Category: Music

Emilíana Torrini is one of my all-time favorite artists. Her 1999 album Love in the Time of Science is one of my favorite albums ever. It’s beautiful, lush and haunting and is one of the best electronic albums ever made (and it was produced by Roland Orzabal of Tears for Fears). For a time, it seemed that Emilíana was poised to eclipse the fame of her Icelandic counterpart, Bjork.

But then tragedy struck: her long-time boyfriend was killed in a hit and run accident, and shortly thereafter she was violently mugged in Bethnal Green, London. She withdrew from music and fame for several years, occasionally popping up to write a song (like Kylie Minogue’s smash hit “Slow”) or to sing one-off collaborations (like “Gollum’s Song” from The Lord of the Rings soundtrack, or “Hold Your Hand” from superstar DJ Paul Oakenfold’s Bunkka album).

Emilíana finally reemerged in 2005 with her second album, Fisherman’s Woman. Unlike Science, this album was almost entirely acoustic. The album is profoundly sad, perhaps as a way to exorcise the pain of losing her boyfriend. It’s an incredibly beautiful album – “Today Has Been OK” is one the best songs I’ve ever heard – but it is, for the most part, as sad as a This Mortal Coil album. It’s something you just can’t pop into the CD player on a whim.

It seems that Emilíana has gotten her mojo back with her newest album, Me and Armini. Like Fisherman’s Woman, this album has almost no electronic instruments (much less the whole “electronica” feel). Unlike Fisherman’s Woman, however, the album is mostly poppy and happy. Have a listen to “Jungle Drum”, a song slated to be the album’s second single:

[audio:jungle_drum.mp3]

I’m so glad that Emilíana’s back on track. The girl is as cute as a button (and I mean that more mentally than physically), and it just makes me all giddy inside to hear her being happy again.

Read Emilíana’s Wikipedia entry here.

Golden brown texture like sun
Lays me down with my mind she runs
Throughout the night
No need to fight
Never a frown with golden brown

Every time just like the last
On her ship tied to the mast
To distant lands
Takes both my hands
Never a frown with golden brown

Golden brown find a temptress
Through the ages she’s heading west
From far away
Stays for a day
Never a frown with golden brown

Never a frown
With golden brown
Never a frown
With golden brown

Last night I watched Grant Gee’s 2007 film Joy Division, a documentary about the influential band from Manchester, England.

I really enjoyed the film… in fact, I like it better than Control, another Joy Division film from 2007. While Control is a great film, it focuses on lead singer Ian Curtis because it is based on Touching from a Distance, his wife’s autobiographical account of their marriage. As a result, Control has a few blatantly obvious biases and factual errors. For example, according to Control, Ian Curtis wrote “She’s Lost Control” shortly after his first epileptic seizure. In reality, Curtis wrote the song months before the seizure as a tribute to an epileptic girl he encountered whilst working with the disabled at the Manpower Services Commission in Manchester. Control also shows the band playing “Transmission” on their first TV appearance instead of correct song, “Shadowplay”.

Anyway, whilst watching the movie last night, I was completely taken in by a brief montage which features a bunch of artsy 8mm shots of 1970s Manchester – grimy, rotting, crumbling, depressing – over which “Disorder” is played. I’d completely forgotten how much I love that song.

Unlike, say, the music of The Jam (another band I love, but who’s music is firmly set in the 1970s), Joy Division’s music seems timeless. “Disorder” could have been recorded in 1978… 1988… 1998… or even in 2008.

Then there’s the style of the band, and by that I don’t mean their “fashion”, but how the music is. Joy Division were as “tight” a band as you could ask for, but each instrument seems to be doing it’s own thing. Unlike a child’s music box (where every individual piece is dedicated to the task of making music), Joy Division sounds like a machine built for a completely different purpose that just happens to sound like music. Each instrument floats in its own aether… and then the hollow, haunting voice of Ian Curtis kicks in… and it makes something that doesn’t sound like any band before or since.

Do yourself a favor: turn off the TV and turn down the lights. Get rid of all the distractions, then dig out your headphones and listen to this:

[audio:disorder.mp3]

So yesterday, Lisa and I went to a friend’s house for a cook-out. It started out innocently enough, with Calvin cooking up burgers, dogs, and pork chops on the grill while the rest of us drank a few beers or wine or what have you.

After dinner, though, things rapidly went downhill. The guys retired to the living room to do tequila shots and watch the Steelers\Vikings preseason game, while the girls (and Regis!) hung out on the porch playing a slightly drunken version of Apples to Apples. After the football game was over, the boys retired to the porch, where we all had more tequila shots and played another round of Apples to Apples.

On the way home, Lisa decided that she was hungry, so she asked me to stop by the local Taco Bell so she could get a Taco Salad. While waiting in line at the drive-thru, a song came on my iPod that I’d played for her a couple dozen times before. Only, for some reason, she really latched on to one line of the song this time:

When I noticed for Jared Leto
I felt sad for 30 seconds

“Wait – was he singing about Jared Leto?”, Lisa asked.

I couldn’t help but giggle. I’d played the song I don’t know how many times, and she’d apparently never listed to the lyrics before. I started the song over again:

I know you’re born in ’84
Half Polish, half Danish
You started at 8 on Broadway
You’re a star

You don’t believe in monogamy
I’m not jealous Scarlett will you marry me
All you’ve got you can like it
But what I am you will love it

Lisa was still confused… which is understandable, since The Teenagers are from France and don’t pronounce things exactly as an English speaker would expect. I told her that the song was about Scarlett Johanssen. She got that, but had no idea why they were talking about Jared Leto, who is one of the three male celebrities that Lisa absolutely adores (the others are Johnny Depp and Edward Norton, if you’re interested).

I kept giggling, ‘cos apparently Lisa had no idea that Jared Leto and Scarlett Johanssen dated a few years ago.

“He dated her?”, she kept asking.

I kept giggling and asked her if I could get her a 4 year-old copy of People magazine to verify that yes, the two actually dated.

“He dated that bitch?”
“Yes, honey. He dated that bitch!”
“Well… I hate her.”

So I guess Lisa’s new nickname for Scarlett Johanssen is “that fucking bitch”.

Enjoy the song:

[audio:teenagers.mp3]

Can you believe that the Material Girl turns 50 freakin’ years old today? Me neither. Gawd, I’m getting old. Just the other day, I realized that if I still had my first pair of Doc Martens, we could go out for a drink together, since they’d be almost 22 years old. Sigh.

Anyway… HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADONNA! I’m still crazy about you after all these years!

PS – I hope your ankle gets better soon!

I know, I know: dinosaurs roamed the earth the last time trance music was cool! Well, maybe it’s not quite that out of date, but trance has been passe for several years now, no?

If that’s true, then it’s a crying shame, because the new Above and Beyond remix of OceanLab’s “Sirens of the Sea” is amazing! Beautiful! Stunning! Breathtaking! Aethereal! Transcendent! … and a bunch of other breathless words I can’t think of at the moment.

OceanLab’s debut album (of the same name) will be released on July 21, 2008. The album includes the title track, which is also coming out as a 12″ single. The “Above and Beyond Original Mix” is the version of the song to get; unfortunately, my copy has a DJ talking over it, so here’s the “Above and Beyond Radio Edit”, a slightly shorter version of the “Original Mix”:

[audio:oceanlab.mp3]

I’ve listened to this song over and over and over again since I first heard it. It’s one of the best dance tracks I’ve heard in ages!

So… it seems I have a thing for “80s mash-up bands” lately.

First, I wrote about Blondfire, a band that sounds like early Pet Shop Boys with Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne as lead singer.

Just a few weeks have passed since then, and now I’ve stumbled upon The Daysleepers, a band that sounds like a cross between the Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me sound of The Cure and the Cocteau Twins!

There isn’t much else to say about the band, other than that they were founded in Buffalo, New York in November of 2004. So I guess something good – other than hot wings – can came from Buffalo! The Daysleepers MySpace page is here, and their official website (under heavy construction) is here.

Have a listen to “Lovesparkles”, a track from their newest album Drowned In A Sea of Sound and tell me what you think!

[audio:daysleepers.mp3]

The Wombats are an Anglo-Norwegian band from Liverpool, England. The band is comprised of two native Liverpudlians; Matthew Murphy (vocals, guitar and keyboards), Dan Haggis (drummer and backup vocalist) and Tord Øverland-Knudsen (the Norwegian, who plays bass and does some additional vocals). The group met at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and quickly became fairly famous in the UK.

Their latest single – from October, 2007 – is a jammin’ little tune called “Let’s Dance to Joy Division”. It’s rockin’ and funny (in an ironic sense) too:

So if your ever feeling down,
Grab your purse and take a taxi,
To the darker side of town,
That’s where we’ll be,
And we will wait for you and lead you through the dancefloor,
Up to the D.J booth,
You know what to ask for,
You know what to ask for.

Go ask for Joy Division,
And celebrate the irony,
Everything is going wrong,
But we’re so happy,
Let’s dance to Joy Division,
And raise our glass to the ceiling,
‘Cos this could all go so wrong,
But we’re just so happy,
So happy.

Have a listen and tell me what you think!

[audio:wombats.mp3]