Apr 26 - FKA Twigs

Exciting new single came out today! FKA twigs just released a new song called Cellophane, which is her first track in like 5 years, I think. No idea if there's a new album or EP coming, although I would guess there is. But it's still pretty exciting.

FKA twigs is quite strange. I actually didn't really get her or like her that much until I saw her live. There were a couple of songs I liked before seeing her live, but didn't really get into her. Seeing her live changed that. And she's coming to Sydney in June as part of Vivid Sydney, which is an annual music and arts festival that happens around town. Honestly, I'm not yet sure why it's so special. They just have a bunch of performances on, mainly at the Opera House, but that's no different than any other time. There's a bunch of nice lighting that goes up around old town, from what I understand, but I really don't know how Vivid is any different from anything else at the Opera House. I'll have to get back to you on that one in June. But anyway, she's coming and performing, and tickets are super expensive, and I didn't know if I wanted to go see her. She hadn't done anything in a while, and I hadn't listened to her in a long time, so I didn't know if it was worth it to spend so much money. But then I went and listened to all her EPs and her album, and like halfway through the album I was like "yup, can't miss this." So I bought a ticket. And now she's got new music, and by June will hopefully let us know what's going on. The new song is super minimal for her. She usually does weird glitchy stuff, and this one is super sparse and raw. But it's really beautiful. It's a really interesting comeback for her. Good interesting.

Apr 24 - IAN SWEET / Vampire Weekend

Oh wow, this has been in my drafts for a while. I've written about IAN SWEET before, back in 2016 when they released their debut album Shapeshifter, which I loved. And then last year they released their sophomore album Crush Crusher. And I think I created this draft to share some of their music when they released the second single, Spit, which would have been back in September. So this has been in my drafts for months. And I'm bored and work and want to write something, but the other stuff I have lined up isn't ready to be written about yet, because I still have to pick songs.

But anyway, back to the story of this blog. I wanted to share Spit. So I'm going to do that first.

So, I love this band and got all excited when Spit came out, and so I went back and finally listened to their first EP, IAN SWEET, which came out in June 2016, right before the album in September 2016. But I guess I didn't hear about them until the album, and never went back to the EP. But I did when Spit came out, and it's also a great EP. And it has one song in particular which is pretty amazing, called Born Good. So 7 months ago I also intended to share that. So now I will.





And then I'll throw in one new song for good measure, from Vampire Weekend. I've been a bit behind on music a few times this year, which is why you've seen a lot of blogs that have multiple artists with one song each. I just simply haven't been keeping up with music or writing. And that happened again over the last month. So I have some new artists I know I want to share, but I haven't decided which songs yet. But in the meantime, there is one amazing new song from Vampire Weekend, who are gearing up to release their new album, Father of the Bride, next Friday. So they've been putting out singles since last year, and have put out 6 of the 18 tracks so far. And they're good ones. But the best one is This Life, which came out at the beginning of the month. And it has HAIM on backing vocals. I wasn't always (and still am not) a huge Vampire Weekend fan, but I do enjoy them, so with songs like this I'm looking forward to see what they've got for us next week.

Apr 23 - Skinny Pelembe

I'm back at the office for the first time in 3 weeks today. I guess I was at the office in Germany, but first time back at my office in Australia. The trip was pretty good. Well, the Shanghai part was great. The Germany part kind of sucked, though, cause it was mostly just non-stop work for 2 weeks. But it was great to be back in Shanghai and see everyone.

I got in on a Friday night and just went out to dinner with my sister and one of our friends. So that was pretty chill. But then immediately from Saturday morning we were already out in the morning at the gym, then on to an all-you-can-drink brunch, and then on to an art show, and then on to a going away party in the evening. It was a super full day, and it was great to be right back into the swing of things. I'm still working on building up that lifestyle here, where I have things to do all the time, and it was nice to be right back into having my gym on Saturday with friends, and then brunch with friends, and then an evening plan with friends. That was my life for the last 4 years, sometimes with an afternoon activity thrown in, sometimes not, but I'm used to always being out and about. And I'm not here in Sydney yet. So it felt really great to do that. And then it was pretty much the same thing on Sunday. Like, exactly the same except with a different gym class and no going away party in the evening. Here in Sydney I sometimes only have a gym class on Saturday morning, and that's it for the whole weekend. I don't even have a Sunday gym class yet, let alone brunch and evening plans every day. So I'm still working on that, and it was nice to be right back in it, even after being gone for over 3 months.

Other than being happy to slip right back into a normal lifestyle and getting to see my sister and friends (all but 1, who wasn't around), I got to eat everything, and I went to two art shows. The first one was a TeamLab exhibit, and the second was Yayoi Kusama. I've actually been to exhibitions by both of them before, so while I enjoyed them, I wasn't totally blown away.

TeamLab is a Japanese art collective who do interactive light exhibits, I guess would be the best way to put it. They basically use light and sound to transform big blank spaces, using the space itself as their canvas, and immersing you in it. Very instagrammable. So this one only had two rooms, and while they were very pretty to look at and fun to take photos in, they weren't as impressive as the rooms I'd seen in Singapore a few years ago. Those were much more immersive experiences compared to this, where you just sort of watched the pretty lights and listened to the pretty music. Still really nice, but not as good as last time.

Then there was Yayoi Kusama. Also Japanese, also making use of rooms to create environments to play around in (although hers are built up and don't have a sound component, not just making use of light and sound), also very instagrammable. If you're not familiar with the name, she's the polka dot lady. You may have seen something. Anyway, this one was quite good, because her stuff is always super fun. But there was only one infinity room, and you had to share it with other people. Other ones I've been to you get it to yourself, or you get lots of infinity rooms. So that was the only disappointment for me. But overall, this one was a winner.

That was pretty much it for Shanghai, and then it was on to Germany. Which I'll talk about later. Now I'll talk about Skinny Pelembe instead. Skinny Pelembe is the moniker of Johannesburg-born, UK-based producer Doya Beardmore. I just heard about him a couple months ago when his new single, No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish, popped up on my Spotify. It's a fantastic song. Great beats, great instrumentation, great vocals. Really loving it.





So of course I went and listened to more by him. He has a few EPs that came out before the new single, the most recent of which is Sleep More, Make More Friends. This is a fantastic EP. Much better than the two that came before, which didn't really stand out to me. But this one was great. Lots of wonderful songs on it. Go listen to the whole thing. But I'll just put one more track on here today, Not Your Friend, Not Your Enemy, the opener to the EP, which has Yazmin Lacey on the vocals.

Apr 21 - LaTorre

Man I've got some catching up to do. I just got back from my Shanghai/Germany trip, where (after a few days of fun in Shanghai with the sister and friends) I spent like 9 days in a row in Germany working 14-16 hour days at a trade show.  Which, obviously, did not leave much time for blogging or music at all. But now I'm back and dealing with jetlag. And so I'm very tired right now but want to write something. So I'm going to write something just about music, specifically about LaTorre. So we're headed back to South America and still on the Spanish music, which, as you know, there's been a lot of this year.

I actually am not in the mood to share LaTorre right now, if I'm being honest. Today doesn't feel like her day. But, I'm jetlagged and can't think or write, and her music is great, and I don't want to think but I want to share something, and I've been wanting to share her music for a long time so there you go. So let's start out with her newest single, Desventura.





So Desventura came up on a playlist and I loved it. But It is very difficult to find out anything about this woman. All I've been able to find out is that she's Ecuadorian. Which is a new country for me, when we're talking about artists I listen to, so that's fun. Also, it's a country I very much want to go to. Actually the next time I go to South America I would really like to do a Colombia and Ecuador trip. Anyway other than knowing that LaTorre is Ecuadorian, I know she has 3 singles. That's it. I can't even find out her real name. Or maybe it's not just a her, it's a whole group of them? I have no clue. But I do know I like the music, and I think Ser Eternos might be my favorite. It might actually be Desventura, but I do know that I love Ser Eternos, especially the chorus.




And, since she only has 3 singles, I'll just put all 3 here. So we're finishing up with Temporal. And with a real video. Her/Their only real video.