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Showing posts from July, 2017

Cigarettes After Sex and a Story of Slovenian Cigarettes

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Cigarettes After Sex released their self titled album earlier this year and I finally managed to give it a listen. It's a (bitter)sweet collection of relationship songs set to somber beats, which all unconditionally make you feel slightly dreamy (but of course not sleepy). " Sweet opens with the line Watching the video that you sent me/The one where you’re showering with wet hair dripping, before turning into a song about longing to touch a loved one’s skin through a screen." - Pitchfork But perhaps the biggest success of the band is that they managed to make even the most erotic lyrics elegant, instead of wandering into the crude teritorry. Just look at this example: " Watching the video where you're lying In your red lingerie ten times nightly You know I think your skin's the perfect color But it's always your eyes that pull me under"  - Sweet , Cigarettes After Sex  Truly this band embodies the well known Wilde's quote: "A

Bedouine - Music Born in Aleppo

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I just gave a listen to Bedouine self-titled debut album and it left me with such a charming feel that I simply had to write something about it. It's optimistic, yet at moments bittersweet, for example in the song Summer cold . "B edouine, real name Azniv Korkejian, was born in Aleppo to Armenian parents, lived in Saudi Arabia as a child, moved to America when her family won a green card lottery, and settled in LA, eventually piquing the interest of discerning artist and label boss Matthew E White." - The Guardian Most of the best art was created by nomads, by refugees and by exiles, for example let's just look at 20th century Latin America literature. This album is no exception to it, which explain the delve into bittersweetness, coloured with anxiety and an occasional homesick moment. It also makes the overall optimism all the more surprising and thus points out the better sides of the human condition. " Everything around me is/Exactly as it should

10 Songs to Wean You Off Radio Music

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1. TV on The Radio: Wolf Like Me   Wolf Like Me begins with a gentle optimistic beat, like that of a typical hard rock song, but soon you are taken away into almost uncomfortable heights, both of the tone and of the mood. It's filled to the brim with atmopshere, it wants to make you feel something, even if that's just some abstract sense of despair. "Brooklynites' third full-length and major label debut is dense, kaleidoscopic, and challenging, both the band's finest record and a highlight of 2006." - Pitchfork   But this sense of despair isn't here from the beginning from the song. Song begins with a short tingle and an almost optimistic drum beat. However transition into the darker half is done so masterfully its impossible to notice and looking back, when you listen to the song for the third or the fourth time you notice the first signs of forthcoming mood already entwined with the very first notes. 2. The Decemberists: Mariner's Reveng

Sistem te laže

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I like this song by Beogradski sindikat for two main reasons: Dichotomy between song itself and the fanbase (as manifested in yt comments) It shows how democracy and dictatorship are essentially the same in how they function   Lyrics Translation  Let's first cover the second point, since the first one follows from it. Both dictatorships and democracies are based on relationship between the ruled and the rulers (between the people and the autocrat or representative [or some abstract majority in direct democracies), which is largely shaped by wealth of information posseded by the ruled. This information shapes individual (and thus collective) perception of the reality, since this perception is based on it (this perception is also called ideology by Žižek and his ilk). So, in short, these systems function according to relationship between the people and their ruler, which is shaped by the ideology. Now, the crucial part is that this ideology isn't shaped by both pa

Wolves Without Teeth

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Yeah, I know that Of Monsters And Men are as close to mainstream as you can get without leaving the comfortably unknown waters of hipsterdom (wow that sounded pretentious as fuck), but I decided to make this blog a mix of a little bit less and little bit more unknown music, a kind of pilot manual for these waters. This reminds me of James Clavell's Shōgun novel, which I last read like four years ago. My book taste changed a lot in these years (basically from Moorcock to Nabokov), but I still remember it fondly. Probably it's time to reread it. But where was I, oh Wolves Without Teeth. It's my favorite song from this band and not only because of the video. It's video is my favourite of all, it just has this characteristic (of the band) black and white aesthetic coupled by emotionally (but detached) filled interaction between performing twins. Music itself is great too, this is one of rare non-metal songs, which make me want to shake my head. I just accidentall

Namelessnumberheadman

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Namelessnumberheadman is one of those bands you find by a happy little accident and you just can't stop listening to. In my case this happy little accident was a blog post under Questionable Content comic (if you aren't reading it yet, try it. In the beginning it's about music and the guy writing it has excellent taste, it mellows out later though sadly/luckily). Just give this a listen: Recommended beverage to go with it: cheap beer While listening to it I read this  article about funky teaching experiment, using the Socratic method to teach third-graders elementary binary arithmetics. It's not half as boring as it probably sounds. The wrong lesson to take from it's probably that it's possible to gain children's trust by teaching them how to throw a boomerang. But let's go back to that band with impossibly long name, which for some reason reminds me of German words. They are kinda experimental pop rock ( pitchfork ) and utterly awesome and