Jan 31 - Tei Shi / Nick Hakim / Hazel English / Missy Elliott

I'm sitting in Seville at the moment, which is wonderful. I probably won't write about the trip now, cause I want to be quick, but I want to share some music. Because there are a lot of great artists putting out songs from upcoming projects. I already talked about SZA (whose single Drew Barrymore I said was just ok, but I've changed my mind. I love it now) and Dirty Projectors, and then got a couple more. First was Tei Shi, who put out the song Keep Running, the first single off her upcoming debut album Crawl Space. And this is a great first single.

Next up is Nick Hakim, with the song Bet She Looks Like You, off of his debut album Green Twins. This song is just ok, but I loved his earlier EPs, so I'm still optimistic about this album. But if you're into soulful singers with a minimalist kind of R&B style, check out his first two EPs, Where Will We Go, Parts 1 & 2.

And then we'll do another new artist: Hazel English. She's newer than last two, who both have two EPs under their belt. Hazel English only has 1 EP, titled Never Going Home, which on Spotify actually seems to be 5 individual tracks that she put into a playlist and lets you buy on iTunes and stuff. Anyway, she's getting a lot of hype, and she's quite good, so here's Make It Better.





Originally I was only going to put the first two songs on the blog today. Then I decided to throw in Hazel English because I haven't been blogging enough. And then in the process of finding the YouTube links, I came across this next song. Which had to be shared. Because it's new Missy Elliott. So yeah, can't skip that. This is I'm Better. And as usual, it's a great video.

Jan 25 - Best of Laneway 2017

It's finally time to write about Laneway. This is the festival I've been to a few times in Singapore. It's an Australian festival that travels around Australia and New Zealand, and they have a date in Singapore as well. The lineup when I was living there was fantastic, and the year after I went back for the show again. Then it wasn't so exciting last year, and this year it's on its way back. It wasn't amazing this year, but there were quite a few acts I was excited about. And luckily I had to be in Singapore the week before the show for work, so I went.

I ended up arriving earlier than I planned, and that was a stroke of luck because I walked in to Stars and Rabbit. This band may have actually been one of the best of the day for me. They were definitely the best new find of the day. It's a duo from Indonesia that seem to have gotten quite a bit of attention there, and they were the very first act at Laneway Singapore, where they brought a full band with them. And they were absolutely phenomenal live. The lead singer is this crazy little Indonesian woman who jumps and runs around stage and is kind of super weird (in a good way). And her voice is totally nuts. Kind of weird (also in a good way) and super powerful and unique. She is amazing and a gift and everyone should know who she is. They have an album out called Constellation, which I've now listened to a few times. It's ok recorded, but the real magic happens live. My favorite track is Man Upon The Hill.





Luckily there is a great live version on YouTube, so I'll also play you that and you can see how amazing she is. And as great as this live version is, they played it even better in Singapore.





The biggest surprise of the day was probably NAO. I really enjoyed her singles and EP before she put out an album last year, but then I found the album to be way too poppy and a bit repetitive. But live, she was super fun. Maybe one of the most fun shows of the day. Probably my favorite song by her is Inhale Exhale.





Then there were the two big acts of the day, the two closers, and the two bands that my friend Shuk-Wah and I were most looking forward to. Second to last was Glass Animals, whose album last year How To Be A Human Being was in my longlist for best albums of the year. I expected them to be amazing live, and actually they probably weren't amazing, but they were still very good. They closed with my favorite song by them, Pork Soda, which was also their best live performance.




And then was the big act of the day, Nick Murphy (formerly known as Chet Faker, though he's now decided to use his real name to make music, as he says the music he's making now is different from Chet Faker and he wants to separate them out). That didn't stop him, however, from playing a bunch of Chet Faker songs. He opened with Fear Less, his first single under his own name, but then he went right into my 3 favorite songs from his last album, Built on Glass: Gold, Cigarettes & Loneliness, and 1998. He also played really old ones off of Thinking in Textures (although he didn't play No Diggity. Sad face), and even The Trouble With Us off his Work EP with Marcus Marr, and even brought out Marcus Marr for it. Then for the closer, it was Stop Me (Stop You), his newest single, which was amazing and went on for about ten minutes. I already put it on the blog last year, but it is a great song, and by far the best of his two songs that he's released under the new moniker, so it's going back on the blog for this year.

Jan 22 - Dirty Projectors

I don't really have time to write a full blog post now cause I have to go to the airport, but I really should be writing about the festival I went to yesterday. But that will take a while, and I'm not sure I'll have time at the airport either. But there's all kinds of good music to play you, so we're going to listen to something wonderful and exciting today, which is Up In Hudson, the newest single from Dirty Projectors upcoming album. These guys will be following up 2012's Swing Lo Magellan (a fantastic album in its own right) in March, with an eponymous new one. They've already put out 3 singles, the first two of which definitely had me looking forward to the album. And then today I heard Up In Hudson. And it's beautiful and amazing and I can't stop listening to it. So now it's your chance to listen to it and get super excited about Dirty Projectors with me. Enjoy the next seven and a half minutes!

Jan 19 - SZA

I'm in Malaysia now. It's nice here. I always like coming to this office because I think they have the best office atmosphere. Malaysians are just really great, all around, I'd say. So here I am, eating laksa and Nando's, and listening to music.

And boy is there some good music, because I finally realized I should listen to my 2017 watchlist playlist. It's about time. But today's song didn't come from that playlist. Today's song is very exciting. Why? Because SZA finally has a new single! I've been waiting for this woman's first official album for like 2 years now. She's already put out to pretty long EPs (See SZA Run and S), and then a full length album which for some reason is not called her debut album. I think it may have been independently released or something? I'm not sure how they decide these things. Anyway, that one was Z. So the next one, which everyone refers to as her debut album (I guess because it'll be her major label debut or something) will be titled A, and has been talked about for a long time. It was supposed to come out last year and it didn't. But now, she finally has a new single! It's called Drew Barrymore. It doesn't excite me as much as her older music did (especially Z. Damn that was a great album.), but it's a pretty solid "first single." And at the same time she released the single, they announced the album would be called CTRL, but there's no release date I can find yet.

Jan 17 - Mr Little Jeans

I have really been slacking on the blog this year, haven't I? I think I've just been really busy and really tired. I talked about my trip to Europe for New Years, after which I came back and immediately had two visitors. My friend Carol and her husband Kevin had a trip to China over the holidays, and they changed their entire schedule to finish up in Shanghai and spend a couple days with me. We actually flew in about an hour apart, so literally from the moment I landed I had visitors. And then I only had one week in China, which I filled with friends and also this girl I've started dating. Maybe I'll write more about that later, maybe not. I also filled some time with sitting around and doing as little as possible over the weekend so I could get over jetlag. But then the week was pretty busy, with watching Rogue One (actually really good, much better than Episode VII), dinners with friends, birthday parties, and my company's annual dinner. And packing, because I'm now gone again. I'm in Singapore at the moment, and I'll be between here and Malaysia for the week. Then Monday I'm off to Germany for work for a week, then meeting my parents in Portugal for Chinese New Year. So expect to hear more about my travels and best friend Henry and concerts in the coming weeks. I will try to write more, I just need to get a bit more music. But I've got a few things lined up for you.

Until now, though, I haven't found too much new stuff to share with you, musically. A bit, but not a massive amount. So I'm sharing something old. Well, not that old. It's Mr Little Jeans, who put out an EP last year titled Fevers, and the opening track Stitches is pretty amazing. It's an all-around fantastic EP, which I listen to on repeat. And I was listening to it on repeat this week. So I'm sharing it this week.





After listening to Fevers a bunch, I decided to go back and listen to Pocketknife, her debut album from back in 2014. I also decided to look her up, since I normally like to write a sentence or two about the artists in my blogs. I knew she was Scandinavian, so the goal was to confirm where she's from (it's Norway, though she now lives in LA). And then I found out that the name Mr Little Jeans apparently comes from a reference to a character in the Wes Anderson film Rushmore. Which is pretty amazing, since he's one of my favorite directors and that's my favorite film by him.

Anyway, on to maybe my favorite song by her (although Fevers is a close contender for the top spot). It's Good Mistake. I was actually pretty surprised to find out I never wrote about her when I started writing this blog, because I love this song and back in 2014 it was on repeat. So now you have two songs to play on repeat for yourself.

Jan 11 - Gabriel Garzon-Montano

This year is off to a super slow start. The end of December was already quite slow, with me not wanting to do anything at work and mostly just sitting around the office wasting time. Year end is always like that, though, since HQ in Germany shuts down and a lot of people are on leave. But then I had a fantastic whirlwind trip to Europe. My friend Julia was home in Austria, and our friends Cy and Veronika were in Prague for about a week, so I went with my friends Graeme and Mwende to see everyone, and we had a little Shanghai reunion in Europe.

We started out in Graz, in southern Austria, to visit Julia's house and the original Zotter Chocolate Theater. I've been to the theater before, so that part was fine. But the night before was pretty great. We got in and went to her house, where we had a fantastic meal made by her dad. There were like 5 courses and homemade pizza and lots of delicious wine. Then there was hot tubbing and saunaing, which was surprisingly pleasant considering it was like -10 C and we were outside. It also helped that we were drinking in the hot tub, and that there was a dog present, and that I didn't jump into the frozen lake like pretty much everyone else.

Then it was a road trip up to Prague, where we spent like 3 days eating. We barely saw anything touristy. We just went from restaurant to restaurant. We did a beef tartar crawl as well, to try 3 of the been tartars that Cy wanted to try. It was a fantastic idea, especially since beef tartar is like my favorite food.

New Year's Eve was pretty chill. We had a booking at a restaurant that Veronika's family friend had recommended. It was a really nice, homey place with modern Czech cuisine. Really nice food. Nice wine. Nice conversation. We were there for the stroke of midnight, so missed the fireworks and partying outside, but it was nice and warm inside, so I guess I can't complain. I think I would have rather been outside in the middle of everything, but it was a nice way to spend the evening. I guess the only thing really of note was the food. Like I said, very little touristy happened.

Then we went back to Vienna for a couple nights, where again not very much touristy happened. We did go and check out the Museum of Natural History, but once again, mostly just food. Lots and lots of food. Another beef tartar, even. And we went to the #9 restaurant in the world, called Steirereck. We ended up doing this 7 course meal with wine pairings and all kinds of extras, and it was one of the best dining experiences I've ever had. The food was all very good, honestly nothing to blow your mind (although there were 2 dishes in particular that really did stand out: an arctic char and a pheasant dish), but all really good and perfectly executed. But it was the all around experience that was amazing. The service was impeccable, probably the best I've ever had. The staff were so attentive, providing us everything we needed before we even knew we wanted it. And they were all super knowledgeable about whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. So when the guy came over with the cheese cart, for example, he could tell us in detail everything about each cheese and why it was done. And there were a lot of cheeses to know about. And they gave us a card with each course which detailed the dish, and rather than just writing all kinds of fancy ingredients and techniques you've never heard of, they made little footnotes explaining what things were. It was fantastic. Seriously amazing experience.

I feel like my description of that trip was horrible. I didn't talk about anything but food. Which is actually pretty accurate. We ate more than that though. And we did more than that too. But I guess those are the important things. Plus I'm tired and have a headache, so that's all your getting. Plus a song.

And for the first song of the year, it's a great one from last year called Sour Mango. This is the first single off of Gabriel Garzon-Montano's upcoming sophomore album, and it's a good one. He has two more singles out, which are also good, but this is the only one I could listen to non-stop.