Coldplay – A Rush of Blood to the Head pt 1

To be ten years behind is pretty bad I suppose. There are a lot of things that can get in the way. Stubbornness probably being key, but pride mixed in somewhere. I hadn’t heard the entirety of this album (although I always did love the second, huge rush always) ever until a week ago. I came across a copy of it and found something both endearing and rather impressive; and driving to work in a traffic-drenched rush last Friday, I put it on the radio to change discs and “Yellow” was blasting and well, I can take a hint (different albums I know.) And while I cant help but notice how it reminds me a lot of Radiohead in instances, it’s also very warmly, growing on me with each repeated listen. The lyrics are longing, almost melancholic and definitely despaired words that are honest and heartfelt and the sounds are bright and vividly full of life. It’s starting to build a nest and I can’t help but notice how much I like it.

This “Politik” song floored me because of the unafraid nature of playing with the drastic loud/soft policy, while employing strings and more piano into the hushed areas. I remember being at a bar with friends and I think it was D who figured it be good to play something by Coldplay on the jukebox, I foolishly scoffed and he picked something I’d never heard so I could blindly gain some respect and it was sweet. It’s a dramatic way to begin, but then again the cover is dramatic and it is called A Rush of Blood to the Head, and that’s why I like it. It’s pretty brave, exploding from before and employing a grander scale that somehow, feels more personal. The entire time, he’s singing “open up your eyes…” while this piano clanks away in the foreground. The music builds and builds into a definite rush of blood to head and is an astounding opener.

I’ve got a strong feeling that I can come back and write about this album some more, so instead of adding the bookend (yes later) I go with that aforementioned “In My Place” (the rush from the outset). The drums are immediately affecting: they pound away to a steady pace and truly act as an anchor. The way the cymbals crash loudly, the way the snare is relentless, it’s big and loud and awesome. And the guitar, well the guitar melody on this track is what makes it one of the best songs of that entire decade (2000s) because it’s chillingly mesmerizing and sweeping. It’s brilliantly colorful and it reins a wall of sound that commands respect; somewhat countrified with its adorned counter-melody, the sparkling melody is a shining winner. All together, the lyrics and of course, those strings at the end, make it what you’d call pop gem, it’s still very much in the rock playbook. And perhaps the rockist at heart can see it as such; until then, there’s plenty more discovery to burst about. – Bryan

Animal Collective - Centipede Hz

I wonder how many times I’ve said (felt) this in past years but it just seems like this year is simply blowing by. It feels like it’s been a really strange year where a lot has happened, in fairly important aspects and still during it, seems like a struggling blur of fog. It definitely feels that way when I consider the 2012 music I’ve actually found, in comparison to years past, because objectively, I’ve simply found a lot less music this year.

That feels very sad in a way. But it highlights the music that I have been able to find, as some very awesome gems. And while, sure, it’s probably not anything earth-shattering new or ‘rare,’ the effect still seems to take on the same value as ever before and in the end, it feels whole. And to really juxtapose it, I’m planning (and have for a week now) on just mad-dashing it (getting as much as I can) to the end of the year.

Together, not as sad, but the main aim was to say: well I’ve found less (so far) but what I’ve found, it’s still very dear. And there was times where an album would consume my thoughts, mind and ears for a month at a time. I think this was mostly how Centipede Hz found me during the month of September and how we lived together throughout most of that month and some of October. And while yes, a lot of this reaching for the exact same album over and over – sure, I would sprinkle your obligatory regular selection from the library music (an LCD Soundsystem record here, 808s sometimes, a lot of Interpol for some reason and Wilco in the fall just sound right in the car) – is my own doing, it just seems entirely mutual and comfortable at the same time. I would never skip around and it always started from the beginning to the end – to where I was driving a dreary 35 MPH for the first two or three minutes of my drive, while the pounding of “Moonjock” just encompasses me, up until the drive home anywhere in between 7pm to whatever and these “Pulleys” just yanking away – and the whole album really kills.

I’d just say to listen to each of these selections if you can stomach them through entirety, unless you’re already a fan, and entirely consume them. What really floors me about “Applesauce” is the way it solidifies the album’s beginning and ties it to the middle, heart, of the album with a vivid, driving and fluid pace. A lot of complaints on this album were regarding the immediacy, reactionary or not, it’s definitely an afterthought when you truly consider the ever-shifting scope of their delivery. The song sings about the innocence of youth and feeling absolutely fantastic and yet, it questions the fast pace of our now-adult lives and how it all seems a blur (“I’m losing things so fast…”) to this hyper, tumultuous array of percussion drums and patterns. The song never truly finds a chorus or verse, and instead relentlessly pounds away in an almost circular feel.

And there’d be the nights where I’d lay in bed, in the dark sometimes sure, with the headphones grafted on and just getting lost inside of “Amanita” and its sincerely trippy exposure. Well Amanita can be two things, purely a mushroom that can be deadly sometimes, so the whole song could be about the escape/leap into death? And there is this Amanita Muscaria: the indigenous people of Russia would use this mushroom as some kind of entheogen (substance to go psycho on). So it could also be a reference to drugs and just how the feeling is. Either way, the song begins with a slow, trance-like pattern and rides on this high for the first half, before everything breaks away and explodes. The second half towers over with rapid percussion and a dance-like chanting that amazingly closes the album out. The entire time, the actual lyrics discuss jumping into a forest and running deep not returning “Until I can’t remember my name.” An uncontrollable feeling, the first half makes references to a time before technology and what will happen when all the blogs? close down. Very heady, sure, totally worth it. I’m glad it took over my crazy mind for a good month, it sure did it well.

No album version available, here is a live version with “My Girls” on the front half. Amanita around 6:50.  – Bryan

Crazy and Lost Samples of Life

I’m just feeling like unraveling myself some more throughout this heady space of a blog we’ve created and it definitely feels like a good enough time to try to start. And while I know December feels like a reach, I think we can sort of combine for a strong showing. Plus, that’s just such an awesome word, it feels good to use it and try a refreshing new outlook.

I had St. Elsewhere when it came out, I remember it came out in April 2006 and I remember I bought it that weekend or soon after. I remember that spring waking up at like five in the am to work at an old job until the very deep night. I remember doing it all because Radiohead was that summer and that was the entire funding: relentless overtime. I remember burning out, I also vaguely remember the details of those days – it all feels so far away. Anyways, this album I remember because I’d blast it early in the morning. I fell hard for “Crazy” but the album didn’t grow that much on me. Subjectively speaking, it be like somewhere in the murky 60s or 70s in a list of 100 from that year. Regardless, the point is “Crazy,” yes, that year – man “Wolf Like Me” is perhaps better? – well so yeah it was the best song, I love it still, some say best of that decade that just ended? I wouldn’t argue much, but I very recently just found out this “Crazy” used a great sample.

I’ve never seen this movie it’s from, Preparati la bara, but the song is “Last Man Standing” by the Reverberi Bros. This sounds like a solemn hymn, especially the way the voices resonate throughout, without ever vocalizing an actual word. The trumpet, it’s definitely the leader – it lulls, and rolls over – before the strings add flair and drama; all together, it’s a sort of marching, towering piece that definitely breathes a steady pace. Mechanically, it’s less than three minutes and still, very moving in it of itself.

And well, this is “Crazy.” Of course you gotta love the way the voices, this time, feel like they might be going somewhere, whereas on the Italian original, they’re far more pensive. On this version, Danger Mouse’s beats take the high road and bumping, steady and propulsive, they allow for Cee-lo’s voice to just rush in and out of focus. I think that’s the brilliance of it, the ebb and flow of their styles into what is obviously tremendous chemistry. And it’s a nod to both of them really when noticing the success Danger Mouse has had outside of Gnarls Barkley (Beck, The Black Keys, Danger Doom) and Cee-lo already has a song some fashion as the best song of this decade? (“FUCK YOU”) that this is really a pretty fantastic duo. And… this is a bad ass video right?

I remember seeing them cover aforesaid Radiohead’s “Reckoner” at ACL in 2007, at the height of the “In Rainbows gush of 2007, i.e. Radiohead made music before 2007?, i.e. the time Radiohead really broke through, i.e. what’s Kid A, i.e. the original surge, i.e. and does the Bends matter anymore?” As in the answer to each is ‘whatever the hipsters say?’ But seriously, here’s to more and hopefully for all ours’’’ sakes, better output. Maybe? I think so. Til then. – Bryan