2012!!!

2012 was ushered in with a bang and an even bigger bang for those who attended The Resolution Concert @ Glebe Island featuring Pet Shop Boys, Jamiroquai and a returning Culture Club...

As for me, Fleet Foxes @ The Sydney Opera House (2/1/2012) kickstarted the year with sublime songs harmonised to perfection...

Upcoming Concerts:

Beirut                            Sydney Opera House      5/1/2012
Lambchop                     Sydney Recital Hall       21/1/2012

Active Child                  Oxford Art Factory       29/1/2012

The Horrors                   The Metro Theatre         2/2/2012
Portugal. The Man         The Metro Theatre         7/2/2012

My Morning Jacket        The Enmore Theatre      3/4/2012

Considering:

Battles                           The Metro Theatre        23/1/2012

Feist                              The Enmore Theatre       7/2/2012 (Clashes with Portugal. The Man)

St. Vincent                    Factory Theatre             12/3/2012

Busy busy busy :)

2011 Best Of (Roundup)

It's been a busy, busy year with it's fair share of ups and downs; but we're not here to talk about that... 
May this year saw the birth of this blog and by Sep/Oct, I'd encountered a writer's blog of sorts - What to include/exclude; self-doubt in the form of not being a fully-fledged journo; and taking it all way way too seriously!

(Deep Breath... here we go!)

MUSIC

1.  Destroyer - Kaputt
2.  Elbow - Build a Rocket Boys!
3.  Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
4.  My Morning Jacket - Circuital
5.  White Denim - D
6.  Tom Waits - Bad as Me
7.  Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
8.  Radiohead - The King of Limbs
9.  Portugal. The Man - In the Mountain in the Cloud
10.  Ryan Adams - Ashes & Fire
11.  PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
12.  Wilco - The Whole Love
13.  Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
14.  Bright Eyes - The People's Key
15.  Beirut - The Rip Tide
16.  Middle Brother - Middle Brother
17.  Atlas Sound - Parallax
18.  Feist - Metals
19.  Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
20.  The Antlers - Burst Apart
21.  Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
22.  Active Child - You Are All I See
23.  Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
24.  tUnE-yArDs - WHOKILL
25.  Black Lips - Arabia Mountain
26.  I'm from Barcelona - Forever Today
27.  Grace Jones - Hurricane / Dub
28.  The Horrors - Skying
29.  St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
30.  The Field - Looping State of Mind
31.  TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
32.  Gotye - Making Mirrors
33.  Stephin Merritt - Obscurities
34.  Yuck - Yuck
35.  Cass McCombs - Humor Risk
35.  Explosions in the Sky - Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
36.  Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
37.  Panda Bear - Tom Boy
38.  Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact
39.  Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
40.  Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo
41.  The Dears - Degeneration Street
42.  Okkervil River - I Am Very Far
43.  The Black Keys - El Camino
44.  R.E.M. - Collapse into Now
45.  Battles - Gloss Drop
46.  Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow
47.  Modeselektor - Monkeytown
48.  Bonnie Prince Billy - Wolfroy Goes to Town
49.  The Wooden Birds - Two Matchsticks
50.  Woods - Sun and Shade

Special Mention:
Although The Flaming Lips hasn't offiicially released any LP this year, they have released many pricey and elaborately packaged EPs and a 6hr song followed by another that's 24 hours.  Details here (Updated).

Concerts Attended (Unreviewed) and Missed Concerts:
Attended both Okkervil River (A generally good night with later songs excelling) and Bright Eyes (A real dynamo onstage; with quieter performances commanding the audience' attention especially on Lua) and missed out on Explosions in the Sky's concert in Dec.

Ommissions:
So, no Drake (Rap's not my thang), James Blake (Just not gettig the hype), Adele (She's everywhere!), Lady Gaga (Not me), The Kills (The slow numbers are dreadful) or Susan Boyle.


MOVIE

Drive - Can't say enough about this movie!
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, it's a film noir drama bound to be a cult classic.
Genre defying, it has heart pounding action (Although not the bulk of the film as most would be led to believe); romance (Not your chick flick sort); humour (Not the LOL sort); bizzaro Lynchian moments; heavy character study; gritty violence and gore!!

More here.


TV

Just got onto "Sons of Anarchy" (Seasons 1 & 2 was only released in Australia this year), hence the frantic catching-up.  I find the series highly addictive as it has just the right blend of action/
tension/drama/comedy.  Great story line, well-scripted and acted, and the pace kept just right.
The lead character perfectly played by Charlie Hunnam, is part of a bikie gang.  He is conflicted between his deceased father's original vision for the club and it's law-breaking present.  To further complicate matters, he has just become a father himself and finds himself torn between duties.
All the characters are thankfully three dimensional, which is a nice departure from your usual 2D
TV personas.

Breaking Bad continues to confound, intrigue & entertain!

Looking forward to another year of top notch entertainment!

Wishing all my readers a great and safe holiday season,
Alex

Album Review: My Morning Jacket - Circuital

In the upcoming weeks I shall try to catch up on some of the more important releases prior to starting this blog in May.
Better late than never.

This is only the sixth studio outing for the band from Louisville, Kentucky. They have released many live LPs, rarities EPs and compilations along the way.

But my, has My Morning Jacket come a long way since their humble beginnings. They remain one of two heavier bands I like who don't sacrifice melody; the other being Queens of the Stone Age.



Circuital is a behemoth.


Victory Dance begins with a gong and vocal "clarion calls", as if some wakening call to action.
The lyrics sees a man at crossroads pondering over his lot.
The song is a slow-burner, but culminates in a maddening wig-out towards the end and is perhaps best experienced live at one of their gigs.
 

(There is a constant theme of reflection and self examination; of weighing things up and moving on -   biblical imagery abound throughout the album- My good work, someday come, meek inheriting the earth, the day is coming; without once coming over as preaching).

The title track, Circuital, has a cyclical guitar refrain which bobs and tiptoes until it takes off around the 2:15 mark. Some guitar solos, tinkling piano arpeggios making it the perfect driving song as it bops along.
 

Third track starts off distant and spacey, 'Ba-ba-ba-da-ba"s drawing closer.
The Day Is Coming is further rumination for one to take stock.
Yim Yames lends the track a soulful croon.
 

There is a real country heart in Yim's endearing vocals on Wonderful (The Way I Feel).
While mainly acoustic, it is embellished with synth strings.
An arrow straight to the heart.
The lyrics paint an escape to some magical nirvana.
 

Many a teenage boy's excuse can be summed up on Outta My System.
An indirect paean to testosterone.
On the other hand, the subject's also wiser now and is glad he got it all out of his system.
 


Holdin' on to Black Metal isn't metal at all; instead it is a soulful rock jam, resplendant horn stabs, with a gospellish shimmy-shake female backing choir.

First Light is a rollicking heavy-ish number. Here, "First Light" is loosely used as metaphors for birth, death, truth, strength, spiritual awakening and perhaps even in a re-incarnation cycle.
 

You Wanna Freak Out sways to a waltz-like rythm and sees the subject being calculative and "careful" and being invited to let loose and overcome her fears.
 

Slow Slow Tune appropriately continues on a plaintive tempo in this lovely story with the sentimental father recording this tune for his yet-to-be-born daughter and sadly having her outgrow it further down the line.
 


Moving Away is as much about moving on as it is about moving away.  Looking back, thankful with equal parts remorse and hope...
 


Mammoth.  9.1/10

The full album concert from npr:

Live Concert Stream: My Morning Jacket Unstaged

My Morning Jacket will be live-streaming their concert 9pm ET / 6pm PT.  This had me scurrying to find out the equivalent time here in Sydney Australia - which worked out to be 1 June 11am.  Hope this conversion is right!

Super-excited!!

I have been trying to connect via my bluray wireless so I could watch this on the large screen and even subscribed to My Morning Jacket's Vevo channel which has no videos uploaded yet??  I only hope it works.

I know, modern technology, right?

The Aftermath:

What was that I said about modern technology?  Well, it was exciting enough being my first ever live concert webcast. I must say many technical glitches* put a damper on events. While the concert was going on, there was a running comment box below and viewers were encouraged to keep commenting to "unlock" pics.(I suspect they were time-released). You were also encouraged to post in vids of your retina so it could make an appearance in the giant "eye" prop backstage. I thought Erykah Badu was a strange choice for a guest, but MMJ displayed they had the chops to be funky as well. The concert was filmed by Todd Haynes and would hopefully hit the shelves soon.

I subscribed to MyMorningJacketVevo channel on YouTube, but was unable to access it via my Sony bluray (Must be some overlooked licensing issue); so was reduced to watching it on my much reduced computer monitor. I wished I was there to experience it in person.  MMJ's strength lies in their live performance.

I remember when they last performed at The Metro on 22/1/2009.  Their wig-out moments were unparalleled.  They had a 3 hour long set and this was no different.  See link for setlist.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/my-morning-jacket/2011/louisville-palace-theatre-louisville-ky-3bd33830.html

* Apart from recurring pixelations, sound dropouts, freezes and being locked out of chatroom halfway through and initial poor editing between embarassing "acted" skits and live footage; I'm sure that with careful editing a much improved experience can be achieved.  But for now, 5.6/10.

Jim James belting it out some.