Swedish Comfort

I once read somewhere that if you include a piano into your arrangement, chances are people is gonna like your song. Ameera, an avid reader and music fan herself, e-mailed me to talk about this mellow band called The Perishers.

And how could I not? A band with lush reverbrated piano fills, gentle guitar strums and controlled electric flourish always manages to find a place in my heart. Granted they aren’t anything remarkable or groundbreaking but they’re just one of those bands you play in the car when you’re out with your date for the first time simply because it sets the mood right.

I grew up watching loads of Disney productions from Beauty and the Beast to The Little Mermaid- and being a kid, I tend to sing along to those big time musical duet production songs. Peabo Bryson became a personal household name and because of him, I’ve always held a soft spot for duets.

My favorite of course is Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light but that’s of course, a story for another day. The Perishers’ song that made my eardrums vibrate in tune with my heart is a duet. Front man Ola Klüft pairs up nicely with his vocal teacher, Sarah Isaksson to sing one of the bleakest song ever in modern pop music. Accompanied by just an acoustic guitar and light piano fingering, Pills is one of the most sincere songs I’ve heard in a long while. You know its a brilliant song when the talented and seductive Sarah Maclachlan joins them to sing it on live sets.

You’d probably never remember them 30 years down the road but I don’t think thats what these Swedish blokes are trying to do. The soft quiet music they make is perfect for the now. A present when unrequitted love never seemed more painful, The Perishers are not afraid to offer innermost solace to anyone with a tendency for a paper heart to hide in. The term Comfort in Sound is never more real when you have a Perishers’s CD playing in your lonely backdrop.

Listen to Pills by The Perishers.

Download the song HERE.

* Being a stringent fan of non-censorship media and a strong supporter of change, I’m spreading the news that Malaysia Today has now moved to a mirror site. http://mt.harapanmalaysia.com/2008/

Ben Gibbard: Euphoria to My Ears

Euphoria. Now that’s a big word isn’t it? Like everyone else sometimes I want to feel that. But life itself just refuse to hand it to you on a wooden platter. That’s the way it works.  So that’s why you’re gonna need some help.

There are 3 ways I do it.

1) Illegally of course, I call up my junkie friends and ask them to roll me a joint.

2) Even more illegal, I ring my club buddies and get them to bring a pill i can pop.

Of course I would not ever recommend the 2 above mentioned methods to anyone especially if one would like to experience euphoria on a high level of frequency. I’d go for method 3.

3) Turn off the lights. Draw the blinds. Put on noise-canceling, high powered ear phones. Close your eyes. Listen to Ben Gibbard. No. Not Death Cab. Just Ben. By his own. His side projects. His solo work. Whatever. Let his heartbreaking tenor voice and poetic words linger through your mind.

Now that’s what I call legal euphoria.

Listen to Styrofoam feat Ben Gibbard’s Couches in Alley

Download the song HERE.

Death couldn’t quite catch the Cab to Heaven: Esplanade SG Concert Review

I was riding the escalator up the Concert Hall in Esplanade when I overheard an excited 20-something boy telling another excited 20-something girl.

As he held Death Cab’s tickets at the tip of his fingers, he declared “These are my tickets to heaven“

I smiled and I thought to myself, “Heaven Indeed“

2 hours and 15 minutes later, as I stood outside the concert hall sucking a cigarette, I reflected.

It wasn’t heaven. At best, it was purgatory.

I’ve got possibly the best seats in the hall, placed right dead center of Benjamin Gibbard. If i tiptoed just a bit, I could cheekily untie Ben’s shoestrings. That’s how close I was to one of the greatest songwriters of our generation.

I’ll start with the good. Death Cab is amazing live. They sound exactly like how they sound in a studio record. Ben’s pitching was almost perfect. Even with the less than adequate mic, his boyish tenor voice soared through the air. And me being right smack in front of him felt like he was singing directly to me. I’ve never seen Ben before that day, but from the pics of him he seems to have lost a lot of weight. Gone are the dorky glasses and chubby cheeks. Long wavy-rockstar hair now decorates his sweaty face. He must have learnt a few rockstar moves too what with the twirling of mic cords, and rising guitar to heaven move as he sprang the high notes. For a moment there, I was afraid he was gonna start lighting up a smoke and dangle it between his fingers as his stumpy fingers fly around the neck of his guitar. Thank the blinding light that did not happen.

Death Cab started on the dot. Right on time quite unlike the superstar status they’ve grown to achieve. Explosions in the Sky taught me never to be late for a concert again when I missed First Breath After Coma back in Ruums – which i haven’t quite gotten over till today.

“I descended a dusty gravel ridge, beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge” echoed in the air as they started the set with the opener from Narrow Stairs. From then on, it was an explosive non-stop 2 hours worth of brilliant Death Cab music covering their earlier works to what it is today.

I’m a hard man to please. When I watch a movie, I expect the vision of the director to send me to the black hole with unparalleled story telling. When I listen to a record, I expect the musician to humble me by producing sound that sends me into oblivion. When I attend a concert, I hope the band will make me stand up, close my eyes and put my hands in the air and just feel like nothing else in the world matters.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite happen for me in Esplanade. Don’t get me wrong. Their performance was rock solid but if I wanted a perfect rendition of their studio songs, I’d put on their CD. The pivotal ingredient to a stunning concert experience is interaction which didn’t really happen that night. Communication between the performer and audience was virtually non existence. No chit-chat. No american jokes. No call-to-response for singalongs and the likes. That’s actually quite alrite because I know plenty of bands who focus more on the music rather than toying with the audience. But when that happens, they make up for it by launching into a major improvisation of their songs by adding medleys, elongated music passages or even a fancy drum solo for that matter.  It hardly happened with Death Cab as most of their songs are almost identical to what I’d hear on the CD.

At the end of the day, I’m glad I was there. It might not have been the best concert I’ve been to (I hate to say this but based on performance alone, I enjoyed Air Supply more) but Death Cab is without a doubt, the driving force behind today’s indie/emo movement. Watching the lights dim as Ben strapped on his Gibson acoustic guitar to sing to us one of the greatest love song ever written – I Will Follow You into the Dark itself was worth the trip down south. But the closure – Tiny Vessels followed by the epic Transatlanticism made all adoring fans fell in love all over again.

It might not have been heaven (that’s reserved solely for Damien Rice’s performance in Suntec years back) but it came as close as purgatory. I might have even knocked at the door if only Ben fuckin listened to me and played What Sarah Said.

Southward bound for Death Cab

See you down the causeway! Don’t forget to wear your death cab fan-girl tees. Adds a whole new dimension to me thinking you’re hot.

Sigur Ros’s Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust: A Review

I know, I know. I am late. Its been over a month now since it’s release. But hey you can’t fucking blame me. I searched record stores everywhere in KL. No one sells them. Fuckin retards. Thankfully, a dear friend managed to fly home a copy of it from Australia for me.

Anyone who’s familiar with Sigur Ros’s work, will understand when I say their music is sprawling. They’re the wizard of sorrow. They conjure up vivid images of hope, faith, pain, despair all in one musical passage. “Little” is not an option. When they do it, they do it big. Mammoth-like. Like standing on the shoulder of gigantic mountains. A band who creates their own language to sing in commands not only respect but also admiration of the highest degree, as evident in the album (). If i was the Sultan of Iceland, I’d bestow upon them datukships or tunships or whatever highest civilian honor i can.

Track 1 and 1st single , Gobbledigook begins as a thumping guitar driven track with flashy percussions and hand claps all round. From my vast discography knowledge of them, this is perhaps the only track of them that ever comes close to being a pop song. I hate it. In fact it’s the weakest song on the album for me.

(English: “With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly”), starts off on a light note, quite the opposite of their previous albums. The first 5 tracks are chirpier and at times, even happy. On the first listen i was liked, “Fuck! Whatever happened to the majestic sorrow of Sigur Ros that I loved so much? Did they desert the sad fucks like me and defected to the happier people of the world?”

As if to address my insecurities and to give me a good thumping for ever losing faith, Track 6: Með suð í eyrum began. As the haunting piano intro swirled into my ears, I realized I’m home. From a single piano the song spirals into a collection of ethereal instruments that include a bowed guitar, violins and cello.

As Track 7, Ára bátur began it’s 9 minute journey, I was completely in awe. As I’ve said before, when Sigur does sorrow, he does it in a spectacle of majesty. The first 6 minutes sees Jonsi singing along to a lone piano before the the strings begin to settle itself in the 7th minute and as the song screams to a climaxing crescendo, Sigur Ros is joined by the London Sinfonietta and Oratory Boys Choir.

At that point, I felt like I was in heaven and Iceland, seems to be the closest place on Earth to that.

I could go on to discuss track 8, 9, 10 and 11 but I don’t feel the need to. It’s only worth mentioning that track 9 brought tears to my eyes (I am not exaggerating!!) and track 11 is the first English song ever by them.

With (English: “With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly”), Sigur Ros proves itself to be the pivotal drive of Post-Rock. If you’ve read my review religiously, you’d notice that I did mention that things began to make sense to me only from track 6 onwards. You’re gonna have to disregard me here. Track 1 to 5 is brilliant. Festival, especially is epic. I just prefer their anguish masterpieces which does not mean that those songs are anythig less than masterpieces.

I am terribly sorry Mogwai. As talented as you are, you don’t come even close to dethroning Sigur Ros as the Emperor of Sound.

Listen to Track 9, Fljótavík which translates to “A Place in Iceland”. It is so fucking beautiful my heart aches.

Download the song HERE.

Top 5 Desert Island Covers of my Life: #1

It is a challenge to describe the voice behind the legend. People have used the word Ethereal. Some, Celestial. Others, Divine.

As for me, I prefer a more earthly term. Something more backyard. Something easy for the brain synapses to comprehend.

Impeccable.

Jeff Buckley is a legend. And no other musician deserves that title more than him. Purists may argue that Kurt Cobain was borned to be that. While I cannot deny the revolution Cobain started on the 90’s grunge scene, he simple does not possess the 4 octave powerhouse vocals that Jeff Buckley has.

It’s not all about the voice. If it is, I would have worshiped the ground Mariah Carey walks on. But Jeff, oh Jeff. His songwriting prowess inspired the movement of planetary axis. Record companies dispatched their executives to persuade him to sign with them. Thousands of people throng the club he plays in as an amateur musician.

And then Bam! Grace was released and that forever changed the way musicians ever made music again. Jeff died mysteriously one night while swimming in Mississippi River but his legacy lives on through the works of other musicians he influenced. Names include Thom Yorke, Bob Dylan, Chris Cornell.

Jeff Buckley’s cover of the timeless Hallelujah written by Leonard Cohen is the definitive version. A lot of musicians attempted to cover this track but Buckley, in a class of his own, destroys everything and everyone and leaves no room for even the most persistent mushrooms to grow.

Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah is hands down the greatest cover ever performed by a living musician. Nothing else comes even close to touching it. Absolutely nothing.

Download the song HERE.