STOP PRESS!

YOU MUST LISTEN TO THE NEW FEIST ALBUM.

I EMPLORE YOU! 

IT IS STARK.


IT IS BEAUTIFUL.


IT IS EVERYTHING!


... and I am only 5 tracks in!

http://www.listentofeist.com/metals/

edit: Finished the album. It's amazing. I'm going to hold off on listening to it again until I buy it on Vinyl or CD. SO EXCITED!!!!!

The WANDERLUST trifecta

The challenge of this post (and potential comments)

3 places you’d like to visit, and why you want to go.

USA- 'nuff said. Best eats, best music. NYC, San Fran, New Orleans - now those are CITIES!!! The home of Jazz music. Would love to go south on a roadtrip to experience some gumbo, crawfish, pecan/pumpkin pie and Bayou food.

EUROPE- To quote Neil Gaiman, while Europe has history, USA has geography. So I'm thinking it'd only be fair if I spent a summer in Europe seeing the sights, eating pizza, cheap opera, hitting up the very artsy Berlin scene and checking out Scandinavia and London.

Egypt- I think I'd definitely like to check out the Middle East sometime and Egypt seems like a very cool place to visit. Lots of cool monuments. And not to mention it was the site of a pretty cool revolution - albeit a state that seems to be currently operating under a military dictatorship.

I've showed you mine. Now show me yours.

Sweeet soul

Gotta love how Soul music makes songs about the deepest pains sound so sweet. Anyway. The song above is Raphael Saadiq's cover of a 70's Spinners tune co-written by Stevie Wonder (as you can see there's some Stevie-ish kind of chord progressions). I think Raphael Saadiq uses the original Spinner's vocal (or at least uses a falsetto very close to the original) into the bridge - which I quite like.

Saadiq's most recent album, the way i see it, is definitely worth checking out! Really awesome vintagey-old-school-recorded-straight-to-tape kind of sound.

Hm, I think I'm going to press play again! So catchy!

#2

This is a soul-jazz-groove joint by American-singer-songwriter Emily King. Again, really, really nice sounding - but quite sad. But jeepers it's gorgeous. Lots of gorgeous vocal harmonies, a bass heavy, slightly latin go-go drum beat, strings and glockenspiels and a spindly upright piano that has probably seen better days. It's off her new EP "Seven" (it's only 7 USD - so there's no excuse not to buy it!).

MUSIC MONDEES _ DISCO DEE_LIGHT_FULL

Recently been playing Fender Rhodes (sorta) in a trio (with my bro Jonno S on the drum kit) that do covers of groove tracks for some fun party jam times up at Bondi. One of the artistes that we've added to our setlist is Sydney DJ/production duo Flight Facilities.

What I love about their debut single, Crave You, are the delicious electric piano chords at the start, the supersexy vocal stylings of Gisele (who I have heard, created said delicious electric piano part), and the dubstep-bass section at the end - it's whacky but cool. The video isn't my kind of thing, but I do appreciate the tune which was played almost constantly on Triple J radio when it first came out.


I also dig their latest single, which has this super-cool retro/disco/summery throwback vibe! Mmm. Buttery bass.

The New Facebook and Why I Might Not Like It (at least, till I try it)

Before I launch into this tirade, I think we're losing a lot of the mystery that used to come with human experience. We're living in an age where information is easy to access, free to read, and hard to avoid. 24 hour news channels, social media, news feeds, smartphones, and other information-technology innovations have influenced the way we perceive and interact with the world. Benefits have been gained but prices have been paid.

We are more connected than we have ever been before, not only to people we know and love but also to the world at large. We are more empathetic, more empowered and more informed. We are finding ourselves reunited with friends we'd never think we see again. Chance encounters in the street are extended and given a digital life. The price for this connection seemed to be a little chink of privacy and we didn't mind paying it. Afterall, we used our own free will to join Facebook and part of the deal was that the privilege of stalking (which meant that you could be stalked too).

It wasn't too shocking. You got to look at photos, write birthday messages, organise things to do on a friday night – but what if you got to look at the entirety of someone's life history? A biography coded in website language, accessible by iPhone, organised by dates, filled with pictures and updates. Sure, if you stalked hard enough, you could kind-of-tell what someone is like purely from their profile. But what if Facebook collected all your information that you've ever shared (from the beginning of your Facebook), sorted it chronologically by year and turned it into a single page that any of your online “friends” could read?


This, is what Facebook is moving towards.

While the optimist in me thinks it is quite cool, I can't help but feel that a price has been paid and unlike last time, it feels a lot higher than what I'm comfortable with. This time, Facebook is taking away the magic and mystery I want to feel in getting to know others by cramming it into some wierd-ass narrative form that stands in perpetuity. Yes, I have wiled away many an hour posting inane links and webcam pictures onto the damned thing - but I like how it's only temporary before these little stories disappear underneath a mound of new status updates.

But as much as I like playing with Facebook, I love getting to know people. I'm curious and I'm somewhat obsessed with finding out what things we have in common or in difference. But most of all, I love how a relationship blossoms – I love how a connection grows and evolves and has twists and turns. It's a story we share as we hurtle towards the inevitable and exquisitely sad ending that we all share. Everyone has a different story.

Different people mean different things to me. Just as I am sure that one person means different things to their friends, their families, their lover(s) and their workmates. I might be a total goofball around my closest friends but I don't think it necessarily means that's what I'm like with everyone else at uni, or work, or at home. (actually... that's probably not true- I'm pretty freakin goofy)

Maybe I'm getting angsty about it but I don't WANT Facebook telling me who someone is - it's like spoilers. I don't want it to fill in all those beautiful little gaps. I don't want to find the morsels that have slipped through our memories or were never brought up in conversation over a coffee. A person's relationships and identity defies order and categorisation. It's lived and experienced. It's not put on display as a webpage of photos and status updates as Facebook – it is worth so much more than that. (and perhaps in terms of online marketing dollars to companies, too)

So I end this essay (ahem, rant) with a few shout outs which will hopefully sum everything up:

Firstly Mark Zuckerburg, stop pushing this technology on us. We don't need to contain our lives in some artificial, neat little box – because our lives are more significant than what photos we've shared, what parties we've been too and when we broke up with our highschool sweethearts.

And finally, to everyone else. I hope one day, we truly understand the sacredness and the complexities of our relationships and identities. For now we need to start having a long, hard think about what we think is acceptable to share and how we all relate to one another online (and offline).

Perhaps it's inevitable, as we connect more and more with people, maybe we will need Facebook's history-of-life-scrapbook - with information and "friendship" overload, you could argue that efficiency is needed. I think it's inevitable that social networking will be (I would argue it already is) a fact of life and relationships now and we have to learn to live with it. But we need to constantly remind ourselves that relationships are beautiful, lived things. We must never forget Facebook can never be used to fill that void.

But then again, maybe it doesn't intend to, maybe I'm just overreacting - I guess when Timeline comes along  we'll be able to truly judge whether it is a good or bad thing.

SPICYROLL

Some good stuff from my voyages across that ocean that is the World Wide Web. (Yarrr, here there be DRAGONS, yarrrrrrrrr)

Booty (Yarr, thar be doublins' and doublins'):

READ:
Here are TEN IDEAS that will change to world (via Time Magazine)

8. Today's Smart Choice: Don't Own. Share -  

And it's the young who are leading the way toward a different form of consumption, a collaborative consumption: renting, lending and even sharing goods instead of buying them. You can see it in the rise of big businesses like Netflix, whose more than 20 million subscribers pay a fee to essentially share DVDs, or Zipcar, which gives more than 500,000 members the chance to share cars part-time. 

Here's some Cultural Faux Pas you should avoid if you ever go to/live in New York.

Also a really good feature on stuff to do in the Inner West of Sydney :) in this month's issue of TIMEOUT.

WATCH:



2. Also watched an awesome foreign correspondent story from the ABC (It's about Israel, Palestine, boycotts and Max Brenner). Nice little story to give you some information on the whole Israel/Palestine situation.


LISTEN to THE GRID

Bunch of really groovy modern-jazz musicians from Perth Australia (there's some really good instrumental cover versions of Radiohead and Coldplay)
http://listenhearcollective.bandcamp.com/album/the-grid
(Photo from Laki Sideris' website - you should really check it out from some sick photos from the Melbourne Jazz Festival! L-R: Dane Alderson (aka Jake Gyllenhall's long lost twin), Ben Vanderwal, Tim Jago)

EAT:

Banh-Mi (image from the New York Times)- available from all good Vietnamese bakeries. Hit up Cabramatta or Marickville for the best eats in a crunchy delicious baguette filled with addictive porkORchickenORvegetarian goodness. There's a sick joint up on Enmore Rd, Newtown. But they're everywhere in Sydney.

If you're feeling a bit flashy, Ms G's in Potts Point does a sick, albeit REALLY EXPENSIVE AND TINY one in the form of a gourmet slider.

Intro: Essays

Quite often, frustration comes in flashes.

Whether I'm watching the news, listening to the radio, overhearing conversations or even having conversations with friends and family sometimes I turn my mind to our current state of affairs and it comes to me. It starts imperceptibly like the flicking ON of an old-school television before BRRZT I am talking myself hoarse, waving my arms around and babbling incoherently about the state of humanity in general.

Anyway.

I think I need some way to organise my thoughts and, perhaps, in writing these posts, wrangle these concepts and share my struggles. It's a coping mechanism.

So look for posts that have been tagged with "essays", I'll be experimenting with long form writing to investigate a fairly mixed bag of ideas or questions. However, I stress (and perhaps this is unnecessary) that while I'll be striving for balanced, well-researched writing (HA!), I won't be objective. In fact, as many great commentators, academics and even former High Court Justices state: subjective opinion pretending to be objective truth is incredibly dangerous. Think about people who don't immunise their children. Climate change denial. Ideas about racial cleansing. All that kind of stuff.

We are never completely objective – the way we see the world is shaped by a range of factors such as our social, cultural, religious, economic and historical contexts. It is almost impossible, and I'd argue undesirable (and quite boring), to write in a way that tries to present an idea free from the perspective of the person who wrote it (in this case, me). I enjoy reading from someone's point of view – I like to think we bring something special to the table and objectivity can be so dry and boring to read. Something that appears to be objective could wield a lot of power – when we say that something is an objective truth you better be damned if people don't start believing it. Just look at the significance of religion!

And see? It came again. Flash frustration. I'm actually smiling to myself as I finish what I now know is the last paragraph of this post. I've caught it in a jar of words and it's buzzing around – begging to be tweaked and begging to be rewritten.

Frustrating, isn't it?

This is AWESOME!

Questlove talks Hip Hop and his personal experiences as a music lover and as a musician for 2 hours.

MUSIC MONDAYS

D Angelo Send It On High-Definition (HD) from Carlos212 on Vimeo.
I think it's a bit easy to be mislead by the thumbnail of this video, but press play and bear with it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

I am a MASSIVE fan of D'Angelo - I think he represents everything I love about black music. There's an amazing intricacy to his arrangements and he surrounds himself with a fairly stable roster of talented musicians who bring their own flavours to this slick, delicious brew of funky-as-hell future shocked rhythm and blues. There's bits of gospel there from Chalmer Alford's shimmering guitars, smooth as butter, ultra-minimalist basslines from Pino Palladino, terse-and-crisp backbeats from Questlove of the Roots Crew... I could go on for days about the level of musicianship that D'Angelo has at his beck and call as a band leader.

I think what I love most is how fresh it still sounds (despite being nearly a decade old). Unlike other musicians, D'Angelo could effortlessly blend the music traditions of the past like gospel, funk and RnB with modern jazz sensibilities. He was one of the innovators of underground black music during the late 90's and the 2000's, preferring real, live instruments and mellow arrangements to the over-produced, pumping computer programmed sounds that dominated the pop and hip-hop charts. Unlike rappers obsessed with image and aggresive beats or the sludgey angst of the grunge movement, D'Angelo's music was cool and effortless.

The video was taken, most likely, at his hey-day some time in 2000 - probably during the Voodoo tour supporting his sophomore release of the same name. While some of the shows in London and Brazil have now taken on a legendary status, D'Angelo became a recluse. I'm not too sure about the details- I think he had issues with body image (thanks to a pushy record label and an infamous video clip), insecurities and pressure that ultimately drove him under the radar for nearly a decade. While there have been reports that he is working on a new album and getting back on track, I think he'll be taking his time.

For now, here's Send It On, one of my all-time-favourite songs. Period. Turn down the lights, relax with a drink, hit play and lose yourself to the smooth, esoteric sounds of D'Angelo and his band. Your ears and mind will thank you for it.

Ten Years On:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

- Martin Luther King

===

also, an excellent piece in the Herald by Waleed Aly that looks at 9/11's legacy and what it means. I feel so proud to be living in a time where there are thinkers and writers like Aly - it gives me hope for the future. As Martin Luther King said, "we must live together as brothers or die together as fools".

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/sifting-through-the-debris-for-real-legacy-of-attacks-20110910-1k2md.html

Music de Monday

Since many of the posts have been heavily skewed towards funk, hip hop and soul, it'd probably be good to throw in something a little *spesh* or a little *diffrnt* for this week's edition of MUSIC MONDAYS.

SO YEP! Here's some good old roots music. Probably more on the folk & country side of things with a nice dash of.. well it's hard to describe. It's not pentecostal (think churchy or hymn-y) like Fleet Foxes and it's not celtic like Laura Marling but there's something slightly hypnotic and, dare I say; tribal, about Alela Diane's melody in this tune.

I really enjoy the lyrics in this tune - it's ambiguous who Alela Diane is singing about - is it an acquaintance? a sister? I like to think she's singing about herself in the third person, imagining what it'd be like to be a creature of pure desire.



It's a great album! y'all should check it out.

MUSIC TO STUDY BY

Beautiful, sunny day outside but here I am, inside, studying :(.

ZAATA

READ:

Some interesting articles I came across:

1. Asian-American university student flies to Libya to fight in the revolution:

"Chris Jeon, a 21-year-old university student from Los Angeles, California,shrugging cooly, declared: “It is the end of my summer vacation, so I thought it would be cool to join the rebels. This is one of the only real revolutions” in the world."

Read More...

2. Ha! I'm not quite sure how to describe this - I think the best way would be "What if Ernest Hemingway used social networking restaurant/bar review apps"

"Pinkberry
Category: Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt
ONE STAR
I met a woman who said she had been to Pinkberry. “What the hell is that,” I said, and she laughed but said nothing."

Read more...

WATCH: 



LISTEN:

Electronic Jazz + Rod Templeton era Michael Jackson throwback machine (think off the wall) + Quincy Jones' robot army = awesomeness from Kaidis 5

F'yeah Friday Food

Made
Sauerkraut (it's currently fermenting in some empty pasta-sauce jars)

Shred some cabbage, add shitloads of salt, cover with water (make sure your water covers the lettuce) and leave somewhere warm (room temp) for a week. I'll be getting some nice rolls, some apple cider and possibly some nice pork sausages to have it with.

Ate
Some kind of lentil stuff we got for free. It's pre-packed, you add water and cook for 25 minutes. Chilli and bay leaf flavoured. Enjoyed it :).

Eat Out:
Don't really remember where I ate out this week. However if I may, I'd definitely recommend GUMSHARA and RAMENKAN and MENYA (and MENYA MAPPEN) - three of my favourite noodle places in Sydney CBD.

p.s. Kimbra's album is OUT! It's less funkier than I expected.. but you NEED to check this track.

http://soundcloud.com/wmaustralia/call-me/