July 28, 2013

Catchy Katachi

[Knock-knock]

May I come in? Yep, it's meeee! How you doin'? It's been six months now since I wrote my last post here and I was wondering if someone was still reading my blog. I'm not going to get into the details, but basically I've stayed away too long for personal reasons. I had to focus on hella important issues in my life and, trying to be as honest as possible with you, writing about me, my preferred songs, my memories... in short, about my life, obliged ​​me to dig deeper through experiences that made me feel kinda blueish.

Nevertheless, in all this time I've been keeping in touch with my dearest inseparable pal: MUSIC (those who follow me on social media are aware of it). I haven't stop listening, discovering, exploring, reviving, dreaming, enjoying and getting a thrill thanx to an endless stream of wondrous melodies.

I have often been tempted to write. I wanted to share with you my musical world, trying that we all, somehow, experienced the same feelings and emotions, that our bodies were scourged by shared rhythms, that stories and surprising long-awaited videos invaded our brains through this magical door: irrelephant. In any case, dudes, I wasn't able to do it and my blog remained inactive. And from that moment, the great show of support I received gave me a boost: bands who sent me emails asking me to check out their music and write a review, 53 average pageviews per day (again! there was no new entry since more than 200 days), 417 followers on Spotify subscribed to any of my tracklists, 162 faithful likes on Facebook (I don't know the vast majority of you personally, so thanks!), and 658 followers on Twitter (woooow) have made me realize that a blog like this should go ahead. Okey, this is not a return, but I promise to stop by here from time to time.


What I bring you today is an orchestral psychedelic song from the Japanese avant-popper Shugo Tokumaru. I found it yesterday and it has me purring like a love-sick kitten. 

japanese musicShugo is a multi-instrumentalist creating childlike, beautiful melodies on a variety of instruments ranging from bells to bongos, glokenspiels to guitars. AFAIK, he owns more than 100 instruments! Though the vocals are sung solely in his native language, his universal tunes transcend the lack of lyrical familiarity to Western ears. Trust me, the language barrier doesn't deter his fans from discovering and falling head over heels with his music. 

The video for Katachi  is a delightfully hypnotic thing, entirely stop-motion animated with 2,000 cut-out paper shapes (yeah, I counted them all out, LOL). That's super awesome, but the anthem is the real star here.  It's wacky, disorienting, very foreign and very fun. Watch it below! I bet he's gonna wow you as well.




July 22, 2013

Mondayness

Mondays are the most hated days on the planet. Of course, if you love your job, this doesn't have to be the case, but unfortunately, a sizable chunk of the workforce does in fact, detest their tasks. This simple truth has given rise to a plethora of Monday songs, most of which speak negatively about the day. For this playlist I have taken a shot at collecting what I feel are the very best songs ever recorded about Monday. Let me know which songs you would add and which you would remove.

And if you hate Mondays, give this list a spin, it may just help you make it through until Tuesday.





July 14, 2013

A Breed Of Feline Humans


Hi docs! Toooday we travel to Spain, my native country, where we run into CatPeople. They actually sing majorly in English, but I felt like mentioning them anyway cuz they are often an underrated outfit in terms of our own radars.

In spite of the youth of its members (the oldest one is still far from thirty), they sound like a very mature band with songs filled from beginning to end with dark pop melodies and nasty post-punk climaxes, starting off closer to bands such as Interpol and Editors, and turning themselves into a strange mutation of Joy Division and The Chameleons.

The group, formerly known as Magic Noise, took their current name from the classic horror film "The Panther Woman" (Jacques Tourneur, 1942). 

Some of their videos were made possible with the help of all the fans who contributed to finance the projects.


In Silence


Behind


Sister


July 3, 2013

Sex Change

By now, all of us already know about My Girls by Animal Collective, included in their last album, Merriweather Post Pavilion. It goes without saying, it's a masterpiece.

All right then, today I bring you a cover by Taken By Trees entitled My Boys. The fusion makes the song interesting in a new way and the lyrics are changed a bit to suit to songs title. FMPOV, I do like this version better cos it’s catchier and gentler than the original and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.


Merriweather Post Pavilion
Domino USA 2009





East Of Eden
Rough Trade 2009




July 1, 2013

Here Comes The Sun

Fifteen amazing songs about the sun and warm weather to mark the beginning of the hottest month of the year (in Spain).