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.

See you in December

It’s that time of the year when I go away for reflection, epiphany, inspiration and whatever emo shit you can think of. I’ll be tackling the golden triangle of IndoChina this time around. I’m trying to sneak past the Junta and see if I can bring Aung Yang Suu Kyi home with me. Oh not in that sexual way you may think.

I’ll see you guys in December, everyone’s favourite time of year. Wish me luck. I’ll leave you with my new found obsession. Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard’s personal soundtrack to Kerouc’s Big Sur.

If you need to contact me for whatever gossip, rumours, bitchfits, find me at vernadium@gmail.com.

Till then, be well always.

Howl be thy name

As torrents of rain continue to wash the city of its sins, I hide in the folds of a man – Patrick Wolf, to be specific – as he transports me halfway across the world. Like how Sigur Ros would bring me to Iceland, and Death Cab to Seattle, Patrick Wolf brings me to the Irish moors. Mist like past ghosts’ breath chilling the air as they hover over dampened green pastures.

The Bachelor is the first part of Wolf’s initially entitled Battle album, with the second part The Conqueror to be released the year after. Unlike the preceding The Magic Position, this album sees Wolf dwelling in his recently harboured depression, as he takes advantage of his operatic voice to greater heights. Elaborate backup vocals and celtic-infused instrumentations make up the foundation of the album. Though the strings are slightly pitchy and melody may get cheesy, his voice soars, like an ancient Ireland majesty, prowling for a modern-day revolution.

Helping with the uprise is Eliza Carthy in the title track, with her hoarse vocals and busking violin, and Tilda Swinton, reciting as The Voice of Hope in Oblivion, Thickets and Theseus alongside the bow that runs through the violin strings like a boy zipping through the wide countryside.

Wolf too experiments with Electronica in Vulture and Alternative Rock in Battle, both courtesy of Atari Teenage Riot’s Alec Empire, in which the former has been critically acclaimed. His revolution.

Forget about work. Take a day off to avoid the traffic. Hide in your covers and sip on hot cups of tea. Watch the falling rain and listen to this wolf howling leprechaunic lullaby into your ears.

Download Damaris from the album HERE.

If I wasted your beauty, I’ll ignite it somehow

Sometimes words are not necessary. Click. Listen. Dream.

Till the end barline do us part

Duets are like holy matrimonies in music. They are meant to be matches made in the Heaven of five-stave scores and crotchety notes holding hands with slurs and ties, having pianissimo tenderness and fortissimo passion in 4/4 time.

You have men and wives like Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, Ola Klüft and Sarah Isaksson (Pills), Gary Lightbody and Martha Wainwright (Set the Fire to the Third Bar), Justin Furstenfeld and Imogen Heap (Congratulations), Joshua Radin and Schulyer Fisk (Paperweight), Ben Gibbard and Jen Wood (Nothing Better), Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan (Heart), and if you may, even Jason Mraz and Colbie Calliat (Lucky).

Like timeless couples, these duos are hard to tear apart and mess with. They may try, but the effect will never be the same. Like the first kiss you get from your first love. When Hannigan went to sing Wainwright’s part with Lightbody, it might as well work, but you know that taste in your mouth that it can never compare to her many duets with Rice in The Blower’s Daughter or 9 Crimes.

And with every female vocalists Rice had to accompany his sets after Hannigan left, you know there will never be another woman who can hold it as well as Hannigan when she does Cold Water or Sleep Don’t Weep. Heck, Mraz sang Lucky with Penny Tai, and looked what a mess she made. It’s OK, Mraz, you’ll find your match someday.

When I heard Rachael Yamagata and Ray LaMontagne together, I knew instantly it was the right marriage. Like a girl marrying the boy she played hopscotch with when they were 8. They are mirrors of each other. If LaMontagne were a female vocalist, he may as well sound like Yamagata, and vice versa.

They carried the same weight in their voice, and the same sadness that when blended together in Duet, the sad song ain’t so sad after all. As long as they have each other.

My sister is getting married tomorrow, and I thought I should write a post to commemorate this wonderful day for her. I doubt she even knows this blog exists, but if she shares the same romanticism as I, this would be the song I will dedicate to her and her husband.

I wish you love. So, cheers.

Download the aptly named Duet from Rachael Yamagata’s Elephants… Teeth Sinking into Heart HERE.

Misery loves making a record

I don’t know about you, but there’s always a sense of romanticsm surrounding musicians. Behind every brooding bard, seems to be an epic tale. When I think about it, that does make sense. No one just decides to pick up a guitar and endure the mother-fucking pain on their fingertips for no particular reason.

Like Ray Lamontagne and his inspirational epiphany, Justin Vernon, better known as Bon Iver has a tale to tell too. Broken, beaten and battered, Vernon retired to his father’s cabin in the middle of a Wisconsin jungle, amidst freezing frostbites and howling winds to find solace.

And in that freezing cabin, for 3 months, he recorded his debut LP; For Emma, Forever Ago. It was unplanned. It was never meant to be. Going into isolation, Vernon brought along his beat-up guitar for company and just allowed his loneliness to take over. Recorded strictly in his cabin with his Mac and whatever basic instrumentation he could lay his hands on, For Emma was conceived to critical acclaim.

Listening to his record, I cannot say I’m impressed. And yet I understand why the critics hailed it like it’s the 2nd coming. The entire album captures the sense of loneliness with such grace. The production as raw as the wintery jungle and Vernon’s falsetto vocals captivates you, reeling in the sense of hopelessness, painting an image of a man isolating himself to wait for death.

The effects are really amazing. In Flume, Vernon cleverly uses an e-bow (a magnetic tool that vibrates the guitar strings to produce an intense sound) to maximum effect while the title track features broken hearted trombones that accentuates the whole cabin mystery.

The problem personally, is that Vernon’s songwriting is not nearly as strong as the mood he sets. His songs lack dynamism that you’d expect from a true polished songwriter. An entire 4 minute track sounds similar, no rise, no fall, no change. After listening to the record 5 times through, not a song managed to force itself into my head. I remember no tune, nor do I have the drive to listen to it again.

If you read every professional review out there, you’d notice that when introducing For Emma, they must mention the whole cabin drama. Now I begin to wonder, without that back story, would people still appreciate this record for what it is?

Let me get this straight. Bon Iver captures the mood perfectly with his debut LP. The setting was simply stunning and I consider the production of the album virtually flawless. The fall however, begins with the lack of impressive songwriting. For whatever acclaim it garnered, I think it is completely over rated just as how I think Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is.

Listen to Skinny Love, and judge for yourself.

Of life, love and death

I guess I’ve been depressed lately. I’m not sure why. Something about airplanes maybe. So while some of my friends were happily diddling about at Urbanscapes, I rebelled against sunshiny fan fares and hid under the sheets.

Oh but I wasn’t alone. I’ve got company. It’s kinda of a combination of sub-par yawn yawn company that is thankfully neutralized by something more astonishing.

When I mention sub-par, I’m referring to this book I’ve been reading. It’s called Urban Odysseys: KL Stories. The title itself is a giveaway to anyone who has at least some form of intelligence, so yea, it’s a collection of short stories about KL written by supposedly up and coming, young Malaysian writers.

I don’t know why but there are at least 3 foreign writers in this book. Which is blasphemy considering it’s an avenue for local writers to show off their  craft. Anyway, it’s bad company simply because the stories are pretty much bland. Most of them have dog poo for a plot and recycles the same old Yasmin Ahmad heartstrings shit that cannot even kid a 5 yr old anymore.

I will single out Joanne Chin’s Clear Skies and Lee Eeleen’s Scenes from the Shopping Complex to be the only worthy read. The rest, I can shove it down my incinerator chute (if I had one to begin with). I’ve got a big complain about the local story telling scene, especially when it comes to books and film. Granted, I’m guilty for not being the biggest supporter (I’m trying to change that!) of the local arts, but what I’ve seen so far appals me. The stories in Urban Odysseys are drier than a 70 year old’s cunt. I practically have to force myself to finish it and at the end of each story, I go, WTF!? What was the point of that utter nonsense?

Let’s talk about film. Will you please stop doing that nonsense heart string tugging crap anymore Yasmin? Let’s try something different shall we? Or how about TV? Please no more Project Runway Malaysia. Or Ampang Medikal. Or So you think you can dance Malaysia. Fresh ideas please.

Celeste went to the screening of Free Flicks, and came home unsurprisingly disappointed. In her very own words, pointless. Now I trust her taste in a good solid story and if she said it was pointless, I believe her. She did mention a few worthy films – Kolam and whatnot, so to be fair there could be decent films out there but in a nut shell, we’ve got a long way to go. Oh yea she just turned 24, so everyone, say it with me.

Happy Birthday Celeste!

So what do I do now? Well, I turn to my brilliant  company for grace.

My old buddy from Dublin, birthplace of Guinness. He’s been busy these days. First writing a song for Woman of the Century, Aung San Suu Kyi and now, lending voice to the Dalai Lama by contributing another song to the Save Tibet CD, Songs for Tibet – The art of peace.

Listen. Listen. Just listen.

I just need a little more time with you…

This is a story ’bout the three of us,
Down by the water and the tide is rising,
This world is burning and I’m terrified,
I need a little more time with you,
Oh, I just need a little more time with you..

A man, a piano and his delicate little words. Can the world get anymore beautiful than that?

Jason Mraz Live in KL: A Review

I hate concerts at Stadium Negara. The sound system is crap. When Muse came down and played there, I could barely hear Matt Bellamy’s voice on top of the instrumentation (which is one of the 7 deadly sins, btw) but I thought that could have been a sound check issue. But today, I realized it’s really the venue. I was seating at the stands (168 tickets) and there were no speakers on top of me. Sound had to travel from the speakers at the front which pretty much sucks for me. Mogwai had the best audio arrangement I’ve seen so far. Anyway down to business.

Hats off to Mraz. He was in excellent form and does his best to deliver the a great show. As a performer he was engaging. He addressed and acknowledged the crowd with lots of call and respond sessions,  and even got everyone moving to some geeky dance moves which I thought was rather cheeky. As a musician, he was in fine form. His song improvisations were immense and the inclusion of a brass band certainly helped funk up the rhythm. His folly unfortunately, comes from his lack of strength as a songwriter. More about that later.

Mraz started off strong – video taping the crowd with his  camcorder and subsequently launched into Make It Mine, the perfect song to introduce us to his band. The first thing that caught my attention was the Malaysian football jersey that his 3 piece brass band wore. For a brief moment I thought he was actually using local musicians but after closer inspection, nah.

He seamlessly moved into his 2nd track – the ever popular single The Remedy. This was where he got me to sit up and pay attention.  From the gleeful scat-singing chorus, he called out to the crowd – asking for us to join in by singing Oasis’s Wonderwall as he masterfully merged the rhythm of The Remedy with Wonderwall‘s riveting melody. Now, Wonderwall has to be one of my most revered songs thanks to Ryan Adams and that, definitely got me to start giving this guy some serious attention.

He launched into You and I Both next – perhaps one of my most favorite ballad from Mraz. His voice was strong and steady throughout but I can’t shake the feeling that he is too safe as a a vocalist to really capture the magic of a stadium arena.

As he got into the half way mark of his set, he seemed to have lost the crowd. People were shifting in their seats or standing idly on their spots. He was playing some of his lesser known songs (non radio songs la) and I could sense it in the air that the crowd were losing attention. Mraz, reading the situation correctly, made the popular decision to play I’m Yours and that got the whole stadium roaring with approval. It really annoys the shit outta me that people really only know whats being played on radio. Gives way too much power to the mass media but yesterday night, I was guilty of that same crime too.

My favorite moment of the night was when he performed his tender ballad – A Beautiful Mess. As his carefree vocals soar over the gently plucked guitar, I thought to myself this has to be one of the finest songs any musician has ever written. The set went on for another 15 minutes or so before Mraz bowed to the crowd and disappeared for a shirt change and of course, for the encore.

“Jason!” “Jason!” “Jason!” chant the crowd and sure enough, our hero returned with an “I Love KL” tee. Haha so typical but it was cute though. So up on stage we have 3 guys in a Malaysian football jersey and our main man in an “I Love KL” tee. One can’t help but smile.

He started off the encore with Lucky. Joining him on stage is Taiwanese based Malaysian singer Penny Tai who to my horror, botched the entire song. It’s not that she has a bad voice or anything but there was simply no chemistry between Jason and Penny. Her singing made Colbie‘s voice sound like an angel in contrast.

After Lucky, he dropped his guitar and began to take polaroid shots of his band members and tossed the photos into the crowd. I thought that was a very meaningful gesture. There’s something outrageously romantic about merging the art of music and photography into a single, beautiful night.

Remember how I mentioned that Mraz’s downfall is his lack of solid songwriting? That becomes most evident as he tries to bring the night to a close. Death Cab has Transatlanticsm. Damien has Cold Water / I Remember. Coldplay has Fix You. Sigur Ros has too many to mention.

My point is, Mraz does not have a strong song to end the night. He doesn’t have an epic song that could finish the night with a bang leaving his audience starstrucked. He could probably use The Remedy as a closure but he didn’t which made the night’s epilogue steam rolling at it’s best, a simmer. I couldn’t really feel much chemistry between him and his band though so the best moments of the night was when he was playing solo – just him and his acoustic guitar.

Mraz was in top form last night. If he wasn’t a musician, I think he would fit perfectly into the role of stand-up comedian. It was a very decent concert for me. The songwriting could have been stronger but I knew that even before buying my ticket so I really can’t complaint.

Would I watch him again if he comes back in the future? Not likely unless his 4th studio album blows the cat out of the cradle. But it was a good night nonetheless and I’m glad i was amongst one of the 5000 strong crowd.

And damn, did he look good in that top hat!

Rachel Yamagata: Live in Singapore, April 15 2009

My good man, Mojo has been influential in keeping me up to date with concerts happening around my side of the world. I don’t have Facebook – it’s sort of a personal vendetta in my battle against the shallow world, so my concert updates don’t come to me unless someone is kind enough to tell me about it. Fine, fine chastise me if you must but this is a personal belief which due to my good nature, I won’t bestow upon you.

Okay I’m rambling. Anyway so Mojo just told me Rachel Yamagata is coming to Singapore. She plays at Esplande 15th April so boys and girls, get your party hats ready. For further details, click here.

Oh and I hear that Mercury Rev is opening for Coldplay! Hah that’s really killing 2 birds with 1 stone.

Thanks  Mojo for the brilliant tip. Here’s my personal tribute to you.

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————-Mojo————–
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