Buechner - yellow leaves

“Remember too that life is very good,
And that to live is better than to die,”
And all in all I’d say so still, though sixty-
Six is not so sure as sweet sixteen
What life and death are all about.
Suppose
We lose less, dying, than we find.
Who knows?
Life’s good, for sure, but would we choose to live
Forever if we could? Or might that seem
Like twilight never deepening into dark,
Like never calling it a day, and letting
Go, and lying down to sleep.
“Life should
Be wondered at,” I said, “not understood,”
As if I thought there was a choice, then said,
“Remember love,” as if we might forget.

The National - Fireproof

You keep a lot of secrets.
And I keep none.
Wish I could go back.
And keep some.

You're Fireproof
Nothing breaks your heart
You're Fireproof
It's just the way you are

Yum.

Tears

You never know what may cause tears. 

The sight of the Atlantic ocean can do it sometimes: or a piece of music; or a face you’ve never even seen before; a pair of somebody’s old shoes can do it; almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the second world war; a horse cantering across a meadow; the high school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game.

You can never be sure, but of this you can be sure: whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention.

They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not, God* is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you’ve come from, and is summoning to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should perhaps go to next.

 - Frederick Buechner

*For the record, I don't believe in God in the sense of a man (or woman) in the sky.  I think that throughout history, humans have used religion to explain the seemingly unexplainable.  River gods make the water run. Sun Gods make the crops grow. And finally, a God that gives us hope of life after death to take away our fear that this life of ours has no meaning beyond the years that we live it. But I am open to God as a symbol of the concept of the mystery we yearn to understand.

Ane Brun - Lamento della Ninfa

Ane Brun creates a new genre : Baroque and roll.

Bitch - don't kill my vibe

Jamison Inc just entered the club, tooth pick in mouth, cocktail in hand, fur coat and sunglasses on. If you need me, I'll be up the back near the dance floor, slouched in my booth, nodding along.

Bombay Bicycle Club - Leaving Blues

The harmonies on 'Leavinnnnnnnnnn' - just yum.

The National - I Need My Girl

The National performed another of the songs off their new album on Jimmy Fallon.

i'm under the gun again i know 
i was a 45 percenter then 
i know i was a lot of things 
but i am good and i am grounded 
davy says that i look taller
i can't get my head around it 
i keep feeling smaller and smaller
 

The National: I Need My Girl from respectator on Vimeo.

Living up to who we were

You may remember Mr Little Jeans from her beautiful cover of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs.

Here is the Norwegian singer's new single, off her forthcoming album, called Oh Sailor.

It's a perfectly standard pop song, but there's something mesmorising about that child choir.  The collective voices give this chorus a sincerity.

When you feel like you're out there on your own.
Know there is someone watching over you.

Perhaps we each of us can sometimes sense our childhood watching over us.

Putting love first, and fear second

This is what happens when a society chooses to put love first, and fear second. Absolutely awesome. A real reminder of what we have the potential to be when we choose not to let our decisions be ruled by fear, hate and insecurity. Thanks New Zealand.



And here's one of the speeches that got them there.

James Yorkston - Woozy with Cider

Um..... This is juuuuuuust yum.

You know the drill. Glass of red. Headphones. Comfy chair. Lights off.

max cooper - soundscaping madness

According to Wikipedia, Max Cooper is a London-based electronica and techno producer, but from a quick listen to his music on soundcloud he is so much more than that. It seems to me he's as much a soundscaper as he is a doof doof man.

In any event, have a listen to his hour long mix entitled Synesthetes Museum. Cooper was asked by Magnetic Magazine to make a mix to reflect an architectural space. Cooper chose the British Museum. In Cooper's own words:

When I was doing my Post-Doc at UCL I used to go to the British Museum to relax, and work in the beautiful library there, so I chose the space for the mix. I wanted to capture the ambient atmosphere in the central courtyard, so I did some binaural recording to include in the mix. I also wanted to make the mix something of an exploration through history and ideas in line with the contents of the museum, so I brought in lots of disparate music spanning the centuries and continents. I also mixed it in a way to be like a journey though the museum, turning corners and regularly coming across something totally different and unexpected, with each track being like a different exhibit. Hence the name of the mix, in that, each piece of music almost has a visual content.
 

I encourage you to check out more about the project here. It's fascinating.

What's that? He's playing in Canberra soon? Oh, ok, don't go on about it James.

Interview with Phoenix

Check out this little video of Phoenix talking about their new album 'Bankrupt!'

Love the little story about how in choosing the album title, they fell in love with the sound of the word 'Bankrupt' and how the exclamation mark made all the difference. Also love the description of the album art (which is a Warhol-esque illustration of a peach) as being 'under art' and having 'a beauty, but with no artistic purpose'.

So esoteric.

Maribou State & Pedestrian - Mask

Cool video. The old guy eating his steak... great.

The National - Demons

New song by The National. Thoughts?

When I think of you in the city,
The sight of you among the sites.
I get this sudden sinking feeling,Of a man about to fly.Never kept me up before,Now I’ve been awake for days.I can’t fight it anymore,I’m going through an awkward phase.I am secretly in love with,Everyone that I grew up with.Do my crying underwater,I can’t get down any farther.All my drowning friends can see,Now there is no running from it.It’s become the crux of me,I wish that I could rise above it.

But I stay down,With my demons.But I stay down,With my demons

Passing buzzards in the sky,Alligators in the sewers.I don’t even wonder why,Hide among the under views.Huddle with them all night long,The worried talk to god goes on.I sincerely tried to love it,Wish that I could rise above it.

But I stay down,With my demons.I stay down,With my demonsI stay down,With my demons.I stay down,With my demonsI stay down,With my demons

Can I stay here? I can sleepon the floorpaint the blood and hang the palms,On the door.Do not think I’m going places anymore,Wanna see the sun come up above New York.Oh, everyday I start so great,Then the sunlight dips.Less I’ve learned,The more I see the pythons and the limbs.Do not know what’s wrong with me,Sours in the cup.When I walk into a room,I do not light it up.Fuck.

So I stay down,With my demonsI stay down,With my demonsI stay down,With my demonsI stay down,With my demons

Ben Quilty - After Afghanistan

Last Thursday I managed to get in to see Ben Quilty's exhibition After Afghanistan. Housed in Sydney's old Darlinghurst gaol, (operational from 1841 - 1921 and at one stage home to Australian poet Henry Lawson), the exhibition is a result of Quilty's experience as the official war artist, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial and attached to the Australian Defence Force. In October 2011, Quilty spent a month with Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. His task was to record and interpret the experiences of Australians deployed as part of Operation Slipper in Kabul, Kandahar, and Tarin Kot in Afghanistan and at Al Minhad Airbase in the United Arab Emirates.
 
For his official war artist commission, Quilty has created large-scale portraits that focus on the intense physicality of these soldiers and on the emotional and psychological consequences of their service. Part of the exhibition includes a looping video of the episode of Australian Story that covered Quilty's trip to Afghanistan. The episode includes interviews with many of the subjects of Quilty's portraits. Seeing these men and women speak about their experiences in Afghanistan and about the process of visiting Quilty's art studio to pose for paintings increases the sense of both connection and familiarity that one feels with the portraits when you go through the exhibition.

As the name of the exhibition suggests, Quilty's portraits focus on the human consequences of Australia's military engagement in Afghanistan. In doing so, he does not shy away from suggesting that the major consequence is one of confusion, doubt, loss and brokenness. There is no glorification of the modern soldier, or even any concessionary nod to the necessity of war. The major theme I found myself looking at was one of 'damage'. And upon reflection, the fact that the Australian Government or Defence Force has not sought to bury these images is refreshing - and should be applauded. (In the exhibition, Quilty himself reveals his concern that, in showing these soldiers as he sees them, he might be putting the 'official war artist' position at risk). Far from being buried however, Quilty's paintings are on public display, and are free of charge. What's more, they will travel around the country as part of a national tour. One wonders whether such honest depictions of men returning from Lone Pine would have been so readily (and officially) championed.

- [If the suspense generated by that last rhetorical statement is just too much for you to handle, a quick scan of the work of the official war artists for the First World War on the Australian War Memorial's website reveals that the answer is most probably 'no'.  In contrast to Quilty's work, there is a distinct focus on 'duty' and 'sacrifice' rather than 'damage' and 'futility'.] -

One time too many

Put this on and walk somewhere. It will improve your day.

Favourite line: then it's hard to tell who's kind, they do look alike.

Footrot Flats

Not sure if anyone is familiar with Footrot Flats.... I used to love it and read the books as a kid.  My Aunty had a selection the books at her place, and I remember I could spend hours thumbing through their pages whenever I visited.  Somehow I ended up with those books, and I came across them whilst cleaning up the storage room the other day.  These two in particular stuck vividly in my memory.  I can remember exactly where and how I was when I first read these.

Ah... nostalgia.

Kurt Vile - Wakin on a Pretty Daze

This is the definition of late night lights down earphones listening.

Perfect for that late night drive home through the rain where you look through the droplets on your car windscreen at the people wandering about your city and wonder whether they are as lonely as you are. That's about the time you decide that you are going to paint more.

Some pretty sweet wah-wah-infused noodling in that guitar solo.
 

Impossible things

“I can’t believe THAT!” said Alice.

"Can’t you?” said the Queen in a pitying tone. 

“Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”

"I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”

Augie March - There's No Such Place

I recently decided to set up an itunes alarm on my computer and set it to random so that every morning I wake to a different song. It's always something of a lottery. Some mornings, it's The National. Others, it's John Denver. Once, it was 'Learn to speak spanish: lesson 1'.

This morning I woke up to this gentle melancholy number. 'There's no Such Place' by Australian band Augie March. What a nostalgic little gem.

I lay in bed, watching the last droplets of early morning rain slip and slide their way down my bedroom window, a final dance to their resting place. Through the window, clouds of fog hugged the Canberra mountains.  And below them, the absence of traffic marked the sound of a city still asleep.

There is no such place, o yes I have seen it too
Just a little different from how you do,
A river winding blue among the dunes and a marble bed
A sun that doesn't set but settles.
There is no such place.
If I lower mine to yours would you kiss me on the face?
If you're looking for an unmarked place,
There is no such place -
Blasted in appearance and a composite of fearful minutes
Frozen in the waking instant

Longing, things I long for,
Peaceful nights, strangers at the door,
O come in, come in,
You've been here before.

Impossible not to wake up feeling a little pensive.