anything (or share it when credit is due), and who will be the worst role model for our society and our youth that we could find. This cannot go well.
On the positive side, Trump and his rubber-stamping congress may now actually spend more time focusing on issues at home, something which is important. Unfortunately the policies they're going to enact (and they can easily do so now that they've got Congress and will soon have the Supreme Court as well) are policies and laws which will create a society I do not want to be a part of. Luckily I don't have to be at the moment. The only thing I can hope is that the Republic Party is in enough shambles that they will still be unable to agree amongst themselves. But the fact that they somehow pulled themselves together, and to the landslide degree that they did,
It is very scary to think about what kind of society we may be moving towards. I hope I am wrong about all of this. I hope I am overreacting and that Trump does focus back on America, but focuses on all Americans, and not just those like him. I hope that in 4 years, or even 1 year, I can look at the news and think "that's reasonable," rather than being disgusted, as I am now. I hope to be proven wrong.
So for now, here's a hopeful song. Let's all just be normal, good people, and we can all be cool kids.
I know I just posted, but then I found new Bonobo! Kerala! With a new album coming out in January! Migration! And it will feature Nick Murphy (aka Chet Faker) Hooray!
And I guess since we're talking about him, Nick Murphy is now releasing music under his own name, instead of his Chet Faker moniker. He has two singles and an album in the works, so here's his second single, Stop Me (Stop You).
I need to play you new music, but I'm too tired to write anything. I had a great weekend, but maybe I'll tell you about it later. For now I'll just tell you about Jay Som.
Jay Som is actually Melina Duterte from San Francisco. She's working on her first real album, which is supposed to come out next year. But she already has an album called Turn Into, which is a collection of "unfinished songs," although most of them sound pretty complete to me. She actually has a single called I Think You're Alright, which is the first one from the next album, but it was actually Drown, off of Turn Into, which first caught my attention.
There are quite a few great songs on this album, but my favorite has to be Unlimited Touch. I just love the chorus. I actually had a fantastic moment with this song, where I was taking the bus home and it was kind of gloomy and overcast, but then there were fireworks going off right in front of us. That's kind of what this song feels like. A bit overcast, but also somewhat bright and hopeful. And all in slow motion.
I think I still owe you the end of my Sri Lanka trip. Man, that was like a month ago. I'm so bad at this. I think I left off in the tea highlands? Maybe? Well, I went to them. Everyone said to go, and I totally wanted to, cause they're supposed to be beautiful. And they are indeed beautiful. And everyone also said to take the train, but I was like whatever we can just drive through. But it's super cheap so I decided to do it. And I'm so glad I did, cause it was maybe the best part of the trip. Yes, we could just drive through the highlands. And we did. And they were very nice. But the train goes where the cars don't, through tiny villages and along cliffs, with absolutely incredible views. Also, it's big and blue and really cool. And it makes for great pictures. It was awesome.
From there, it was down to the beaches for a few days. We stayed in a town called Mirissa along the south coast. It was supposed to be a pretty chilled out couple days with time on the beach and a visit to Galle, the old colonial town in the area. It was mostly that, but then we also went whale watching. We saw blue whales and I almost got really sick. I never get seasick but this was really bad. I had to take pills. Which the guys who run the trips know everyone needs, because they just have them for you free, included in the tour. So it was great to see the whales, but I did not feel very good most of the time.
After the beach, it was just back to Colombo to eat McDonald's (literally that is what we did. Rei loves to try it in every country to see what's different, so we went to check it out. She had curry and rice. I had a chicken big mac). Then I had dinner with my friends in Colombo while Rei went to the airport, before it was my turn to go to the airport.
During that trip, Banks released her new album, The Altar. I actually have yet to buy it. I've listened a bunch of times, an there are some great tracks on it. Like Lovesick, for example.
Really great track. I totally want this album. It's not as good as Goddess, her first one, but it is a solid album. But I haven't bought it because I'm sure she's going to put out a deluxe version. She did with Goddess, and it included like all the songs from the EPs that came out before. So I'm waiting for the deluxe version of The Altar, which will hopefully also come with Better, the single she put out between albums for no reason I'm aware of, but which is wonderful. But in the meantime, I'll just keep streaming the album, and listening to all the great tracks, like Haunt.
And then the other day I was at my friends restaurant and a song came on, and I thought it was Banks. I mean, it sounded like Banks, but it was not a song I'd ever heard (and I'm very confident I've heard all of her songs). So I asked the guy DJing and he sadly told me he didn't have the name there but he was pretty sure that it was someone featuring Banks on vocals. So I went on Spotify and managed to find the song Wolfpack, which is produced by TALA, with Banks on vocals. I'm not sure this is the song I heard, but it is a fantastic song. So here it is.
Things have, once again, gotten really busy. This weekend was actually super busy. But fun. Well, half was fun. I spent Saturday flying from Beijing to Wuhan for a meeting, then back to Shanghai, and so I didn't celebrate Halloween. But then Sunday was great. I made dumplings for a friends birthday, went to a good meeting for this conference I'm volunteering with and had a nice dinner. For once I was actually out of the house all day, which is unusual. I left at like 10am and didn't come back for like 12 hours! I love that. Oh, and I got a massage! Good Sunday.
But that means I haven't had time to write, so today you just get two quick songs. Cause I've got a bit of a backlog. The first is Miss You, by Oh Malo. Great great song off of a decent album, by a band from (I think) Rhode Island.
And the next one is Blinding Light, another great great song. This one is by Canadian artist Andrew Judah. He's put out like 5 EPs in a series this year, all titled Metanoia (parts I through V) and Blinding Light is by far the best track on any of them. There are some other good ones, but there's also some not so good ones. Very hit or miss. But this song is a hit. Reminds me of Other Lives at the beginning, which might be why I like it so much.
It's only Tuesday, and it has been a very long week. It was a fantastic weekend, though. I met a bunch of new people and made some new friends, which as we all know I've been trying to do lately. And I ate some delicious brunch on Sunday. But then Monday came along and I feel like this week is already kicking my ass. First, I didn't sleep well Sunday night, which never helps. And then Monday was just super busy, as usual. And work is getting in the way of life this week. Which would be fine, if life weren't also getting in the way of life. I have no passport at the moment because I'm renewing my visa, which means of course it's the perfect time for me to lose my debit card. Right? I can't think of a better time. Luckily I will get my passport back tomorrow (but only temporarily), which gives me time to leave work early so that I can go get a new card and buy a train ticket, then go to all these meetings on Thursday before taking a train to Beijing to spend a couple nights. And Saturday I'm flying from Beijing to Wuhan for an afternoon meeting, and then back to Shanghai very late. The plan is to just go out and celebrate Halloween, but I'm pretty sure I'll just be in a really bad mood and come home and pass out. At least I'll get to see friends in Beijing on Friday night.
And in the meantime, at least there's good music. Up first is Your Friend, the moniker of one Ms. Taryn Miller. She put out an EP (Jekyll/Hyde), and then an album (Gumption). The EP is pretty good, and the album isn't bad either. But there is one song in particular which I think is fantastic, and that's Tame One off of the Jekyll/Hyde EP.
And then there's LIV. LIV has just put out their first single, titled Wings of Love. It's a solid track, with a great throwback, soulful sound. But it would not necessarily have caught my attention on its own merits. The reason it has, though, is because LIV is a new supergroup made up of Lykke Li, two of the guys from Miike Snow, Bjorn from Peter Bjorn and John, and some Swedish producer guy named Jeff Bhasker. With a lineup like that, this is definitely something worth paying attention to. There is no album yet, or even an album announced, but I did read an article that says they've made enough content as a band for more than one album. So that's worth looking forward to.
I have two fantastic songs and no stories to share with you today. It's Friday, it's been a very long week, and I want my brain to stop for a bit before I head out for the evening. So no long blog today.
The first song is from Rhode Island-based band Arc Iris. I just heard them for the first time today, when Kaleidoscope came on a playlist I was listening to. It's the opening track from their second album, Moon Saloon, that came out in August. Which I now need to go listen to because Kaleidoscope is really great. Such a beautiful chorus. And it has the same producer as FKA Twigs and Caribou (but sounds nothing like FKA Twigs or Caribou). And it's got a pretty sweet video, so you're watching that.
Then there's Totemo. She's from Israel, and has an EP Desire Path, that came out in July. On said EP, there are some tracks that are a bit too poppy and sugary for me. But then there's also some really great tracks. The best of which is Hits. This song is absolutely incredible. There is nothing that I don't like about this song. So fantastic. And you're also going to watch the video, because after a bit of googling I learned that the video is made up of a collage of videos that her friend started shooting of her when she was diagnosed with cancer and started chemo. So listen to an incredible song and watch an incredible journey. All good things.
I think I still need to finish writing about Sri Lanka. After Rei showed up we spent another week together. When we started planning I basically had her pick what she wanted to do, and one of her top choices was Sigiriya, cause she'd seen something about it on TV. So she met me there after landing at the airport, and the next morning we climbed it. Sigiriya is this complex of ruins that's built on top of a very distinctively shaped mountain. It basically looks like a giant boulder. It's still debated if it was a palace or a monastery, but after seeing it I think it was a palace. I saw other monasteries while I was there, and there were some pretty major differences in the layout and design. So I'm glad I was able to solve the mystery for everyone. Anyway, the mountain looks like a giant boulder and you basically climb up the steps that have been put along the side. This is after climbing a spiral staircase right up the side of it (which is basically a cliff) to see some cave paintings. It sounds pretty terrifying, but it was surprisingly ok. Even with my fear of heights I was pretty fine. The whole time actually. One of the best parts of the climb are these giant lions paw carvings that straddle what remains of the original staircase, before you start the main climb to the summit. They're massive, and apparently were part of the entire lion statue whose mouth you had to walk through to summit the mountain. I wish that part was still around. Then once you get to the top there are really great views of the surrounding countryside.
That afternoon we were supposed to go have lunch at this fancy hotel built by Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka's most famous architect, which has gorgeous views of a nearby lake and national park, and then see cave temples in Dambulla. But after the hotel our guide suggested we do the cave paintings the next day since it was too hot in the afternoon. So we did. We just hung out, I worked a bit, Rei napped, we watched some TV, had a nice dinner at the hotel, and went to bed. This was pretty standard for us. Evenings were generally spent with dinner, a bit of tv, and early to sleep. And then up early the next day. Every day.
Once up, it was on to Dambulla, which turned out to be one of my favorite places in Sri Lanka. It's a series of 5 caves, all of which are Buddhist temples, with every inch of their walls and ceilings covered in Buddhist paintings. They're also packed with statues of the Buddha and Boddhisatvas and the kings who funded them (some of whom apparently also had to use them to hide out so they wouldn't get killed). It doesn't take long at all to see. Even with a guide it only took about 30 minutes, but the caves were awesome. After that, we spend the next few hours heading out of the ancient capitals and into the Tea Plantations in the highlands. We were going to be having our splurge night that night, staying at a fancy hotel that had been converted from a tea factory. The place is gorgeous, as is the surrounding countryside, but sadly the hotel itself was pretty shit. We had a horrible night's sleep. I won't go into it, but there are terrible reviews of it from me all over the internet now. But, the service was amazing and the food was good and we had a fancy high tea in the afternoon, which is always fun, especially in a tea plantation. And we got to pick tea leaves the next morning. Rei hated it. I loved it. Point being, if you go to Sri Lanka, definitely visit the Heritance Tea Factory, but do not waste your money to stay there.
I think I'm gonna stop here. I think I'm gonna turn this into a 3-parter. So now I'll just tell you about The Seshen, an amazing band I just found. They're not new, but they just put out their first official album, Flames & Figures. They had an EP back in 2014, and an album in 2012 that was self released, but this is their first album on a label. It's an awesome album, but actually so is all their old stuff. So we'll start today with Other Spaces, which is my favorite track off the new album so far. Especially at the end. Though that might change. I love these guys already, but I see myself liking them even more the more I listen.
So if you can't figure it out after that, part of the reason I probably love them is because they sound a lot like Little Dragon. Who I love. So much. As mentioned, their old stuff is also fantastic. So instead of playing you one of the new singles or something, I'll just play you what is maybe my favorite track off of Unravel (their last EP), Shapes. This might actually be my favorite song by them.
Look at that, there's a new song from Daughter. It's a bonus track called The End off I think the Japanese release of their last album, Not To Disappear. And it just came out last week. Considering I had them on my blog 6 times last year (and also multiple times prior to last year) you could say they need to be here. And they're one of my favorites, so anything they do is noteworthy.
Another quick one for you. I started a 2017 watchlist playlist, and there are currently two artists on there. I'm not actually sure I have to wait until 2017 for music from them, but each of them recently put out music, and only has a few songs available. Which makes me think that by the time an album actually comes, it'll be 2017.
The first is George Cosby, with the track Juliet. This was the first single off of his new EP, A Savage Kiss, which came out yesterday. This is his second EP, still no album, but despite that all I can seem to find out about his is that he's based in London.
And then we have Lo Moon. I have very little info about these guys, except that they are a trio from LA and have a beautiful debut single called Loveless.
I wanted to write a blog earlier, but then I didn't have time. But I'm just gonna put this song here. It's fantastic, so it should be here. It's called Breaking Myself Up by the band CuckooLander. It's really nice at first, but just wait until the end. Reminds me of Feist a bit. Really soulful. Sadly their others songs are not nearly this good. The other songs are more like a mediocre version of Chairlift, maybe. But this one is great. Maybe because Rostam was involved on producing it.
I just got back to China from Sri Lanka last night. I went for October Holiday, where everyone gets a week off to celebrate the establishment of the Communist Party. I took an extra week and spent 2 weeks around the island, the first week on my own and the second with my friend Rei.
I started out in Colombo, the capital. I wasn't actually planning to spend much time there because everyone says there's really no point, but I have 2 friends that just moved there, so ended up staying with them a couple days. And everyone (including my friends who live there) are right - as a tourist, there isn't much to do. But when with friends, it can be lovely. We did pretty much nothing. Just had a little wander around, ate, drank afternoon cocktails, watched sunset at the ocean... It was pretty fantastic. Good weather, good company, cold (not so good, sadly) beer, good people, good food. What more could you want? And as much traveling as I've been doing lately (pretty much nonstop since my family came on June 1), this is the first time I've felt like I was on vacation. Every other trip has been super busy or super short or just non-stop, and this was 2 days in Colombo of really doing next to nothing. It was exactly what I needed, actually. It was also lovely to spend time with my 2 friends there. They're actually friends of friends who I've met 3-4 times over the years, and they are a lovely couple, but I've never really gotten to know them that well. It's always just been a dinner or a day together in a group, but we had like 3 days with just the 3 of us, and it was really fantastic. Hopefully I'll get to see them again soon.
After Colombo I was out on my own to explore some ancient capitals. I hopped a 6 hour very local bus with no A/C up to Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka's oldest and most famous ancient capital. This place was first established as a capital in pre-Jesus times (that's a technical term. PJT for short), and then was moved a few times around the 10th century, then came back, and then moved again never to return. Now, it's full of ruins. But having been a royal capital, there are very few palaces. Most of what you find are these enormous (and some not so enormous, actually) stupas. They're mostly still in use, with active Buddhist temples attached to them that manage the upkeep. A lot of stuff in Anuradhapura (and the other locations I went) were pretty much lost to the jungle and only rediscovered by British colonialists in the 19th century, which is when they started rebuilding some of the sites. The Lonely Planet makes Anuradhapura sound like a huge complex of temples spread over a plain, so it had me thinking of Bagan in Burma before I went. Sadly I think that got my expectations up too much, because while the stupas are pretty impressive, it really is just a bunch of stupas, not a whole massive complex of temples or palaces. And it's also not that many temples, just a handful spread across the plains. There are a couple areas with some nice ruins in the forest, but for the most part it doesn't even feel that ancient. Also I got really dehydrated because Sri Lanka is SO HOT!
I had left myself 2 days in Anuradhapura, which ended up being too much. So on the 2nd afternoon I took a tuk-tuk to Mihinthale, a neighboring town which has a temple on top of a mountain. This was actually quite nice for a few reasons. First, tuk-tuks are awesome so it was fun to sit in it for like an hour. Plus the driver stopped at this random bodhi tree on the way that was massive and beautiful and impressive, and which I would have known nothing about if not for him. The temple itself was also great, first because it's on a mountain and has great views of the surrounding country. Also I got a guide who explained a bunch of stuff to me and made it much more interesting. But in the end, it was still just a couple of stupas and a ton of monkeys, plus a bunch of foundations for other ruined buildings.
Since my tuk-tuk ride was so nice the day before, I decided to have the driver take me 3 hours to Polonaruwa the next day. Polonaruwa is another ancient capital, which the guide books make less of, but which I thought was much more interesting. It's still just a bunch of ruins, but there's a much wider variety of ruins here. You have a couple of big stupas, but you also have ruins of palaces, Hindu temples, monasteries, cave carvings and more, all in a very small area, which makes it easy to get around and see in an afternoon. Plus the artwork and carvings here are also much more impressive than in Anuradhapura. If you go to Sri Lanka and only have time for one, don't listen to the guidebooks and go to Anuradhapura, go to Polonaruwa instead.
So that was just a quick stop off since it only took an afternoon. I actually expected it to take the afternoon and the next morning, but I was wrong. So then I hopped another tuk-tuk the next day to go to Sigiriya, my next destination which was 2 hours away, where Rei would be joining me. She was only going to arrive late at night and I got there around lunch time, but the only thing to do in Sigiriya is climb Sigiriya Rock. I had to wait for Rei to do that though, so I was wandering around town looking for something else to do and saw a bunch of jeep safaris advertised, which I ended up signing up for. There's a bunch of wildlife in Sri Lanka, but the most famous are probably elephants. I hadn't intended to go see them because I've seen plenty of wildlife and didn't think I'd have time, but in the end I did, so rather than sit in the hotel all afternoon watching TV, I decided to go. I went with this French couple and we took off for Mineriya National Park, just a half hour away from Sigiriya. This is one of the best places to find elephants, and now is apparently the best time to see them because they all gather in the area at this time of year for some reason. It has to do with the change between wet and dry season (wet season is just about to start) and the abundance of grass or something like that, but it means there's hundreds of elephants in the national park. And since it's not high season in Sri Lanka, there's not a million tourists (but there are still a lot of other jeeps around). So we spent a couple hours in the park looking at elephants (and we even saw one just randomly decide it didn't like the jeeps and charge at one, ramming head on into it. I thought it was going to tip over. It didn't. Luckily it wasn't near us, cause that shit was freaky). After that, it was back to the hotel to wait for Rei and continue with the trip, which I'll talk about later.
I already mentioned that while I was in Sri Lanka a bunch of good music came out, and one of those excellent releases was 22, A Million, the new album from Bon Iver. I put them on the blog earlier this year and talked about how excited I was they were making new music, so no need to go into that. But now that the album is out I can tell you about my favorite songs. One of them is the 2nd single off the album (well, 3rd song released, but 2nd single as the 1st single had 2 tracks), 33 "GOD".
Great track. And great album. I'm not sure everyone agrees, though. Well, that's not comletely true. I think everyone agrees it's a great album, but some people are not 100% happy with it. Which I disagree with. People feel like it's a new voice or something, but I don't feel that way at all. People said the same thing when Bon Iver, Bon Iver came out, saying that it was so different and that it took getting used to. I actually think that what Bon Iver has done with both Bon Iver, Bon Iver and 22, A Million is they have successfully managed to evolve, something many bands try and fail to do. So many bands try something new and end up losing themselves and making crap music, but Bon Iver has somehow managed to add new elements and layers to their music, use new tools or instruments or styles, without losing the core of who they are, in my opinion. I feel like pretty much every song on 22, A Million is distinctly Bon Iver at the core. There's still so much of the style and musicality and base layers in each track, and it's just everything that goes around that which has changed, taking in new influences and staying extremely current. But you can still hear the core in there, and it's still very Bon Iver.
Take, for example, 715 CREEKS. This is probably my favorite track on the album. At the beginning, one of Bon Iver's signature characteristics was the layering of the vocals, but there was always a distorted element to it. He's been doing this forever. You can hear it on Woods, off of the Blood Bank EP, and even in The Wolves off of For Emma, Forever Ago. With 715 CREEKS, rather than building up the layers like he used to, he's used autotune (probably better than anyone has ever used autotune) to create a similar effect, keeping one of the most basic Bon Iver characteristics, but updating it. So that's my 2 cents. I think the album is fantastic. I think it's a very clearly organic growth for the band, and the only thing I'm not happy about is how short it is.
I'm not gonna write anything long. I'll tell you about Sri Lanka when I'm back in China. I mean, I have had a lot of down time, so I could totally write something long. But I don't have a lot of downtime right now I guess. Anyway, here's a couple songs.
First one comes from River Whyless. They're from Asheville, North Carolina, which is a fantastic city. It also supposed to have a very good music scene. These guys are quite good. I can't help but think they're a Christian band when I listen to them, but I don't think they actually are. Maybe it's just the new album title, We All The Light. They do the whole male/female vocal thing that I love, and they have a generally good sound, though nothing breakthrough. I do very much like the song Kalangala, though. I had to google it to find out what Kalangala is, and according to Google it's a place in Uganda. No clue if that's what they're talking about, but I like how it sounds.
And since I haven't shared frequently this year, I feel like I can't just leave you with one song. Plus a lot happened in music this last week. There was the new Bon Iver album, which deserves it's own post. There was the new Banks album, which is good, but definitely not as good as the first. Not sure if I'll put anything from there on the blog. Also a new Moses Sumney EP, which is very very pretty, and for some reason ends with a song called Incantation which is basically him chanting Jewish prayers beautifully. And, last but not least, Regina Spektor's new album, Remember Us To Life. If you've read my blogs about her before, I'm not as obsessed with her as many others. Some people think this woman shits gold. I think that, on average, she's fine. But when she's good, she's really fucking good. This new album is definitely on par for her, and much better than the last one, which I found pretty disappointing. I'd say my favorite song on the album so far is probably Grand Hotel, so I'll also throw that in here for good measure.
Also for good measure, let's just throw in that Moses Sumney track Incantation, from the new EP Lamentations. I love the guy, I think traditional Jewish prayer melodies are often really beautiful, I think he made a really interesting and beautiful track that also confuses me a lot. And now I just want to know if he's Jewish or what the hell.
I'm supposed to talk about Tokyo today. But I'm in Sri Lanka at the moment and exhausted. I just spent the entire day biking around, getting very dehydrated, looking at temples. But I'll make a go of it.
There was a holiday weekend in China, and I intended (for once) to actually stay in Shanghai. But then Rich needed a short, quick trip to renew his airline status for next year. So he convinced me to go to Tokyo. Which, let's be honest, is not difficult. The idea was originally to get in on Wednesday night, go hike up a mountain overnight on Thursday and Friday, then come back to Tokyo for a night out and for Saturday before heading back. That stayed more or less the same, but thanks to a terrible weather forecast we had to cancel the hike. But we did manage to do the two things I had wanted to do for Rich's bachelor party that we didn't get to.
We still did get out of Tokyo on Thursday, though, and headed to the same area where we originally planned. The idea instead was to stay at a hot spring hotel and do a short day hike or something. We did accomplish those things, but the day hike was not very exciting. Unfortunately the majority of it ended up being along paved roads, and while we were still in rural areas and surrounded by mountains and trees, it's not quite the same when you're walking along a paved road. We did try to get off into the woods for like the second half, but apparently a bridge had collapsed and they had to close the trail. So in the end we only spent about 30 minutes in the woods, hiking to a from a really nice waterfall, and the other 3-4 hours on the road. So really it was like a long walk more than anything. But I guess still nice to be outside in the fresh, non-polluted air. And the onsen was great.
The next day we had to start early to get back to Tokyo, because we'd booked ourselves into the tour of the Hakushu whiskey distillery, which is very close by, and the first of the two things we wanted to do for Rich but didn't get to during the party. The tour fills up quickly, it seems, so we were only able to get on the first tour of the day, at 10:30 am. Which means that by noon we were already a bit tipsy, because you do the tour for about 40 minutes, looking at the fermentation rooms and distilling rooms and warehouses, and then move on to the tasting room for 40 minutes, where you get to try a few different Hakushu whiskeys. And then, because of the train schedule, we had to stay for another couple of hours, so we had lunch at their restaurant and then went to the bar and drank more whiskey. The bar only serves 15ml tasters though, so we were not wasted or anything for the ride back. Just drunk enough to pass out. We did get to try the Hakushu 25 year and the Hibiki 30 year (in addition to the Hakushu 18 year with lunch) which now means I've tried all the Hakushus and all the Hibikis. And I have to say, Hakushu is probably my favorite of the famous Japanese whiskeys. I still love Akashi the most, though.
After that it was back to Tokyo for some bar hopping. Tokyo has all kinds of themed bars, and Rich got it in his head to go to a train themed bar. So I started googling to figure it out, and found so much more. We did start with the train bar, and then we had dinner at an izakaya, followed by a Jesus themed bar (which was more like a creepy, Gothic castle than anything, but they did have a lot of Jesuses all over the place, and plenty of other Christian iconography. Plus bats and skulls.). I thought it was pretty exciting, but then I had like 2 friends tell me they'd been there so I'm not sure why I never heard about it before. This was followed by a quick trip to the batting cages, which was a lot more fun than I expected, and finally on to the best part of the night: PENGUIN BAR! Yes, a bar with penguins. Real, live penguins. They're in a chilled area with a pool behind glass, so you can't touch them or anything, sadly, but they are still there and amazing and hilarious and follow you around if you go up to the glass to say hi.
Saturday started with the other activity which we did not get to do for Rich's bachelor party: Mario Kart! In real life. There are 2 guys in Akihabara with a bunch of go karts which you can rent and drive around the city in. Dressed in a costume. Most of the costumes are Mario themed, but not all. We of course went for Mario, though. Rich was Luigi and I was Yoshi. And then we followed our guide around for an hour, while all these people looked and pointed and filmed and laughed. My favorite part was when we were stopped at a light, and a biker on a Harley with a bunch of tattoos pulled up next to us, and then saw us and laughed. We actually did get a mini tour, which was really nice. I thought we'd just drive around, but the guide (who is not mandatory) took us past the Sky Tree, Ueno Park and Kaminarimon, so we got to see a few of the major Tokyo sites. I assume if you did two hours or more you could potentially see the whole city, which would be awesome too. Anyway, highly recommend this activity.
That was originally our only plan for Saturday, but as it turned out our friend Yasmin just happened to land in Tokyo on Saturday morning for a business trip, so we met her and our other friend Sarah in the afternoon for a few beers (and iPod shopping, which I'll talk about another time) before I went off to the airport. Sadly Sunday was a workday, so I had to get back on Saturday. Boo stupid Chinese holiday policies.
While in Japan I was obsessively listening to Shapeshifter, the debut album from New York band IAN SWEET (actually they might be an LA band. I'm not 100% sure). I heard #23 a few weeks ago, and I think it might be one of my favorite tracks of the year.
I honestly can't tell you how many times I've listened to that song. Jilian Medford, the vocalist and mastermind behind IAN SWEET, has put together a great collection of introspective, melancholy (there's that word again) songs. And backed with her bandmates, they've created a fantastic grungy sound that I normally wouldn't like, but really do in this case. I also love the way her voice squeeks. 2soft2chew, the track that comes next on the album, is another tune.
I sure do love me some lady rock. Not as in rock for ladies, but rock by ladies who rock. Which IAN SWEET is a perfect example of. Other good examples would be Sharon Van Etten, or today's other band Big Thief. They also put out their debut album, Masterpiece, earlier this year, and it is more great rock music from a great lady (and friends). And since I heard it and got it around the same time as IAN SWEET, and since we're talking about lady rock, it's in today's blog, too. So enjoy Real Love.
I believe I'm supposed to talk about Beth this time. She came to visit. We ate everything and drank a lot. Like way too much. By the time she left, she was literally truffled out. One of her last meals was at Din Tai Fung, and we got the truffle xiaolongbao, and she could only eat one. So, I consider her trip a success.
I had to work while she was visiting, so she mostly just explored on her own, and then we'd go eat and hang out in the evenings. It was pretty wonderful. Beth is actually the first person who's come to visit me since I lived in China (aside from family). I've had other visitors, but they're mostly people passing through, not actually coming to visit me. So it was really great to have Beth over. Plus she's amazing and hilarious and I don't see her enough because she's all the way down in New Zealand.
Also, she listens to good music. And while she was over she asked if I'd heard the new Frank Ocean album, blond. Unfortunately I had not at that point, because it wasn't on Spotify yet. But luckily it went up right after she left, and it only took one listen to realize I had to own this amazing piece of art. I remember enjoying Channel Orange when it came out, but I don't remember enjoying it this much. blond is seriously an incredible album. Probably one of the best of the year. And Ivy, the second track on the album, may be one of the best songs of the year.
So a lot of people have been saying the album is boring. I get that. A lot of it is similarly minimalistic, with lots of strange distortion in both the music and the vocals. But I can't get enough of it. This track is on repeat. I'm listening to it right now for like the 6th time today. Most of the critics also seem to love it. I did read that one critic was saying that the album comes off as a series of unconnected thoughts, and incomplete snippets of lyrics. I actually do agree with this assessment, but it's just one more thing I love about this album. A lot of the songs are nostalgic, writing his memories and experiences in that way makes it more believable and relateable. That's how memories are, and this album is nothing but memory and nostalgia and melancholy (something else I love). Seriously every track kind of makes me want to cry. Even the more "normal" songs, like Pink + White (which is also one of my favorites). The album is so emotional and raw. Do yourself a favor. Go listen to all of it.
Man it's been super crazy. But I heard a song that totally caught my interest, and as it turns out it's a remix from a defunct band I like. Youth Lagoon has officially retired the project (although Trevor Powers intends to keep making music under a new name), but some guy named Oliver Coates decided to remix Kerry, off of last year's Savage Hills Ballroom, and it popped up on a playlist recently, and I like it a lot.
I believe today is Hong Kong story time. My friend Beth came to visit recently, and we ended up meeting for a weekend in Hong Kong before coming up to Shanghai. Our friends Tom and Vicky live in Vietnam and told me at their wedding (which I was at just a couple months ago in London) that they'd be in HK for the weekend. And since Beth was coming anyway and we all know each other, we all met up there first for the weekend. I was meeting them late on Friday night, but they'd all been there for the day. Sadly my flight was delayed so by the time I got in I went straight to the hotel to bed, where I found Beth pretty much already asleep.
But on Saturday, we got off to a strong start with coffee. Beth used to work in coffee and so also love it, just like me, and there are a lot of amazing coffee places in HK. In fact, some of the apparent best ones were within walking distance of our hotel. So we went to two of them. And then on to dim sum with Tom and Vicky, back at the elbow jostling place I went to last time, which was just as good as I remember. This was followed by a hop over to Kowloon for some shopping, which was mildly successfull, followed by beers and snacks, a break, and then more drinks and food. We literally planned our entire weekend around drinks and food. We had so many lists going. And many of the places on our list needed reservations, but didn't take reservations, so we ended up putting our name down at like 3 places and drinking while we waited for the first one to call us. And luckily we got into our first choice, a modern Japanese yakitori place called Yardbird. I think everyone had been recommended that place by someone, and it did not disappoint. Also, Shuk-wah came! Yay! We love Shuk-wah. She took us around to a bunch of bars after that. I feel like this is a very boring paragraph. And I promise that my description of Sunday will be similar. So to summarize: we ate a lot, we drank a lot, and we enjoyed each others' company a lot. I'll leave it at that. Then Beth came to Shanghai and we did pretty much the same. But I'll talk about it later.
For now, I'll share Aero Flynn with you. I don't know where I stumbled across this project, but this is a band that is somehow tangentially related to Bon Iver. There's a really long essay I read on the website that basically talks about how this guy Josh Scott was apparently in a band with Justin Vernon which was amazing but then he had all kinds of personal issues and broke the band up and Justin went on to make Bon Iver, but the original band would have been even better and many years later Josh Scott finally came back and wrote an album under the name Aero Flynn. And it is a killer album. So today you will hear two songs from said album, the first being Dk/Pi.
And the next is Crisp. Anyway, go buy this album. It's beautiful and you need it.
Alright I guess it's time to write about London. I went back again for another wedding. Although the wedding wasn't in London, but I did spend time in London before and after. I had an overnight flight in, so landed in the morning and went to spend the day with my friend Flavia. She's one of the few university friends I've stayed in touch with, and she's currently in London doing PhD research for a few months. Which was perfect, because it means her schedule is pretty flexible and self-regulated, so she was able to just hang out and let me come over and shower, and then spend the day wandering with me. So we headed downtown and had a lovely lunch at Leadenhall Market, this beautiful old covered shopping arcade that is mostly restaurants and pubs now. And of course I had an inaugural vacation glass of wine. Then we had a quick walk down to the Tate Modern for a short visit. We didn't have much time, so only made it into one gallery and had a nice coffee up in the cafe, which has amazing views of the river. It was pretty overcast, but still clear enough that you could get some good views. And luckily it's a free museum, so we had no problem just stopping by for an hour. After coffee, we met up with my friend Sophie for a happy hour drink, and then the most exciting part of the day: Nando's!! And it was Flavia's first ever! So happy I could introduce her.
Friday night I actually spent outside London. My friend Sophie and her boyfriend Olivier bought a house in Sevenoaks, just outside the London city limit, and we were all going to the wedding on Saturday, so I spent the night with them on Friday. They have a beautiful old house, in what used to be like the granary of this country home complex. I think this might have actually been the first time I've been in a house that belonged to a friend. Believe it or not, most people I know don't have many permanent belongings, let alone real estate. So yeah, might have been a first. And it was definitely the nicest and most grown up house out of any of my friends.
Saturday morning we drove up to the wedding and we actually barely made it. We had a bit of traffic, and a quick stop off at the hotel to change, and we made it to the church right as the bride was arriving. Like, we had to run past her to get inside. (By the way, the bride was Emma. She was marrying Rob. Emma was in Japan with Sophie and I). But then the wind blew her veil away so she still took a few more minutes to make it in. It was held in this little old church in their hometown, which was super cute. England has so much cute old stuff, like houses and churches. And barns, but that's later. It was maybe the 3rd church wedding I've ever been to, and it was definitely the most Jesus happy. Neither of the couple are actually very religious, but Emma likes the tradition of getting married in a church, and I guess at this church that also means a lot of singing about Jesus. So everyone did, as I (and actually also Sophie and Olivier) listened awkwardly.
The wedding was followed by the party, which was not in the church. It was in a barn (another old, English thing I liked very much), so we had to drive, which meant pit stop at the hotel to drop off the car (and get a snack) before getting a cab so we wouldn't have to drive. We did make it to this one on time, which was good because there was open bar at the beginning. Emma had hand-made a lot of the decorations (including 1000 paper cranes that hung behind her and Rob. Pretty amazing. And all in my university colors!), and the barn was really beautiful. It was a bit of a tough wedding, in that Sophie and Olivier and I only knew each other, but both the bride and groom were from the town so all of their childhood friends were there. They're both teachers, though, so they sat us with some of their teacher friends, which was great. But it sadly didn't have the same openness as other weddings I've been to. I also spent quite a while chatting to Emma's family, cause I'd met a bunch of them on my first trip to the UK a few years ago. One of her cousins in now a cop, so I got to learn a lot about cops in the UK. But also I drank a lot so I don't remember much. And I danced a lot. And ate way too much, as I usually do. So all in all, a really fun wedding, even though we only ended up meeting a couple of their friends. But getting to spend time with Sophie and Olivier is good enough for me!
Before heading back down to Sevenoaks the next day, we had brunch with Emma and Rob, which was wonderful since we didn't really get to spend much time with them at the wedding. Which is always the case, so I'm happy it worked out for a bit. Then it was the drive back, and then I just headed back into London and went to stay with my friend Carol and her husband Kevin. Carol is my friend from South Africa, who's now in London. She and her husband live a bit far out, but I wanted to spend some quality time with them, so went over and just chilled at their house and passed out at like 8:30. I'd done so well up until then, staying awake until normal hours (or even later), but Sunday night did me in. I slept like 10 hours that night.
Monday was more exploring in London. My friend Becky is a teacher and was still on summer holiday, so she and I spent the day exploring record shops and bagel shops and museums and just catching up. We spent a few hours at the V&A, which I'd never been to. It's basically a massive museum with a bit of everything, but they had an awesome ceramics exhibit that I loved. Monday night was the best, though. It seemed to be the only night most of my friends were free, so we had a bit of a cross-section of my life going on at happy hour. In chronological order, we had Miguel (my oldest friend, whose husband surprised him with a trip to London which social media taught me about so I got him to come have drinks), Flavia (from university), Appolonia (from Study abroad in Shanghai), Becky (from JET), Kevin and Carol (from South Africa), and Joyce (from current China life), all in one place, more or less at the same time. I absolutely loved it. So much fun. None of them knew each other going into it, and it was wonderful. I hope that one day when I head back home I can have more fun times like that.
So that was pretty much the trip. On Tuesday morning, I had lunch with Joyce and a couple other friends before heading to the airport to come back to China. Super quick trip. I did also manage to buy (and finish) the new Harry Potter book, so that was an added bonus. And since then, I've mostly just been here in China. Which I'll tell you about later.
And a quick listen to some music. I heard Lucien by Young Magic earlier this year and totally loved it. It's off of Still Life, which is apparently Young Magic's 3rd album, but I'd never heard them (and have yet to listen to their older stuff), but hopefully you can see why I was into this.
So that song totally got me, then I listened to Still Life, and the whole thing totally got me, so I bought it. I've since learned that this duo apparently wanders around and records ambient sounds that they mix into their songs. Which is pretty awesome. Here's another awesome song by them, Homage.
I feel like when I write such a long blog, I write so much less about music. But my opinion about the music doesn't matter, it's just gotta sound good, right? And here's another song that sounds good. It's Molasses, the new single from Kan Wakan. Sounds pretty different to the last album, but I really dig it.
I'm pretty tired today, and a bit sick, I think. Beth has just gone home, and we ate a drank a ton. Which I will have to tell you about, but just not now. I still have to tell you about London, too. Jeez. Well I need to at least write about London this week, because very soon I'll have even more travels to tell you about. But maybe tomorrow.
For today, just music. Classixx, to start. They are a production team. The band of the future. Anyway they just put out an album, Faraway Reach, which I wasn't planning to buy because it's good but not great but then it was on sale for only $5.99 so how could I say no? So then I bought it. And there are some great songs, the best being Ndivile, featuring Nonku on vocals, whoever that is.
I think the first single was Just Let Go, feat How To Dress Well on vocals. I'm not his biggest fan, but this song was fun and caught my attention. Enough to give the album a listen anyway. And then Ndivile (and a few other songs) convinced me to spend $6 on it.
And as it turns out, How To Dress Well is also working on his own new album. And while I'm not his biggest fan, I actually really like the first single off the upcoming album, Lost Youth / Lost You. I probably would have given it a listen anyway, but after hearing this I definitely will.
Guess who has a new song! That's right, Sylvan Esso. Their first single off of what must be their upcoming sophomore album just came out last Friday, titled Radio. And it's a great start to the new music!
Also, I've been feeling this new Glass Animals album, How To Be A Human Being. The singles leading up to the album didn't do it for me for some reason, but hearing the album (and the singles in context of the album) is great. Here's the opening track, Life Itself.
