the glaciers made you

and now you're mine. Seriously, listen to that song (Your Rocky Spine, by Great Lake Swimmers). That's another song that I'm going to listen to obsessively, since it's just so amazing. Unfortunately the rest of the album isn't as good, which is disappointing, because I haven't gotten to the rest of the album yet and I would have liked it to be just as good.


Recently I've listened to a lot of more Folk music. I've always listened to some, such as Eisley, Okkervil River, The Decemberists, etc. Recently I've also acquired Fleet Foxes, some Shearwater, The Dodos, Iron & Wine, and now Great Lake Swimmers. I haven't had much opportunity to listen to The Dodos or Shearwater yet, but The Dodos sound good. I never really listened to Folk as a genre, and instead listened to artists individually, but the right kind of Folk (I guess Indie Folk) is actually quality. Folk appeals to me because of the banjos, which I love despite the hillbilly stereotype. In the right settings and the right style the banjo is actually a lovely instrument, having a warm tone and flowing rhythm. It's unfortunate that banjo is only present in more "backwards" genres. Another quality of Folk music that seems to be less prevelant elsewhere is vocal harmony. While other genres tend to put differing melodies together, Fleet Foxes and Eisley harmonize the same melody very well. It might be because harmony is one of the defining qualities of Folk music, though I saw no reference on Wikipedia.


Apart from that, Of Montreal's new album Skeletal Lamping has leaked, though a few days still remain until its official release. Musically it is much more diverse, with a constantly changing sound and style, a lot of which is really fun, like the R&B stuff in St. Exquisite's Confessions. Also Okkervil River released a new album (The Stand Ins), which I completely didn't hear about. It's still inferior to the early albums, but much improved over The Stage Names, which, except for Unless It's Kicks, lacked emotion and basically sucked (ohNOES, Roland is being a pretentious music critic).


I also got a harmonica, partly because I have to bring an instrument to music class on Friday, partly because I've been needing an instrument, and partly because my uncle is pretty baller at harmonica. He's this sorta skinny guy (everyone in Taiwan is skinny) with a huge philosopher beard, he smokes, he's a professor in Taiwan, and he has epic harmonica skills. He also has a really cool harmonica. I don't know if it's just because he's not a parental, but he seems like a really cool guy. I think he also does calligraphy and random philosophical awesomeness. He also told me not to get worked up about my parents. Cool points for him!


I've also ordered a Kalimba, which is similar in layout to a piano, though the mechanism and sound are completely different. The first time I saw it was a video of Architecture In Helsinki, where some guy was just plinking along, looking awesome all the while. When I read about it in some article I recognized it and finally knew what it was called. Anyways this is an instrument of African descent, and it comes with pickups! I'll actually have reason to bust out that amp that I've had under my bed for a while.

back!

From Taiwan. I've been moderately busy preparing for college, but I've had some time to look into some music. I got Last.fm to play nice and can now embed my library on my blog, so that's all fun. The new Last.fm is looking pretty spiffy, and has some nice features such as creating multiple playlists for people to listen to. However, you need 45 artists and it's a hassle putting the playlists together. I may end up making a few to see how it works.

Anyways on to what I've been listening to. I listened to some Say Hi (Last.fm) when I got back, cause I was being picky and didn't know what to listen to. The band is pretty good, a bit different from what I usually listen to, which falls in the indie pop/rock/folk mix, but they're worth a listen, especially if you're into heavier guitar stuff and a slightly cold, dark atmosphere.

Just today I listened to Iron & Wine (Last.fm) and The Wrens (Last.fm). Iron & Wine is surprisingly good, considering how folky I expected it to be. Turns out that it's not THAT folky, and though it's somewhat softer and smoother than the usual fare, many of the songs are quite sweet and thoughtful. Good for those calmer, dreamy days. Like if you happen to be lying on a dock somewhere looking at the clouds, and happen to have music handy. Iron & Wine has a tropical (maybe?) sound that often reminds me of Islands (Last.fm), which I thought was pretty unique.

I don't even know where I pulled The Wrens out of. I think it was some blog on my rss feeds that I read. It started out sorta slow so I was wondering about the "indie rock" label, but it quickly picked up and, once again, surprised me. I guess there's a lot of good unknown music out there, which is a real shame, since the artists probably deserve more money, and no way in hell are major labels promoting small artists. Anyways they have a song (Everyone Chooses Sides), supposedly about how they gave up a major career to keep their artistic integrity, which is quite a commitment. So I'll help advertise and tell you to go listen!

Well that's about all that's happened musically recently. I could talk about my trip for ages but it's not really the point of this blog. I might start a personal blog sometime to talk about all the other shit that's going on, but Lauren says that's "faggy". ohwells.