shortly after the surprise release of his all delighted people ep, sufjan stevens introduced "i walked", a first taste for most of us to his new album the age of adz . when i first heard it, i must admit being disappointed with its sluggish pace and oddly chosen drum-machined beats. hearing it now in the context of the whole album, everything makes much more sense. after the cosmic electronic frenzy "too much" works itself into and the ballooning space-age anthem that inhabits the title track, "i walked" provides a much needed breather and bridge [...]
I wasn't all that sure about the latest Les Savy Fav album (their fifth) at first, to be honest, in spite of being quite a fan of their work over the years since falling hard for The Cat and the Cobra (1999). But that's until I eventually got around to a proper listen to Root for Ruin the whole way through and was dumbstruck by the raw, tempestuous brilliance of "Clear Spirits". Here is a very inspired choice to close the album with – a post-punk anthem that features each of the band members [...]
It's been awhile since I last posted in here because my mind's been all over the place. For some reason, I could not bring myself to bash out a short paragraph or two about the songs I was listening to. One minute I was listening to this, and then I was listening to that, and in the end, the day would end and I'd be right back where I started. Well, I've gotten over that phase, but I remember being drawn to the haunting loops of RJD2 aka Ramble John "RJ" Krohn 's early work and rough [...]
just the other day, i found myself humming avi buffalo's "what's it in for?", forgetting for a moment what the song was, as its thin but piercing chorus settled into an endless loop. the title question, a straightforward one with frustrating elusive answers, anchors the song, which spins off tangents of misplaced wishes and misaligned desires. and it's with these points of tension that 19-year old avigdor zahner-isenberg and company do so well in not only capturing the voice of their generation, but weaving into it unearthed threads of personal memory and unspoken thoughts dug from deep. still, [...]
i was busy compiling a flaming lips playlist for b when i suddenly remembered an old cd i loved very much. back in the 90s, i used to buy this uk magazine called select , which of course kept me updated on whether blur or oasis was winning the war, and what jarvis cocker really felt about michael jackson (ok, that was really nme and melody maker - select was usually better). the issues i looked forward to most were those packed with complimentary albums and my favorite was the [...]
i usually prefer to listen to a record at least a few times over to allow it sink in before forming an opinion. yet, this evening on my first proper listen to deerhunter's newly released halcyon digest , my resistance to hasty judgment gradually wore thin as song after song compelled me to work out a response, no matter how premature or fleeting or how wrong i could possibly turn out to be. such is the disarming effect of halcyon digest . i thought i'd held my critical stance pretty well, but if i [...]
Ray Davies has written his fair share of veritable pop masterpieces, and here's a lesser-known but no less compelling number that really gets under the skin of this inveterate Kinks fan – must be something about how the distant dreaminess of church bells on "Big Black Smoke" set the scene perfectly for Davies' typically sardonic observations on suburban boredom. Released in 1966 as the B-side to The Kinks' working-class depression anthem "Dead End Street", "Big Black Smoke" is pretty much written in the same vein and is backlit by the aching tenderness in the song's portrait of a runaway [...]
we're back with that occasional series of ours where we invite musicians to share a song they've been waking up to lately. this time, we're honored to have as our guest sharon van etten , who has a new album epic out on october 5 on ba da bing records . Lately, I have been obsessed with this band from Montreal called Automelodi . I work at a record label ( Ba Da Bing Records ) and my boss, Ben, is constantly getting new [...]
duae is the newly released album by singaporean band lunarin , a follow up to their 2006 debut the chrysalis on aging youth records. the single "zero point red", which our MAP correspondent brian koh picks for this month's issue, also features in local filmmaker jason lai's documentary brother no. 2 . check it out! SINGAPORE : I'm Waking Up To... Lunarin - Zero [...]
last week, i finally caught sandcastle , the full-feature debut by singaporean filmmaker boo junfeng. what i was particularly drawn to was boo's attempt to negotiate the politics of individual and collective memory as lodged within the broader script of the nation's history. this was explored rather thoughtfully through the perspective of en, the 18-year old protagonist who embarks on a personal journey to uncover the truth about his late father, who he discovers was a student leader in the chinese middle school protests in Singapore in the mid 1950s. en's frustrated pursuit of this "truth" is [...]
i'm empty and aching and i don't know why. was it because sufjan? he began in michigan, but left us alone and for four years we coped in his absence. and then out of the blue, I look up, startled, to find him with me; counting the cars at the new jersey turnpike. friends drift in and out of one another's lives. they meet serendipitously along the way, travel together for a spell, and then keep moving. it shouldn't surprise you. keep telling yourself that. "america" captures that constant flux and displacement, [...]
"honey", the opening track of matthew dear's latest release black city starts off on the same footing as "walk on the wild side", with that familiar brooding note, suspended midway whilst conducting an introspective survey of the dirty streets that becomes the setting and topic of interest for the rest of the album. yet, this is less of a concept album than it is a descriptive one, relying largely on dear's sonic mastery of mood and atmosphere as its distinctive entry point. in "honey", you're drawn into the story not by the narrative itself, but the [...]
migrant voices is a community arts charity that organizes art-based projects activities to engage with migrant workers in singapore. previously, they were involved in producing an album of music written and performed by migrant workers, and has to date started a couple of worthy initiatives, such as collecting, documenting and presenting their oral histories. this saturday, a gig titled migrant sounds will be held to raise awareness for migrant voices and the work they have been doing. among the acts i'm really keen catch are great empty , who we've featured previously [...]
the reason i like gonjasufi 's warp records debut so much has a lot to do with how the album title so cryptically yet precisely describes how the whole thing sounds. equal parts esoteric and worldly, a sufi and a killer blends itself into a gorgeous expanse of free floating ideas and sounds, never content to stay at any point, as if that point could even be pinned down. and while the themes seem overtly spiritual at times, there's always a distinctly rough edge to the sound that's almost certainly referencing something, someone of this world. perhaps, [...]
this august, singapore celebrated its 45th national day, and is now playing host to the inaugural youth olympic games. however, don't let that fool you into thinking that's all we've been up to. over the past two weeks, we witnessed two great performances from broken social scene and belle & sebastian. and next weekend from the 20th to 22nd, our very own annual indie rock festival baybeats will get underway at the esplanade. one of the exciting new local bands to be showcased there will be basement in my loft , which our MAP anchorman [...]
Mark Kozelek's ruminating music has a way of seeping into our unexciting lives every now and then, and I am just about content to spend most of my days plugged in to the unspoiled beauty of Red House Painters records, while watching the outside world drift by with the artful rhythms of a Jorge Luis Borges story. Admiral Fell Promises , Kozelek's latest and fourth album under the auspices of his ongoing Sun Kil Moon project is a sparse acoustic affair characterized by his growing interest in classical guitar playing. The serenity and attentiveness to instrumental details [...]
i've never quite made sense of new zealand noise rock band the dead c , although there's always been something special about their dense, lo-fi ethic that keeps me listening, even if mostly in cycles of puzzlement and struggle. yet, perhaps most of the music we're used to today has made things too easy, too digestible, and way too pleasant that we end up missing the process of actually listening for ourselves. what the dead c brings to all of this is a much needed discomfort and dissonance, a breach in the limits of musical acceptability. [...]
Looking back to the days when I was once a disaffected young man just entering college, which was quite some years back now if I were to be completely honest about it, I remember being rather stoked about having the chance to write and contribute to this shitty little campus newspaper my school department was running. That was also during a period of my life when I happened to be very much into the wonderfully cynical pop music mined by the Scottish band Arab Strap , among my many other free-ranging musical interests. And so I dashed off this [...]
I woke up this morning listening to the manic, guitar driven pop music that's easily identifiable with Canadian indie rockers, Broken Social Scene, on the way to work today. This was of course preparation for the BSS gig that was to happen later tonight. It was the perfect recipe for neurosis, as the seemingly incoherent chordal structures melded with staccato drumming and cathartic vocals to give way to a beautiful disaster, like a gas giant slowly collapsing upon itself. But it wasn't until I sat down in that office chair, the illusion and safety of music fading away, [...]
Last week, I was pleasantly surprised to have come across the Criterion Collection edition of Jean-Luc Godard 's Pierrot Le Fou (1965) selling at one of the neighborhood DVD shops - of all places in the whole wide world, I thought, and hats off to geographical convenience - and I just can't resist shelling out for it, having not seen the film in many years. I guess revisiting this film, one of the first few of French New Wave films I saw, brought me back to when I first became an avowed admirer of the [...]
i'm waking up to...
Princesse - Tell Me | MP3
Beck - 'I Just Started Hating Some People Today' [Listen]
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
New Remix: Jonquil - Run (RxGibbs Remix)
