Suddenly

The moment is still. The moment is tense.
It is both sad and frightening.
There is a heart of joy and a heart on the verge of breaking.
Tears that stream from the face of one whom is so amazed by the other.
While inside the feelings don't feel allowable because they have been oppressed.

Dark room.
Afternoon falls to dusk falls to night.
There is nothing to provide but the sterile application of the wall switch.
This only sends an emotionless cold glow to the room.
You feel isolated and empty while you both stand in the room.
Later left with too many thoughts in your head.
You lay again brewing with hypothetical over hypothetical over mental anguish served hot to your stomach and mind.

The tears come again.
The glare of your light annoying you but all you can manage is a faint sigh.
You absorb your eyes and thoughts to the divots of the texture on your ceiling.
The molding is painted a color you find utterly miserable, fake wood tone.
A timeline of "supposed's" and "perhaps then's" form with future memories.

There is unrest beside some sides and
Certainly searching for a meaning
Clouds as they've floating past in the present
As much more thoughts part in the present days

Oh, keep calling... me,
Oh, keep calling... my name
Oh, keep calling... my name
Oh, keep calling


You wait in your mind further for that day when the joy will return
Your heart only lightly dusted with gray and can be cleansed without pain

Again the room.
Again the two of you.
Again a heart.
Again emotions that have a tendency to conflict.

There is a resolve.
It will allow this to never be your view upon this room again.
They will breathe out without a sigh of helplessness.
Presence will be more than the hypothetical.
The hypothetical will cease to be.

All will be real.
As things that are meant to resolve become resolved and cleansed.
Eyes dreaming to never see another moment like this.
The future is of things to come and not filled with thoughts of "perhaps..."

For now there is rest.
There is thought.
There is energy to be saved...
For the future to live...

LINK : These Waves

Out in The Marketplace

A room full of trees and industry opens in front of your eyes, and the window that you are stuck behind seems slightly filmy, but clear enough to still see what is in front of you. A slight essence of tunnel vision begins and you dream of that window not being there. You close your eyes and drift off into dreams where you magically float through the window like billions of molecules, and are allowed to reform back to normal on the other side.

There you are amongst industry and all the elements that seem real and are pulsating about. However upon the glance backwards you see all that is provincial and residential glaring out louder than normal for it reminds you of the alternate that exists between the upwardly mobile and the desire to live pleasantly while working feverishly. You desire the two as well so you spin round a few thousand times staring to the sky that while that remains constant on both sides you can swing back and forth between the two worlds.

Oh isn't life great when you can dictate the perceptions of it all?!

A wicked grin draws itself upon your face, and you run to the urban side streets to feel the movement and energy of everything that is around you. Time itself seems like an innocent bystander to life, and motion is fluid and without any hesitation to the rules being broken.

Every motion and emotion is circling about allowing you to run backwards into comfort and forwards into chaos, and all of it perfect and unconfrontational. The glimmer of the anything at every moment, while spinning and spinning whenever you best see fit to stop the worlds from colliding and keeping what needs to be behind, behind and what needs to tunnel further in front, just in reach to be ever so slightly on the border of being out of reach.

Incentive. Curiosity. Prospect. The game of chance....

Just don't forget that you never have to wake up, because the dream is the life and it is the spinning that keeps us all in check. Because the sky and ground are always up above and down below. Unless you are on your head, but event hen the ground is below you as your feet are above...and there is the sky, just being how it always is. Passing over but protecting everywhere.

LINK : {Tokyoidaho}
VOYAGER ONE / MONSTER ZERO

Is It Just The Idea I Like or Is It For Real?

I pull a moderate sized bedsheet out of a bag and place it on the grass. The weather outside is fair, with a bit of a chill but the sun seems to be somewhere in the lurking of weather's knowledge. Its grey but not a depressing gray, a slight overcast, that white-ish tone. Some close friends are gathered with me and we are of a slightly sarcastic lot, but total lovers of life and all the things that we can grasp out of life's hand. I feel like quoting literature in a completely pompous manner, but instead I smile to myself that Im having these absurd thoughts to make myself seem far more intelligent than I am. My friends would pick up on it and most indefinitely laugh.

Time to pour some tea and share in some other quips and perhaps some cheese or fruit, although Im really up for some junk food...Perhaps a pastry with some gooey sugar icing upon it.

Have I been holding this dialogue all to myself so far. Always me sitting there amongst others with a long narrative going, creating this situation that doesn't entirely exist but could, if it was a slightly different universe. If my thoughts were always actualized, then everything would seem to be in a permanent state of absurd meets decadent meets mondane meets hallucinatory.

However it doesn't change that in realizing Im still sitting there talking to myself in my head, its time to realize that others are about me and I should open my mouth and say something. I know I will open it and not be able to shut it. But it would be rude to not say anything, and its simply not my style.

We all engage in some wonderfully ridiculous dialogue about things in our lives and continue to eat in this somewhat Camus-"come"-Fellini-esque picnic. Smiles are abound and smirks of a clever word and phrase uttered here and there.

Its a nice day. Even if the sun isn't completely out. There is a nice breeze rolling in from the shores a sligh distance away. I am feeling quite relaxed in the admiration I have for those I am in conjunction with and how its a really great thing to be a complete internal blabbering fool and not a single one of my friends seems to mind.

Its also of great comfort because when I export those blubberings to the air, it is always met with a pleased smile for my personality. I am fortunate this day to have those near and dear to me sitting and exchanging words with one another. Even though when I look around me there is but a beige wall, a pillow, some mild plum colored sateen curtains hanging in front of me, and the blinds behind me are of a dour sheer fabric of "blah"....I still feel this world continuing as if you weren't so far away from me.

Its just like when I stared at the beige walls with heavy beige curtains hanging, amongst antiques and photographs of my yesteryears...I still felt them all there, with me...being visible faces...

The faces that change. The people that interchange. Some stay constant. I remain as always....thinking of that which is near and dear to me, even when its out of close reach. The picnic invitations are soon to be.....

Just find me a nice bluff...



LINK : {Would It Be Too Much To Cry?}

INCENTIVES

I remember in passing, a friend telling me I might like this band called Disco Inferno...and while procrastinating some many years ago on Epitonic, in its earlier version, I came across them. I was trying to discover new music, for I was feeling a bit hopeless to the life I had being doomed to mass adoration of bands I would never see perform, because they were all defunkt! Surely, there has to be folks out there, whom are musically inclined and love the same stuff as me and have made bands that are reminiscent of all the good things that early post punk/indie was about.

To my surprise, while listening to the track on Epitonic, Emigre, I hit that very inspiration and satisfaction. It reminded me of The Chameleons, which I recall at this time I was listening to almost every day. There was something about the nature of this track that was just right on spot. I wasn't so utterly blown away by the other track on the site, but this one, this track indeed I listened to a bunch of times that day and fell more infatuated with it.

As the pattern often goes with dear Lorelle, the extremist nature of the leo kicked in and I couldn't fathom another day not owning the album, In Debt. I popped into every music store int he general Flatiron/Gramercy/Herald Square/West Village/Bleeker area and couldn't find it. I was so pissed off. However, fortune found its way to my grubby hands a few days later while out shopping with a friend in the East Village, and BAM! It was mine. I couldn't wait to take it home and play it and be taken into what I hoped would be the restored land of indie rock.

It did just this. I called the friend who recommended them, whom did not have the album but heard a description of them and thought it seemed on par for me, and just beamed with radiant reviews. I thought this album was greater than anything released in the 15 year space that the bulk of my records created to present day. I still think this album is great. I am listening to it right now.

Simply stated I think that Disco Inferno is a great band, with an albeit, horrible name, but I think there is a sense of humor to it all that I know is deliberate, and I can always appreciate sarcasm. Its completely a worthwhile listen and an enjoyable one...to me this album is the right way that a band can be inspired by the "right" post punk outfits, and make music in the current day...for I do feel that what has spiraled out of control these days, is relative to the decade that launched the influences..."This is what happens when the right things go wrong, very wrong!"

Im not saying that there has been nothing since the post punk decade, for shoegaze was a billsful affair of mine too, but there had to be something else in the 90s that made great indie dark tunes!

LINK : {I TRY TRY TRY}

BABY...

Baby by The Comsat Angels is one of the best penned songs ever written, and its not that lyrically I think it is beyond the many I have heard, although Mr Bacon writes a mean tune, but musically this song has such a nostalgic place for me. I remember the first time listening to it as it rolled off the lp one evening at night, and thinking, "OH MY GOD THIS IS SOOOOOO GOOD!"

Its the kind of song that you are so excited to have that you want to call everyone up and start repeating that phrase above, "The Comsat Angels track Baby, is soooo good! Oh gosh I have to copy this for you. You have to have it!" You want to dub it on tape and get it to everyone of your friends immediately. You also want your friend who turned you on to them to give you a ribbon for congratulating you on buying it. "Yes now I know why you own this and why you had to
put it on my tape and get me insanely hooked to them. I must own everything now!!!!"

As for Independence Day, its all about the 1:36 marker...that rip down the bass neck is so stomach clutching its a sigh of "FUCK YAH" every time. 1:36 is Independence Day, its all about 1:36.

I just had a hankering for this album and I only have it at home on lp so I cannot listen to it during the day at work, but fortunately LOST-In-TYME had it on their blog so I grabbed it to reminisce, and I had to blog my response, because once again its just that kind of an album. Its so good you have to rant about it.

The post punk era of The Comsat's wasn't familiar to me until about 1999, and while that makes it past the newness of its release, I still felt like I had stumbled upon one of the greatest new things. To me all these records I own that are some 20 to 30 years past their point of issuance, all were new to me and I considered them novelties.

This is a band that has truly carved its way past the others in my collection that I will always go back to when I want to listen to something really good that fits my mood. This album is that "I'm just a bit moody enough to not be taken over and put into a rut but if I feel like going there, this is the only thing I want to hear as I fall into it." Unless of course you truly want to go there, in which case, just go to Postcard, which is well, gut wrenching! If ever there is a desperation of animosity track written, by jove this is it.

There are times that I want to make a movie just to use some songs in it and create the best soundtrack that any movie has ever seen. On the Beach is a total credits song for this movie...can you think about that, you are just at the beginning of a movie experience you sit down and this starts?! Shit, you almost want to fall out of your chair....this film is going to be beyond intense...and as it settles at its end you can see the storyline just starting in some character of a disgruntled nature...ITS SOOO GOOD! I can't help it!

In closing on moments from this album I would be a fool to not comment on Real Story...this is probably my second favorite track on this album. The bass line and the bass drum seem to be in such a perfect harmony with each other that your gut once again feels all kinds of wonderful punches in it that you want to scoop up with a shovel and say, once more "FUCK YAH!" Feels good, feels damn! damn!! DAMN!!! GOOD!




Oh this album, this album is just to good to ever keep hidden as a treasure of your own, it must be shared. I want everyone to own it, I want to share it with everyone...If you can get on a plane and come to Oakland, I will have a celebrate the Comsat's night and we can all sit in my room and listen to their first three albums and just feel too lucky to know about it!


LINK : I THINK I'LL TELL YOU AGAIN

Are you made of stone?

I am seriously unable to bring myself out of this obsession Ive had for the past 2 days. Every part of me just wants it to be 1990 and to be 16 and be living in the UK and going to Stone Roses shows every day.



Yes I cannot save myself from wishing that I was miles and miles and away and in another time dimension. When you listen to certain songs it just makes you want to be a part of the everything. It's like you feel so utterly left out of something that stirs you so much to just get loaded and jump around to such greatness and be amongst a masses of adoring fans who are 1000% mad for it.



Oh, why is it that it always seems that the fan level of hurrah seems so much better in GB than here? I feel completely wrapped in nostalgia and yet Ive never had the opportunity to see the Roses live, and yet I watch it all and feel like Im there with a best friend and I can recall from memory how super fantastic this was.

I have had moments with friends dancing around to these songs as if soaked in the grace of these concerts, and ven cars late at night blasting these songs and feeling like I was there, as the lights above stream fast passing and you are lost in the lyrics just singing away as if your adolescence is the most precious and outrightly eternal thing in this world.



So for now I sit here at my desk at work bobbing my head side to side and pretending to be in a greater place than I am. COupled with the sense of sadness of knowing that this beautiful moment died for so many when the Roses split...and my last passing memories of all of this was in 95, reading all the issues of NME and Melody Maker making jokes about them playing to support their non existant careers, and how Mr Squire was out and about playing his guitar for food. It was just so sad...

Watching it all just makes me sad and anxious and filled with so many things about the joys of youth and nostalgia and how its all gone. That great tapped sense of lost youth. Sad.

But, shit, enough of that reverie, lets dance!

Les Jouets

I bet you didnt know that Echo and The Bunnymen had one 7" in french? Its true and its sitting under the guise of a band called Little Nemo, and the song is called Les Jouets.

Heavens to Betsy, if they weren't listening to those first two Echo albums when they recorded this, talk about a Les Pattinson bassline, gosh! But its a great track! But you will be expecting Mr McCulloch's voice through the whole thing!

So, you wanted more Little Nemo demo's and you got 'em! Here is the sought after Froide sessions... I enjoy these even more because they include some pretty poppy dance tracks, and that means a great listen while you work.

Yup, while you work on those happy designs as you learn about behaviors in Dreamweaver CS3, and you stare at the clock and wonder when you will get to leave...you have to get home, so you can exercise.

Oh how you wish your gym played the music you listened to so you wouldnt need headphones all the time... That'll be the next thing of hipster culture, a dj at a gym... I'm sure somewhere this exists...and if not, then who ever does it now, has ripped me off...

Yes, Little Nemo is great! :)

LINK : Bed in Summer, Bed in Summer
[its so darn dancy! the lost track from Japanese Whispers, ha!]

Future Is Now...

Demos! Demos! Demos!

A follow up to the previous Little Nemo post, this week I'm going to add as much Little Nemo as I have, since I am greatly indebted to the nice and generous sir of Phoenix Hairpins, whom has musically aided me this week!
{thanks a bunch!}

I prefer the demos to the album versions because I really do enjoy the earlier versions of songs. There is something about the raw quality of a song that touches me more than many album versions, save for bands like Cocteau Twins that I prefer to listen to after Mr. Guthrie has flushed it out with all the acoustics and wall of chorus...its simply better that way!

That aside, please enjoy these if you don't have them already!

LINK : {Be Seeing You}

Impressionable Youth

Is there any reason that children born prior to the start of MTV were taken in by goth culture? For crying out loud look how many videos were all steeped in cathedral like phenomenon. Granted the Bonnie Tyler makes the biggest joke of most of it, but how is it that every director sought for the cathedral...all of these could have in essence been filmed at the same place...

You want a hit? Make the video with a cathedral in it! Oh the joys of the early 80s and MTV!

But what do they all share as well, that perfect crap quality lighting...this is what I want to recapture in video again, I love that blown out detail. Here are the other two greatest videos of that time for lighting.
(dont laugh, you know you love it too! Especially the smacking face and floor drum!)





And to be cool you must dance very angular and make gestures to every lyric. An absolute neccessity....hmmm, anyone else that does this.... hmmmmm.



I tell you Richard and Cy should go head to head!

This concludes my regression down memory lane when I was young five year old engrossed with the introduction of MTV to the world.

You Make Me Smile....

Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu were alwaaaaaaaaaaays the fiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrst personnnnnnnnnnn too stohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhp, to stoohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhp..........

Is it Solid Space or DuetEmmo which truly resonates the elements about why the opening sequence of Dr Who strikes some of us in such a way that the music they later get into sounds the way it does? I think any synth adorer within the coldwave spectrum will have to confess to feeling that there was really something special about the empty, chilling, slightly scary, way that intro left them as children.

I was always trying to find this in songs in my childhood because I liked that feeling that a song could have over me. I wanted to feel like I was permanently stuck in a chilly, gray day somewhere, in the outskirts of Iceland, or just what I perceived that to be. There would be a place with much snow and barons of frozen land and the most gorgeous views upon the chilly world that could be imagined....permanently overcast though.

When you eventually hear that music that brings you there, you feel like everything from your early years of visual confusion and hypothetical delusions has been made reality and you are not so alienated. There are even others out there that share in this music aesthetic, there must be, because it has been created....maybe they have the same image in their minds as you did. How could the music so perfectly fit that landscape you dreamed of? Surely these people have tapped your four year old brain and took your illusions as inspiration.

The most popular track on this album is Or So It Seems and with good reason, its brilliant and its the track that brought me to that childhood fantasy land that put a smile on my face of the largest kind. Yet this entire album is so bleak and chilling, so cold and minimal for an "industrial" album. We can all call it whatever the genre we prefer, but we are familiar with the pursuits and projects that the Wire camp made post Wire, and truly if ever an ensemble of 4 men were to have found each other and formed so many amazing projects afterwards, well I can only think of one other group from that time period to have created so many post "band" projects on their own, and that would be the experimental post punk outfit called Swell Maps.

I could almost wonder if perhaps the two bands could have put their efforts together what would have happened? The piano and natural sounds that Epic Soundtracks was so into and how he adored sounds and environments, well it almost seems, that it would have been a given, considering how much the Wire folk were impressed by the same things. I could see a Jowe Head in this as well.

On the track The Long Sledge.....tell me this couldn't have been some crazy B side to a Swell Maps 7" during the Jane In Occupied Europe era....

Im just in awe....Oh happy MUTE, oh happy DOME. :)

LINK : { In Time In Dreams Or So It Seems }

The Resonating Strings of Autumn

I love this album. I have to say that You Or Sidney by Rise and Fall of a Decade is definitely a great album and utterly appropriate for the autumn of this land. Its moody, but yet great for the sense of sunshine bliss in a cool moment. The second greatest thing about this album, is that its one of those albums that you can listen from start to finish and not feel apt to skipping tracks, which is always the sign of a solid and great album.

The song that grips me the most about this album, that I feel a cinematic moment for is Hold Me. Sure I can be a cheesy dramatic quasi post ethereal goth, its not too hard to drift every now and then into some fantasy novel motif that runs rampant in the genre, but its really quite a compelling song, when played loud. Otherwise its kind of lackluster, but when you are feeling a bit sentimental and little sad it just makes you long for a hug of confidence so terribly.

The title track, You or Sidney is superfun, and when I eventually get around to DJ'ing again will assuredly be in there, because its such a song full of pep and all the good things that great songs have. Its a great driving song, and those always make for awesome spinning tunes.

I dont want to get caught up in thoughts right now, Im just listening to it and it seems right for the day and they mood Im in. If you are unfamiliar with this album, then I highly suggest grabbing the download and giving it a listen!

LINK : One Of These Days

Fear In Colour

When you feel that sensation of moments that you have not experienced but you feel them through the imaginary person you live inside, whom is many miles away and its as if you are seeing things behind their eyes/// Does that make sense...?

Pretend if you will that you have a close friend whom lives in a city and country far away from you, and while you have a familiarity with that place, their experiences there now, are different than what you are acquainted with. Somehow though, one song that plays within your ears makes you feel as if you are them, and you are seeing things through their eyes as if you were them...because emotionally you feel an immense connection to them. Perhaps it is because you have linked certain songs to that person since they sent them to you and because of that, these bands and songs will always resonate THAT person whenever you hear them.

Enter Little Nemo...

City Lights, was the first track I heard by them and it flipped me upside down. This was all during the time that I was being familiarized to the french coldwave catalog and was feeling the start of something great and amazing. A new discography of bands I didnt know, and a world of lyrics that would amaze me, when I understood them, and music that would provide more landscapes to dream in and around.

City Lights was the start of something in me, and from the dear person who sent it to me, I felt as if it connected to their new experiences in a new city. I was wondering about their new life, and this song provided the swirling backdrop for it all. More songs by Little Nemo followed into my ownership and as I kept listening to these songs I kept associating them with that person. It wasn't so much a wonderland that was being created but a friendly familiarity with this band because of a relationship I had had with the person, that I felt like Little Nemo was something from my past and of my new present that felt right and not strange.

When I listen to Marine, from this album, I am brought to that sentimental memory of how it felt when I first looked out the french doors from the bedroom of the hotel when I first arrived in Paris and felt completely elsewhere and absorbing the feelings in the air of a place with such a rich history and such a splendid moment that I was having.

So much of this album are moments of watching things through the supposed eyes of others. There is something about the voice in all these songs, which is do to the slight echo effect on it, but it makes it all very sentimental, and there is a longing and remembrance to so much of the lyrics, especially like Sandcastle where you can all but just picture the person roaming the shores in the haze of the thoughts and aspirations of someone...Fickleness, Tales Of The Wind and Blue Years are other tracks that feel wrapped in the memory of a place in a day left alone to ponder about all of it as if it was s movie in sepia that was looping about behind your eyes while what you were truly looking at was the shoreline just moving slightly about.

The most important thing to be noted about Little Nemo, in stepping out of my sentimental carriage for a moment, is that they were the creators of the Lively Art imprint within the New Rose label, and thankfully for that, so much of the french coldwave/touching pop catalog of artists were able to co-exist as a bountiful hospice of emotions and music that all coincided and raised the bar on this genre. (Not to mention that one off project called Teepee, which is BRILLIANT! to say the least...does anyone have the other track that is paired with Erosion?)

LINK : {Precious Days}

The Frozen Friday Shuffle

((Start at the first track and on the shuffle setting, hit play and record the next arrangement of songs...Top 25...))

Here Goes -
a-Ha : Living a Boys Adventure Tale
Psychic TV : White Nights
Weimar Gesang : Remaining Years
Kraftwerk : Showroom Dummies
Day After : Desert of Time
The Alarm : Rain in The Summertime
Blacklist : Pure Joy In My Heart (AP cover)
Big Country : 1000 Stars
Byro & D.M.T : The Empty Street
The Servants : Its My Turn
DAT Politics : Rainbow Connection
Railway Children : Consider
Die Unbekannten : Radio War
The Ocean Blue : A Question of Travel
The Sound : Distortion
Ulois : Dune
Fra Lippo Lippi : A Moment Like This
A Blaze Colour : Cold As Ever
The Gentry : Visions of a Landscape
Psychic TV : Black Moon
New Order : Ceremony
New Order : Hurt
Solid Space : SPaceship
Sovjet War: It Became A Problem
The Sundays : Don't Tell Mother

And that's that....Back to not paying attention to order, as I work on designs. Ha!

Because Joey and I can't get enough of them

FUZZBOX


Its like once you encounter anything Fuzzbox related in the day you can't help yourself to going mad with absolute full absorption of whatever is out there....

And since fuzzy ramblings is not at my PERSONAL "beckoned call" this will have to do. Its amusing enough....

READ MY LIPS

[I am not posting the above, but the compilation, 1986-1989.]

I wonder how many people ever think to write an opinion of a band and site Austrailia's own Ikon, as a reference, for it seems that stuff like this is always compared to the Psychocandy era of Jesus and Mary Chain if there is a dark psyche fuzz element to it. However this is so much darker sounding than the JMC gang...Yet just when I started thinking about my own silly issues with musical journalism the next track rolls around and I start thinking of other elements of another band...and I start thinking of all those heavy drum machine wonders of the post "Some Girls Wander By Mistake" copies...

Then as if by a recognition of my own thoughts, the fuzz changes and I am sitting here with a very dark electronic album that borders somewhere in my head between the things I like, and the great thing I adore about the sound recording quality of demos.

I love a a lo res quality demo!
The sound of an unperfected static like resonance off the drum machine...reminds me of the Lowlife Black album a bit. But then I start to think about how all of this wording just starts to sound so review-esque and it makes me a bit annoyed because all I am doing is a typical music dork thing and sorting the bands by whom they sound like instead of trying to just plainly listen to the album and not analyze it into its place within the musical card catalog where cross references and similarities exist in this world of compare and contrast.

She Only Smiles begins and I begin to think of the slightly fuzzier elements of Abecedarians, yet another band that shoulda, coulda, woulda been a Factory band, but somehow wasn't....But I can't get Ikon out of my head when listening to this, and I wonder, is it just me?

So I think of something off my mind to say, yeah Savage Garden...Guess who????

I think the assortment of tracks on here are quite good, and if the dark brooding drum machine post punk bass line with a fuzzed guitar is what your after, then this is a keeper! I like it! But it keeps sounding like Ikon to me...why does no one ever mention those Aussies...

Or is it like almost everything today? Well it all sounds like Joy Division...because this doesn't sound like that at all! And why is it that Joy Division IS the definition of Factory, lest we all be reminded they were not the first band on the label. I don't think Durutti COlumn sounds like any Joy DIvision album, but its certainly Factory!

Why is it this album inspires me to think about almost everything but the album itself that Im listening to!?! Hmm, if I decide to write about music then I will listen to this and ponder about other things...Good ambience soundtrack!

LINK : Give me your hard shoulder to lie on

FROZEN FRIDAY

\* T R A C K L I S T *
Novy Mir / AUTUMNFAIR
Will The Ocean Wait? / BACIAMIBARTALI
Our Dreams Our Innocent / ASYLUM PARTY
Killing Dome / CHROMAGAIN
Reflections / SECESSION
Intermezzo / 48 CAMERAS
Filmen / KITCHEN AND THE PLASTIC SPOONS
Couloir FC4 / NEVA
Hold Out / THE FACTORY
The Condos / IRON CURTAIN
Messages Received / CABARET VOLTAIRE
Ring of Fire / WALL OF VOODOO

In conjunction with typical seasonal ailments that cause some of us, like myself, to get sore throats when the air changes and the temperature takes its first dip, I have noted today as mixed tunes day! So using the sparse amount music I have on my computer I composed a little coldwave sampler for everyone to celebrate autumnal chill, and the joy of Friday. So Ive put a little bass heavy groove in here, some electronic based minimal, and a little quirk just to keep it interesting.

Hope everyone enjoys it, and is well in their respected places. I am sitting here with a humidifier blowing vapors at me while I work...Someone asked me if they could get a manicure and pedicure...I wish, for I could use a little extra cash! Who couldn't?!

ENJOY!
(Please follow the stuffed order in the files 01_, 02_ for loading purposes)

DOWNLOAD

Autumnal Glory

Once upon a time I woke up into the greatest feeling of seasonal bliss. The smell of burning leaves resonating in the air from the night before, the slight dewyness of a cooler morning than in the previous months, and an unleashed feeling of the most beautifully colored spectacle known as the death of life...or otherwise known as autumn. I refer to the leaves changing color and falling from the trees and lining the front and backyards of suburban homes with a bounty of joy to be raked then jumped into for zeal of childhood spirit, if to only be raked again...oh but so worth it!

The temperature turning to a cooler nature and the sky revealing the many splendours of hues of warm colors swirled and streaked every which way and watching each day close shorter and shorter but yet feeling a sense of life and confirmation that everything was yours for the taking! It also meant that Halloween was near and that meant free candy...oh autumn is a graceful time. It is a seasonal beauty that magnifies the coming of age and maturation, and also rekindles a romance we have with our inner regressions. How can one thing that we cannot truly touch and claim materialistically have such an impact upon us? How does one truly contain the meaning of maturity in one's years, by also enveloping the chards of beauty that were our earlier days and smiling upon the sun that sets and takes us closer to shorter and colder days? Is there one thing that does this?

Well no, but for those much like myself, we have a tendancy to mark these days by our journeys with music, and there are certain genre's and bands that we tend to gravitate towards that serve as an enhancement to our daily muckings about, and make the time past all the better. That which serves to make everything around us heightened and packaged together like the best bite sized chocolate in a divine wrapping that you almost hate to undo, but want the savoring to start immediately.

Its a cherished moment. Indeed it is.

In lieu of the coming days that will mark the start of autumn, and the knowledge that I won't have those feelings and senses heightened, as Oakland is kind of in a perpetual haze of summer and then spring, TRUE autumn will not be mine again this year...well there will be that one week...or two. I rekindle the flame of yesterday and think of the one band that so perfectly fits that which is autumn, and that band which makes me sad in a most poetic way, and so exuberantly gleeful in a most joyously childlike way....

The Wild Swans...

Here it is, the Incandescent collection, shared for you, by me, whom wishes that everything magical is hereby imparted...

Now You're Perfect

On a Cloudy Day

There is no rain but it feels as if there is something lifeless stirring outside...

Hence, I put forth some dismal pop...But you enjoy it ever so much, don't even try to lie...

Your Music Would Sound Like This...

Just think about those bands and the sentiments of those songs which make you want to curl around a tune like you would with a blanket on a cold day on a couch with the expectations of the most wonderful thoughts. That song that musically touches upon everything that is right with everything that you love about music, which in essence, once again, reaffirming that your taste in music is exceptional, and that you're not the only one who can confirm this. No, I don't mean obnoxiously, I mean that others out there seem to be exactly what you are into which means the artists you think are grander than grand are universally, to some extent, felt in the same manner.

And Also The Trees. Pale Saints. Cocteau Twins. The Ocean Blue. Ride. They all got together, toured America, touched base in Arizona, and decided to grab a couple of kids who played music and listened to them and said, "Take this melody and sentiment and spread it to others. If you like us so much, then let the others know, that in America there are still people who can play what is always defined as "euro"!"
So the guitarist, whom had to put Echoes on a Shallow Bay on pause while being spoken to said, "this is true. If For Against did it, we can too!"

Start the project known as HALF STRING.

They went into their recording studio adorned with the artwork of Vaughan Oliver and Chris Biggs and some Brassai photographs, and on a rainy day the track Hue was created. It would be their first recorded track and the one that would confirm for all of them that they were onto something. Most importantly, being the slightly righteous lads they were, they never wanted to be an indie sell out band, but merely play the music they wanted to and be the band that could honestly admit that their albums were part of what they were currently listening to. When I stood back after reading that in a magazine, I thought, there is absolutely nothing selfish about that at all. You SHOULD make the music that makes you want to listen to it as if its your favorite band. It makes total sense.

The following week, with instruments in had the guys hit the studio after finishing watching a bunch of old films while hanging out with their female counterparts the night before over a really comfortable meal at their off the hillside diner. Oval, Sun Less Sea and Slow Engine Kill were spawned and well, every following week another great song was recorded and the EP's of Hue, Oval, and Eclipse were completed.

One afternoon one of the members stumbled upon a Lively Art compilation at a record shop and after listening to it, called the other guys and they all agreed, that combined with the immense amount of Sad Lovers and Giants, particularly "Epic Garden Music" that that they had been listening to, that this was the direction they wanted to take their last ep. Some of them had their doubts if others would get the early Midnight Records influence in the songs, "Would they know we had been listening to Snake Corps?" They called up their friends in the Abecedarians and inquired if anyone had ever gotten too wise to the act they were doing.

"Has enyone blatantly called you out for probably being huge fans of Royal Family and The Poor and The Chameleons, and that you have an undying love for Faith by The Cure," but honestly there was no problem.

"We just play and record what we would want to listen to."

With that the recording continued and the final ep of the trilogy was completed. This shimmering beauty of novelty distributed out to the indie masses and warmly received by fans who thought, "gosh this sounds like it has all the influences a band should."

It was in the end, exactly what it was meant to be at the start. And with that, I was grateful to encounter them, and am warmed to share them with anyone whom is so willing as to have a great addition to their collection, if you don't already. Highly advised for those rainy gray afternoons in early spring.

LINK : Maps For Sleep

(and yes, none of this is true, but it certainly does make a good story and is highly probable in an alternate universe)

Mentally Waxing Poetic With Myself

Memories of being a youngin during those laughable high school years.
It was during my junior year of high school that I really started to loose
myself within the worlds I created through songs. These below, are songs
in particular of bands in particular that I listened to ad nauseum, and
found solace in a world that to me felt perfect.

THE OCEAN BLUE / mercury

[ from the album Cerulean ]

RIVERSIDE / waterfall

[ from the album One ]

MY BLOODY VALENTINE / only shallow

[ from the album Loveless ]

CURVE / horrorhead

[ from the album Doppleganger ]

CRANES / starblood

[ from the album Wings of Joy ]

I dont like this version but as we all know, there
is no video for this.
THE CURE / a strange day

[ from the album Pornography ]

Oh those moments spent roaming about my neighborhood with my walkman
and mixed tapes listening to these songs at night feeling like no one
understood me and how I was so alone. Oh the smile one can bear now
in realizing how trivial we once were...but all in a life's day, right?

This Is The...Forever

Since 11:23am this morning, until about 2pm, these were my recent 25 songs that shuffled through my mp3 player at work:

1 This Is The Sea The Waterboys
2 Inner Voice Day After
3 Crocodile Tears The Dentists
4 Bo Bo Dolly Feud
5 Messerschmidt Parade Bart & Jan
6 Telegraph OMD
7 Out of The Moving Life of Circles (demo) AATT
8 Un Monde Parfait Les Innocents
9 Cant Make Love Wall of Voodoo
10 Sea Change AATT
11 Too Late For Tears Burning Skies Of Elysium
12 Shakes Tones on Tail
13 Blue Shifted Blacklist
14 Senses The Gentry
15 I Feel Lovely The Wendys
16 Moon Pink Turns Blue
17 Mutti Teflon Fonfara
18 Wild West (peel session) Pink Military
19 Djakarta Trisomie 21
20 NYISC x-1 (hee hee)
21 Michaels Bones Morrissey
22 Pregnant For The Last Time Morrissey
23 Know Who You Are At Every Age Cocteau Twins
24 Hide The Danse Society
25 Now and Forever Wild Swans


(i do have a soft spot for this song)

SOmetimes I wonder why one band will repeat when there are many other bands that dont even get played....did I need to hear 2 Morrissey songs...I probably didn't really didnt need to hear 1...I would have far preferred if one of those Cardigans tracks played instead. So it goes...

I Don't Care....

A C MARIAS


Can I sing the praises high enough for some of the material this fine woman has released? I can honestly express that my familiarity with her is quite recent, for it has only been a year...I think I missed a bunch of stuff in the years I stopped being so addicted to music and focused on being a girl.

Introduced through her involvement with Dome's "Cruel When Complete" which you can listen to here, (please left and right click or control + to download, im being nice here), I thought her voice was a beautiful moment in that hollow stuck in the corridor way. The way that much of minimal synth has sought to do in production, and the glory that is the resonance of how an un overly produced Harold Budd piano just leaves you radiant. The songs within this album by A C Marias are really magical in their nature and have a special place in me reserved for moments when I feel a bit needing of transience.

I do confess that part of me also wishes that I was her a little, for I enjoy watching women create things that sound so amazing and to know that for although the scene was rather small with women and this genre, those who contributed did it in such a truly splendid way, I'll give a shout to Anne Clark as another, Lisa Gerrard (pre DCD), and let us dare not forget the divine AND unique vocal stylings of Mrs. Colin Newman, Malka S. You can have solo acts and be really provoking, and your name doesn't have to be Nico, whom I confess again, really does bore me...

The point here is that this is a lovely talent and one whom sadly slipped by me most definitely due to the fact I had no exposure to her as I was too young to be on it enough as a music dork at that time, as I was cruising the DM and new wave catalogs for almost forever, and then not really ever diving into what has become a very much appreciated catalog of Colin Newman projects...save for the overly obvious one. Sometimes the gems slip through the cracks, but such as long as someone is nice enough out there to share the treasure, well then you can still consider yourself blessed and cherish the kindness of others appreciation.

Appreciate I do. Believe me! So this is my treasure to impart on all of you today, for a moment of grace and solace, take your beverage of great warmth, stand sit down in front of your freezer with your favorite blanket at your side, and put this on play. Just when you start to feel a chill more noticeable than before, blanket yourself and feel that initial comfort of warmth, and this album will make all the more sense to you! A keeper for your first frost of winter.

LINK : {One Of Girls}

A Mellow Progression

[OFFLINE]

I can feel the fingers pull back in hesitation with thoughts, "What is she doing? She posted Die Unbekkanten last Friday to follow it up with a playlist featuring A-Ha? Is she completely delusional? Does she have no idea about what merits good from bad?"
Well the fact is folks, I infrequently discriminate from the things from my past that I enjoyed, just because my musical quotient these days might be just a tad bit more refined. (TAD being the more than appropriate word, ha!)

I do like that A-Ha song, the synths are very smooth and pleasing and isn't of the annoyance factor that some of the other A-Ha material contains, so I will not shy from the podium in defending why I am posting it. Where this play list stems from, Im not sure, but all these songs make me feel at ease and bring a small dose of sunshine to my day, in a happy memory type way. Plus as I was arranging them, they all seemed to flow really well, and if it is one thing I will make a point in notating, I think I happen to be good at arrangement as it pertains to song flow and editing. Once hailed as the master of the mixed tape, I do hold it as a talent that one either posses or does not...how to go from B Movie to Tools You Can Trust to Baltimora and end with Marine Girls, without making it so eclectic that its beyond cliché pretentious hipster, but honest and well crafted....well Id like to think Ive got the gift.

Am I horrible that like phase 2 of The Damned? Well in all honesty I have shared a pleasant and humorous banter with a friend over this song, and that is why it brings a smile to my face. As well as the Ellysgarden song, and this past weekend was a rather nice time spent while listening to the Half String ep that contains this song, as for the Pulp track, that album has always brought a simple smile of a delicate fancy and adoration to this girls face, and well, I think the early material by Tears For Fears is still good, and that song has some rather good lyrics however down they are. But makes no sense to this mix save for the time relevance to the A Ha and The Damned, but you know how music is for precious ears....sometimes you just want to hear something, and perhaps it makes no sense to the other things you have been listening to, but at that moment, your ears just feel the continuity of love.

After all, isn't it all about the moment, and that's the great thing about so much of it...having amazing moments contained in 3-4 minutes of someone else's talents that make you feel all the more better, or simply all the more, about things. Thank gosh for mixes! Thank gosh for folks who can find pleasure in assortment!

Tomorrow I'll return to the regularly scheduled program of pretentious coldwave, haa haaa.

Don't Tell Me

DIE UNBEKKANTEN


I first came across this band back in 2001, when an acquaintance of mine via the pleasures of musical dorkdom online sent out a CD of war themed songs on a comp about how we were doomed as of 9/11. THe cover was the Time magazine cover of the impalling Twin Towers of NYC. The comp started with The Zounds track WAR.

In the midst of many bands on this compilation was this very lo fi sounding one with this almost metronome like drum machine beat, that had a very analogue similarity to early Sisters for me. Who are these Unbekannten folks? No one I knew in the musical dork scene of the time knew. I just knew I had this pretty neat song that was so simple but so catchy that I really liked it utterly so.

Add a few years to that, and after sending the song along to another friend, he acquired the ep, and sent back to me these songs ripped from vinyl. Yippee, now I had more; hope it sounds good. I really like the lead track Don't Tell Me. Its but a quick 4 tracker, but its a good little cocktail / appetizer for the satisfaction of the listener...at least I think so.

Considering I am becoming increasingly bitter about this war I am taking the moment to reflect in spirit and in time that which 9/11 spawned and has not rectified. So lets donate here for the ears of others, something that the government hasn't had a hand in destroying....our ability to share amongst those who share a universal enthusiasm to hear music and to be of like minded individuals who feel the same about it.

Surely there can be one element left that officials cannot deny us. Since they are aiming to fuck everything else up....

LINK : {Allegiance For A Future Where Everything's Nice}

And In Contrast

I can confess, when I was a little girl on Long Island growing up, I thought Stevie Nicks was super cool. Because honestly folks, we didn't start off the bat listening to this uber obscure shit. I can admit my silly adorations of youth...like when I was 8. I thought her outfits in this video were awesome and that was half of why I thought this song was so great. I want those dresses.

Stevie's kinda goth in her own way...we all know it. Come on she was a coke addict, that's 50% of it right there! ha!

Perhaps its the synth and the beat that hooked me as I was listening to Depeche Mode at this age too, so anything programmed sounded neat-o. Don't know, but just feeding a hankering that came out of no where...since I can't have cookies until Friday. I know, woe, is me.

Did the choreographer of this video...was it the same guy who did Michael Jackson's "Beat It?"
BUT PLEASE WATCH THIS!!!! Honestly Stevie Nicks is cracking me up... :)

Simplest Perfection

[OFFLINE]
Tones on Tail- You The Night and The Music
+
Tones On Tail- Rain

no more. moment. delicate.
. graceful divine .

2 years overdose=Twice

TWICE A MAN

The partnership known as Twice A Man, ie- post Cosmic Overdose, is a great synthesis, dare I say, that created one of the pivotal synth pop albums of the 80's I would say. If not in actual recognition, but perhaps sound alone that to me truly reflected what the early 80's sounded like to me, when they weren't utter commercial synth pop. The first official release by Twice A Man, Music For Girls is one that reminds me of how interesting this music was to me and how it sounded so cold and strange to me when I was little, but still poppish. I dont think I actually articulated it in that way, but mostly I was/still am, and overly visual person and it would make me think of desolated shopping malls, or giant grey rooms of people dressed in black and white with floors of black and white all moving about with very little sound, while music like this played and pantomime ensued in the event of necessary communication.

Kind of like how bedrooms were adorned with those porcelain or ceramic masks that hung from the wall. Something magical but a bit creepy at the same time. Synths to me, have always given this sound of otherworldlyness to me. Not in the Dead Can Dance effects of the Im in the Sahara, but in that video game digital analog and bleak minimal world. Like being stuck in a life version of an Atari game on a black and white set.

For that essence I would acknowledge the tracks, Breathe the Air, Battle (especially) and Decay (god bless that little repeat in there that everyone has blundered in the "did the record skip?" ergo overdubbing in my head). Then there are the outright 80s reflective electro dance pop hits that are just so obvious to anyone who listens to this lp, Dance and In My Mind. Personally, my favorite song on here is Threat, and while I think the lyrics are totally cliché, the music is the eeriest on this one with the string-like setting on the synth, that it resonates the most with that empty oddity world that I felt and conjured in my head as a young one. Gentlemen, I like the piano element to it, but it does get a bit monotonous in tone to me after a while. I still sware this was used in the soundtrack in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High." I can firmly say that Russian Tractors is not my favorite, that anthemic keyboard in it just makes it cheesy and I don't care if its because its totally dated in sound, I would have found this cheesy in the early 80s also...kind of like Ultravox's "Life's Great Adventure."

Anyways, I suppose its synth day. I hope you enjoy this for your Tuesday!

LINK : {Some...One's...Toy}

Machine Musik

(is the counter on the top almost too perfect for the recording? am i THAT
much of a dork that i think it makes this cooler? probably.

This is where my head is today...Im scheming and dreaming and feeling fortunate. Electronic lapels? HOLY SHIT! ME WANT! One day, you all will be watching me on Youtube being all, electronic eyelashes? Who'd of thunk?
Each lash, flashes a cymbal crash! NIIIIICE!

An Ode...

:)

there's a space in what you know

Every band that one holds near and dear has a similar reason as to why, and for me it's the ebb and flow of how I relate my emotions and essences to a band. Does it cradle and pull at the heart and head strings? If it does enough that I fall victim to encapsulating myself into the songs then, by jove! ITS A KEEPAH!

Enter the Comsat Angels. A band that I knew, but didnt know, until I discovered them and didnt realize I knew them but thought I stumbled upon the greatest thing, without realizing I had always known them from a much longer time, but just not in this format. If that seems boggling, then perhaps if I said I knew the pop hit "Stay Tonite" by CS Angels, but didn't know that song was by the CS Angels, who were in fact the Comsat Angels, and while I knew this somg lyrically inside and out, and the track from "Real Genius". Back when I was like 8 years old. Many years later, at 22, I was given a mixed tape by a dear former friend of mine, I heard the song Total War from these sessions, and thought it was one fo the best things I had heard in a great while.

Who the hell were the Comsat Angels?
I must find everything by them and buy it, PRONTO!
So I made a mad dash to my computer, yes, it was only some 8 years ago this stumble happened, and I am quick to want than rest and wait, so I ordered "Waiting For A Miracle" and waited. I got it, listened and then jumped onto the computer and ordered "Sleep No More." Got it, listened to it and was beyond floored. How could there be so much bass in ones face and so darn perfect in every way. Where was this during my mopey teen years? It was everything that The Cure's "Disintegration" was incapable of delivering, but everything I wanted. I hailed Our Secret as one of the greatest gloom pop songs ever and noted the Comsat's as one of the greatest and most under appreciated bands.

Said friend of mixed tape, burned me off the b sides from the re-masters that came out in 2003, so I would have music for my flight to France, and also burned this initial version of the "Time Considered Sessions" and "Fiction" for me. I was Comsatted and ready to go!

Words alone are all I can use but I still have issues with the fact that no one ever mentions these guys as influential in the post punk era. However, in a regard I am also glad because in some way I treasure them soo that I dont want some piece of shit hipster who's on the bandwagon to be listening to them and not fully digesting how great they are, but saying something clever like, they are among his top bands like Suicide, Gang of 4, The Pop Group, Wire and Pere Ubu. I cannot have this. Yes Im a snob, get over it. (or has the reference list changed again?)

"Yeah Im really into those early demo sessions by Human League. THe Normal too....its amazing electronic stuff, really interesting. But I think it all goes back to Eno, but you know The Velvets and Floyd too, I mean you have to admit...."

Do you want me to strike a poseur?
ha! :)

This assortment of songs is grand. This band is amazing and Kevin Bacon, the profound one who is the "real" musician, is one of the greatest song writers and smooth bass players in rock. Give props! Im not sure in the combo who wins...I think I gravitate towards the Bacon more (haa haa thats funny) but then again, there's the Burgess...Its a Burgess v. Bacon....its a toughy, because they're very different and very similar. Its all in the delivery.

Our Secret still makes me feel dropped on my head and dumbfounded by just about everything in this world. But while it does this it makes me feel so assured at the same time. How!? HOW DO YOU DO THIS!!!!???? I also will notate that the greatest bass line ever dropped in musical history comes at the bridge of Independence Day, and you can't tell it so much in the sessions, but on WFM, its beyond amazing! Like getting kicked in the ass in the best way. If you are out there in hip hop land, take a lesson, that's how you drop it!

LINK : BBC Sessions

~ CRUNCHY STEW ~

waffle waffle /

IM NOT BOVED...Happy Friday

It's time for a WELL BAD off with videos mate...

THE SOUP DRAGONS | Hang Ten

4:49pm/pct

ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN | Back Of Love

(its all about the bridge in this song)
2:56pm/pct

TAXI GIRL | Mannequin

(yes this has nothing to do with the below two,
but it makes me smile)
2:25pm/pct

NEDS ATOMIC DUSTBIN | Happy

12:17pm/pct

HAPPY MONDAYS | 24 Hour Party People

11:08am/pct

a la proxima...

Last year, this time during the summer I was in a bit of a down mood, as per not being in a work capacity and struggling to conserve any last bit of money I still had. I was spending many evenings awake working on my portfolio and getting no sleep for a few days at a time, only to go to interviews for positions that I never got, even though I seemed to get on famously with the people I interviewed with. Is it me?

I would sit at my desk at home and listen to web casted radio and think, I should do this. But I never bothered. SO instead I spent hours sitting and listening to broadcasts through Radio 365, and getting excited about the set lists....more folks into what I was, and as usual so very far away.

Save for one.

The thing is, I spent everyday watching this video at least three times in my melancholy haze and feeling so in this feeling of, well, this song. The title alone felt like everything that was around me. I was just in a really sad place, with only one single glimmer of optimism and a dangling strand of gold that I was unsure I could reach. I truly felt like I was clutching at fantasies and immersed myself further into music and all of these songs I knew so well, but felt a new rebirth of glum appreciation for them...a new setting to feel sorry about myself and be comforted.

The one thing is that, there is a glimmer of hope within this song, because even though we are not left to be be surprised that crap inevitably will come our way, it still always left me feeling that regardless there was something out there that was a slender chance of hope. AND I HAD CLUNG TO IT!

A year later and so much is resolved and for the better and working towards the best. I'm just waxing poetic....as usual..."you're here to cry, i told you,"...i feel humbled in retrospect.

Internal/External Question/Resolve

[OFFLINE]
The Beloved The Flame
Lowlife Reflections of I
The Royal Family and The Poor Dominion
Fra Lippo Lippi A Moment
The Names This Is Harmony
X V-Sor The Glance

There is something to be said for a hyper active mind. There is also something to be said for not thinking too much, and just being. Kind of a "if I then" but "now i am able," themed mix here. Order specific. Personal. A moment of reflection as it were, of me, to me, by me.

enjoy.

The Modern Art / Age of Light

I will preface this by stating I have no idea who this is. I have gone mad trying to google it because of the obvious reason the title will bring you through everything Modern art related...and as for Googling The Modern Art+Age of Light, I came up empty. The only thing I can fathom which I dont think is right, is regarding that post I made about Sundial back when, which said in the info back sheet that originally started as a short project called The Modern Art...loosely, if it this was that, I can vocally almost see it. Other than that, Im at a loss.

Well I am here to bring the acknowledgment of this musical project whomever it might actually be, is really not that important to me, because its not facts I care about, as much as the music itself. This album really impressed me when I heard it. I felt like all of a sudden I understood the aesthetic draw to minimal pop. Which I should start to refer to as, GreyWave or RainyDayLookOutYourWindowAndFeelAsGoodAsASunnyDay music, take your pick. The thing is, the latter is exactly what this album is to me. Which although much of the music I gravitate towards is like that, this is like a minimal approach to a summer beach party for the slightly gloom angled person who still can actually be entertained and laugh now and then. A moment without care...Its the riding bicycle on a sunny day for the slightly poetically bleak. Beach Boys for goths. Haa haa, when you listen to it, you'll understand that...there are the sad tunes, Dreams To Live the jangly tunes Harmony In Red and the all out poppy tunes, Barriers. But there is a vibe of old time fun within...and within the song Beach on The Horizon, you will totally get my musings!

My movements with this album occurred while I was out here in Oakland last summer roaming about with nothing to do during the day and taking many photographs. In fact many albums became the background soundtrack for those days, but this album and four others were amongst the heavy rotation....perhaps I should do a week dedicated to that? Roaming about albums? Hmmm. The Modern Art, Age of Light is a really great album and one that should be a bit more acknowledged somehow. I hope that with this blog entry it will at least pop up now under a google search and maybe someone can enlighten me. Because I am a bit curious.

As for the cover up there, no this is not the actual cover, I just made it based on how I would envision it would be with how I feel about it. I almost dont want to know what the cover looks like. Put it into your portable player and take a bike ride my dears, you never know when you might discover something truly happy and smiley within the catalog of bleak music. :)

LINK : {Everythings Alright Now}

GOD SAVE THE KING!

Thank you beyond any words could ever scribe...


TONY WILSON / 20 February 1950 – 10 August 2007

..SHE HOLDS IT IN HER ARMS..



CONGRATULATIONS! You all made it through the tribute week, all 5 of you! WOOHOO!

Anyways my week has been a bit hellish so I'll spare you the poetic verse about this band, if you like em then you like em and if not, to hell with ya! So in closing I hope that you have been inspired to dig them out and listen to the albums and enjoy those things that make me so happy when I listen to them...

What can I say right now? Well Im desperately trying to figure out how I am going to get to Paris Thanksgiving weekend, and I tell you it hurts because I have those days off and I know airfare is cheap then. I have been wanting to go for a while and see them. I really want to go to this, I VERY!!! much want to go....Yes I said Paris...and Yes, I live in Oakland, but it can be done...I just need to get to New York on standby and leave from there...Oh it can be done! Im in therapy, Im supposed to be more spontaneous...

Im a nut.

Please come with me! I would adore it ever so....
:)

Oh yeah....the link of things! hee hee, ENJOY some more demos and singles!

LINK : { 'shrine' }

..I WALK THE GHOST OF ALABASTER STREET..


And here we are in the third down of preferred albums. And Also The Trees 1992 release Green Is The Sea (what color were her eyes and the dress? hee hee) Obviously I am not doing a full discographical retrospect but only pinpointing those things that I am most fond of as they pertain to me in this retrospect...this 5 business day retrospect.

The thing that I adore most about this album is the overall feeling of an uplifting nature. I will say that I always start this album at track 2 because I am such not the fan of Valentino, the song annoys me. But this album just makes me feel warm and not in an Im cold and feel warm. I can only liken it to eating something really wonderful that makes you feel like your whole body is radiating a very delightfully rich glow that you could bask in if you were so inclined to lay within yourself.

A great deal of the theatrics have vanished in this album and perhaps that is why I feel that it moves so much more fluidly and resonates a more calmer feeling than the turbulent versus the smooth. There is a still a stoic nature to much of this album for me that I still feel in touch with a nocturnal environment, but it isn't one of despair, its almost of an embracing nature. Dare that I say, that its the snow time Trees album.

I sit here listening to The Fruit Room and glancing at a photo I have of Central Park covered with snow, it seems so utterly perfect. A meandering dream of white scattering amongst you as if in a snow globe. That type of perfect delight that can only be experienced as you appreciate the smallest of things...although there is no jasmine growing into this landscape...

I will always wonder how these bands are felt by those who don't have the background of the northeast of the US to affiliate it with. I mean, I know the feelings of a one in particular, but for others...I associate landscape so much with the music I listen to, that what is it like if you are a huge AATT fan but live in Arizona? Or if you live in Kansas....or say you live in Tokyo, or Greece...what is it like...Or does stuff like this just aim to empathize with those who live in the UK and areas like it...is that why they always play in Belgium and Paris, because of the similar UK weather...

I mean even reflective in the name of the band, its a nature source of inspiration, from the line of the infamous poem they penned the name from. Okay, perhaps I am once again going too far with this, said she of The tremendous Risk for Mr Ferdico...this song has always made me a bit frantic. And its a good instrumental, but not one I would always notate, but I should, more.

LINK : {Her Crescent Figure Through Green Waters}

just a quick catch up on those blissful aatt instrumentals i adore so very much

..Protecting Me / Protecting Me / Protecting Me..

DEMOS! DEMOS!! DEMOS!!

Its the middle of the week in my tribute so I felt obliged to post some rare material to check out if you wish...The Trees demo's and sessions from 1980-1982.

Its a rather good collection of recordings, given that they are early and the production level is alright, but when it comes to sessions, does anyone really want studio precision recording? I certainly don't! I would definitely get these because I like the slightly jazzy number on Lady D'Arbanville....makes you want to mosey about just a bit.

LINK : {You Will Be My Fill}

..OUR EYES ARE SEARCHING, SEARCHING, STILL..



Ah yes, THE album! The Millpond Years is the album that attracts those with a fondness for reverie and waxing poetic on a daily basis. Those whom ooze and soak in nostalgia for pretty much every daily activity, or at least romanticize that they are. Perhaps within their laments of why they can't or how they should but feel indifferent to the place that forces them to be real and not creatively inspired to dream.

Filled with drama and lush theatrics, somehow I can still listen to this album whilst making attempts to be pleasantly put to sleep at night. The landscape rich with shadows of night, and afternoons brimming with moisture and fog thickened streets, and somewhere you look up and notice that everyone about you is dressed in a time far older than where you just were. Perhaps now you find yourself holding a whithered paper and reading about things that dont even make sense, or perhaps you are just sitting on the cobble and feeling really pissed about the social environment you are stuck in. So you dream off into the beautiful abyss and make the world in your toxic mind a better place to live in, enter Shaletown and invisible land that Jeffrey has escaped to, oh charcoal thought ladened Count Jeffrey.

At least perhaps it seems better, or maybe he and i both remove the ash from our eyes and realize nowhere is truly better. Are we all in the myth that things get better?

Clearly this is an album that holds a very sinister and dark ambiance about it, but I did say poetic was part of this, and with that, there must be the counter to this tar stained dream. The beauty lies in the sadness that we, as nostalgic fools, are always inclined towards. From The Silver Frost and L'Unica Strada are perhaps two of the greatest instrumentals ever penned and recorded as part of an album that the instrumental didnt feel forced to prove that "we can do an instrumental" and then tagged on the end. There is something beyond stirring that everytime I listen to these two, specifically, I truly am moved to another emotional place and while I feel a bit sad, there is always something hopeful stirring out upon the reaches of where everything eventually goes towards. In that the shimmering beam that we all hope for while the rest of everything feels like shit, is preserved for optimism.

So is this album truly so dark and miserable, or is it a fragmented journey of the possibilities that are. Is the time of indecision and discovery what is meant by the millpond. Something that is not so pretty but still allows growth of even the slightest?
millpond - a pond formed by damming a stream to provide a head of water to turn a mill wheel
While it prevents and forces a hault it still manages to create and isn't it true that within creation something must exist that blossoms...

Maybe its just me being overly philosophical...However these are my thoughts while I listen to this album and feel really thrilled that I have these moments to reflect and think of those others whom have cherished them as much as I. To those who have scoffed, so be it. Some things aren't for everyone. Thankfully, these things are for me.

LINK : Time Goes Through Their Hands

..A YOUNG MAN AND HIS BRIDE..


Oh this band, this band that I have mocked for being one of the most lyrically pretencious I know. This band that I have created mocked lyrics around and quoted one line and one line over and over..."Cotton forgotten summer dress..."
But underneathe the amusement I have at times with this band, like all of my favorites that I make jokes with, I simply adore And Also The Trees.

I confess that sometimes the vocals are a bit over the top for me, but the music...I have to say that hands down, no one does what they do. While there are so many bands out there that I love and that have many akin to them, for some reason there are a few that many adore, and yet, not one seems to have gotten the blueprint right or made the attempt at all...I feel honored, because a Simon Huw Jones knock off would probably be unbearable, and honestly, I would probably hate it for trying to be something it isn't.

Musically, there is something so time cherished with all of their albums, and upon the later released and this entry posted, The Klaxon, I feel somehow transient in a time of an I don't really know. I have always thought something spanish of this, and perhaps its the percussion and calypso like moments, especially within the track of Johnny Lexington. I feel the haze of an afternoon fading and the dusk on the brink of making its appearance, but no one has gotten upset. Everything seems to push further into the days events that just makes the enjoyment factor a bit moodier but richer.

Then there is the brilliance of the silhouetting guitars by J. Jones, and as yet another shimmering delight of sparkle dancing in the stark nature that he seems to be the master of. Oh gosh I want other things in this musical world to sound like this, why no one ever sites him as a creative force in this industry/genre is beyond me.

Don't get me wrong, I mean like any Trees album, the melancholy, sombre and underlying bitterness is there, but in tone of the arrangements, its something that has always felt still very warm to me. Its like edging your body up into the pushed creases of your duvet and finding that warm spot and being warmed by the heat stroked sun outside that beams upon you. Then you take that visual and magnify it into a perfect mental moment of engaged activity and well, for me, it is beyond amazing.

The Klaxon was the first album I owned by AATT, and while many tend to site the eponymous release as the best, which is then set against the other school of Trees fans who site The Millpond Years, which I have to state I am a member of the latter, I think this album is perhaps my second favorite.

I feel like spinning through a room of Terracotta and then sinking into a gazeful curiosity from a balcony, with a fine glass of red...yes I said it. You know what follows, yes, and a fine tobacco product.

LINK : [ as he walks far from this town ]