Jul 28 - Dirty Projectors

I haven't managed to write in nearly two weeks because I've been insanely busy. Last we spoke I was in Germany for work, and every day was full full full of meetings. I barely had a second to myself. But the first meeting was the best meeting. Because that was the meeting where they told me I was going to move to Australia. Finally. After a year of talking about, it's finally happening. If they didn't make it happen after this trip, I was probably going to quit at the end of the year. Luckily they did. And to make it even better, I am going to be General Manager. So now it's also a big promotion with full responsibility for Australia and New Zealand. Suffice it to say I'm a happy boy.

And from there, things just went crazy. I spent my time in Germany (including two nice weekends, one in Spain and one in Munich which I'll talk about later), and then I flew straight to Sydney to meet my new team. I got there on a Tuesday to meet them, the day after they fired the old GM and told him not to come back. So I spent two days there, then flew back to Shanghai where I spent 1 day, and now I'm sitting in the airport in Seoul on my way home. I think I've slept about 4 hours a night for the last week. One night I maybe slept 6 1/2. It has been exhausting, and the longest travel week of my life. 4 countries on 4 continents in a week. Insane. But it's all going to be worth it, cause now I'm going on vacation for 2 weeks, and then I move to Australia and start this great new job. So things are going well in the world of Minsky.

That's it for today. Good news! Yay! Next time I'll talk about Spain and Germany fun times.

Well, not totally it. There's still music. That's what this blog is about, after all. And today it's Dirty Projectors. They put out the album Dirty Projectors last year, which was one of my top albums of 2017. And without skipping a beat, there's a new album this year, called Lamp Lit Prose. Not as good as last year's, but still wonderful. And a wonderful treat to get so quickly. They started out with the first single Break-Thru back in May, and only once I listened to it on earphones did I realize how much I like it. I love the guitar riff throughout the song, but even more I love that dirty backwards sounding guitar riff during the verses. It's good stuff.





And then the album has a bunch of great collaborations, including Syd from The Internet (who also just put out a new album), Haim, Amber Mark, Robin Pecknold from Fleet Foxes, and Rostam. But the best collaboration, and the best track on the album, is with Empress Of, for the song Zombie Conqueror. A nice little start, but then when it picks up at 30 seconds, and the kick drum comes in like 10 seconds later, it just gets amazing. Such a fantastic song. I love this one. Definitely the best on an all-around fantastic album.

July 17 - Young Fathers / Parquet Courts

I had quite the weekend. I'm in Germany now, not sure if I mentioned that. But I am. I got here last Wednesday for some work stuff. Of which there is something to tell. But I'll wait until next week to tell it...

But anyway, as usual, Schrobenhausen is not very exciting. But I went to spend the weekend in Spain with my friend Roberto. He's from Valladolid, just north of Madrid, and moved home from Shanghai back in like March or April. I was planning to fly Friday after work, and since work finishes early on Fridays in Germany, that meant around 2pm. So I got to the airport and was making my way through security when I got an email that my flight was delayed, which meant I had 15 minutes for a connection, which would clearly not work. So I paid extra to change to a later flight that night and make sure I made it, because Roberto had something good planned for us for Friday night in Madrid. So I had about 6 hours to kill, so went into the city to see friends for a bit, since it's only half an hour away by train. All was going very well, until I got back online at 5pm to find an email saying they could not get me on the 7:30pm flight I booked, but could put me on one at 6pm, which I couldn't make. So, I spent the next hour on the phone with them, which resulted in me flying to Amsterdam, spending the night in an airport hotel, then flying at 7am to Madrid (which was delayed). Clearly not ideal. But I made it! And then we hopped right on a train to Valladolid.

Now, Valladolid is famous for tapas. There's other stuff, too. Roberto told me all kinds of history about how they're an old capital and all kinds of fun stuff. But what really matters are the tapas. This is where Spain's national tapas competition happens every year, where chefs come from all over the country to pair with local restaurants and make tapas for competition. Those tapas then stay on the menus in the bars and you can eat them year-round for next to nothing. We started out with some traditional tapas at a couple bars (of course with wine), the first one being a croqueta, which I learned is not always made from a potato base. Blew my mind. So a few tapas and a couple glasses of wine later, we went to Roberto's house, where his mother had prepared us a feast of paella, steamed crab and prawns, and grilled lamb chops. It was unbelievable. I had heard of her cooking prowess, and none of it was exaggerated. Then I sat there for like 4 hours just chatting away in Spanish with Robert and his sister and parents, which was pretty awesome because I got to practice Spanish, but also because who spends a Saturday afternoon just chatting without even looking at their phone anymore? Especially for 4 hours. It's so rare, and it was so great. So that went on until about 8:30, when we left to go eat more tapas and drink more wine. Roberto pretty much just took me from one tapas bar to the next, snacking on things, until we finished up with a gin and tonic at a hip, little local bar at 1am, and went home to sleep for like 5 hours.

Sunday we woke up pretty much in time to catch a train to Madrid and meet up with a couple of his friends, then go eat more tapas and have a vermouth. Apparently vermouth is a super Spanish thing these days. Roberto was telling me about how there's a bunch of artisanal vermouth being made all over Spain, and all the cool kids are drinking it, so we had quite a few over the weekend. Anyway, so it was vermouth and snack, then back to the airport for me. Which, considering the weekend, could not go well. My flight was delayed 30 minutes, we circled around Munich for an hour before landing, my ride wasn't there when I arrived, and after he did show up, we had to wait another hour for someone else to come join us. It was not fun. At all. But it was worth it. It was great to see Roberto after not having seen him for a few months, and to meet the family, and to actually try all the amazing food and drink his home is famous for which he's been bragging about for years. Also, it is super cheap. We walked all over Valladolid eating tapas and drinking wine, probably at about 7 different places, and I did not even spend 100 Euros. The last place we had 5 tapas, all award winning, one even having won the best tapa of the year back in like 2015, along with 4 glasses of wine, and it only cost 18 Euro. So insane. So in summary, horrible travel, but amazing weekend, even if it was cut nearly in half due to delays.

And now a bit of music. Today it's great new music from not new artists who I maybe didn't pay attention to or wasn't a huge fan of before. The first of whom is Parquet Courts. These guys have been around for years and have a bunch of albums, the latest of which, Wide Awake!, just came out in May. The title track from the album and one of the early singles is absolutely fantastic. So much fun. So I listened to the album. And I did not like it. But this song! So good!

And then we have Young Fathers. These guys are more interesting. They're a Scottish rap group who won the Mercury Prize in 2014, for their debut album. At the time I didn't really get it. I heard the album, but I was not a huge fan. And then a year later they put out another album, and again I listened, but wasn't too impressed. But now, they've put out their third album, Cocoa Sugar, back in March, and that one is amazing. Really a fantastic album all around. Maybe in my top 10 this year. And it has a ton of amazing songs. For example, In My View.




Good stuff, right? And then there's Toy, which I think is the first single I heard off the album, and I really liked it right away, which surprised me since I was never really impressed with them before. But this year, they seem to have gotten it right. Something about that third album.

Jul 10 - Jawhar / Angelique Kidjo / Thomas Bartlett & Nico Muhly

I'm getting ready to head to Germany tonight, but wanted to get in a bit of music for the week. Nothing to really tell you today. My week has been busy at work, as it always is when I'm trying finish stuff up before a business trip. Last week I was in Xiamen, which I wrote some stuff about. That was fun. Weekend was a good mix of being productive and being active and being a bit lazy but less than usual which felt nice.

Oh! Here's an exciting thing! I managed to get a Japanese book on my Kindle, after years of trying, and I got it with a Japanese English dictionary, which means when I don't know a word and I click it, I get the pronunciation and translation. It is amazing. It makes me so happy. I've wanted to do this for years and finally talked to a friend who does it, and got it to work. Basically, I needed to sign up for an amazon.co.jp account, which meant using a friend's address and phone number in Japan, and navigating the site in Japanese, and registering my Japanese account on my Kindle, not my English one. But it worked. So it's all good. And I'm so happy. And now I have a book I've started reading which a friend recommended, about a grasshopper researcher who goes to Mauritania to solve a grasshopper infestation which is leading to drought and famine. I honestly have no clue if it is fiction or non-fiction. Yet. I'll get back to you on that.

Anyway, so yeah, work is fine, week is fine, life is fine, and now I'm going to Germany for a couple weeks. But before that, music. International music. From 3 artists today.

First up is Jawhar. He put out a new album, Winrah Marah, in April, and it popped up somewhere. I don't know where. But I heard one of his songs, and it is fantastic. This guy is from Tunis, and makes Arab folk rock, which he sings all in Arabic. I have no idea what he's singing about, but I love it. Reminds me of Palatine, who I wrote about earlier this year, who I also have no idea what they're singing about. He actually has an older album also, which I should go listen to, but for now I've only heard Winrah Marah. It's a great album, all of which is worth listening to multiple times, but I'm going to leave you with Soutbouk today.





Now we're moving into some interesting cross-over territory with the next song, which comes courtesy of Angelique Kidjo. This woman is a legend in African music. She just might be on of the most famous African musicians on the planet. And generally, she's pretty great. But she's just put out this album called Remain in Light, and the entire album is a track for track cover of The Talking Heads' album Remain in Light from 1980, in Angelique Kidjo's West African style. Now already this is an interesting idea, so despite not being a massive Talking Heads fan, I really wanted to listen. And it is fun. And of course I was curious about the original, so I found a playlist which lines it up track by track. The interesting thing is that the original actually lends itself really well to West African music. I don't think I would have ever heard it if I just listened to the Talking Heads, but side by side, there's already some elements that seem to be influenced by African music. Pretty fascinating. And the best track, by far, is Once In A Lifetime. I'm sure you've heard the original, even if you don't know it, but once you hear the cover, you'll know what song it is. And you'll probably do what I do and listen over and over.





In a similar vein as Angelique Kidjo covering The Talking Heads, we have a track from Thomas Bartlett & Nico Muhly's new collaboration, an album titled Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music. I previously knew the name Nico Muhly, but not Thomas Bartlett, but the album was on a new releases playlist I follow and I was intrigued by the album name. So I looked it up, and was even more intrigued, and had to go listen. Basically, there was this guy Colin McPhee who was an ethnomusicologist and worked in Indonesia back in the 1930s. He brought back the traditional music he heard in Indonesia and started creating world music back in the US. Now, Thomas Bartlett and Nico Muhly were inspired by him and wrote some songs which incorporate his transcriptions of traditional Balinese ceremonial music. It will not be at all what you expect, but it is beautiful and super interesting. As an album, it's a bit boring by the end, but definitely worth a listen, and definitely worth making it on the blog. So I'll share Dominic with you as today's last track.

July 5 - Florence + The Machine

I don't know why it took me almost a week to write about Florence + The Machine's new album, High As Hope. It came out last Friday, and I was literally refreshing Spotify once an hour at the office to see when I would be able to listen to it. This woman is incredible and everything she makes is magic. That's my general opinion, anyway. She's basically my Beyonce. And with her new album, she has not disappointed.

She'd already put out 3 singles, Sky Full Of Song (which was on the blog previously), and then Hunger (which I thought was on the blog but wasn't but will be now!) and Big God before the album. So as promised, here's Hunger just because it's amazing and was the first official single from the album and I thought I'd already done this and don't know how I didn't.




I mean, how could you hear that song weeks ago and not be excited for the album? Honestly, I thought How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful was her worst album. Still good, but over the course of her 3 previous albums, I thought she continuously went downhill. But in her defense, Lungs is an incredible album. So hard to follow up. Well, Hunger had me thinking we'd be on the right track.

So then the album came out, and I put it on, and I was welcomed with June. Which, despite being already excited for the album thanks to the previously released tracks, far exceeded any expectations I had. June is such an incredible song, both musically and thematically. I mean, come on Florence. Starts out simple, with Florence's beautiful vocals and a bit of plucked string, and then just builds and builds to a massively wonderful crescendo. Imagine how good this song would be live. Insane. And with everything that is wrong with the world right now, she's just giving us this beautiful message of love and hope. Smart lady. She's right. Sadly, love is an act of defiance now. So listen to her and hold on to each other.




Then we go through this wonderful album, and towards the end we come to probably the best song, The End Of Love. Sad title, but as Florence put it, it's actually positive. It's supposed to mark the end of a needy, desperate kind of love and a maturation. Also, it's gorgeous. Those vocal harmonies on the chorus? (insert all kinds of emoji here). And I love that surprising little bit of keyboardy synthesized stringy thing on the second verse. Whenever I listen on headphones, I think I'm hearing something outside the song, and it's jarring and shocking, but then once I realize what's going on it's perfect. This whole song is perfect. The album is damn near perfect. The only problem is I can't buy it yet because I'm waiting for the Deluxe version cause I need more. Anyway, juts go listen over and over and over like I have. It's been easily a dozen times in under a week. I'm sure you'll do the same.

July 3 - Sunday, Monday

I dreamt about this song last night, so I decided I had to put it on my blog. I was already thinking about putting it on my blog, anyway, so that's fine.

The song is Moondancer, and it's the newest single from Saturday, Monday, with some additional vocals by some guy named Richard Smitt. No clue who he is, but he probably deserves credit. This song was actually my introduction to Saturday, Monday, although I have subsequently learned that he is a Swedish producer who worked with Little Dragon, so it is 100% for sure that I have heard music made by him without knowing it was him. He also has a few of his own EPs and singles that he's put out since 2013, and I did give them a quick listen. Nothing as good as Moondancer, but still quite good.

So yeah, here's the song of my dreams. I have no idea how it ended up there, or in what context. I very rarely remember my dreams, although sometimes I'll get a snippet or entire scene. But I think this is the first time I remember the soundtrack to my dreams. And I just remember this song playing and me trying to figure it out and not being able to. While I don't remember the actual scene, I do remember that the scene kept repeating until I was able to remember what the song was, and then the dream was able to move on. That's all I've got for you. That and a great song.