Psychedelic Electro Freak Folk!

The title of this post is misleading. I don't know how to categorize the music I'm about the write about. It's excellent stuff, though. High quality.

I like neat little symmetries. For example:

1. In the 60's and 70's American bands rawked (MC5, Jimi Hendrix), and the Brits made textured, sophisticated pieces (Pink Floyd and all the other proggie bands).
2. In the 00's, British bands rawk (Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines, Futureheads) and the (North) Americans make textured, sophisticated pieces (Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, and the bands I'm about to name.)

This symmetry and reversal would have been cool if it were true. But it isn't. Not a bit. The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin rawked, and Crosby Stills and Nash were sophisticated.

In this decade however, it may prove to be true that Canadian and American indie acts are doing more in the realm of the vague, the mystic, the psychedelic.

Whatever. I have no idea. There are 2 bands I'd like to blog about. I discovered them through Paul Lester's very useful Band of the Day feature in The Guardian. They're both brilliant, as my last.fm page will attest!










First up is MGMT. Their wiki page isn't very informative. They are dreamy, trippy and quirky, yet they have a nice crisp sense of rhythm. I do believe they sing like the best 1970s soft rock bands too! Seek out their album Oracular Spectacular.

MGMT - Time to Pretend
MGMT - Kids










Next up is Yeasayer. They deserve a prize for coolest bandname not involved the word "the" or two incongruous words juxtaposed against each other. Their music is even better. It's "YES" music; true to its name. Psychedelia is in there somewhere, and gospel, and British prog even. They're from Brooklyn, which might be the coolest place to reside in America, if you're in a band. (Montreal, however, may be the coolest place on the continent for a band.) The album is called All Hour Cymbals. Get it.

Yeasayer - Wait for Summer
Yeasayer - Red Cave










Brooklyn, New York is also home to Animal Collective. I first encountered the interesting (and somewhat misleading) terms "freak-folk" and "anti-folk" in connection with their work. I haven't paid close attention to their albums, but their singles are fantastic. Here are two. The new one, "Peacebone", is thoroughly weird and exciting.
Animal Collective - Grass
Animal Collective - Peacebone

New Music is good, people. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

Music My Parents Might Like

I've been meaning to do this for a while. I've made a little compilation (or "mixtape" if you're a hipster) for my dad and mum.

My parents had a profound impact on my musical preferences. It took me a while to start listening to music that didn't conform to their taste. In college I rapidly expanded my aural horizons, and during the holidays I occasionally attempted to get them to listen to what I had picked up. At some point I gave up, despite my success in getting them to appreciate The Grateful Dead's American Beauty, and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. I recall playing OK Computer in the car once. My mother found it soporific and sad. Which it is. But she didn't like it.

Here's my playlist. Some of these songs are obviously chosen to suit the children of the sixties, but some transcend their era. Or at least I'd like to think so.

1. Findlay Brown - Don't You Know I Love You
2. The Shins - New Slang
3. Elbow - Leaders of the Free World
4. Dido - Mary's in India
5. David Gray - The One I Love
6. Elvis Perkins - While You Were Sleeping
7. Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
8. Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good
9. Neutral Milk Hotel - King of Carrot Flowers - Part One
10. Interpol - NYC
11. The White Stripes - You've Got Her In Your Pocket
12. Youth Group - Under the Underpass
13. Regina Spektor - Field Below
14. Coldplay - The Scientist
15. Oasis - Who Feels Love
16. The Killers - Read My Mind
17. Wolf Parade - This Heart's On Fire
18. The Decemberists - Sons and Daughters

You can dowload the whole album here.

If music were food

Let's delve right into this subjectivity thing.

If bands were food, what kind of food would they be?

We'll include drinks. Some things are too bitter to chew, but they can be swigged with a minimum wincing. Like tequila. No that you can chew tequila. Er.



So anyway. Off the top of my head:

The early Beatles (pre-Rubber Soul) - Biscuits. Cookies. Simple, sweet, and perfect.

The psychedelic Beatles - Increasingly elaborate confectionery. Fringe gourmet. Like chocolate covered chillies.

The Rolling Stones - Hooch. Moonshine. Country Liquor. Toddy.

Pink Floyd - Scotch. (I'm thinking The Dark Side of the Moon.)

Oasis - BEER!!

Nirvana - Blood. Salty and delicious.

Simon & Garfunkel - Fragrant herbal tea.

ABBA - American chocolate.

Radiohead - Tasty bile? Hee hee. I have no clue.

Led Zeppelin - Steak. Fortified wine. Or maybe "Lembas" bread from The Lord of the Rings. And then, as the seventies wore on... fruit. Often stale fruit.

Cake - cake.

The White Stripes - Red and white candy (obviously). With a hint of cinnamon.

The Grateful Dead - Apple pie. Spiked with magic mushrooms.





We can do this for genres too.

Heavy metal in general - heavy metals.

Disco - Sticky sweet cocktails. Some are good; most are awful.



I could go on forever. But I won't.

People, contribute in the commentspace! Feel free to disagree with me, of course. One man's halal is another man's kosher, after all.

Pete Doherty had a cheap Indian guitar!

Could it have been a Givson? Hee hee.

Check out Pete Doherty interviewing Paul McCartney in OMM. A genuinely charming interview.

In Rainbows

This could be a swan song. This could be a grand finale.

It's Radiohead, so who knows?

Listen to it.

So Here We Are

For me, listening to music and travelling go hand in hand. No matter the type of transportation (boats/ships aside) or the distance to destination, I must absolutely listen to music. This has been the case ever since I was little; more specifically, when my parents got their first car after coming Stateside. It all started with listening to cassette tapes of Chinese (and the occasional Western) artists my parents love/d, some of which I came to love myself. That eventually progressed into listening to my walkman, then CD player, and then the ol' ipod.

While driving or being a passenger in a car, particularly, there's just something about watching the landscape pass me by, especially if it's accompanied by the perfect song. It may be the music, the lyrics, or both that make every turn, every place more...alive? So unmitigatedly indescribable. Regardless, there is nothing else like it.

Here are a few travelling favorites:

Nick Drake - Pink Moon
I actually discovered the music of Nick Drake from this commercial (my favorite), which pretty much sums up the point I made. I love listening to this, especially at sunset/night.

Iron and Wine - Naked As We Came
Mellow song that's perfect for travelling past less populated areas/farm areas or for a smooth drive.

Cat Power - The Greatest
For a cloudy or dreary day or when particularly thoughtful.

The Postal Service - Clark Gable
The beat of this song gives turns more of a whimsical feel and almost seems to push you forward. But I really added this because I love this song and especially this one lyric: "And I want life in every word to the extent that it's aburd."

Bloc Party - So Here We Are
Perfect for listening at night in a city or some place with a lot of lights in the distance.

To Boldly Go

I am constantly in need of new music. And by this I mean music that is new to me, whether it's from the noughties, the eighties, or the eighteenth century.

The first phase of my musical life has been written about elsewhere. Here I want to talk about the current phase -- the Age of Discovery.

By the time I got to IIT I was tired of Classic Rock fundamentalism. I started discovering more and more new bands that kick serious ass. it's just that that since hip-hop dominates, these bands consider selling half a million copies a reasonable success. Far from the days of Dark Side of the Moon's 14 years on the US album chart. Oh well. Rock excess gave us hair metal.

In IIT I got into early UK Punk Rock. The Sex Pistols are spectacular. Menacing, crazy, funny, and they made some righteous noise. Not for everyone though. To my great irritation, someone once asked me if I had "graduated" to the Clash. Philistines! Of course, the Clash are awesome. I'm surprised that their album London Calling wasn't a college favourite - it has bits of reggae and ska, and plenty of good guitar. In any case, my tastes sort of became a bit more edgy and less laid back - not at all heavy metal, but up-tempo jangly guitars. Maybe pent-up IIT-related restlessness found its outlet that way.

Punk and New Wave set me up very well for the 21st Century's "New New Wave" or the "New Garage Revolution" or whatever you want to call it. Franz Ferdinand was the first of these bands that I heard. I first saw then on TV in 2004 -- on MTV India no less. The Libertines I discovered on the LAN in IIT. They really hit the spot. Much of the UK's rock scene can trace its origins to the Libertines thrilling, shambolic exuberance. The Strokes were the next band I picked up. I can't express the particular way their jaded rock reaches in and grabs me.

I don't recall how, but I started finding a fair number of bands that suited my taste from mp3 blogs. The mp3s they talk about are collected on sites like The Hype Machine and Elbows. The Hype Machine has a pretty awesome little flash player to sample mp3s. I also follow NME, a venerable old UK rock magazine, which, back in 1994, was the first to champion a new band from Manchester called Oasis. I like their taste normally. They're unapologetic about being smug trend-spotters. Another good website is The Guardian's music section. So I hear about a new band, then listen to them on their MySpace page, or on HypeM. And if I'm sufficiently curious, I download the album. I probably download an album once a week on average. If I like an album, I check out the band's wiki page. And If I really like an album, I go to Metacritic and All Music Guide. I love reading reviews of things I already like. It supplements my musical vocabulary. That's how I picked up the word "shambolic". Occasionally the reviewers talk about the band's influences, and then I do some musical archaeology/anthropology.

In the US you can find some pretty diverse musical tastes (every possible niche market has been explored-- I attribute it to Late Period Capitalism and its associated saturations.) In my department I found several people with strongly overlapping tastes. (My department is full of brilliant musicians -- I feel like the odd one out.) We go for concerts together, and I get recommendations from them. Some good, some weird, some awful. So it goes.

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The mp3 I'm going to post now was not discovered by any of these methods. I saw it on TV. It's a My Chemical Romance song. Pop punk went and got all prog. In their new album they shamelessly lift musical ideas from Pink Floyd and Queen, and their clothes hark back to Sgt. Pepper, albeit in and emo avatar. I admire their ambition. However, the song I am going to post now is not prog. It's a regular rocking stomper, and I can't get enough of it. (Salil! Can you detect the T. Rex?)

My Chemical Romance -- Teenagers

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