Dec 29 - The Hundred In The Hands / Lafa Taylor

I think this is probably going to be my last blog post of the year. I'm sitting at the airport waiting to fly to India for New Year's (plus a weeklong vacation!), so I doubt I'll blog much while there. But it is Friday night and I want to get something else in, so we're going to have a couple of fun, Friday night songs. Even if I am spending my Friday night on a plane. I'm on my way to have fun, so that counts for something, right?

I will have to come back and update this later with actual videos, though. I should have done this at the office today when the VPN was working well, but now I'm on my tablet on mobile data with a sketchy VPN connection and I can't put in songs. So if you read this before there are songs, go find them yourself. Otherwise, sorry I just wasted your time with this entire paragraph. Anyway, here we go!

I am currently listening to The Hundred In The Hands. I found this band years ago, and then they dropped off my radar. But I have their first album, and I liked it back in the day. Now they have put out a new album, called Love In The Black Stack. Apparently it's their 3rd. I somehow missed their 2nd album. Or at least I think I did, but it came out 5 years ago, so I'm not sure. But I almost missed the 3rd one. The only reason I found it is because one of the DJs from my local (to LA, not Shanghai) NPR affiliate  put it on her year end top 10. I'm not sure it belongs there, but it is a fun album. And the opening track, Red Eyes Rising, is pretty amazing. Overall the album is just ok, it opens super strong (as you can hear), has a couple great tracks, then gets pretty average pretty quick. But this song is definitely worth many listens.





The second track comes from Lafa Taylor, a West Coast producer and rapper. And it is also an opening track. This one is Turn My Music Up, the opener off of one of his 2 EPs he put out this year. I only heard this EP, Feel, but I should probably go listen to the other. And maybe even his older ones, cause this song is super fun. So there's two fun songs for a Friday night, and also for New Year's Eve since I proably won't get back to you before then. So enjoy!

Dec 25 - The Staves and yMusic / Brigid Mae Power

Holy shit, what a boring day at work. There is nothing to do. And I actually have staff here today. Nobody will be here for the next two days. I can only imagine how bad it's gonna get. I might have to watch a movie or something. And with my staff gone, that's actually not impossible....

But oy am I bored today. And I'll stay bored tonight. I had a very quiet weekend, which I wanted. After having all those visitors and staying super busy, now nobody is here anymore so I took the chance to be non-social. I did yoga Saturday and Sunday, and I actually went on a Tinder date on Saturday for lunch (it was meh, nothing to report), but then I just stayed home and watched tv and movies and read and relaxed. Sunday was a bit more social. We did a non-traditional traditional Jewish Christmas. Basically, 2 Jews, 5 Chinese and 1 real Christian guy went out to lunch, but instead of Chinese food we had Indian food. Good alternative. And I'll order in Chinese tonight. And I went to the movies and watched Loving Vincent, which is a beautiful, hand-painted film. Pretty spectacular actually. Oh! And on Friday I booked my ticket to Australia for Chinese New Year! As well as LCD Soundsystem tickets, and Laneway tickets, and I'll see Lucius there, too! It's gonna be a great trip.

So yeah, very chill weekend. Watched lots of tv and movies. Had minimal social interaction. And I feel much better than I was feeling the last few weeks. But I am totally unstimulated mentally and going a bit crazy, at least at the office.

So I'll take a bit of time and share some music with you. First is The Way Is Read, one of the tracks off The Staves new album. Somehow they came up on a playlist of new songs from artists I've listened to in the past, but I'm not sure when I ever listened to them. But anyway it was brought to my attention that they have a new album out, this being their third. They being The Staves, a trio of sisters who sing folky music. But this year they put out an album called The Way Is Read, together with a chamber music group called yMusic. And it's a very pretty album. The title track is my favorite, but the whole album is really nice.





And then there's Don't Shut Me Up (Politely), the new single form Brigid Mae Power. I haven't looked her up at all because she only has this one single and an EP which is not good. Really boring. But this single is really good, so I'm hoping this is the start of something new. But until I know it is, I don't care enough about her to look her up and find anything out. But you can listen to this. And now I only have to kill 15 more minutes before I get to go home!

Dec 22 - Wild Belle / Elbow

As usual, the week went from super dead to somewhat busy. Not super busy, but busier. I still spent the morning today doing nothing, but then I got busy, and htese last couple hours have been actually busy. Yesterday also felt busy, but probably because I spent like 2 hours on the phone, first in a Japanese class, then with my sister, then with my niece. I think I got my niece convinced to go to Stanford. Which would be amazing if she really did decide that and if she can get in. It's already amazing enough that she wants to be a mechanical engineer. But a mechanical engineer from Stanford? Hell yes.

Also last night I went to see Legally Blonde the Musical. It was pretty hilarious. There's been more plays coming to China, and I've talked about it before, and I think it's great. But what I realized last night is I really have to readjust my expectations. These international touring companies are always a bit disappointing because I'm expecting a touring company like back home, but that is not what it is. The sets are really pared down, and I'd even say the talent is a bit sub-par. Last night was a really obvious case of pared down sets, and I kind of hated the sets. I don't know what the original ones were like, but these were not good. Like, distractingly bad. But I just need to accept this and go in knowing this, and then I'm sure I'll start enjoying the plays more. Anyway, I'm not gonna stop going and I'm happy to have them here, one way or another. I'd say the highlight of last nights show was the "Gay or European" song. The play was so weird and random. In a good way. I laughed a lot.

So now I'm just gonna get a couple songs out of the way that I've been meaning to share with you for a long time. Well, one I've been meaning to share for a long time, and one I just decided to share even though I heard it a long time ago. The first is Untamed Heart, one of the new singles from Wild Belle. This brother and sister duo have put out a few singles this year, and they are pretty good. In particular Untamed Heart. I liked it enough to go listen to their album from 2016, which was nothing special. But this song is super cool.





Then there's Magnificent (She Says), from Elbow's new album Little Fictions. I shared the title track from that album back at the beginning of the year when the album came out. But the band came back on my radar this month when they started showing up on a bunch of Best of 2017 lists. So I listened to the album again. And it is a really nice album, but I still stand by my earlier judgement that overall it's just ok and I felt like it didn't go anywhere. But the title track (which I shared earlier this year) and the opening track (which I'm sharing now) are both beautiful. So now both of them are saved in my blog for eternity.

Dec 18 - Unno

I did not get nearly enough sleep last night. I had a Chrismukkah party, which was wonderful. We wore ugly sweaters, I made latkes, we played dreidel, there was mulled wine. There were also many ugly sweaters. Mine was basically a hideous persian rug that I wore on my body (but actually it was a sweater it just looked like a hideous persian rug), and even though I searched specifically for men's, i think it was a women's. But I wasn't even close to having the worst. My friends Xiaoyu and Nikki had even more hideous ones that were ugly and covered in 3D elements like Christmas stockings and bells and fake fur and things that only a twisted mind could come up with. It was a job well done. So yeah, we had all the good stuff. And it was only 9 of us, which is maybe the smallest dinner party I've ever had, but it was wonderful. I love that size, cause we can all sit around the table and eat together. But I am very tired today because I was basically prepping/cooking with my friend Judith from about 10am and people were over until I kicked them out at like 11:30pm. Well, Judith came at 10am, I went to yoga while she started prepping, then I came back around noon and we had lunch and prepped and hung out until people showed up at 4.

Judith was the only one there cause we had combined forces for this holiday. I wanted to have a Channukah party, and she wanted to do her annual Austrian cookie baking. But Channukah is right now, and she and her boyfriend are leaving back to Europe this week, so we just did it together. And we didn't do it on Saturday because we had a going away party for our friend Mwende on Friday, which lasted until the wee hours of Saturday morning, and we did not want to spend the entire day cooking Saturday. Which was a smart choice. But then that meant I had company until very late and didn't sleep enough and now I'm feeling very tired and lazy and don't want to do anything at work. But I also don't want to think and type. Which is why I'm typing without thinking. Pretty clever, huh?

So yeah, I'm tired. I'm bored. VPN isn't working well. But I've only got a couple hours left of work and then I get to go home and do nothing. That's my plan for the next two weeks: do nothing. Or as little as possible. I have been very busy lately, and I honestly just want to sit on my couch and not be social and recharge my brain before things get super crazy again in January, which they will. Because, as usual, I can tell you where I'll be pretty much every week from Jan 1 until the end of April already. Fun times.

So I guess all that's left in this nonsensical rambling is to play you some music. Today I'm playing you Unno. I don't know much about these guys, except that they're French and they have an album out called Amaai. It's actually a Japanese word that I didn't know but which has a really nice meaning. Amaai apparently means "between two rainstorms" and refers to a moment of clarity between distractions. Kind of nice. I actually thought it was Japanese when I first saw it, but then at one point on my commute home I was thinking about whether it was Japanese or not, and I was remembering it as Umaai, not Amaai, and I thought it meant "horse love." It does not. But maybe they like horses also.

I'm sharing the first two tracks: Comets and Amaai. They are pretty fantastic. But then the album goes a bit downhill. Not bad, just not nearly this good and a bit boring. But these two are great so I'm just gonna put them here and stop talking. Enjoy!

Dec 15 - Top 10 Albums of 2017

After a few weeks of listening back to the albums that stuck out to me over the year, I've finally managed to come up with my Top 10. The top 3 I knew immediately. I was sure of it before, and after listening in context with each other and everything else, those 3 did not change. Interestingly, my 2 favorite albums on the year have not made any top 10 lists I've seen so far. They've barely even made top 50 lists I've seen. But they sure did stick out to me. Number 3, though, that one made all kinds of lists. But my top 2 are albums that really just caught me musically and emotionally and stuck with me the entire year as something shockingly beautiful and emotional.

I thought I would have a harder time picking because there really were so many amazing artists who put out albums this year. It was practically like every artist I love put out a new album. And yet, some of my absolute favorite artists (Bonobo, Alt-J, The National, St. Vincent, Bjork, Little Dragon...) did not even manage to make the top 10. But it was not hard for me to kick them out, because the albums in my Top 10 were just obvious to me. Except for number 10. That one was hard to pick. I basically had it down to 13 albums, and I had to pick one of four. And after much thought I picked the one you will see. I did not expect this one to make it into my Top 10, actually. But I do love the guy, and after listening to it a few more times, the beauty and originality of the album really starts to shine through the layer of grime that he wraps it all in, and which makes it a grower. 

I've picked my two favorite songs from each album and those will go into the blog (unless they're already there). But then I'v also made a playlist of these albums also, so just go listen to all of them. Anyway, I've talked enough about it, here they are.

10. Nick Hakim - Green Twins

Favorite songs: Cuffed, JP 

9. LCD Soundsystem - American Dream

Favorite songs: other voices, how do you sleep?  

8. Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins

Favorite songs: Three Rings, Neighbors

7. Sylvan Esso - What Now?

Favorite songs: Kick Jump Twist, Radio 

6. The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding

Favorite songs: Holding On, Pain

5. Feist - Pleasure

Favorite songs: Century, Any Party

4. Broken Social Scene - Hug Of Thunder

Favorite songs: Stay Happy, Gonna Get Better

3. SZA - CTRL

Favorite songs: Drew Barrymore, Anything

2. Dirty Projectors - Dirty Projectors

Favorite songs: Up In Hudson, Cool Your Heart

1. Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up

Favorite songs: Third of May / Ōdaigihara, I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar

Dec 14 - Patrick Watson

This is going to be a slow year-end. I still have 2 weeks left of work, and I am already super bored. Luckily I had meetings all afternoon, so that at least kept me a bit busy for half the day. But man the day went slow. So I'm just gonna leave a little music here to kill 5 minutes. I don't have much new music now because I'm busy figuring out my Top 10 (should be done tomorrow I think....), but I do have one great new song from Patrick Watson. This guy is a really weird singer/songwriter, but I do like him quite a lot. He's interesting. And his new song, Broken, is beautiful. So you can listen to this today.

Dec 7 - Soft Glas / Edamame / Jack Grace

I'm in Germany this week, which means it's a pretty relaxed week. I stay like 5 minutes walk from the office, and I'm in a tiny town with nobody. So I pretty much just get off work and go back to the hotel and chill out. I did have dinner with one of my colleagues last night and we went to a bigger city nearby and had a nice Italian dinner, but otherwise, super chill. And tomorrow I go to Munich to see the Mangs! My favorite!

So for a chill week, we have a bunch of chill music, starting with Soft Glas. Soft Glas is a Brooklyn producer, who makes super chilled out music that I like a lot. Surprisingly, he was my most listened to artist on Spotify this year. I say it's surprising because I actually think he has a few really great songs, and then his other songs are just good. I first heard Sky In The Lake and really liked it when it was released as a single from his new album Orange Earth. But at that point the album wasn't out. So I went and listened to his first album, Late Bloom. And there's this song, Somewhere, that is probably his best song. But I think the reason he was my most listened to artist is because I listened to his stuff a lot as background music, or to decide if it was good enough for me to actually purchase. It isn't, but it's really close. So I just kept listening and trying to make up my mind. But anyway, he is worth mentioning, so here is Somewhere, off of Late Bloom.





In other chilled music, we have Edamame. Great name. This producer is from Chicago, and also put out an album earlier this year, titled Bask. But he has a looooooot more music out. He makes lots and lots of stuff. He's been putting out 2-3 EPs or albums a year for like 5 years. But I've actually only listened to Bask. And I'm just going to share Mango Pulp, my favorite song off that album.

And last up we have Jack Grace, another producer. This one from Australia. He's only got one EP out so far, called River. It's all super chill, and much more vocal than the last two artists. But the song that really got me was Us, the post-EP single. This one is great. And it sounds a bit like James Blake, which is always a good thing. This is actually the second artist like this I've found this year, after Bearcubs. Good year for this type of music.

Dec 4 - Japanese Breakfast

It has been a very busy couple of weeks since I came back to China. I think I mentioned that my sister came back from the States with me and spent a week here. So for that first week I was taking her around, mostly in the evenings after work. But basically as soon as I got off the plane and got home, she was there waiting and we jumped right into it. It wasn't her first time here, so she was pretty low maintenance, but it was just more non-stop hosting. And at the same time a close friend of mine was in town who used to live here, along with her husband and father, so I was also trying to see them as much as possible. And I hosted a Friendsgiving for like 20 people. And then when my sister left, I had one night on my own before another friend who used to live here came back for a business trip and is staying with me. So yeah, it's been super busy with very little down time or me time. But I'm headed to Germany tonight, and I'll have plenty of me time.

But before going to Germany I got to go to a concert last night. Japanese Breakfast is on an Asia tour and they had a stop in Shanghai. They put out a new album earlier this year, Soft Sounds From Another Planet, which I think is pretty ok, but nothing great. But when they come to Shanghai and only charge $15, I'll definitely go. And I'll tell you about them, starting with my favorite song by them, Road Head.




So yeah, they make this pretty dreamy indie rock. It's good, but not good enough for me to have previously mentioned it or bought an album. Although some people do love it. Like a lot. I just like it. The singer is also really cute and weird. She was talking a lot last night, in a non-annoying manner. Basically just flaunting her nerdiness. Nerdiness which is affirmed by Machinist, one of their singles, which they closed out with last night and which she said is about falling in love with a robot. I never thought this was one of their better songs, although I think it's one of the more popular ones, but it was one of the best ones live.