Julia Stone - I am Not Yours

Good morning,

It's 7 am, and there is a thick sheet of gray clouds that has been blocking the sun everyday now for almost two months. All the wonderful things have to come from my speakers right now. Fortunately I found this:



It's the first single from Julia Stone's new album By The Horns. Her lovely voice makes every gray wednesday morning feel like the first sunny days of May.

Spread the love,

Selwin.

Impulsive rant on the inaccuracies of love

The last three years I have been confronted with something I consider an enormous misconception about the game called love, especially regarding the types of males women are generally attracted to. Since I am one of those who are very unfortunate in this game, I often hear people say I have nothing to worry about, as I am generally described as the “humble and sensitive type” and I have the luck being able to study at the local university. “Girls like intelligent boys”, “they are attracted to humility” and “woman adore the sensitive type of males” are three of the biggest lies I have heard in a long time. From an empiric point of view I could say that the people who cope with this description normally end up either depressed, in the gutter, with a rope around their neck, or will spend their entire lives in a miserable state of loneliness. The only reason why these aforementioned sentences are being told is because people feel a certain affection with these people, a certain sympathy, but it’s based on nothing but an often denied form of compassion. This because everyone knows unconsciously that these people won’t make it, the men with the sharp jawline, the men with the strong physical appearance and the smooth talkers will eventually be succesfull and have the women swarming around them like a group of bees swarming around a large pot filled with fine honey. 

If a woman will ever tell you she likes intelligent men, or even worse, that she likes the “nerdy type”, this will either mean the subject knows how to spell “sex” correctly (in case of intelligent men) or has the succesful combination of being utterly handsome and having big, round glasses (in case of “the nerdy type”). If women really are attracted to intelligent men, there would have been a massive queue of females waiting in line in front of the Faculty of Science here in Nijmegen, instead of making out with handsome guys with sigarettes, who still are unable to determine the reason for the sun going up and down every day. Still, that last phenomenon is what I witness every day when I take the train back from the university, when I pass by the local ROC (centre of practical education).

The words of compassion I regularly have to endure are nothing but lies. Emotionally, people might think the ones they feel sympathy for are the ones who will make it later on, but rationally and unconsciously everyone knows this is just pure bullshit. It’s the very same reason why people feel sympathy for the mentally and physically disabled, they will most probably fail at everything the rest of their lives, except for being awesome in having to undergo dozens of looks from people who don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. People won’t feel compassion for the muscular, handsome type of guys, everyone knows they don’t need your help to be succesful in their lives, they know they will be able to accomplish their miserable goals without you offering them a hand.

Please don’t get me wrong on this subject, I absolutely don’t blame anyone for this behaviour, it’s purely natural to judge someone by its looks and to always go for the guys with the sickening amount of self-esteem, the smooth talks and the broad shoulders. I blame those who keep denying this in front of people who aren’t blessed with these properties. It’s giving them hope they shouldn’t have, as I am convinced people should have an amount of hope based on rational thought, instead of lies, imposed by people who feel sorry for you. I have never been fond of a prohibition of denying the obvious (or any other prohibitions whatsoever), but some proper self-regulation would be great in this case. If you want to live in a world of romanticised inaccuracies, please let it be your own world.

With love,

Selwin.

Edit: I realise it's a bit odd to post here, but with a lack of a platform and the need to shout this out loud, I decided to throw it on here.

Bon Iver album preview (2)

About two weeks ago a very short video was posted on Vimeo, containing a 30 second sample of a new Bon Iver song, yesterday a full track, called Calgary was uploaded. It's the first time hearing Justin's beautiful voice again, absolutely astonishing song, too beautiful to waste any more words at, here it is:



I have no idea when the new album will leak, but as soon as it will, a review will be posted here.

Spread the love,

Selwin.

Review: Altar of Plagues - Mammal

Artist: Altar of Plagues
Title: Mammal
Format: Full-length
Year: 2011
Label: Candlelight Records
Genre: Post-Black Metal
Rating: 89 / 100

Two years ago an Irish band was responsible for one of the most remarkable Black Metal releases of that year. The album was called White Tomb, that Irish act was called Altar of Plagues. White Tomb was a fifty minute album, filled with four very lengthy tracks of absurdly dark, yet progressive Black Metal, ranging from pounding blast-beats to eerie dark ambient intermezzos. This April, British Black Metal label Candlelight Records released Mammal; the logical sequel to 2009's White Tomb.

Those who are familiar with their previous recordings will not be surprised by what Mammal has to offer, pounding, droning Black Metal, but with a very heavy Post-Metal edge, giving this album enough dynamics to compete with bands like Isis or Rosetta. It's the best of both worlds combined, put together these elements generate an atmosphere so dark, many Black Metal bands would be jealous. They have perfectly found a balance between slow, contructive dynamics and these almost oppresive, sonic explosions. It's something that wasn't as balanced on White Tomb, this album was clearly split in two parts, a faster, more Black Metal oriented first half and a much slower, more ambient'ish second half. On Mammal these elements are nicely put together in each of the songs seperately (with When the Sun Drowns in the Ocean being the only exception).

Albums like these heavily rely on the atmosphere, it's what seperates Black Metal from other extreme metal genres, and at the same time, it's what seperates this new Altar of Plagues record from most of the other modern Black Metal albums being released almost everyday. Every single part of every song has its own participation in the creation of this huge burdensome atmospheric unity. It's the unity White Tomb lacked a bit, and it's the same unity that gives this album such an enormous emotional impact.

This emotional impact, together with James O'Ceallaigh fantastic vocals and the terrific musicianship and songwriting makes this record the best Black Metal Record for me so far, together with Deafheavens debut Roads to Judah. 

We put seashells in the trees, so please don't be offended,

Selwin.  

Review: Ringo Deathstarr - Colour Trip

Artist: Ringo Deathstarr
Title: Colour Trip
Format: Full-length
Year: 2011
Label: Club AC30
Genre: Shoegaze / Noise Pop
Rating: 92 / 100

Unfortunately, the shoegaze movement isn't as alive anymore as it was in the mid-80's. Some bands, like Asobi Seksu, Raveonettes and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart still make music which is of course clearly inspired by the bands that made this genre so famous, but keeping this very modern, sometimes even quite poppy element in their music. Besides this so called nugaze movement there is Ringo Deathstarr, a Texas based shoegaze band which grabs back those elements that made bands like My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus & Mary Chain so unique. Fuzzy, reverb drenched guitars, saturated vocals, mixed to the background, together creating an enormous wall of hazy melodies, a droning noise of pure sweetness.

Back in 2007 they released their very first self-titled EP, which was my personal introduction to their music; a very traditional style of shoegaze. It was one of those rare pieces of music which perfectly balance noise and melody. A couple of singles and EP's followed, eventually resulting in this Colour Trip, their first real album (assuming Sparkler was more a kind of compilation of earlier released tracks). The biggest piece of criticism Ringo Deathstarr had to endure in their early days was their undeniable similarity with both My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus & Mary Chain. It's something that hasn't changed by the release of Colour Trip, I am absolutely not going to deny those similarities. Still, releases like these are extremely rare nowadays, and it's a type of music which has brought forth a relatively small amount of really good albums. I am convinced Colour Trip could with ease be added to that small list of amazing shoegaze albums produced since the early 80's. It might not become as classic as Loveless, but qualitatively it's, in my humble opinion at least, pretty much on the same level.

But what is it that makes Ringo Deathstarr so awes0me? It's actually something I already mentioned in the previous paragraph; it's their ability to perfectly balance noise and lovely melodies. This balance is what makes shoegaze so attractive, and it's a balance Ringo Deathstarr is able to keep, with ease. It's the result of a noisy underlayer of a guitar/bass unity, literally drenched in tremolo, delay, reverb and fuzz, lots of fuzz, but on top the soft male/female vocals, often reminding me of Slowdive, or more topical; The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.

I could go on about the amazingness of the sound for a couple of hours but I think fery few people are interested in hearing the sexual arousement one could experience from a track like Kaleidoscope or Two Girls. In other words; yes, I could find a tiny little flaw on this album, it's not something which is the bands' fault, unless they've produced it theirselves, but I suspect there is a producer responsible for this. It's part of what's called the Loudness War, producers tend to compress the music as much as they can to make it as loud as possible but at the same time pulling all the punch and clarity out of the music. In the case of shoegaze, this normally isn´t such a problem, but I noticed the guitar sound being sucked away by the drums in some songs, which obviously is due to overcompression. These extreme forms of dynamic compression are a pity, especially when they decrease the overall sound quality of an album, still, Colour Trip is one of my favourite albums of 2011 yet, and some productions flaws won't make it any less enjoyable.

Please spread some love, I tend to fail at this activity,

Selwin.

Review: Cloud Nothings - s/t

Artist: Cloud Nothings
Title: s/t
Format: Full-length
Year: 2011
Label: Wichita
Genre: Garage/pop-punk/powerpop
Rating: 86 / 100

Ok, this is kinda strange, I was really convinced I already reviewed this album, apparently, I never did, which is a pity, because I really, really liked this new Cloud Nothings release. Some may have noticed Cloud Nothings before they released this album, Dylan Baldi has been active for some time, recording lo-fi rock songs in his basement/garage/whatever, but not really releasing anything. In 2010 he eventually grabbed it all together and released it as Turning On, which was my introduction into Baldi's amazing skills of creating powerful, catchy music.

In early 2011 Wichita released his first real, self-titled album, showing a far better produced, but again really catchy album, to be fair, it's even the catchiest, most easily enjoyable album I have heard this year. One could have been expecting this from miles way, but yes indeed: Baldi's music is nothing new, nothing original, nor progressive or anything like that, it's just very straightforward cheerful, poppy garage punk. It's actually still what Dylan has been doing for quite a while, only differing in line-up (full band instead of solo) and production (studio instead of fuzzy 8-track), fortunately Baldi kept what made Turning On so awes0me: youthfullness.

Last week I remember writing something about Jay Reatard (R.I.P), in my humble opinion Dylan Baldi has kind of the same talent Jimmy once had; being able to create a huge amount of melodic, catchy, uptempo tunes, without ever getting boring, or even containing just one disappointing song. Still, there's a fairly big difference between Cloud Nothings and Jay's solo work, on Jay Reatard albums, one will regularly find quite dark sounding songs, like Faking It, or especially Oh, It's Such a Shame (gotta love that one). Cloud Nothings on the other hand is extremely cheerful, almost happy, one of the characteristics of Cloud Nothing's music that really add to this cheerfulness are Dylan's vocals. Being fairly high-pitched, they sound a bit childish to me, which fits perfectly to the music by the way, please don't get me wrong. It is what makes this album so youthful, and as a result, so damn enjoyable.

I know it's a bit late (multiple months after the release date), but if you love catchy Jay Reatard'ish garage and still haven't checked out Cloud Nothings, or just heard Turning On, but disliked the lo-fi sound, please check this out, it would be a kind of sadomasochism not to look for it.

Please spread the joy (omg, subtle Vivian Girls reference),

Selwin.