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@saidthesignaltothenoise-blog
Posted a new Mixtape Girl over at my 8tracks account!
Tracklist:
La chanson de la folle au bord de la mer - Charles-Valentin Alkan
Sailing the Lanayru Sand Sea - Hajime Wakai
Submarine - Bjork
Ghost Song - Patrick Wolf
Something Wicked - British Sea Power
Cast a Hook in Me - Laura Veirs
I Was a Cloud - Shearwater
Kingfisher - Joanna Newsom
kill - iamamiwhoami
To Binge - Gorillaz feat. Little Dragon
Good Love - Bat for Lashes
Drive - Warpaint
Really loving the new Warpaint album - first new release this year that's held any staying power for me.
Just posted a new mix over on my 8tracks account!
I'm starting a new project for myself that I'm tentatively calling "Mixtape Girls" for now - every few weeks I want to post a new playlist with album art I illustrated to go along with it. Pretty stoked to begin sharing them here! I definitely have no shortage of playlists to choose from in my library.
This one was inspired by an old prompt and old piece from art school, redone to fit my current style.
Foals - Providence
“It’s to do with being ‘me’. Being carnal, being base. There’s a lot of self-delusion that goes along with being a human being where you believe that you are above your instinctual presets and you’re above your genetics. You’re evolved microbes and that’s what we are. It’s meant to be carnal, lustful and wrong and penitent at the same time.” (x)
Okay, HEAR ME OUT - I absolutely think of Providence as a love song. I’m not sure if this is a contentious idea or not, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone else express the same opinion. I largely feel this way based on its placement in context of the album (and here I go turning everything into a narrative again) - basically my thoughts are that a) it comes right after Milk & Black Spiders which is more obviously a love song, and b) it has a vibe/heaviness comparable to Inhaler, which is all about feeling isolated and pushing people away. By musically recalling the isolation of Inhaler while existing in the aftermath of finding “the only thing [you] need”, Providence feels then like a celebration of finding the person whose weirdness meshes with yours, who’s just as wild as you, who feels just as isolated in that big crowd of people as you do. I’m an animal just like you - we found each other. (Also worth noting obviously, the use of the word “providence” as a title, indicating a turning point comparable to divine intervention.)
Not that being a “love song” necessarily makes it a “happy song” - there’s a lot of darkness behind lines like “I know I cannot be true”. Sometimes the more I listen to it, the more it sounds like a full on descent into madness, which may still be accurate for all I know.
Regardless of the song’s actual meaning, I still think of it as the most purely joyful Foals song, mostly just because of how much of an EVENT it is live. Talk about finding the people you can relate to - at a Foals show, that whole crowd of people, for that hour and a half - they’re all in that shit together. LET’S GET WILD.
Foals - Bluebird
The first non-album track to be released from the Holy Fire sessions (and at this point, probably the only one we’ll ever get.) It’s probably pretty safe to assume that it was inspired by Bukowski’s Bluebird, as in this interview Yannis seems very taken by the poem and asks to keep the copy given to him by the interviewer. Writing an entire song inspired by it is certainly one way to answer the question properly.
I actually find that this track works very well with the album without having to kick any other songs off - I place it between Out of the Woods and Milk & Black Spiders.
Foals - Out of the Woods (Kulkid Remix)
Almost from the very first listen, I’ve kind of mentally split up Holy Fire into two sections. I know that it’s not intended to be a concept album or anything - that’s just kind of the way my brain works, I tend to turn everything into a narrative and that’s how I begin to process it. (Oddly enough, I’ve never been particularly fond of actual concept or narrative albums looking at you Tori Amos!! - I guess it’s just more fun for me when a collection of songs can hint towards a narrative without straight-up defining anything so that I get to make things up myself as I go along with the music and give it my own meaning.)
Anyway, I’m not sure if that whole paragraph even made any sense, but regarding Holy Fire - I think of the first half of the album (Prelude through Everytime) as taking place in the city, a man-made environment, and the second half (Out of the Woods through Moon) as taking place in nature, a physical and/or mental retreat from the constraints of that man-made world. (And Late Night is the centerpiece, bridging the gap between the two.) There may actually be something to this idea, given that Yannis has spoken of returning to Greece in the middle of writing/recording sessions for Holy Fire - it’s interesting to see how that change in environment may have similarly influenced the feel of the record, whether or not that distinction I get between the two sections was intentional or subconscious.
(Actually, the “city/nature” idea is reminiscent to me of PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea in a sense, though the lines between the two on that album feel a bit more blurred than they do on Holy Fire.)
I also kind of think of My Number and Out of the Woods as complements to each other. i have no actual, word of god basis for this or anything. I mean I think I largely just started associating them with each other because a) they’re my two favorite tracks on the album, and b) they’re also probably the poppiest tracks on the album. (WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT ME.) (IT SAYS THAT I LIKE TO JAM AND HAVE IMPECCABLE TASTE, IS WHAT IT SAYS.)
But by initially associating them together for shallow reasons, I started thinking about the two of them together conceptually, and found that they can actually quite clearly mirror each other. My Number is so bombastic and has a lot of swagger, but in some ways that swagger seems to comes off as a defense mechanism for a lot of inner turmoil bubbling just under the surface of the song - it’s like the last burst of physical and mental resistance before the impending and inevitable meltdown. Out of the Woods, on the other hand, feels to me like the point of post-meltdown, after all those defenses have come down, where you know you’re a mess on the outside and can’t hide it anymore, but you’re actually beginning to feel okay about it. It’s like they represent the opposite points between the lowest moment of a single emotional journey.
I definitely think there’s a significance to the repeated references to people, city, culture, etc in My Number, eventually giving way in the bridge to a reflective moment of longing for the ocean - the landlocked environment symbolizing one’s emotional state, perhaps - where Out of the Woods feels much more musically and lyrically expansive, having finally traveled far enough to view the seas that were once "just a dream".
There’s this quote from Yannis explaining the meaning of Out of the Woods and I wish that I could find it so I had the exact wording (someone should send it to me if they know where to find it), but basically the gist was that the idea of being truly “out of the woods” for good is an illusion, and that the song itself never truly leaves that place - it’s all twists and turns in the emotional labyrinth and just when you think you’re out, something will pull you back in. I think that’s really fascinating, and despite the darkness behind that concept, I actually don’t think it’s at odds with my interpretation at all - there’s such an ineffable quality about the music and lyrics that almost indicates an acceptance of the inevitability of that never ending labyrinth. A recognition that there are ups and downs at any point in life and that's just the way things go. Time keeps rolling on.
Regarding remixes: I’m actually super surprised that I’ve enjoyed almost every single remix I’ve heard come out of Holy Fire! I’m usually not a remix gal at all, but there are so many excellent ones released on both the remix compilation and elsewhere. This one is my favorite. I’m also especially fond of the Trophy Wife remix of My Number and the Chad Valley remix of Late Night.
Foals - Prelude
I have a semi-secret desire for Matthew Barnes of Forest Swords to produce the next Foals album, and I partly got the idea from this song - it sounds a bit like Forest Swords to me with a rock edge, so perhaps a Barnes-produced Foals track would sound a bit like this with an electronic edge, and that's the kind of shit I like
also this song is epic as SHIT live, let me tell you
Nothing Left Unsaid - The Making of Holy Fire
Foals - Late Night (NSFW)
“It’s my favorite track on the record. It’s like a classic love song that’s been turned inside out - and when I say inside out I mean violently, like when you turn a squid inside out.” (x)
“I kind of wanted to have a nosebleed [in the video], I don’t really know why, but I liked the idea of trying to sing this song and like, my body just - crumbling, as I was still trying to play this song.” (x)
I’m gonna start off this post with a full disclosure: Total Life Forever is easily my favorite Foals album and so I will probably always be biased in its favor, and I knew before Holy Fire was released that no matter how good it might end up being, it probably wouldn’t surpass TLF in my personal estimation. That did end up being true - TLF is still my forever babe - but I can say one aspect of Holy Fire that I feel is absolutely an improvement over Total Life Forever are the VOCALS. Yannis seriously brought it with this album - he really sounds comfortable and confident in his voice for the first time and it’s a gorgeous thing to hear that unfold over the course of their three albums.
A lot has been made of Holy Fire’s shift towards more openly emotional content - Yannis has spoken pretty extensively about his past difficulties writing honestly, and how Holy Fire marked a conscious choice to be more open. It would be very easy for such straightforward lyricism of the sort found on Holy Fire to fall flat, but where the lyrics sometimes do verge on the overly simplistic, the vocal performances often give them the necessary weight to make the emotional intent really hit home. In a song like Bad Habit where the music itself is actually quite upbeat, it’d be easy to overlook that the chorus is basically asking “would you even care if I were dead” without the sheer heartrending emotional weight of the vocal delivery.
Late Night is especially successful in this, as the emotional climax of the album - I remember just being in AWE the first time I listened to the version on the record. When he asks “do you hear my fear?”, it’s like the question is being forcibly ripped from his body.
In live performances of this song, I’ve noticed that they get a little improv-y with the guitar solo at the end of the song - it always seems like it has a different feel.
(Sidenote: I’ve always thought this song would sound AWESOME mashed up with Daft Punk’s Something About Us. Someone with actual musical ability should get on that.)
Foals - Milk & Black Spiders
I remember one of the first few times I listened to Holy Fire back when it leaked was at the end of a shift at my old job. I stepped outside to take out the trash while this song was playing in my headphones, and the sky was clear for the first night in ages. I could actually see the stars, and I had a silly thought right then that if you were to invert the colors of the night sky, the stars might look like a bunch of tiny spiders in a sea of milk. I think about that now every time I listen to this song.
WELCOME TO HOLY FIRE WEEK ON THIS BLOG and prepare for a lot of audio posts, video posts, and feelings.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Can't Hold Us
Holy shit somehow I completely neglected to mention this in my mini round up of favorite 2013 music videos!! I AM A DISGRACE TO MY HOME STATE OF WASHINGTON
no but The Heist was easily one of my top 5 albums of 2012 and I was so glad that they came out with such a flawless video for this song because it greatly deserved one. It's nuts that Macklemore and Ryan have gone from filming music videos in Value Village to filming music videos on top of the motherfucking Space Needle, like well done guys
speaking of which there's also an adorable behind the scenes video from the day they filmed there. (Although with respect to Ryan, I'm pretty sure that Captain Murphy is the Bruce Wayne of the rap game, he did an entire song about it and everything.)
First vinyl spin of the year - Foals' CCTV sessions.
I'm thinking that starting Monday it's gonna be Holy Fire week on this blog - gonna do a lot of writing and posting and probably overthinking on it to recognize my favorite album of 2013 because I have a LOT OF FEELINGS about it
Atoms for Peace - Ingenue
And my other favorite video of 2013. Amok narrowly missed out on the top 5 spot on my 2013 list but I want to give it an extra shoutout because it's fantastic.
I really appreciate that strange interpretive dance seems to be the new standard content of Radiohead/Thom Yorke MVs these days, but this one has a certain beauty/poignancy to it. It reminds me of Abramovic and Ulay's work together.
Janelle Monae - Q.U.E.E.N. feat. Erykah Badu
This was by far my favorite music video of 2013, for one of my favorite new releases. I'm continually glad that Janelle Monae exists in the world and keeps on loving who she is, even if it makes other uncomfortable.
The Top 25 Albums of 2013
TIME FOR A YEAR END TRADITION.
I want to do some more extensive writing on at least the top 5 in the next few days, but I won't have the time until it actually turns 2014 so instead here's just the full list for now minus commentary.
I'm kicking off my 8tracks account @ aeferg with my Best of 2013 playlist - 29 songs from 29 releases that I enjoyed this year. Click through the picture or go to the account link to check it out.
I'm aware that this mix is nearly two and a half hours long and probably no one in the universe besides me will listen to the whole thing from beginning to end, but LET ME INDULGE MYSELF
Tracklist is as follows, songs aren't listed in any order of preference but rather in a way that makes them ~flow:
Daft Punk - Give Life Back to Music
Foals - My Number
Vienna Teng - In the 99
Janelle Monae feat. Erykah Badu - Q.U.E.E.N.
Charli XCX - Take my Hand
Lady Gaga - Jewels and Drugs
Justin Timberlake - Strawberry Bubblegum
Flying Lotus - Tree Tunnels 3
Serafina Steer - Night Before Mutiny
Vampire Weekend - Hannah Hunt
Arcade Fire - It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus)
Burial - Come Down to Us
Lisa Germano - No Elephants
Forest Swords - An Hour
Jai Paul - Str8 Outta Mumbai
Kanye West - Black Skinhead
Captain Murphy feat. Viktor Vaughn, Earl Sweatshirt, and Thundercat - Between Villains
How to Destroy Angels - And the Sky Began to Scream
Nine Inch Nails - Copy of A
Yoav - Know More
Andrew Bird - Pulaski at Night
The National - This is the Last Time
Four Tet - Unicorn
Laura Mvula - She
Thundercat - A Message for Austin / Praise the Lord / Enter the Void
Goldfrapp - Stranger
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Higgs Boson Blues
Talib Kweli feat. Nelly and Abby Dobson - Before He Walked
Atoms for Peace - Amok
Hello!
I am Anne
I like music
and I think about it too much
so I have finally made the logical step and created a music blog where I can vomit all these thoughts into the void
I would like to actually keep it going too so we'll see what happens
