ME & LP - Bonnie Says (No Shitty Ride)

Now and again, your music taste calls for something breezy and tropical and island-ish.  Don't fret, internet world!  I've found you a bare-minimum-acoustic-guitar-laden tune that will pull you from the fall funk and insert you into a lush, island setting.  Here is "Bonnie Says (No Shitty Ride)" by California collective Me & LP.  This is what you get if you give Jack Johnson some more flair (not that I'm saying anything bad about Mr. Johnson...) and a female accompanist.  Arguably, the combination of two such vocalists is a startlingly amazing.  Could "island folk" ever be this good?

"Bonnie Says" is a musical artist's rendering of a beautiful beach, where men in shorts and a button-down buttoned not all the way up wear aviators and play ukulele.  Bonnie says well, you know it ain't right, but this is right.  Well you know, she ain't mine.  This song belongs to everyone.  And if you don't have it, then what the hell are you waiting for?

Boris - Spoon

I've long cemented a belief that the Irish made the best music in the world.  It's still true, though there isn't any denying tat they face serious competition from Japan.  Example?  Prolific noise outfit Boris.  I've sampled a few of their tracks before, but none have struck me quite like the new selection that is "Spoon," a dreamy song that sends you off into the far reaches of the clouds, where percussion is heavy and vocals are angelic.

Atmospheric music tends to be some of the best, luring your emotions in long before your ears know what's going on.  Boris is a trio that knows atmosphere.  The genre might be called noise, but this isn't going to give you a headache.  In a short and sweet review such as this one, the point is simple.  Listen to more noise.  What are you afraid of?

Arise & Ruin - End of the Road

Is there such this as fun hardcore?  There is now.  I've been a busy bumble bee this week, running around the city and studying the society of pre-Imperial Russia.  Fun stuff.  Even more fun?  A good metal song that comes on my ipod that has a knack for getting me out of a funk.  "End of the Road" does just that, and comes from the now defunct Guelph, Ontario metalcore act Arise & Ruin. 

A song that's entirely screamed is something I tread carefully.  It can be done well, or it can become a mess of metal.  "End of the Road" is just throat, splayed against some fantastic guitar work, and works like no other.  This makes me look to the heavens and wonder WHY ARE THEY BROKEN UP?  This is metalcore done better than nearly every other act I've heard.  Listen closely and you might be able to make out some fantastic lyrical work:

This world had been a never ending battle of good and evil.
I've searched far and wide for the answers to your treason.
Solidarity amongst man is crucial for survival.
Across this everlasting plain this road comes to an end.

Note to all metalcore bands: if you're good, DO NOT BREAK UP.

Matthew Dear - Soil To Seed

Electronic makes for good music to raise you from a studying rut.  I'm not sure if Matthew Dear's "Soil to Seed" is true electronic, but it is good.  Great, really.  It's not a fast tempo piece that thrusts you to the dance floor, but gets your shoulders moving.  The lyrics are sung, or spoken rather, with a hint of depression or sadness, which suits the fluid background beats pulsing in the foreground.  This isn't the electronic music you thought you knew.

If you could put "Soil to Seed" in a setting, it would be an underwater highway.  Yes, you read that right.  You can hear something in this song that takes you into the depths of the sea, while this same something places you in the driver's seat of a car.  This must be what mermaids play on their radios when driving from castle to castle.  Just as soon as this two-and-a-half minute masterpiece has begun, it is over, yearning for you to reopen your music player, and hit rewind.

Yelle - Safari Disco Club

Time for your mind to be blown.  French electropop.  Watch out.  The queen of said genre?  Yelle, France's answer to Lady Gaga, less pop, more electronica.  This chanteuse can sing.  As I've mentioned before, music crosses boundaries; you don't need to know a language to understand a song on an internal level.  With the danceable, catchy track "Safari Disco Club," you've got something that flows true in "Mercure Au Chrome Et P'tits Pansements" and "J'ai Pas Peur Du Micro."  French?  Pishaw.  If there is a language that is universal, it is good music.

The only part you'll likely understand is the chorus's repeating les animals danse dans le safari disco club, meaning in the literal translation: the animals dance the in safari disco club (thank you, French education up to grade nine).  It doesn't matter.  Yelle's lovely voice isn't the only star of this show; you have the electronic beats pulsing in the background, sounding like some sort of industrial, jungle-ish orchestra.  It kinda sounds like music from the jungle, eh?  Man, I want to go to a safari disco club now...

Black Light Dinner Party - Small Boxes

Is this really post number 100?  It feels like it was yesterday that I first featured RAMESH's "The King," and now we're here in October.  I would like to thank everyone for viewing and reading.  After all, I'm writing for an audience.  For post 100, I thought long and hard about what greatness to showcase for such an event, and then considered something.  Perhaps I shouldn't do the expected, mentioning a song by a mainstream band that I've been listening to for years.  Perhaps I should do what I came here to do: share unknown gems with the world.  I have been doing mostly Top 40-ish songs lately, but with post 100, it's time we return to our roots with a haunting indie number.

Hence, "Small Boxes" by Black Light Dinner Party, a New York collective with an eye for synths.

This is a beautiful, yet melancholy blend of light piano strokes, indie vocals and electronic not-so-background music.  That said, in defense that the instrumental side of this song is just as important as words.  And here is another amazing example of lyrical genius...you promised her she'd laugh a little, you promised her I take it all back, you promised her things you'll never get, I promised her that I would hold her hand.  This is true beauty in music, and even if I had said that before, it's a dirty lie.  THIS is it.  Everything you've heard before was garbage.  "Small Boxes" is a song that not everyone can appreciate, but to those who can, this is why I blog.  For you.

To another hundred posts...

LYRICS: Whitehorse - Emerald Isle

I've noticed recently that people have been visiting fromalt2zen looking for the lyrics to Whitehorse's "Emerald Isle."  I figured it was about time that they're on the internet, so others can appreciate the song as a whole, so here they are!  These lyrics belong to Whitehorse; I don't own them in any way.

I’ll wait on the emerald isle for you to come and rescue me

From every step I can’t make

Feet don’t you ever break, drag me over that line

Halfway around the medicine ball is far enough to blow me back

Like you broke the bank on the ticket worth every damn nickel

Well, you got me that time

‘Cause I’ve been on the road one day too long

Can’t hear the record for another sad song

Look at all these faces

Can’t all be wrong

That’s a lot of my heart out there

Did you fly a million miles for every single one that I ran

I don’t know which of us is crazier, oh sweet baby

That’s the madness I desire

And there’s a twinkle in the Clifton sky

Been there forever

And lights the way for the waters

The jackals and the lovers

And the broken streetlights

‘Cause I’ve been on the road one day too long

Can’t hear the record for another sad song

Look at all these faces

Can’t all be wrong

That’s a lot of my heart out there

So do we keep running through the motions, baby?

Knowing that someday’s gonna come maybe

When you can’t keep your pretty mouth from saying

I wanna go home

I’ll wait on the emerald isle for you to come and rescue me