StSA: I would trade my mother

Oooh, like a lazy afternoon breeze, oooh, the trombone forgets it's a trombone and swoons and uncharacteristically sways, oooh, and the bitter begins to drip: I'm going on a date tonight to try to fall out of love with you/ I know, I know this is a crime but I don't know what else to do.

But like honey. Tracyanne Campbell, Camera Obscura's lead vocalist, can't help the girlish swagger of her voice. Her delicate vibrato betrays her oftentimes stern eyes; a little out of breath, a little begrudgingly as she weighs and acknowledges her downfall make the desperation of forgetting someone the sweetest thing.

Oooh, even Paul Simon is in on the conspiracy, oooh, memories are mobile like phantom footfalls behind your ear, oooh, memories on loop, like space folding, we end up where we started.

"The Sweetest Thing" is the second track on Camera Obscura's new album, My Maudlin Career. Where the band only hinted at 60s pop fetish in their previous album, Let's Get Out of This Country, here, they give in and they've brought along with them some of the most sparkling melodies of indie pop, and the sparkling-est among them is "The Sweetest Thing." Lucidly romantic---the string and horn sections are on a murderous mission to steal your heart---the inflection is not merely catchy, it echoes and fills the room long after the song has finished playing.

Oooh, I would trade my mother just to hear you sing.

I would never trade my mother for anything (I think. Hi, mom!) so this is just brilliant. Heartbreakingly funny, to put it quite seriously, but also frighteningly sweet. Trading a life, we've all heard that. Your mom in exchange for loving from a distance then, which defies logic, emotion and even religion. Which love is in our heads, beastly, secretly brewing plans under the wayward sunshine of "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover."

Tracyanne, I'm ready to be heartbroken.

Thai Pop: August Band, Lula, scrubb

Standing at the corner of the iconic DJ Siam in Siam Square, I judged a record by its cover. Much like life, music is also like a box of chocolates (though I'm always hoping to have a sampling of the bittersweet kind). So I chose a couple of Thai pop albums based purely on packaging design---I had only two standards, quirky and clean---and as soon as I got back to Manila, I did the old Rolling Stone perception versus reality thing in my busy head.

August, "Radiodrome"

Perception: I'm quite familiar with the band but not their music outside The Love of Siam OST (which I was very lucky to still get a copy of). So. Adorkable tweens on the cover, a gazillion of them. The geekyness of the toys had me at hello. Someone looks like he's having too much fun with a nekkid mannequin. Also, a giant bison head. These kids are nuts. Yay! I'm expecting circus music with a flourish of marching band stomping. Inside flap design though is more normal. Love the coat of arms against pink. Or maybe I just love pink. There's also a wall of black and white photos of the children at work. Serious and sane. Pchy Hiranyawongkul is still cute. Where's Mario Maurer? I've been duped!
Reality: It's actually a pretty good album. I'm digging the retro, vibe of the horn section that swings and sways in disco inferno on the fast tracks and subtly melancholic on the ballads, almost Bacarachian. First single "Sunshine" (track 8) is undeniably one of the happiest tunes I've ever heard with rise and dips in the verses that catapult the clap-along chorus to soaring heights. "Radio" cleverly blends an RnB groove with 70s dance floor lite riff. The acoustic romps are more straightforward pop songs but are equally melodic and contagious. Having 5 vocalists, August keeps the singing textured and nuanced. I don't know if the CD represents the technical musicality of the band; the live performances I've seen are a little sloppy. Still, August is a young band, literally, and they have quite enough time to catch up and match the brilliant production of Radiorome.

Lula, "Urban Lullabies"

Perception: Delicate inks, a splash of pastel watercolors. Rainbows and flying fishes. Where are the unicorns? It's got quite a nice cover. Nice really describes it. It's clean and very girly; it's just how I imagined my bedroom would look like when I was 10 years old. The inside flap shows more fine inks: a birdcage (maybe for the flying fish?), a piano and guitar. It's all very, err, nice. I'm guessing Jewel singing about unicorns and castles (but the latter I would never find out because I don't speak Thai).

Reality: Wow. I love her voice. Lula sounds just like Frente's Angie Hart, high and delicate with a pleasant echoing ring when she reaches the high notes. And it's folksy bossanova! Her album sounds like it was released by Minty Fresh, an independent outfit that has an ear for twee pop. Urban Lullabies is perfect for driving, which I played yesterday on the way back to the city. It has a consistently relaxed lilt like toes tiptoeing on a piano. She also occasionally dips into jazz, which proves to be the perfect counterpoint to the light guitar strumming, the saxophone adding a sonorous depth to the mostly airy arrangement.

scrubb, "Chood Lek"
scrubb's myspace site

Perception: Me and adorkable guys, we're tight like this (crosses fingers). I love the "green" packaging---clean lines, a little techno---and the urban indie look of band. The CD flaps fold out to...a pop-up cut out of the two members at the center while the side flaps can be tucked under the bottom flap and voila: the Swiss Alps! I was telling myself that even if the music seriously sucked and sounded like cows yodeling, it would still be worth it.

Reality: Chood Lek is a Best of compilation from Thawachpol "Muey" Wongboonsiri and Torpong "Ball" Chantabuppha's previous three albums. The faint hooks reminds me of Kings of Convenience with a more Britpop influence (more The Las than Coldplay) in the anthemic choruses. Their lastfm page says that they will be touring with QFlure (Gun Lae Gun, Radio Edit, LoS OST) in Australia and I'm not not surprised at the international acclaim of the band. Most of their songs are slow burners, bittersweet (yes!) melodies with an infectious center and there's a tenderness to it that is telling me learn Thai, now.

For the sake of momentum

Considering the state of traffic in the Philippines, which ranges from very bad to bladder-popping madness, music has become, more than ever, an important ingredient to keeping my simmering sanity.

Two for the Road not only keeps me breathing, it transports me even during desperately stagnant situations. Consider it a travelogue that looks in rather than outward, where the landscape changes with mood: a desert covered by doubt, an open sky of possibilities.

It is a straightforward concept album (as opposed to Tori Amos' Scarlet's Walk which deliberately confounds through symbols) by Nouvelle Vague-producer Marc Collin and performed by Katrine Ottosen and Valente who sing as Ann and Cooper, two high school friends who reconnect and take the road to explore what could have been and what could be.

Two for the Road is a mix of delicate folk (the gorgeous album opener, "Two for the Road") and spoken word. "Downtown" gently sways with a hint of bossanova while the Spanish guitar-tinged "It's Always the Same" and "Road Trip" refresh and challenge at once, a contrast of soothing sweetness and reckless insecurity. The hooks are few and far between, but in this case, it doesn't really matter. Corny as it may sound, it's the journey that counts and the confessions that make the road trip worth taking.

Another one for the road:
Zeons' Music Blog: From France With Love

I'm not the loving kind

I'll do anything.
Sing songs that lovers sing.

Valentine's Day celebrates the obvious kind of love, the grand gestures, the gun powder in power ballads: If you breathe I want to be the air for you.

And then you have the brilliant Girls Aloud track, "The Loving Kind," penned by The Pet Shop Boys. If the bittersweet synth hook isn't enough to make you swoon, then the held-back poignancy will.

To fit the glove, to be a real-life Montague ideal to a society-molded Capulet thinking, I'm assuming, can be tiresome, and it's not from the lack of trying.

I'll buy you flowers, I'll pour you wine.
Do anything to change your mind.

Nice gender-bendy bit. Not everyone is born spewing sonnets or corny SMS quotes (but they do get the message across). Some of us have to try harder because we're just built that way. One tries to cope with expectations, and sometimes, that's the best you can do.

So down with the cards and enough bluffing.

I'm not the loving kind.

Friday I'm in Love

VARIOUS ARTISTS
JUST LIKE HEAVEN - A TRIBUTE TO THE CURE

01. Just Like Heaven performed by JOY ZIPPER
02. The Lovecats performed by TANYA DONELLY & DYLAN IN THE MOVIES
03. Lovesong performed by THE BRUNETTES
04. In Between Days performed by KITTY KARLYLE
05. Friday I'm In Love performed by DEAN & BRITTA
06. Jumping Someone Else's Train performed by LUFF
07. Boys Don't Cry performed by THE SUBMARINES
08. Close To Me performed by ELK CITY
09. The Walk performed by THE ROSEBUDS
10. Pictures Of You performed by ELIZABETH HARPER & THE MATINEE
11. Let’s Go To Bed performed by CASSETTES WON’T LISTEN
12. Catch performed by DEVICS
13. A Night Like This performed by JULIE PEEL
14. 10:15 Saturday Night performed by THE POEMS
15. A Strange Day performed by GRAND DUCHY (Violet Clark & Black Francis)
16. High performed by THE WEDDING PRESENT

Who knew that a modest label in Connecticut would be releasing one of the best tribute albums ever? Indie darlings past and present come together to repaint the mood swinging lyrics and remix the eternal sunshine of The Cure hits. There's a little room for nostalgia but more than enough space to swoon and dance. The Submarines, The Brunettes and Joy Zipper go for the addictive riff of boy-girl harmonies; The Wedding Present and Kitty Karlyle let the guitars rip happy. Cassettes Won't Listen flirt complete with hand claps, winking: Let's go to bed. Devics take on "Catch" and Elizabeth Harper & The Matinee's "Pictures of You" are simply heart melting, knee-buckling. A little giddy, a little regretful. The Cure's music is an inevitable soundtrack to those of us who grew up in the 80s and well into the 90s. Heartbreak is the reason, music is the celebration.


Available in Odyssey Records, P350.00.

Adele - Chasing Pavements (Live acoustic)

Something for the cold.

Push Your Head Towards The Air

Decent video when it's not overdoing the theatrics. Decent song though "When Anger Shows" is the better slow song. Tom, he is the highlight of this dreary black and white exercise. Stumbled out of bed unshaven, eyes a little heavy with distance. I feel a sonnet coming.

Lily Allen musing everything's changing

Ben Gibbard Sees a Silver Lining

Torchwood: Anything Goes

Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors (Later... )

Unedited

It's always something. Lyrics. Pop hooks. The horn section. Jangly guitars. A cute vocalist. And sometimes, it's nothing, except for the butterflies in your stomach. A connection is made. Blind love. Blind fandom.

Munich is to blame. That needle sharp riff piercing through a dancey beat, not at all ominous. Quite skipping in the mud happy actually. And Tom Smith's admonishing baritone: You speak when you're spoken to.

I wanted to dance. I wanted to be righteous. And I kinda wanted to make love, well, fuck, to the song.

It's the confusion that can only result to giddy air guitar playing at 3 a.m. and groggy mornings when the first voice you hear in your head is someone else's and it is singing I'm so glad I found this.

Brooding. Joy Division rip-off. And now Coldplay-like?

Fuck that yeh.

Editors' latest album, An End Has a Start, is knee-buckling tender at its core. Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors is a brilliant exercise of passive aggressive songwriting: tip toeing, punching through, soaring then crashing, in no particular order. It oddly feels like running through the woods.

And again, groggy mornings with this voice in my head singing Take my well-worn hands.

My MOJO

Tagged by Dodo. MOJO Meme, folksies.

What Music Are You Currently Grooving To?

No, I don't have epilepsy. That's actually me grooving, shoulder dips, pointed toes, and all. Most probably listening to Tilly and the Wall's Bottoms of Barrels, The Long Blonde's Someone to Drive You Home, Beirut's Gulag Orkestar, of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, and The Arctic Monkey's Favourite Worst Nightmare.

A wistful smile with eyes slightly cross-eyed means I'm glued to the sticky refrains of M. Ward's Post War, The Bluetones' The Bluetones, Pony Up!'s Make Love to the Judges With Your Eyes, and The Weepies' Say I Am You.

If I'm sitting on the steps looking all poet/ninja-like, then I'm plugged in to Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City, Hot Chip's The Warning, The Decemberists' The Crane Wife, Bishop Allen's August EP, and Rilo Kiley's Take Offs and Landings.

What, If Push Comes To Shove, Is Your All-Time Favorite Album?

Blimey! (Because it's a MOJO meme.) This is just impossible. But right now, while I'm sitting at my work desk, it's got to be Tilly and the Wall's Wild Like Children. Partly because I've given it a spin a hundred times since I finally got the disc. Close second is Paul Weller's Stanley Road. Never was a huge fan of his but this record is just immortal.

What Was The First Record You Bought? And Where Did You Buy It?

I was in the third grade and it was Madonna's Like a Virgin. Ever Gotesco, Recto. P18.00, I think.

Which Musician Have You Ever Wanted To Be?

Air guitars and all, John Squire of The Stone Roses. If I were fronting a band, The Beautiful South's Paul Heaton. And Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. (Hee. Dream, dream, dream.)

What Do You Sing In The Shower?

In the shower, the elevator, while walking to work: The Long Blonde's Separated by Motorways, Echobelly's Great Things, The Magnetic Fields' The Saddest Story Ever Told, The Decemberists' July! July!, Tilly and the Wall's Fell Down the Stairs and M. Ward's Chinese Translation.

What Is Your Favourite Saturday Night Record?

Saturday's pub night, innit? Still spinning Shed Seven's A Maximum High, especially Magic Streets and On Standby. The promise of a wild night, though it's most just a couple of bottles now and a movie. When the boyfriend and I are out driving around, it's Amy Winehouse's Back to Black.

And Your Sunday Morning Record?

Pernice Brothers' Discover a New You and Overcome by Happiness. Usually a back-to-back spin. Realistic optimism.


This list could all change by next week, of course.

The Decemberists: O Valencia Director's Cut

If the Brakeman Turns My Way

I’ve got the symptoms: late nights in front of the TV, achingly predictable Friday nights with a book, catching up instead of partying, green tea for coffee, sugar-free pastry, and just recently, a nagging weight around the neck.

It took awhile but here it is, still too soon.

When panic grips your body and your heart is a hummingbird
Raven thoughts blacken your mind until you're breathing in reverse

I'm settling comfortably in my thirties. I'm done being the dog walking in circles flattening the grass. Though I enjoyed the experience tremendously, the band thing came just too late in my life. I'm just not that person anymore. I prefer slowly spiraling to drunkenness conversations with friends over quick, massive attacks of alcohol. I'm the catch-up guy now. What are you reading? What are you listening to? And do you remember that time...?

All this automatic writing I have tried to understand
From a psychedelic angel who was tugging on my hand
It's an infinite coincidence but it doesn't form a plan

At work, I'm surrounded by mostly skittish young people, but also the most hardworking and (frighteningly) responsible of the young folks that I have ever met. We ambush work with furrowed brows and take 30 minute coffee breaks in between. The meeting of deadlines, a given. The fooling around, also a given.

Bright Eyes' Cassadaga is not a record you spin over and over. The dusty folk and soul creeps from behind you and quietly breaks your smile. Not at all depressing. But thoughtful. Thoughtful of time passing. I listen to the album at work to ground me. To remind me that work has to be done, that work is where I am, that work will pass in time.

It is an old world it's hard to remember
Like a dime store mystery
I'm a repeat first time offender
Who has rewritten history

This is, then, the bed of grass that sometimes takes a couple of fuck-ups to find. The bed you made, and the people you choose to fill your space. Growing old sucks. Knowing that you're growing older sucks more. But it's a given.

The rest---the books, the music, the silliness, the couch in front of the TV, the love, and most especially, the friends you've grown old with---these, you grab and never let go.

Bright Eyes, "If the Brakeman Turns My Way"

Brighter Later

I'm wide awake, it's Sunday morning. Sleepless from cigarette-withdrawal coughing. I'm only cutting down sticks per day and yet I'm hacking to kingdom come.

"Make a plan to love me sometime soon." Soulful, with swelling strings. Bright Eyes does a Cat Power, all smoky bar cliche. All hung-over sunrise. Just beautiful. I forget to cough.

Maybe, I forget to breathe.

The rest of Cassadaga is folksy blues, distant stories but easily poignant. Sweeping. And surprisingly light-hearted. Oberst rambles above guitars, fiddles, dusty landscapes. Like flipping through postcards until one is warm all over with memories. Memories I don't have but the songs somehow conjured.

Get the album. The melodies are catchy but fleeting. So just continue spinning the record over and over. On quiet, sleepless, Sunday mornings.

Werewolves in Their Youth

I was silly once. I remember sharing a joint with a couple of friends in the university, and like most defiantly naughty deeds, it was done, the smoking, under a tree, sitting on the grassy ground, buzzing bugs circling our heads like halos. We giggled mostly. Giggled and giddily ate crackers. And then we started running. In circles. All over.

“Let’s pretend that we’re Vietnamese girls and we were being chased by G.I. soldiers,” F said, already getting ahead, lifting up his imaginary skirt. We had just seen Heaven and Earth.

And so we did. For hours it felt like. Laughing and stumbling, circling the tree like insects. Buzzed.

I miss it. Guiltless abandon. Relaxed rebellion. And I had almost forgotten how that felt like.

"I laid on my back, let the punk record spin
The sloppy guitar, it was shooting out stars
It all went to my heart, yeah some rainbows in the dark."

Beautiful, innit? Tilly and the Wall's growing pains and misbehaving is anything but rock and roll dumb cool. No drug-dazed walking dead fuck ups. No sunshiny languishing either. It's clever without being precious; incisive without plans. I'm a lyric kind of guy and the kilometric strings of words---practically streets of stories---are a pleasure to explore with quick turns to rousing disobedience and hidden alleys to heartbreaks.

Musically, it's still Bright Eyes meets Rilo Kiley with tap dancing for percussion though everything is bigger on this second album. Bigger harmonies, bigger sound, bigger choruses. The stomping, clapping and tap dancing are more delirious in the soaring riffs and tiptoes on the slow burners.

"So I thank the city, the lights that it's spinning
The friends that I have and the shoes we’re not shining."

If there's anything that being in my thirties taught me, it's to inject a little silliness in everything: work, love, the books I read, the music I listen to, the memories I choose to guard.

Tilly and the Wall is a feral celebration of our youth. Invincible to irony. Enthusiastic in crumpled clothes. Exultant as we race down the street. Or run in circles. It doesn't really matter.

Hot Chip — Colours

There's "Boy from School," instant, shiny loops. Top of the Pops stuff. Then there's "Colours," bottled longing that bubbles over. It takes its time. Teases sunshine. And delivers hot white blisters.

Curious Beast

Melodic. Soaring refrains. Even as the words fade, the humming draws circle eights around your heart. Folksy, disjointed prog-rock and lush crazy arrangements, as expected, but also disco guitars, rock riffs, and a duet with Laura Veirs.

There are stories, too. The Decemberists, particularly Colin Meloy, can't help but to weave words into tales cautionary, or Canterbury rusty lyric. But there is grace in the primitive telling---not nostalgia, but a studied stubbornness on eloquence.

The Crane Wife is a curious beast. There is both overwhelming emptiness and infectious childlike glee. A melancholy that is more an impression than a feeling. A smile that can't be contained when Meloy asks us to fill our moths with cinnamon now.

And it's the memory of the smile that makes you want to give this record a spin over and over again.

Lemonheady

Let’s just laugh. Take it from rehab poster boy Evan Dando.

Way back in the 90s, way back in the long lines in the university, way back when waiting for your turn was much easier, way back when music was BASF bulky.

Way back when plastic was the smell of new music.

He kinda shoulda sorta would’ve loved her if he could’ve. Then, I’ve never been too good with names.

Way back when it was easier to disappear in a pop song.

From your teens to your thirties with a flip to side B. Now, lines are for paying bills, or making a deposit to a savings account that devaluates faster than the Peso. Now, there are worries of the future, bulky fat cells clogging arteries. And your turn to be the next big thing is the missed bus while you were sleeping the afternoon away.

But The Lemonheads still make it easy to disappear. Not like in existentialist crap novels, but Kirby cool. Invisible Woman cool. Watching the world go by while you plan your comeback. Taking the backseat because you need to remember what it was like to laugh, to run so fast until your knees buckled, to fall in love every summer. Little things that make it worth while. Little things that make you stronger.

The Lemonheads are sloppy with the guitars (and the smile) but sharp with the hooks. As it was way back. Has it really been that long ago?

Let’s just laugh.

Thanks, Itsy.