Month: August 2012

Music I’ve been enjoying

Just finally getting around to listening to the orchestra album from Antony & The Johnsons, and the new track that opens it “Cut The World” is utterly gorgeous as I relisten to it now with the rest of the album.

I was a huge fan of the videos I’ve seen from the concert with the Metropole Orchestra, which debuted some gorgeous orchestral arrangements of these songs. And the album versions don’t fail to thrill either, as they are absolutely beautiful renditions of the songs, particularly the heart-wrenching gem that is “I Fell In Love With A Dead Boy”.

At the moment, I guess it’s my favourite of the orchestral albums done by popular singers that I enjoy. The Joni albums “Both Sides Now” and “Travelogue” were for a long time my favourites, but this album is competing with “Both Sides Now” as my favourite.

Anthony’s voice just really suits the rich sound of a full orchestra, without ever feeling overpowered or out of place in that context.

I’ve also been still hooked on the latest Fiona Apple record, which is on almost constant rotation in amongst everything I’ve been listening to. It’s not often I get completely drawn into a record so completely, but there’s something about this album that works so brilliantly for me.

This has been my theme song since the record came out. It’s such a joyous statement:

My scars were reflecting the mist in your headlights
I looked like a neon zebra shaking rain off her stripes
And the rivulets had you riveted
To the places that I wanted you to kiss me
When we find some time alone

And then, we can
Do anything we want

It’s such a sharp contrast to some of the big rich textures from her other albums, but the core of voice, piano and percussion never feels too sparse really. It brings to mind how Kate Bush’s “The Dreaming” sometimes feels like such a huge dense sound, despite being just a few elements when you really listen to it closely.

Then really, I guess you should just press play on this video, and spend 43 minutes in the company of Kate Bush circa 1982.

This is the full album of “The Dreaming” on youtube that some fan set to a mix of footage from Kate’s videos from that album, and other random film clips that kinda fit rather well in places.

I feel I should admit that putting this record on one day in uni made my boyfriend at the time run out of the room with his hands over his ears for some reason. He just couldn’t deal with it.

It was obvious that particular boyfriend wasn’t going to last. If you can’t manage to sit through “Sat In Your Lap” ….

Incidentally, I’ve a few little gigs coming up – tomorrow, Thursday 30th here in Galway I’m playing at the Citóg night in The Cellar with My Fellow Sponges and Agogic Logic, who are both awesome. It’s free in, so come along!

Then I’ll be in Dublin on the 22nd of September to play at the Noisy Plug Sessions, which I’m really looking forward to. So, Dublin based folk, take note of that date, and keep an eye on the Noisy Plug facebook page.

Songwriting and sunny days

I’ve been quite lucky recently, as it’s been wet on the days I’ve been working, and sunny out the days I’ve had to myself at home. Earlier this week I had one of those perfect days where I had the house and garden to myself (except for the cat), and spent the day going from the piano to the garden, working on two of the newest songs I’ve been writing.

Honestly, there’s not much more enjoyable than spending a day like that. It was perfectly sunny, but not too warm, and my voice was in good shape. I’ve been noticing a progression in the sound and even the style of the songs I’ve been writing more recently, and there’s a noticeable difference between the newest songs and the other songs from the batch I wrote for Wires. There’s enough left over from that album to be nearly a full album themselves, but now I’ve written nearly as many as that again since then. I guess I need to sit with these songs a little while, and finish some of them off, and see others take shape a bit more and find the sound that they need.

I’ve tried out some of the newer songs live already this summer, and it’s always that moment when you really look at the song and start to see what you really think of it. With one of the songs I was working on this week, I had that panic moment where I worried that I was just re-writing someone else’s song with different words, that I was unconsciously ripping off a melody from somewhere else. That happens and always threatens to kill the song while you’re still writing it. Usually I just ignore it, and keep working on the song and see where it leads and how it ends up. This time I went and listened to the song that I thought I was unconsciously ripping off, and felt the relief when I saw just how different the two works are.

I’ve another song sitting waiting to be written at the moment. There’s a little glimmer of an idea about it that I like, but the rest is sitting waiting as I’m not entirely happy with what I’ve got so far. It’ll sit in the back of my mind while I work on other things, and we’ll see how it works out.

Incidentally, one of the newest songs is possibly one of the most “pop song” like songs I’ve ever written. But I really like it.

I need a drummer.

Postcards are love.

I’ve only a few postcards with album download codes left, so I decided to pop them up on bandcamp. It’s a nice little way to buy my record for a friend – I’ll post them the download code with a little note on a postcard.

I’m a big fan of postcards – I have an on-going postcard project of customised cards that I send to a friend. There’s something really lovely about getting something in the mail that isn’t a bill, don’t you think? Recently I even bought a little letter-writing pad and matching envelopes; I needed the pad to write notes for some of the CD sales and I’ve ended up writing some actual letters since then.

Half of the reason I love shopping online so much is receiving the packages in post. But I love sending postcards mostly because they’re a nice little way of thinking of someone that is a lovely surprise for them to receive too. I used to have a penpal when I was a kid, but it wasn’t something that really lasted for me, and honestly my love of snail mail only really formed when I was writing letters to one of the first guys I dated. We lived quite far apart, and actually met online, then started sending each other letters before we ever actually met. I’ve a complete soft spot for physical mail ever since then.

I thought I’d find posting out the CDs to my funders a bit of a chore, but I quickly discovered that it completely fed into my love of sending things through the post. I loved bringing boxes of packages to the local post office after packing and addressing a load of cds. It really is a random simple little joy.

Send more postcards; send some love.