When my time’s up, I trawl. I can feel when the time to trawl is nigh. Everything upto then has been leading up to that one moment when you decide to just go find new music. You scrounge the internet. You scowl, you snivel, you scurl.
The situation is grim. Work has piled up, your guilt mixed with healthy doses of irritation make your near and dear ones side step your presence faster than a Kobe cross-over. The computer welcomes you into its arms. You watch a movie to kill time till dinner. You get sicker. And then when all hope is lost, you seek and find and become a trawler (sounds fishy).
Music zaps through bandwidth, the hard disk juices start filling. Then you find them. The gems, amongst several tons of chaff. And you become yourself once more. Light, cheerful, relaxed and full of sound. You turn to your bed and sleep like a log. Next day you work like never before and put up the life changing music for everyone to hear.
So here it is. Diamonds are forever by the Arctic Monkeys is bound to superb, the Dandy Warhols have been around for Dandy’s years, I have always liked them.
Shilpa is to thank for MIA’s Paper Planes from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, my days are now as groovy as hers are. All I wanna do is….take your money. MIA, third world democracy, I got more records than the KGB, so no funny business. The song is played in the beginning when the kids are running from the cops disrupting their cricket match on Juhu airfield. MIA is Sri-Lankan. Go girl.
Then there is total randomness. A band called Dengue Fever. I take my shirt off and yoddle along this song in my room during the afternoon. Its makes everyday memorable. I don’t even know what language it is, Korean probably.
Finally some sense and Lou Reed. Live in the magic moment.
Diamonds are Forever (Shirley Bassey) -Arctic Monkeys cover [mp3]
The Dandy Warhols – Hit Rock Bottom [mp3]
MIA – Paper Planes [mp3]
Dengue Fever – Seeing Hands [mp3]
Lou Reed – Magic Moment [mp3]
Turns out it’s Khmer, Dengue Fever. And Paper Planes is always awesome, except when remixed.
Ahoy! Welcome back!
Someone I know in New York was going for a Dengue Fever concert. Haven’t heard of them. (Can’t say I like this sort of squeaky singing.)
Speaking of Khmer… Hammar’s band is called Mon Khmer.
Paper Planes is insta-classic.
But the squeaky singing was what makes it sound so cool- frontwomen with unusual voices/accents tend to make things interesting, musically.
Absolutely agree with Paper Planes being insta-classic, too. I thought she’d never bring out anything to beat Galang, and then this turned up…
I’ll grant that it’s interesting… but to me it’s bordering on fingernails on a chalkboard. Hehe. (Same with Joanna Newsom and Lykke Li. Too much for me.) I bet one of my friends here would like Dengue Fever … he listens to Japanese pop.
Yeah the whole album “Kala” is brilliant.
Lykke Li is a little…meh. Wishy-washy, even. When I spoke of cool frontwomen, I was thinking more along the lines of Kazu Makino/Lovefoxxx/La Roux (she looks like she could be Tilda Swinton’s daughter) or even M.I.A. herself.
If I’d had to take a guess at what language Dengue Fever sang in without googling them, I’d have assumed it was some form of Chinese- it almost sounds tonal, the way it’s sung. Japanese and Korean are a bit less sing-song, if anything.
I’m a big fan of Lovefoxxx (though the new album was blah). And La Roux has great potential (the Tilda Swinton comparison is bang-on!)
My complaint with Japanese pop is that interesting music gets interspersed with campy, cutesy vocals. (A similar thing keeps me from getting into anime, and even some Japanese movies).
Wikipedia says Khmer isn’t tonal…but to my ears every language east of India uses pitch modulation in some form or the other.
I actually really liked Donkey, even though Rat Is Dead was a crap choice of an intro to it. It’s not quite the cracker the first album was, but its good spots are still excellent.
Also, not all J-pop is cutesy – I’d be very surprised if people like Mika Nakashima or Anna Tsuchiya (whom I only found out about because she was in a movie I really loved) have ever sung a cutesy note in their lives. I’m not saying they’re faultless, it’s just that non-cutesy stuff exists too.
I liked the Japenese band in Kill Bill. they were saved from the bloodshed too. You guys keep your conversation going, don’t mind me.
I think the band fucked off (with all the dancing people) when the fight started…and the only reason there seems to be a conversation between me and Han is because nobody else seems to be showing up.
You tell him, N. We’re just keeping the blog fires burning, right? Hehe.
Here’s a handy link”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/interactive/2009/jan/09/top-ten-bands-graph-2009
Hello, I’m new here… Me, a music trawler, yup, I came across Dengue Fever (Cambodian pop music from LA) like that, Oceans of Venus is my fave by them…. So, I like what you all have going on here at Zorro on Doughnuts. I’m one of those older dudes that has trawled music for many years. Lately I have been trawling for non-English music as well, going through hundreds of songs to find that one gem. I hope to share some of my eclectic music collection if your interested. I went ahead and posted a playlist at my blog.. Thank you.
Welcome to Zonuts, Mr Limbo! Glad you like what you hear! We shall definitely check out your blog.