Feb 12 - Moses Sumney / Sylvan Esso / The War On Drugs / Anderson Paak & The Free Nationals

Yesterday was Laneway in Fremantle, and it was awesome. Super hot, although not as hot as Singapore and we had a nice breeze by the ocean. Plus the food and shops and stuff were better. I still stand by my decision from last time that Moses Sumney and Sylvan Esso were the best. So here are songs by them. Lonely World by Moses Sumney. Also, I met him! After his set he went to watch Wolf Alice (so did we) and my friend Shuk-wah spotted him so I went and said hi and told him he's amazing. I didn't want to be too much of a fanboy, so I didn't take a photo, but I promise it happened and it was wonderful.





And Hey Mami by Sylvan Esso (we'll throw it back a bit, cause this song is amazing).





I'll skip The Internet, cause I mentioned them after Singapore. Also, they were better in Singapore. But you know who was better in Australia than Singapore? The War On Drugs. Maybe it's cause the day in Perth was shorter (and cooler) so I wasn't so exhausted. But they were awesome. Totally rocked it out. In fact, I'm going to share Under The Pressure today, off of Lost In The Dream. This is not even close to my favorite song by them, but holy shit did they play this song live. It was like 10 minutes and just incredible.





And then there was Anderson Paak & The Free Nationals. These guys are just awesome. They do awesome things with hip hop, especially live. And when Anderson starts playing the drums, he is a star. The music just gets so much better. He closed with Luh You, off of his first album Venice, which I don't know as well as Malibu, but it was a party, so I'm putting this song up.

Feb 8 - Fugees / A Tribe Called Quest

I have finally escaped the cold Shanghai winter! I'm in Bangkok now for work, will be here until tomorrow night, then I fly off to Australia for Chinese New Year. After which I come back to Bangkok for a conference, and then finally back to China in March. At which point maybe it will be warmer? And my sister will be there, so that's fun. And until then, I get to wear shorts and sandals and my bathing suit very often. Starting today, cause I'm at another hotel with an infinity rooftop pool. On purpose.

I've been listening to a lot of late 90s and early 00s hip hop and Soul/R&B this week. I think it all started with The Internet. I was listening to Ego Death a lot (their last album), and it made me want to go and listen to Jill Scott, which made me want to listen to Lauryn Hill, which made me want to listen to D'Angelo, and so on and so forth. And then I logged into iTunes to buy some new stuff (Leyya's new album Sauna, and Jose Gonzalez's new EP & The Brite Lites), and saw a sale on R&B and Hip-Hop. So I looked, and I found a couple gems. I ended up getting The Score by Fugees and The Anthology by A Tribe Called Quest for like $5 each. What a deal. So I listened to those a lot also. And so I'll share songs from those this week. Starting with Killing Me Softly With His Song by Fugees, which actually is like one of my favorite songs ever.





Now I've listened to The Score before, but a very long time ago. Probably not since high school or college. And listening to it now, I find it to be an amazing album. I wish I had listened to it and appreciated it more in the past. But anyway, it's fantastic, and other than all the famous songs which I totally love (Fu-gee-la, No Woman, No Cry), I found that I love the track Zealots, which was not a single but is fantastic.




And then there's A Tribe Called Quest. Obviously I had heard them growing up, but I think it wasn't until We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service came out in 2016 that I gave them a proper listen. That album was fantastic. And I did go back and listen to a bunch of their stuff after that (and before seeing them at FYF last summer), but I'm very glad I bought The Anthology. The opening track, Check The Rhime, much like Zealots, is probably my new favorite Tribe song that I'd never heard before. What a track.




Then I had to pick a second track to put on here, and it was tough. There's a bunch of great tracks on there. It was basically down to Award Tour, Can I Kick It?, and Find A Way. And in the end, Find A Way won.

Feb 3 - Troye Sivan / The Notion of Language

I'm back in freezing Shanghai for a freezing weekend. Just for the weekend, pretty much. Actually almost a week, I'm here for like 6 days. Then it's back to the warmth for a month, and hopefully will be warm by the time I'm back again. Also, my sister will be here by the time I'm back. Cause my sister is moving here! Just for 6 months to save up some money before doing a working holiday in New Zealand, but still exciting! It'll be awesome to have her here. Especially since she used to say she'd never want to live in China, and look at her now!

Anyway, it's been a pretty chill weekend. I was supposed to go out last night, but I got home and my computer wouldn't connect to the wifi, so I had to deal with getting that fixed, which took a few hours on live chat with HP. But this morning it is working again! Which means I could enjoy my day. Started with the gym, a bit of cleaning and errands since I'm only here for a few days (including cleaning up and making room for my sister to move in), and then I'm heading out tonight. I may also go get a massage after this... Still debating if I want to go outside or just stay here and watch a movie. Probably the latter. So I'm gonna finish this and go do that.

So I'll give you a bit of weekend music. Poppy music. In fact, one song is straight up pop. Didn't expect that, did you? But this song is catchy. And I feel ok about it because it's on my hipster playlists also. It's My My My!, the new single from Troye Sivan. Maybe he's getting hispter attention cause he's openly gay? Or Australian? I think it's because he's Jewish. Let's go with that. Anyway, it's a super fun song. I think I've heard another song or two of his, cause I've seen his name floating around, but this one is the only one I remember.





The next song is not pop, but it is kind of poppy. But in an indie way, like in that recreating the sound of 80s pop bands way. Exactly like that. But also really good. This one is Nation of Language, by the way. The Brooklyn band has put out like 4 singles over the last year, all of which are decent, but I've Thought About Chicago is super catchy and sticks in my ears. I like it a lot. And hopefully you do too.