Hello Seahorse!

Quick story of how I found Hello Seahorse and started using the forces of musical imperialism to make other start listening as well: Their song Bestia was on one of iTunes free indie playlists, which for me have normally been hit or miss in terms of finding something I like or recognize.  Luckily, 8 hours of work a day necessitates that ultimate hit-or-miss experience, putting the iPod on shuffle (seriously, you forget how much music you have until you hear something from high school randomly).  Bestia comes up, is listened to on repeat ad nauseum, and the world continues on.  


Flash forward to NYC visiting some Hoya loves, and gorging on Mexican food at La Lucha (words can't describe the delicious cheesy melty goodness...although their website is still kinda getting the hang of existing).  Music playing is lovely, comments are made to that effect, and then I realize that it is, in fact, a band I know.  Hooray! I've found another band I can start telling people to listen to, and do.  

Hello Seahorse! is about as cutesy as they sound.  Another good indication would be their album covers, one of which is included in this post.  Seriously? How can you say no to that? My Spanish is not yet good enough to be able to comment much about the songs in Spanish, but this Mexican group sings in a mix of Spanish and English, and both are equally enjoyable.  Their latest album, Bestia, is entirely in Spanish, but even if you don't have a clue about what they're saying, it's worth a listen.  


And after a bit of digging on the internet, here's a way to get a remix of Bestia for FREE. I downloaded the entire sampler from Nacional, which is HS!'s record label to see what this whole Mexican music scene is about.  We'll see what happens; if something good comes out of it, it'll definitely end up here eventually.  


In any case, here's a quick roundup of some mentionable songs to check out (besides Bestia, of course): 


Won't Say Anything
Oso Polar
Criminal
Después

Concerts à Emporter

This post isn't about an artist; it's about another blog site.  But it's probably my favorite blog site ever: Concerts à Emporter.  The site is known as Take Away Shows in English, and is a dual language French/English site.  Now here's the even cooler part:  the guys that run the site record great artists giving mini-concerts all over the world, with a large portion of them being taped in Paris.  Each show comes with an explanation of where it was shot, what event it was at, and something about the artist. 

 Over the years that they've been doing it (the numbering system has lost me a bit, as not all clips are numbered anymore--I think that means that the clips weren't part of a "Take Away Show" specifically for them--but they're about to hit 100 shows!), they've managed to hit up some of my favorite artists.  Most of the videos are rough, hand-camera recordings, leading to the occasional bit that is harder to watch if you're not great with shaky visuals.  The music more than makes up for this, in my opinion.  The shows are usually shot in public, leading to great acoustic versions of songs and intimate performances.  The Arcade Fire show comes to mind immediately as one that wasn't exactly a small show; it's amazing what these people can get all of these artists to agree to do.  In short, I wish I thought of this and had that kind of access to so many great groups.

If you're looking for new music, I'd suggest you head over and click around a bit.  There are a few must-sees in my opinion, so here they are: 

The National 

Sufjan Stevens-The second song on the roof is actually an Innocence Mission cover. 

Bon Iver -Great versions of all of the songs, but the video of For Emma, Forever Ago gives you a good idea of how these shows come together (they end up singing an a cappella version of a great song in a stairwell for an apt building, dogs and confused residents included-then do it all again outside!)

José Gonzalés-who is actually Swedish.  Another great song of his to check out is Heartbeats. Monica and Emily may recognize it as The Song I Play On My Phone At 2 AM. 

Beirut-Zach Condon may be a bit crazy (see Nantes), but entertaining. 

Yeasayer-Beer bottle/floor slapping rendition of Tightrope? Priceless. 

There are other names you'd all recognize as well...I definitely can't recommend les Concerts à Emporter enough!

So now that I have officially started to be Very Busy, I doubt I'm going to get to a post a day/every other day/what I've managed so far.  This is inevitable with three classes going on, but oh well.  Hopefully I/you won't be deterred!

Trio Töykeät

And in the true spirit of broad musical taste, I'm going to take a short break for some laudable Finnish jazz, which I was introduced to by a friend while abroad.  Trio Töykeät produces songs heavy on piano and strings, with a great mix of melody and improvisation.  I don't know much about formal structure in jazz, so I won't comment to the specific style. I will say that their songs are catchy, come in a wide range of tempos, and have proven to me that pizzicato can be feasibly used in mainstream music (not just Jazz Pizzicato, if you've ever played that...but what string player hasn't? guh).  I personally own their album Sisu, which unfortunately doesn't include one of my favorites from them, Perfect Make Out Music.  I can't make any claims to the validity of the title, but the song is good! 


Here are a few others worth a listen (unfortunately there weren't many links available, and the titles can get a bit confusing for non-Finnish speakers): 


End of the First Set
Vanhojapoikia Viiksekkäitä-Couldn't find a link; on Sisu
Pizzitaxi-aforementioned proof of pizzicato; also generally wonderful violin
Gadd A Tee?


In any case, I've found them to be great for study music, since I can't get anything done if I'm singing along to songs in my head.  I'd especially appreciate comments on this post to get an idea of whether I should post random things like this more often. I already love all this stuff, I want to know what you guys think!

The National

So following Sufjan with the National seemed like the most logical thing to do, because as I mentioned at the end of the Sufjan post, he played piano on two tracks on The National's most recent full album, Boxer: Racing Like A Pro and Ada.  


Now, I've primarily run across two reactions when talking to people about The National.  People seem to either love them, or not see what all the fuss is about.  I'd like to go out on a limb and suggest that this might be because of the rather unique voice of lead singer Matt Berninger-a deep baritone that definitely doesn't sound like most other voices out there that I've heard.  I did a quick scan of how people have tried to describe it, and found some pretty entertaining ones, including "dark chocolate richness", "chocolate and wool", and multiple types of whiskey.  I think he sums it up best himself when he characterizes his voice as "anthemically sad".  


This certainly seems to be the case throughout Boxer, which was the first album of theirs I listened to on the recommendation of a friend (who is too busy with med school/globetrotting to have a blog to link to).  It actually took around two years for me to give the album a serious listening; luckily a not-so-fortunate sequence of events one late spring gave way to a summer full of redoubling efforts to find new music.  Boxer also runs quite the gambit of angsty emotions, which fit my general mood perfectly: from Fake Empire ("turn the light off/say goodnight/no thinking for a little while/let's not try to figure out everything at once") to Slow Show ("I leaned on the wall/the wall leaned away"), to Start A War, which I might have allowed to shape my thinking on real life a bit too much ("walk away now, and you're going to start a war").  


In terms of instrumentation, The National sticks to a basic piano/guitar/bass, with the occasional horn section on Fake Empire or strings on About Today, another one of my favorites (you'll start to pick up a theme: use of string instruments increases the probability that I will like a song about 3x).  Most of the songs on later albums trend towards the mellow side, although Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers includes a couple tracks worth of Berninger yelling (Slipping Husband), something that sounds odd to me since I picked them up relatively late in the game.  


The National is popular enough to have been on TV and soundtracks on multiple occasions, including a spot on Jimmy Fallon's show the other night to debut a song from their new album High Violet, set to be released in May.  It's called Terrible Love, and I like what I hear so far.  Definitely an album I'll be picking up once it comes out.  


Still haven't heard enough? Check out Apartment Story, Daughters of the Soho Riots, and Mistaken for Strangers. 


Later!

Running Playlist, Week of March 21st

Another idea for this little blog of mine:  post my running playlists for the week with links to songs.  I have a feeling that this will add a bit of variety into the types of music covered without my having to write an analysis of the musicality of a given Lady Gaga or Lil Wayne song (although I have to admit, that beat IS sick).  My running playlists tend to gain and lose about a quarter of their songs after a week because I get sick of listening to the same music over and over again.  So, after this initial post, the updates to the running playlist will be much shorter, but whatever.  Like I said when I started...if a song sounds good to me, its worthy of a mention.

Without further ado, here's my running playlist for the week of March 21:

Bulletproof-La Roux-British singer, French name (nickname for a redhead)
La Tortura (Shaketon Remix)-I'm a sucker for reggaeton beats, what can I say
Bad Romance-DUH
Stacked Crooked-The New Pornographers
Sleepyhead-The Passion Pit-SWITCH
There There-Radiohead-One of the only Radiohead songs I like, and it matches my stride well
Say Aah-Trey Songz-The video out there with Jeff Green and Kevin Durant dancing around to this is probably funnier, but harder to find at the moment
Alejandro-Lady Gaga
Bleeding Heart Show-The New Pornographers
Troublemaker-Akon
Sweet Disposition-The Temper Trap
So Happy I Could Die-Lady Gaga
Ambling Alp-Yeasayer-The official video for this is truly bizarre.
Love Lockdown-LMFAO Remix
Longest Road-Morgan Page
Black and Gold-Sam Sparro
Young Folks (Diplo Remix)
Break Your Heart-Taio Cruz
Going Wrong-Armin van Buuren
Now You're Gone-Basshunter
I Made It-Kevin Rudolph

OK, time to actually run if I'm ever going to be able to keep up with Monica!

That's pronounced "Soof-yahn"

When I sat down to figure out what I'd write about in my inaugural post, it didn't really take long to settle on my favorite artist of all time, Sufjan Stevens.  My love affair with Sufjan's music started in summer of 2005, when a friend from home gave me his album Seven Swans as a graduation gift.  It took some time for Seven Swans to grow on me, though, so I'll start off with the one that immediately caught my attention: Come On, Feel the Illinoise.  This album epitomizes the complex, multi-instrumental arrangements that characterize Sufjan's music (fun fact: he plays most of the instruments heard on his albums, including the oboe and banjo), which can range in character from light and lackadaisical (Come on Feel the Illinoise! Pt. 1: The World's Columbian Exposition/Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream) to heart-wrenching (John Wayne Gacy, Jr.; after a(n in)famous serial killer) to symphonic (better examples on other albums, but for now, check out Chicago, one of his most widely-known songs, for some seriously orchestral arrangements).  

Scanning through the list of tracks for Illinoise, it's also pretty obvious that there is a serious level of creativity being put into the song titles, from A Conjunction Of Drones Simulating The Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze, which takes longer to scroll through on iTunes than the entire length of the song, to one of my personal favorites, A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons. Fun fact number 2: Sufjan enrolled in a writing program at The New School for Social Research, which might explain both the long titles, and the stories contained within songs.  

Sufjan tends to be a master of the concept album, and there's no greater proof of that than the (possibly exaggerated?) 50 States project.  Sufjan's stated goal is to make an album for each state, although to date only two exist: Greetings from Michigan, and Come on Feel the Illinoise.  Sufjan also released a collection of outtakes/B-sides for Illinoise called The Avalanche, but as I can't do every single album justice in one post, I'll save that one for later.  It's been quite a few years since an album for a new state has come out, although Sufjan did premiere the BQE, an audio/visual monument to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, in November 2007 (just another demonstration of the symphonic quality of his music).  I've given up following the guesses on the next state, as I've heard NY, OR, RI, and New Jersey! The Musical! all as potential next subjects.  I'll believe it when I hear it, so to speak.  

Luckily, unreleased Sufjan tracks show up moderately frequently, either on compilation discs for his record label (that he co-founded with his stepfather), Asthmatic Kitty, or through internet links to performances (thanks, YouTube!).  Some of these non-album tracks are my favorites, so I'll leave you with a couple more before signing off on the inaugural post.

Damascus-Showcase of one of the more frequently used instruments in Sufjan's music, the banjo.  Don't let it dissuade you; the song is calming, full of complex, broken chord progressions (one of the surefire ways to ensure I like a song), and one of the favorites of almost every Sufjan fan I know.  

Opie's Funeral Song-mellow, heartbreaking storytelling.  Acoustic guitar and piano. 

Jupiter Bad June-if you guessed that I'm biased towards this one because of the string quartet it contains, you are correct! Beautiful, beautiful song.  Lost the file for it when my laptop was stolen; this makes me sad.  

So there you have it--my inaugural post, an homage to a small part of the prolific songwriting of Sufjan Stevens (he's adorable, too!).  While this would definitely fall under my definition of indie music, fret not, other people! This will eventually degenerate into whatever random songs I happen to be listening to on repeat at work (as in...there will be an ode to Led Zeppelin at some point, I assume, plus a couple Euroclubbing playlists).  Hope this is interesting to someone besides me, and catch you on the next post.  Still deciding who to use; could segue into The National (Sufjan played piano on their album Boxer, and they have a new album coming out in a few months...but that's a while away), or some of the Scottish bands I've been obsessing over lately (e.g. The Fratellis, or Frightened Rabbit, c/o Helen). 

じゃ、またね〜！