Finding Solace in the Nile

“You know it’s Christmas when the advert begins”

I hate December. I hate the shortage of staff in the office. I hate the jingle music at Cold Storage. I hate Last Christmas on repeat. I hate NYE parties. I hate artificial snow from spray cans. I hate family gathering dinners. I hate the end of the year. And I especially hate that there’s nothing to look forward to.

Fucking December.

I could use some hope.

A New Moon is rising

Well, what can I say? Shining – oh I’m sorry, SPARKLING – vampires aside, New Moon has a pretty good ensemble when it comes to the soundtrack. It’s OK, you aren’t the only one who moan in discomfort and guilt when they announce the tracklist for the soundtrack a few months back. I am sure the entire indie-hood went on an uniamous “Whhhyyyy…???!!!” that day.

Unlike the Twilight soundtrack, this one is more mellow and minus the emo punk music from Linkin Park and Paramore. The resonating and slow Satellite Heart by Anya Marina (who reminds me of Boomkat’s Taryn Manning and MoZella), and the hauntingly quiet and distant Rosyln by Bon Iver and St Vincent, and Editors‘ No Sound but the Wind with Tom Smith’s chilling bass vocals together with the steady strums of the keys that is worth a tear or two.

Other outstanding lyrical tracks include Death Cab for Cutie with their signature Gibbardish track Meet Me On the Equinox, Sea Wolf‘s perky and poetic The Violet Hour - “Your lips are nettles / Your tongue is wine / Your laughter’s liquid / But your body’s pine”, and OK Go‘s waltz-like Shooting the Moon.

So, let’s just pretend the movie doesn’t exist, or just agree without seeing it that it sucks balls. (But if you still need proof, read here and here and here). And go straight to enjoying the only thing that is good in the package – the music.

Download Editors’ No Sound But The Wind HERE.

Jonsi gives me a hard-on (and i’m not even gay)

I don’t know about you but there are 3 things in life that I simply cannot resist.

1) A Mild Seven fag after 1 week of abstainance, accompanied by cold winds in a foreign land with hot, strong coffee in hand

2) Watching Good Will Hunting and not smile at the part where Robin Williams say, “damn he stole my line” in reference to Matt Damon having to go “see about a girl”

3) Sigur Ros.

If like me, you’re subscribed to Jonsi’s mailing list (fanboy-la), you’d know that Jonsi’s solo album Go is almost in completion. I will republish excerpts of what John Best, Jonsi’s manager has to say about the record.

For years – I mean literally since I’ve known him (10 years now) -
Jonsi has been beavering away in his kitchen, bedroom or living room
making music extra-curricular to Sigur Ros. To be honest we’d kind of
gotten used to these being drawing board propositions only – the
ambient album, the electronic album, the pop album, the acoustic
album, etc. It’s not that we didn’t doubt his work ethic; these things
certainly existed, it’s just that they seemed more conceptual than
real; creation to sate Jonsi’s enormous energy rather than anything
we’d ever have to put on a release schedule. But then last year he
went and finished ‘Riceboy Sleeps’, an album that had existed as a
soundtrack to his and Alex Somer’s artwork far in advance of being an
actual record. And then he started on about the *acoustic* album and
bounced straight off the back of ‘Med sud i eyrum…’ into the studio
(alright, apartment) with Icelander-by-proxy Nico Muhly.

It seemed apparent to us that it would be missing a trick to limit a
bona fide Jonsi solo album to being a small scale acoustic project, so
some subtle cajoling and encouragement to reach beyond his comfort
zone was the order of the day. we shot the breeze about producers and
Peter Katis’s name came up off the back of his work with Fanfarlo and
The National. Jonsi weighed in with drummer Samuli from Mum, who he’d
heard playing with Alex in Nordic art supergroup Kira Kira. Suddenly
the *acoustic* record wasn’t looking so acoustic after all. From then
on it’s been a slow and ineluctable slide towards the full-on, barely
contained, glorious mayhem soon to be available on ‘Go’.

Everything about this record has a seat of the pants feel about it,
its wildly shifted focus, the way nothing (including the album itself)
had a title til about an hour before the news hit the blogs; the fact
that as I type I still have no idea what is going to be on the cover;
or that, even though Jonsi is currently on a plane to New York to
master the record we’ve no clear idea of what order the songs are
going to appear in, or even, in some cases, which versions of songs
are going to be used. It’s edge of the seat, it’s exciting, it’s
infectious. I think we are beginning to sense that maybe Jonsi has
created something super special here. More than that in fact, I think
he has created something really special here. I’m not sure I’ve felt
this excited about a project since the time I first heard Agaetis
Byrjun, right back in 1999. Holy fuck. Are you ready?

You can download Boy Lilkoi, the first single (i think) off the record here. I’ve heard it and damn, mother fucker it is good. Call me biased whatever but the ears do not lie. When I hear good music, the heart and crotch feels it, right through the veins.

Fuck it’s so good i’m getting a hard-on.

I’m finally back guys. Deal with it.

A review: ‘Alter the Ending’ by Dashboard Confessional

Pledge allegiance to jiwangism*, boys and girls, because Chris Carrabba is back.

I didn’t know how much I miss him until I caught his familiar lovesick croon for Belle of the Boulevard playing in One Tree Hill (Why yes, I am still watching that show, for loyalty reasons). Oh, how he recaptured my heart with soothing lines like: “In all your silver rings / And all your silk and things / That song you softly sing is keeping you from breaking”. It’s like an old lover coming back with a romantic line that made you fall for him all over again. Damn these musicians.

Ever since that day I have been waiting impatiently for Alter the Ending to hit the shelves. So much so that I have practically tired out the album even before its release, listening to it on Dashboard Confessional’s MySpace page.

Dusk and Summer got off easy because it has the title track, So Long, So Long and Stolen to keep things afloat, but things sizzled out for me in The Shade of Poison Trees; one kiss does not make a summer, and the one title track, sad to say, did not manage to hold the entire album together.

With Alter the Ending, I feel like there is a direction. A lot of Dashboard’s songs seem to have a flow that is a little too uncomfortable to get used to. Like the need to hit on the brakes just as you were about to accelerate down the lane in tight traffic. Eventually, you get tired and a little hard to breathe that you just want to crash into the car in front of you to get the suspense over with. After only two years since the last, Dashboard’s new album manages to sail through bad roads and reach home in time for dinner.

Notable tracks are Until Morning with its gripping guitar opening and Carrabba’s somewhat cheesy line of “It was the year I crashed my motorbike” and the addictive but short percussion solo after the bridge; Belle of the Boulevard, of course; I Know About You with rhythmic lyrics of infidelities: “When the forest of your weekend hangs like smoke on to your clothes”; and Water and Bridges about regret on a failed relationship.

Not to mention Carrabba’s at its best in acoustic-infused Even Now and Hell On the Throat. When he goes: “When the path I have made from the grass to the grave / I will love you still / And when the sand turns to glass, and all that’s left is the past / I will love you still” – You just melt; because that is what he’s good at, writing lyrics that’ll reach into your heart and kiss you passionately, achingly.

The deluxe edition of Alter The Ending comes with acoustic version of the entire album. Standard acoustic affairs. Nothing really out of the way, as the original version has already done its part when it comes to acoustics. But there are a few that includes strings like Belle of the Boulevard and Water and Bridges.

Here and there, there are almost mirror images of what is from the past, but generally, I am satisfied with this album. In fact, I think it’s the best Carrabba has come up with thus far. And also, might I add he is less whiny in this one, which is a good thing.

Welcome back, Chris Carrabba. You have definitely alter the ending with this one. Ah, cheesy me. Must be all the One Tree Hill I have been watching. Meh.

Download Hell On The Throat HERE.

* Jiwang is the Malay word for ‘emo’, by the way.