Favorite Video of the Week: When I Grow Up
When I Grow Up from Fever Ray on Vimeo.
Another fine video from Fever Ray, they’ve been doling them out to us in recent months. I was crazy about the first single from the album If I had a Heart, which was Video of the Week back in February and every month or so a new one appears.
I was fortunate to see Fever Ray play live this past week and it was quite a memorable show. It was difficult to focus on the stage as there was a huge amount of fog, smoke and incense released during the performance and bright lasers emanating from the stage. Karin Dreijer Andersson was dressed in some kind of costume that from my vantage point looked like a cross between the character Tina from the Eightball comic and a Scandinavian version of Sigmund the Sea Monster. I think it was deer pelts and maybe some horns. There was much energy in the performance but of the subdued variety and the low deep bass that seem to accompany every song rattled me to my core. Quite honestly, I felt is if I could have easily slipped into a trance and perhaps that was the effect they were going for. All hail the Church of Fever Ray!
For a better review see here.
Also check out The Sound of Indie to hear a live version of When I Grow Up.
If you like the Fever Ray video’s, you might want to check out the film ‘Let the Right One In‘ a story of vampire children and sadists set in Sweden. Stark and beautiful. See the trailer below.
Let the Right One In
Mysterious Found Note
(click on image for larger size)
I found this slip of paper in a 1907 book called ‘Historia Patria’ from Mexico. I had been curious about what language the note was written in and asked about it a few years ago when I was blogging on Myspace (gasp!). A friend did his best to try and make out the script and used this nifty website to try and determine the language. http://www.unicode.org/charts/
My theory now is that is was written by someone who was trying to copy letters out of a book and probably was not accustomed to using a writing instrument. I can imagine someone picking this book up and attempting to write without instruction. The strange gnarled letters was their interpretation of what they saw on the page.
Favorite Song of the Day: Vitalic
Vitalic-Polkamatic
When it isn’t Scandinavian bands I’m pining for it’s French electronica like Vitalic. Their new album will be released next month and I can’t wait!
You can hear some of the songs from the upcoming album on their myspace page.
Favorite Video of the Week: About
About-Think Miles Drink
Not sure if the band About is still around but they made some pretty awesome music while they were in existence. The glitchy mash-up of styles works in this song. There’s a pop-ey cleverness to their music – it sounds fun, lively and inspired.
By the way, I’ve had three of the jobs featured in this video: record store clerk, barista and book seller.
After writing to the band to see if they were still around, I got this response:
Thank you!
No, we’re not playing at the moment… spending 24/7 in the studio in Berlin to finish the new record. Shows will start again in January!
All the best!
Rutger – About
Yay! Looking forward to seeing them play live one day.
The Lucky Banana Pup
My Grandfather Atanasio, like many other Mexican men was a drinker, a gardener and a tinkerer. Often he would combine all three activities into one afternoon. His inspiration resulted in a backyard of mosaics and fountains (a whole post on this coming soon). Although he passed away in the late 70s many of the plants he grew live on today at the old family homestead, including a great big walnut tree – a favorite of the neighborhood squirrels.
In this photo, he is standing next to what looks like a freshly planted banana tree. Generations of this banana tree live on today, each succession of pups churning out hanging bunches of fruit. This small grove of bananas was divided and spread around the garden, at times the trees were on the verge of taking over swaths of the backyard. The trees are easy to maintain but they do need to be kept in check.
About ten years ago I decided to take a pup (a baby banana plant, they reproduce by sending up shoots from underground rhizomes) home and planted it in a pot. I thought I would carry on the banana growing tradition at my home. I never had a proper place to plant it until I moved to my new place a few years ago. The tree grew tall and flourished, sending up 4 or 5 new pups in one year. I looked forward to harvesting my first bunch of bananas, until one morning when my landlord knocked on the door with a request. She asked if I would remove the banana tree. I told her not to worry the roots were very shallow and would not damage the foundation. She then said Chinese people do not like banana trees and it is bad luck to have the trees growing on her property. As to not offend her and my Chinese neighbors and because it was more a demand than a request, I removed the large banana tree and replanted the pups in pots.
I now have a couple of pups in pots I do not need and would like to keep this banana family going. I’m sure my grandfather received his pup from a friend and so I will continue this tradition. If you would like a banana tree for your garden, leave me a note in the comments area.
Why are bananas never lonely?
Because they hang around in bunches.
Is Anything New?
Digitalism-Anything New
I had a rather obvious epiphany the other night: if you enjoy dancing, you probably enjoy dance music. Obvious, right? Whether dance music is derivative, full of samples of other songs or comprised of beats I’ve heard over and over again, I will probably listen to it. This understanding helps me comprehend why some people don’t like dance music. They probably don’t dance and if they do dance, they don’t dance with their hips (because you need a good rhythm to dance with your hips). Yeah, my logic is simple but it helps me understand why lots of dance music, especially of the electronic variety is so often derided.
Another obvious realization I had the other day while at the Balkan/World/Gypsy music club Malabomba: the best dance music DJs are the ones that feel just as comfortable on the dance floor as they do behind the turntables. The DJ there played some really nice global tunes but not songs you’d necessarily want to dance to.
Digitalism-Digitalism in Cairo
Digitalism is a band that explores the various issues around sampling, borrowing and re-using songs and beats through their music. You might make out a nod to Thriller in Anything New and the obvious sample of The Cure’s Fire in Cairo, above.
Felix Da Housecat-Madame Hollywood
Felix Da Housecat is another DJ who will lift whole rhythm tracks from obscure dance songs for his tunes. It’s always small thrill when I’m able to recognize the origin of a Felix Da Housecat sample. The foundation may be old or unoriginal but it’s the combination of elements that make music sound fresh. The best innovators always make a tip of the hat to what came before them.
Favorite Song(s) of the Day: Early 2000s
Prefuse 73 – Wife (Pieces Of Detroit Mix)
My favorite songs of 2002. Damn, how I loved Prefuse 73, Dabrye and Four Tet, they were my turn-of-the-century go to music. I’m still crazy about these kind of beats. Take a hip-hop song, remove the rap and I’m in love.
Dabrye – The Lish
Four Tet-Untangle
Two Banks of Four-Street lullaby (Four Tet Remix)
Favorite Song of the Day: Italo Disco
Garçons – “French Boy (Part 1)” (1979)
Philips Records, 1979 Produced by Michael Zilkha & Michel Esteban Written by Patrick Vidal, Erik Fitoussi, & Jean-Pierre Charriau
Disco was much derided during it’s heyday and with good reason. The popular stuff was pretty crappy. Yet, with all genres of music there are the tunes that you don’t hear on the radio. They are being played in clubs, shared among friends, found by unlikely listeners in the record store. These two songs probably belonged to this more obscure genre. I’ve never heard these songs before and found them randomly on Youtube. Thanks to allanrk for making them available to new ears!
Bagarre – “Lemonsweet (Disco Version)” (1982)
Moving into the 80s, the music gets a bit arty-er, likely influenced by new wave. The lyrics and vocals on this song are awesome, the beginning bit about “Uncle Frankie” kills it. I hear echoes of future music as well, The Knife perhaps got some inspiration from this tune.
Hobbs Battery
(please click to enlarge)
It’s rare to have photographs of people at work, that’s why I was quite excited when I came upon this photograph of my Grandfather Atanasio in work mode at Hobbs Battery Company. He is the first worker on the left. I don’t know too much about his work at the battery shop. I know he also worked at a company called Smallcomb Electric.
What I love about this photograph is it seems to have captured the various personalities of these men, they look to be so different from each other. It’s almost as if the photo was staged. Who is the mysterious Zoot Suiter in the hat? Most striking to me is the fellow with the upturned collar. He looks to be a heartbreaker or the workplace snake. There is the double-headed ghost man and the White guy stuck in the shop full of Mexicans, perhaps he was the boss? The curly-headed worker filling the batteries with toxic goo looks to be the clown, the payaso quick with the jokes and biting comments. My grandfather is so fresh faced here, slightly dazed as if he slept in a little too much. He was probably the one who’d tsk Mexican style while waving his hand away in a sharp motion and saying “Ay, estas chingaderas!” But in the next minute would crack a smile and think about the beer he’d be having at quitting time.
My uncle has been cleaning out the last of my grandmother’s things and recently handed me a big Danish cookie tin containing forty years worth accumulation of my grandmother’s junk drawer. In the jumble of rusted paper clips, plastic stirrers and other flotsam was this badge from the Hobbs Battery Company. What a find! I pleaded with my family to never throw any of my grandmother’s things until I have gone through them for this very reason. I imagine this badge was long forgotten.