Indians in Moscow – Naughty Miranda
“Things aren’t quite what they seem…”
I’ve lived a life of pseudonyms.
Category: music
Skin of the Night
M83 – Skin of the Night
You can’t really say shoe-gazing had a revival because it never quite left us, thank goodness.
She digs her nails into her naked chest
Miles of veins fan out like a road map
She pulls back the skin to show her ribs
That twinkle like shooting stars
Best of 2010: Music
Like this list really matters, right? I have maybe five or six readers of this blog? And if you’re like some of my friends (good friends, I tell you, lifelong friends…) you might tell me “You think I have the time or patience to watch all those videos you post?”
I spend hours away from things like the television, telephone, books, the growing pile of needless, accumulated objects that seem to gravitate to the household in unexpected ways, I ignore these things, so that I might spend my time listening for new and fresh music. I do this for myself but also to fulfill my lifelong goal of anarchist mutual aid, and also because a good friend of mine taught me the beauty of generosity and the satisfaction of potlatch something I’ve tried to expand into all different areas of life.
So that’s kinda how I think of this blog, as a potlatch of music and other assorted interests. If it’s not reciprocated, recognized or acknowledged, I’ll keep doing it because somewhere among this big jumbled mess of Youtube videos, there might be something you’ve never heard before or something you heard once and forgot or something you’d like to hear again. Thanks to all who have shared their music and interests with me!
::::FAVORITES OF 2010::::
Best New Songs
Primary 1 feat. Nina Persson – The Blues
original post here.
Mock & Toof with Pollyester – Farewell To Wendo
original post here.
Best Global Dance
Arabella, Dance Queen of the Mahala
original post here.
Kuduro
original post here.
Best Album
Deerhunter – Halycon Digest
Deerhunter – Revival
Deerhunter – Desire Lines
Favorite Posts
The Secret Disco posts were so much fun to do but required lots of research and editing, two tasks that used up lots of non-job time, the kinda time I prefer to use to socialize and be with other people. I have priorities. Perhaps I will finish the series, perhaps not.
Pigbag-Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag
“Papa’s Got a New Pigbag was one of the most awesome experimental post-punk, funk, dance-floor hit songs of the early 80s.” From the post: Secret Disco: Y Records
New Order – Confusion
“Here it is, The Funhouse danceclub, a small moment of disco/freestyle history captured in an obscure New Order video. There are glimpses of Jellybean in his clownface DJ booth and producer of Confusion, Arthur Baker. Baker was also a well-known engineer of all those elecro beats. The sneaky party girls were real Funhouse clubbers named Mama Juice and Eva.”
Secret Disco: The Funhouse
Find the whole series here.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
I’ve given up on the whole “favorites” thing, it seems lame now. Actually, blogs seem a bit lame now but I’m not stopping quite yet.
Never Give Up
Nocturnal Emissions-Never Give Up
I’ve sensed the endtime-ish mood in the air. Apocalypse is so 2010! Never give up.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Deaths of birds and fish en masse stir end-times theories
Bizarre reports of washed-up fish and downed birds have many people scratching their heads, and jumping to conclusions.When the term “dead fish” became a top Google search Wednesday, soaring past the likes of Lindsay Lohan and leaving Justin Bieber in its scaly wake, it looked as if the end were near.
That’s what everyone was saying, anyway.
After millions of tiny fish went belly up in Chesapeake Bay this week, much of the populace immediately dismissed the official scientific explanation (the water was just too darn cold). What made more sense, they reasoned?
The approaching apocalypse. Of course.
The Raincoats
The Raincoats – Off Duty Trip
“They seemed like ordinary people playing extraordinary music.”
The Raincoats site here.
The Raincoats – Black and White
Rock Your Body
Kiko & S.Deschezeaux – Rock Your Body
I admit it – I have no shame – I liked the Justin Timberlake version too.
Undertow
Warpaint – Undertow
“Why you wanna blame me for your troubles?
You better learn your lesson yourself.
Nobody ever has to find out what’s in my mind tonight”
One of my favorite songs from 2010 that I forgot to post up.
RIP Bobby Farrel
Pop world in shock after Boney M star dies
I’m shocked he didn’t die in the 70s from copious cocaine use. But to die on the same day as Rasputin, now that’s something!
My lengthy post on Boney M from 2008 here.
EARL
Earl Sweatshirt – EARL
The future is mistaking your alienation for passion.
From the LA Weekly article about this group:
Sweatshirt’s video, called “Earl,” is how I stumbled upon Odd Future. Directed by A.G. Rojas, it features Earl sitting under a hair-salon dryer rapping about ass sex, catfish and decomposing bodies while his Odd Future posse members drink a smoothie made of cough syrup, weed, pills and powders, with gory, deeply disconcerting consequences. “Let’s all fucking kill ourselves,” someone commented on YouTube, which pretty much summed up how the video made me feel, too.
“Poor Earl…”
Egyptian Lover
Latcho Drom Egypt
When I was eight, I read a children’s bible book that I found in my grandmother’s small library. It had all the usual stories: Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath and the one that shocked me the most, Lot and his pillar-of salt wife. It seemed god was having daily chats with these folks, telling them what to do, where to go, intervening in their mundane lives. I asked my grandmother why god no longer spoke to us the way he did to random people in the old testament. She was unsure as how to reply, finally she said “things were different then.” I found that answer unsatisfactory.
Around the same time, I ordered a book from school on the ancient Egyptians. The symbolism, the artifacts in the picture book called to me in a strange nostalgic way, in a familiar way. Also in my grandmother’s library was an adult mystery revolving around Egyptian mythology, on the cover was a blond woman running from a giant Ra, her head turned to view the threat behind her. While my eight year old brain found the plot confusing and abstract, the passages involving Egyptian gods and mythology resonated in a way the bible book didn’t. I was ready to leave my old silent bible god behind. At eight years old I wanted to worship at the altar of Isis.
I eventually gave up all gods but I’m still drawn to Egypt in an inexplicable way. The iconography always catches my eye and when I look through some of those picture books, I still feel the same pangs of nostalgia and knowing. But mostly, it’s the music from Egypt that I love.
The above video is from the brilliant movie Latcho Drom. The rhythm of this Egyptian Romani* music hums into my bones and pulses in my marrow. It reverberates down at the DNA level.
More on Gypsies in Egypt here. Egyptian Romani dancing is called Ghawazee.
The word “Gypsy” comes from the mistaken European belief that Gypsies originated in Egypt. Gypsies or Romani, as is the preferred term are originally from Northern India. See the film Latcho Drom for a musical tour of the Roma diaspora.
