I could have posted something last week, definitely, with the ample amount of time, but somehow I just didn’t get about to doing it. Maybe it was some parts laziness to it. Anyway, here are some videos pressed play these couple of weeks:

I won’t say I know a lot about Active Child, the stage name for Pat Grossi, but his music has been getting the indie hype/blogs treatment, and there must be some reason behind it – that being that it is credible to a believable extent. Prior to this video, the mp3 for this song has been surfacing and doing its word-of-mouth round, and if it appears in my library before its video release, there must some musical reason why so. The video looks ordinary almost throughout, but watch out for the beautiful, disastrous ending – maybe revealing a little too much here, but I didn’t know drowning can be this beautiful and natural.

Upcoming and uprising major crash alert! The victim, in mind, is Santigold, who has her fine share and collection of collaborative works thus far (early in her career, I must say), including with Beastie Boys and the great, great, did-I-not-say-great Amadou & Mariam track. Absolutely loving her energy in this song and video. Santigold, go, go, go, go (coincidentally, a collaborative song with Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O)!

Nothing special about the video, but the song should be good enough for me to note it down anyway.
Also, my elder sister’s initials (for ease of calling in the family, all children, inclusive of myself, have short-form two-alphabetical callings) is AK. Haha!

My favourite music video of the last 2 weeks goes to:

Record companies and strangers that stumble their way onto this blog, if feeling charitable, please feel free to donate cash or these records to me. I will be more than willing and happy to receive them – as Creed once sang – “with arms wide open”. I have got a fatherly touch!

* This post will be staying afloat on the front page.

“Painted Eyes”
Hercules & Love Affair

Hercules And Love Affair is very para-para indeed; they make such great in-sync dance steps and moves music, I am simply astonished that most of the clubs in Singapore don’t even play their fucking songs. It’s the type of music that can be popular both in a straight and gay club, perhaps more of the latter, and everyone will be making out and shagging on the dancefloor or in the restrooms, as though we all don’t know what shady business is going on in these nightspots. Singapore, don’t act decent no more!

The inclusion of what I presumed to be violin symphonies in the bridge of the song makes this a classy classic number. The rich vocals expressed a lush style of sophistication. No wonder Hercules & Love Affair remains one of my most exciting and anticipated dance acts to surface in the music scene in recent times. Are people ready to move those hand gestures, those hips and tap on those lazy-ass feet?

“Still In Love With You”
Sade

Sade has been making music since 1983, and with that amount of longevity and heavyweight amount of musical output work involved, one has to bow their respect for the band’s contribution all this while. Especially with a strong and unique female front like Sade Adu, whom has a voice standing on its own against the rest of the music industry – that of sincerity, maturity, honesty and heartfelt emotions and heartbreak. One can literally break one’s own heart just by listening to her pouring vocals over soothing melodies.

Just a pondering question on whether it is good to have a unique voice in the industry or not; whether it may be taken for granted by the public’s interest – case in point: Macy Gray, Amy Winehouse etc. Food for thought indeed.

“Linne”
Shugo Tokumaru

The second number from this Japanese artiste on this year’s list, and on a contrary note, a reverse of all things poppy and positive in “Lahaha”. I have absolutely no idea what exactly he is singing about in this song, but what it feels like to me I can discuss, and it feels like he is dispatching some life lessons about life and living. Let’s face it – everything is not all smooth and sugar-coated as what everyone once thought it was or made out to be when we were younger; for Christ’s sake, some even can’t take sugary items and they may lead to diabetes on lousy days! Life is tough, let’s embrace it in the best way we can.

“Vomit”
Girls

This song kills me. The desperation of needing someone, of finding love, companionship, about town, in a place where possibly thousands of faces surface and yet everyone is stranger, foreign to one, and despite the flood of human beings, one still feels alone – I don’t know about people out there, maybe being pretentiously strong and all or whatever fuck’s sake, but I definitely feel it too, to the extent that yes, I had done some personal damage to myself that is maybe irrecoverable.

Nonetheless, the band that has a video with a penis microphone manages to capture that killer loneliness feeling in this song perfectly, and it may a little too perfectly that it creeps people out how they manage to do it, except maybe feeling the same way themselves too, some point in time in the past during the songwriting process. Even the video, with the pretty red car spells the heartbreak too:

“Tomorrow Night We’ll Go Anywhere”
Evan Voytas

Loves his voice, loves how smooth it is that I presume that his body moves, seduction techniques on women who visit nightclubs and bars must be ace and ladykiller, ending up in hotel beds and passionate one night affairs. Oh, how sedap. I am also secretly trying to stalk him on Instagram, so that we can be virtual friends-fan relationship. I hope we hit it off big time, cause I will run with you, Evan, you spirit animal.

“Mornin’”
Star Slinger

If my facts are correct in my head, and in my knowledge – and they sometimes, could be most of the times, they are not (for instance, I did not know Laura Marling and Marcus Mumford had split up, and he is engaged with another woman. The horrors!), Star Slinger is made famous by Stereogum, a popular indie/rave music site that features the coolest and hippest artistes and music in the independent music scene, that should be the talk of the town but the damned mainstream radio stations did not catch on and are still playing their safe, radio-friendly, chart-topping hits.

This song is trippy, this video is trippy and if mornings do begin like this, we will not be dreading and dragging our feet to wherever we are not wanting to go. Students and working class adults, know where it is at.

“Enjoy The Silence”
Jazzhole

This is in fact from 2006, but I just discovered it. I heard Tori Amos’s version while in the shower last night at slightly past midnight, but this version is nicer, more lounge and contemporary, chilled and relaxing, and definitely my kinda music. And it also confirms the fact – besides reading “One Day” by David Nicholls, the book I am currently still reading, and the feature movie starring Anne Hathaway (which I haven’t watched), and tearing last night a little bit (a whole lot – shhh, wimp) at close to the ending few chapters – that comfortable silence is something to sustain and fight for in a long term relationship. God knows everyone will get sick of everyone else, so it is this balance that people should be searching for, for inner peace within both souls.

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Nonetheless, this is the end for 2011. Some albums I am lusting to get/receive are next to feature, so watch this space.

“Big Wave”
Jenny & Johnny

Very summer-y, the typical sounds of endless sunshine, freedom and fun. Not forgetting, the American manner of thinking and spending the cash that they haven’t made. No stranger to music, Jenny is the lead singer of Rilo Kiley, and Johnny is Johnathan Rice, her boyfriend in crime and a musician in his own credit as well. With both accomplished careers in music, this sidekick duo hits off in the right path, heading to an indie/alternative sound that they know to suit themselves well in and within.

The lyrics, however, seem to have a darker twist to it (the more the reason to like it further):

I can’t sleep these days
And my blues, they won’t go away
So there are these little pills I been takin’
And my doctor, she says that they’re safe
But I been sleepwalking down to the lake
And wakin’ up in the water

“Need You Now”
Cut Copy

One can’t go wrong with Australia electronic act, Cut Copy. Though I didn’t instantly like this first single from their third studio release (non-EPs), “Zonoscope”, it is definitely a grower, and it is party time once again (in my head, and in my bedroom)! And I can literally hear the desperation in frontman Dan Whitford’s voice as he pleads:

I know we’re goin’ crazy
But I need you now
I know we’re goin’ crazy
But I need you now

Come to me, baby.

“It’s Not My Party”
Diamond Rings

The gay boys are quite semi-dominating this year’s list, with Patrick Wolf owning 2 spots and now another vulnerable sounding being taking up another. Though young looking, Diamond Rings (real name John O’Regan) sings with a depth of maturity and experience as though, cliche sounding, he had been there, done that, and am through with it. His voice reminds me of someone – a male singer of the 1980s times, something that of George Michael and Elton John combined, or the likes of.

See him get faggotly punched and bullied in the official video:

“Quiet Times”
Dido

Love-life-sick me woke up, but still melting of a heartache:

Now I miss you
Now I want you
But I can’t have you
Even when you’re here

Still one of the best contemporary singers around that we (yes, everyone is as guilty as charged here) may have forgotten in our day-to-day music. “White Flag”, anyone; and there’s a reason why Eminem featured her in one of his megahit, “Stan”, back in 2000.

“The Pact (I’ll Be Your Fever)”
Villagers

Questions:
a) why are you so romantically sounding, Conor O’Brien?
b) why did I miss the band when they were in town for a one-night only concert?
c) can I smooth dance and groove with you to this song, Conor? Please? While you try to perform on your acoustic guitar? Even though it may be a little out of the way?

“Light Of Love”
Music Go Music

There’s a very theatrical, artsy feel to the music video of this song, which fits perfectly and compliments the song in every of its way. And my exact sentiments to the lyrics in exact, of being in a difficult and possibly dark stage in one’s life that everyone should witness there and then (only motherfucking liars will lie about this part and parcel of life), and having someone nice and decent enough to pull oneself out of it.

There was a time, my love
my heart had grown cold
My arms were reaching out for someone to hold

I was all mired in gloom and I was alone
you took a hold of me
and made me your own

You pulled me up where I belong
though first it seemed so wrong
To be scaling love’s great heights
Basking freely in its light

I’d forgotten the things I knew, inside to be true,
Trials were everywhere and pleasures were few
I drifted alone, in the ocean of life,
but then you pulled me, dear, from the waters of strife

… and the bridge:

There was dearth in me, there was a lack,
I could not see my heart
and feared it was black

… and the video:

“Moth’s Wings”
Passion Pit

If it has not been known, I’m quite a lyrical person – music, melody and lyrics move me. Even though most of the times I usually get the lyrics jumbled up and wrong, it is still quite there, and I usually think that I get the lyrics and thus the meaning of the song, until proven mistakenly wrong. The entire song’s is quoteworthy, but here’s the opener:

Dear friend, as you know
Your flowers are withering
Your mother’s gone insane
Your leaves have drifted away
But the clouds are clearing up
And I’ve come reveling
Burning incandescently
Like a bastard on the burning sea

“If I Had A Boat”
James Vincent McMorrow

Another hopeless romantic, like #40′s Villagers, and I should be out mingling with the family and gambling and eating my late brunch as it is Chinese New Year day #2, and music as lovely as it is, sometimes doesn’t equate to humanly interactions and family times, so fuck you, readers and this blog!

(Sorry for the above language and usage of vulgarities, but this is still a romantic number.)

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(to be continued… with the last stretch)

So now I will just do as I do, if I stumble upon any of interest, I will just share and mention about them, about here.

Two dark theme ones begin, with the winner going to JMSN (definitely not the best name to come up with for a band, imagine/visualize the amount of Google search finds that this will be linked to MSN). * Austra, coming to Singapore in February for the 2011 Laneway Festival, plays about with witchcraft, while “Something” plays along with something similar with the video for the following band named Caged Animals… (the screenshot is a dead giveaway) (NSFW x 2)

Free boobies!

The ladies, with a couple particular Asian ones, all seem so happy and merry and bouncy (pun totally intended) to be swimming and running in the wild with not any piece of clothing on. One of them seems to have quite a big pair of titties. Men, please zip up the pants. I am not a pornographic writer, this is not a jizz site.

Geez.