THE TOP 10 ALBUMS 2009

It's the end of the year, and it's time to sum up all that has been done and hasn't been done. It's time to recall how many dates we screwed up, how many times we promised ourselves never to light a cigarette before 10 in the morning ( say I, as i fumble around for my lighter), the number of times we giggled with our friends on their couch, tears shed at 3 am in front of your best friends door because you are spending another night alone in your bed, The boss who is as magnificiently mad as you, the concerts you spent guzzling down beer, the nights where you were up till 4 am reading a book, you wouldn't ever dare read in public ( twilight men are from mars women are from venus anyone???) the heartbreaks, the breakup sex, the wake up sex, the feel good sex, the mad sex, the couch sex, the rebound sex and last but not least all the people you have plainly simply hugged just because you love them and they made your 2009 worth living.
Well My 2009 is contained in these 10 albums.
Indeed it is a fairly unoriginal top ten ( as the Inrocks and Chronic'art will prove), and most men will go tssssss what a fu*king girl, how typical. But quite honestly, if an album hasn't made me cry, laugh,punch or snog someone, then it just ain't worth being here.

1. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE- Merriweather Post Pavillon


Released in January 2009, it announced the beginning of a year, of renewal, forgiveness, maturity and mutual effort. Girls is the sort of song that reminds me why I was born a girl and why we were made to be sang to, and why i'ts just marvellous to have a pair of boobs and interpret music in a way that no man ever could.


2. DIRTY PROJECTORS- Bitte Orca


Everytime I listen to this album riding the underground it takes me to the top of Norwegian mountains, and has the knack of making me feel insanely sexy in a " au natural"way attired in a grubby swedish woolly jumper. And no matter how many times I will hear " Anne-Sophie you look so unsexy in that fat moth eaten jumper", if I am listening to Dirty Projectors than you can plainly bugger off, because I'll be strutting the strut all the way down the street.. OK!


3- ATLAS SOUND- Logos


A collegue from work was listening to this in october, and as I came down the stairs I litterally threatened to burn his mogwai cd collection ( he is a hardcore fan) if he didn't tell me who was singing ( oh you know just the guy from DEERHUNTER).
I really would have liked to put this first just for Walkabout, unfortunatly I do not like all the songs equally so I forced myself to place it third. Walkabout is a real work of art. The concert was stunning as Bradford Cox was haloed by lights that just made every thing seem as if magic had decided to make a sudden come back into this dismal and bleak period of uncertainty.
Tears really did roll down my face as half of the concert gazed in amazement at a show that to me was the biggest concert of 2009. An album to listen to whilst dancing around with the one you love in underwear around the flat, or under the covers where you play tie the knot with his feet.


4- PHOENIX- Wolfgang Amadeus


Simply because Phoenix reminds me of some very good times, and because they sing under eiffel towers ( cf. Blogothèque sessions) without looking corny.


5- DEAD MANS BONES- Dead Man's Bones


Ghouls, ghosts and a kids choir. If you have a minimum of a heart or childhood spirit, if a pack of kids dressed up in their mums old sheets, belting out " My Bodies a Zombie for you" and an inclination for men with breaches is the kind of "assemblage" that makes you go awwwwwww, ,then you know why this album deserves to be in 5 place.
Amazingly composed this album is an ode to the type of love that can cripple a soul " I won't go whistling by your grave". Beautiful, difficult, and heart wrenching coateded with pink iceing. A sweet nightmare delivered by a pack of starry eyed kids, proud to be singing next to Ryan Gossling. Keep your eyes open because this will probabally go internet viral before long.

6- JONSI AND ALEX- Rice Boy Sleeps


Released in July 2009, This album, composed by Jonsi ( Sigur Ros) and his boyfriend Alex, makes every hair stand on end. It's probabally the saddest album I have listened to in a few years, and do not expect it to mend a broken heart. Filled with echoeing choirs, reminding us of the wonders of scandanvian shyness and magnificence that western europeans like us will never begin to understand, it delivers tracks that remind us of the cinammen hot chocolate our mother used to make when we scraped our knees, and messing around with grubby fingers in the compost heap in the back garden.
Many people will not understand my choice in placing this album 6th but its beauty to me is completly and utterly undeniable, and on a snowy day like this, there is nothing, nicer than walking through parks with this playing in my ears.


7- WILD BEASTS- Two Dancers


Their concert was fantastic ( although if I recall there was a pesky man blocking my view who smelt like a wet dog and was playing it arty with a lomo), they are witty, sassy, modest and have made an album stuffed with addictive hits. "All the Kings Men" is one of the catchiest songs that 2009 has had to deliver. It reminds me of a song that you could find on the now hits 1998 compilation. Your parents would buy it for you, but in the end there was only one song out of the 40 others that you would play repeatedly on your cd player.
Well this song is exactly the same.


8- GRIZZLY BEAR- Veckatimist



Because you gotta love the geek album, with their shiny skin, and songs about falling hopelessly in love in between two games of world of warcraft and Nintendo Wii. And preppy is very this season, I could have one of those hanging off my arm.


9- THE DODOS- Time To Die


Because we all like a bit of néo- folk even if indie hardcorers will scoff in their checkered lumber jack shirts (*scoff scoff scoff Fleet Foxes, it could be on a swiffer advert now scoff scoff scoff*).


10- FUCK BUTTONS- Tarot Spirit


Just because the guy plays a massive drum and looks hot doing it, because the Bristolian duo do drone and electro like no other. Because playing parrot sounds over a voice ressembling Children Of Bodom is amazing. And because mixing violence with a relaxation tape from the nature store Maison du Monde, well no one else can do it quite like them.


PS; VERY IMPORTANT, I swear with my little pinkie that I haven't seen the Pitch fork rating ....... yet

Anywhere but work

If only I could leave the city, with someone to push me on a swing hanging off an old oak tree....

My friend will kill me for blogging this... but WTF,it's christmas with Martin Parr

After a rather sweet and typical conversation with friends on how we were going to try and take over the world, we all came to the common and random conclusion that we were rather happy to be entering winter. we have decided that we shall head to Sweden draped in rough woolly jumpers, that we shall get drunk on wine and throw up over the ferry board,and oogle over swedish boys, and if that fails that they will come to mine and drink cinnamon sprinkled hot chocolate, watch movies under the covers,fumble through my wardrobe, spill orange juice on my carpet, roast marshmellows on ikea candles, steal my Antler's and Atlas Sound album and simply remind me how great it is to enjoy the simpler things in life with the people you love.

Bank holiday selection:

Beach House- Used to be


Final Fantasy- Lewis takes off his shirt


The Mary Onnettes-Explosions


Cold Cave- Life magazine


Fourtet- Hands

Atlas Sound- Kisses under the covers, and padded toe socks

Sundays Pick n mix ladies and gents.

Atlas sound- walkabout.... under the covers
http://www.zshare.net/download/680722064a9633a1/

Bibio- Lovers Carvings... on the bus
http://www.zshare.net/audio/68072360a6fd2cfa/

Crocodiles- Young drugs..... walking in the street
http://www.zshare.net/download/680725108e14bf01/

The day the Artic Monkeys fucked me up

My sister came up to Paris this weekend especially for the Artic Monkeys concert. When I told her that I was attending the Inrocks festival, she looked at me as if I had told her that the Editors sucked. She is 17. As I sat under the covers recovering from the flu, I watched her get ready for the concert with her overly peroxyded friend, and I suddenly felt that all the youth had been kicked out of me. There she was slapping on the glitter, for the "effective rock look" bombarding her hair with Ellnett hairspray and yelling at her friend to get a move on because the opening of the gates was at 6pm ( it was about 3 in the afternoon). I could literally feel that she was ready to have a hormonal explosion. And there I was, going on about how much Alex turner is a soddy old bastard, and sipping a beer under the quilt. Whilst she went and sung her lungs out in the Zenith cherry faced and smelling of vanilla, I hung around the bar of the cigale, with red lipstick, looking like an aging hooker waiting to get picked up. Yeah yeah Black Lips and Ebony was a lot of fun, and tottering ( and slurring) over to Moune night club was perfect enough. But come 4 in the morning, the alcoholic banter that got me into trouble with numerous persons, my champagne self loathing, and my "vodka" laced music snobism got the better of me. I got into a taxi, smelling like a distillary and conked out at 5 after sending various random and insultive mails and text messages, to people who I felt deserved the wrath of my alcohol tainted bitchiness, and woke up feeling and looking like crap.
My sister on the other hand, quite literally had stars oozing out of her eyes the next day, it's then I realised that past 24, getting drunk at concerts, is quite literally social suicide and a source of self hate as you realise that in the space of 4 years you have turned into a rather sad has been bar crawler.

Dead man's Bones- Or how to fall in love at Halloween

Dead Man's Bones is THE surprise of this autumn fall. After a great article by J.D Beauvallet in the french Inrocks... Dead man's bones released on the 12th of October, is a nightmare, bathed in aphrodisiac bliss. Composed and sung by Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields, one would have been inclined to have labelled it as a cheap conversion of two Hollywood actors into the vast ( and overrated) sphere of "indie singers"...WRONG
Highly talented, these two, united by their macabre fascination for spooks, eerie fairytales, and Haloween Sci-Fi, deliver songs that are as beautiful and disturbing as they are sincere.
Having been played intensively during lonely office hours, the song Dead Hearts which takes me back to the steamed up window ledge of my childhood, of brisk october trick or treating, haunts me to the core of every emotion that I am capable of feeling...... Halloween will never be as seductive as this one.

Third floor psychoanalysis

Sitting at work the other day.... and contemplating whether putting up a "single status" on facebook would be social suicide or a ticket to free and uncommited relationships with random perves or geek freaks, I turned to my collegue Edouard for advice. Sat there in my cocorosie t-shirt, straggly unwashed hair, and moulding behind my computer screen with an over due sales report, I smiled at him and his overgrown hair ( yes Edouard has the biggest side parting you will ever likely encounter) and asked him, in plain simple French " qu'est ce qui rends une fille mega sexy à Paris?" ( what makes a girl sexy in Paris) The Minute I asked the question, I felt like curling up and dying. God have I been out of the game so long that I still think that wearing Calvin Klein lady boxers is going to send a male rocketing through the roof? Why the fuck did i have to ask such an auto crippling question? But Ed being Ed casually swung round on his office chair, pen in hand, his pervy little " I scout out hot girls" radar eyebrows twitching, and said: " I like a girl who can sing, when I see a girl who can sing I get a mushy heart and if she has big black eyebags, then I like her even more because that means that she doesn't sleep. And if she doesn't sleep it's because she feels that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that she wants to accomplish in her life".
God what a breath of fresh air to hear someone enjoy the wonders of unconventional beauty. Thank god that masturbating over Megan Fox has not become a national hobby/sport, and that a girl with chipped nail varnish, a small voice that chimes out even in the grimmest of bar gigs, and a dirty pair of ripped shorts, can still appeal to the male gender.

Playlist:

Dirty Projectors- Two Doves
http://www.zshare.net/download/66177588883db0fa/

The Wave Pictures- Bumble Bee
http://www.zshare.net/download/66177759bbb2db93/

Wild Beasts- All The Kings Men
http://www.zshare.net/download/6617808702238cbf/

Benge- Moog Poolymoog
http://www.zshare.net/audio/6617872549caa452/

Patrick Wolf- Who will ( Buffetlibre remix)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/661792806ca9ba9a/

Fuck Buttons- Bright Tomorrow
http://www.zshare.net/download/6617947285eccb5c/

The Seagulls top videos of the month

After a good three hours a day on You Tube spent watching videos, a couple of facebook wall posts, a bit of flirting ( I'll send my url's if you send me yours) later, I came up with these. They are not necessarily the official videos, and if it's not some overzealous fan who decided to put bibio as the soundtrack for his video from his club med holiday, they can be quite stunning at times.

Riceboy Sleeps - Daníell In the Sea


Sun Araw - Horse Steppin'



Bibio - Top Soil


Neon Indian- deadbeat Summer


The ruby suns- Oh Mojave


Discovery- Swingtree


The Cool Kids -Pennies

I couldn't keep smoking so I listened

After Two weeks of smoking a pack a day, after exams, after the fucking awful weather, with no prospects of a holiday due to an internship, I decided that I needed to select the two most amazing songs of the moment and listen to them repeatedly for over 2 weeks, thing which I did and which has worked on my morale.
Note that Riceboy 1901 is in fact from the album Riceboy Sleeps an artistic collaboration between Jón Þór Birgisson ( Sigur Rós) and his boyfriend Alex Somers. It's quite frankly one of the most visual songs I have ever listened to, and it definatly answered all of my latest questions without there ever being one word whispered.

ps: Like my Friend Jean-Christophe noted, I like the word "jolie" and all that it takes into consideration


Tiebreak-Howdy

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jwjgqjdgzyl/Howdy.mp3

Jon and Alex- Riceboy 1901

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ggdkn5njg2d/riceboysleeps_boy1904.mp3





photo : http://peacelovebellavita.blogspot.com/

LORIS IS BACK!!!!

Loris ,the internet love of my life, outshines twitter, facebook and and all of the rest, Loris deserves a show, Loris deserves a peaceful and happy life, Loris deserves to be tickeled to his death bed,Loris deserves all the worms in te world: Loris you are quite frankly my one and only.

Beirut- Concubine directed by Alma Har'el

Air France - Windmill wedding

I really do like Airfrance, and I like the dresses in this video, the hair cuts, the scenary,but it stops there. I don't know if it was done intently but it really does look like a lesbian picnic orgy from the 70's. I kind of half expect a fat latino on a horse to turn up and whip out his jewels for his harem of "angels" of the woodlands to give him the polishing of lifetime. You almost half hope it will happen, which unfortunatly for you it doesn't, which leads me to believe that AirFrance really were taking themselves seriously when they did this.

The shoulds and shouldnt's

I should really be going out to get the shopping done ,seeing as I have only an avocado left moulding quietly in my fridge. I should also be contemplating my future career, and revising for exams in which I have no convictions. I should be sorting out my nails that have this gunky chipped nail varnish on them, I should be thinking about making plans for the summer, so as not to cry everyday in an empty city during August. I should be thinking about that essay on TV politics that I should be writing, instead of which I have just spent three hours looking at Pearl Jam live sessions. I should really be saving money, but I know that I'll be at 9 AM bang on time to buy those ridiculously expensive shoes in the Sales tomorrow morning. I know that I shouldn't swear and say things like "Putain" ( fuck in French), batard ( bastard), or sale conne ( stupid bitch), and focus on reading the five novels that are gathering dust by my bed. In fact there are a fucking hell of a lot of things I should and shouldn't be doing ( like writing on my blog), but I really felt it necessary to post a bit of music, just so I actually feel like I am not entering a long term coma on my bed.

So here is my Tuesday afternoon special:

Warm heart of africa- feat Ezra Koenig:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/617580731a659c23/

Last one awake- Memory casette:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/6175828519c48d44/

I'am a Pilot- Fanfarlo
http://www.zshare.net/audio/617584229d84b518/

GPG belongs to us- AirFrance
http://www.zshare.net/audio/6175853865b93e02/

Caterpillar playground- Nurses
http://www.zshare.net/audio/61758622d77dd50f/

Pogolicious

Pogo strikes back. i like this one a little less, the remix is less obvious and a bit simplisitic, but it is from the movie "The Secret Garden", which is the coolest kids book on earth( except Where the wild Things are and a little princess). I can even see an old copy collecting dust on my shelf.
I suspect Pogo of manipulating girls with nostalgia.

Fanfarlo- Year of the woman slug

I have one of these midweek headaches, where all I can hope for is a bit of piece and quiet.
It might have been last nights drinks, or accumulated stressed from having lately been over exposed to certain persons idiotic theories and concepts of life, that just make you want to flush your head down a toilet and only emerge from your bed in 2020.
It's one of those days where the only thing you can do apart from grow roots in your feet, is call a friend ( on speaker phone, holding the phone is to exhausting innit?) who has the magic power to half listen to your problems whilst filling out her tax papers.
Oh yeah I forgot posting music, that I can also do.

Fanfarlo- 5 brits, funfair music for virgins, a good dress sense,multiple instruments, and catchy melodies, what more could you ask for?

http://www.zshare.net/audio/6123672496cd4e1c/
http://www.zshare.net/audio/612372180ee6a476/

Pogo's remixes

Yeah I am just a little obsessed now, Stop working right now, just listen, it's dopamine on you tube

Pogo-Expialidocious

I don't know what else to Say, other that the guy Pogo is a complete legend. I think that most kids in their youth owned a disney tape or a sing a long songs video, and as we have grown up, we have stashed them under the bed, mainly because we feel a little gimpish for not wanting to throw them out and because secretly, it's the last thing you want to part with.
I think that this is one of the best remixes I have heard all year, and Pogo just happens to choose one of the best loved Disney films of all time.
It's a real spoonful of sugar to help the medecine go down.

Grizzly Bear and its Two weeks pretty boys

Yeah, when I dished out the mash up of Hood Internet on one of my previous posts, I had this image of grizzly bear being your typical beard faced indie group, the song Alligator found on their amazing album Horn of Plenty, is a testimony to the cute names that you give to the one you love.
And then there is this, a video of 4 rather fucked up young men with severe skin problems, saucer cup eyes, and well... they just look fucked don't they?
In fact they are almost like Ventriloquist dolls which actually sounds like veckatimest ,name of their album ( sorry just thought i would try and look smart)
In anycase upon meeting Vampire Weekend last year at a festival, I had taken quite a shine to the catholic upper class yuppie who liked to keep his Ralph Lauren socks on whilst fucking. Ezra Koenig had me converted to his ideals in under 20 seconds, and i would have gone straight out to buy Lacoste knickers.
Unfortunatly this year the young pedophile bow tie look, really isn't doing it for me Even if their video is to be taken far from seriously, they play the sleezebag mummy's boys of the Hamptons so well, it's just disturbing.. or depressing
sighhhhh

A call to the girls who are happy in their own back yard

I have been warned never to let my private life appear on this blog, never to let an emotion slip, to behave like a complete ice maiden who outside of the blogosphere doesn't actually have a real existence, where nothing ever comes to disrupt the rythm, where nothing can strive to make me unhappy or make me simply want to celebrate life.

When I hit 24 I thought , "I am getting a bit old for the innocent look, too wise for naïve happiness, too cynical for pretty pictures, too burnt by emotions of jealousy, possession and betrayal to even go back to something softer". But as time goes on, I realise that it is a gift, given to few, to be able to appreciate the pretty and simple things in life.
No matter how hard people try to batter your moral it is essentiel to keep a certain childhood innocence whilst learning to grow up at the same time.
It's nothing to be able to call your self a wise man, an intellectual, a man of words, a wealthy business man, if you can't feel the most primordial and primitive feelings of happiness. The people who die fulfilled are those who never try to chase happiness and perfection beyond the hills but who find it in the people who are close to them when they wake up and who lift you up no matter how weak they may be themselves, or how empty their pockets are.
I just wanted to celebrate the fact that I am a girl, that I enjoy behaving like one, that I can still find reasons to smile at the most mushiest of things, that I can be smart and lucid yet sensitive, that I will always take great pleasure in sharing the little things in life that make it a smoother wave to ride on.

Music for the Hammock

It's a bank holiday, most of you are either recovering from the Primavera festival, or like me from the We love Sonique 2009. Either way this eventful weekend calls for a bit of calm, a bit of sand between the toes, a calm drive home on a sunny empty motorway, cherries, rolled up jeans, a hand stroking your neck, your hand out of the window and that last cigarette in your malboro packet.
Here are my top Five music videos to say goodbye to May and hello to June.
A little thanks to D and H for the inspiration.

1. The Golden Filter- Solid Gold



2. Yo La Tengo- Today is the Day



3. Apaloosa- The Day we fell in Love



4. Air France- Collapsing at your doorstep



5.The Album Leaf- On your Way

Sparklehorse- It's a Wonderful Life

I will grant you that, I am cramming you with overly mushy stuff this weekend especially with Sparklehorse, but to be fair I am a girl and I have ovaries. Therefore,as much as I take great pleasure in sitting around with guys debating on the quality of youporn, porndump, pornhub, college humour and any seedy joke that can be found lying around on someones Twitter, when it's a warm weekend, when you have seen beauty in the most unexpected places and you are swelling with love and tenderness, because people never fail to surprise you,....well you are not going to send out a norwegian death metal video are you now?

Marshmellow May

It's Sunday, it's the end of the month and the wallet is getting thinner and thinner. But it's a hot day, you have that little white dress on, and it feels great to stare like a wide eyed child into the bakery whilst scrimping up those pennies to buy that home made coconut flavoured marshmellow.
It's a call to all those simple pleasures in life..

Wild Roses for the early bird

A flower was offered to me; Such a flower as May never bore. But I said I've a Pretty Rose-tree. And I passed the sweet flower o'er.
( William Blake)

The Pussy Pony Whisperer

I have been overly lazy, a complete and utter vegetable these last few days, and I have pictures to prove it as you will see later on.

However when I saw this video, I thought to myself, here are some guys who know what do do with their Sunday.... a My Little Pony movie. Not only do they spray paint the poor ponies, to the point of campness, around about the same time as the discovery of the biggest ever case of cruelty towards animals in Britain, but they also kill off every little girls dream of ever riding on the wings of a gentle and pink sparkly four legged shetland.
Just like the alcoholic uncle who told you that Father Christmas didn't exist when you were 5, the guys of this movie turn these cute bath time playtoys, and politically correct cartoons into neon green raging, runting aliens of mass destruction, that threaten to exterminate the bead brained mankind.
It's a Dvd classic.

Sunday Cover Compilations

It's the Sunday covers compilation.
To listen to this there are certain do's and dont's

Don'ts:

-Don't move, the sink full of washing up can be done tomorrow
- Don't pick up your ringing phone, it's the parents making sure that you haven't kept your teenage habits of staying in bed all day
- Don't watch politics on tv on Sunday, it kills all sexual urges
- Don't wash the f**king car
- Don't spend your day on Twitter, with your eyes screwed to the screen especially if your girlfriend spent her weeks salary on not so very christian Sunday underwear
-Girls, don't make it "sunday pimple bursting day", he decided to get off twitter, seize the occasion to have an "afternoon nap"
- Don't send "lol" ,porn hub, porn tube, College humour links to your friends, because they won't answer anyway, they are busy having sex whilst your girlfriend is already out of the door in a huff
- Don't try to remember last night, (which mainly/probabally consists of vomiting in a random guy's/girls lap and flirting with the singer of the band who had his girlfriend next to him) it's just plain down right depressing and will lead to an excess consumption of Macdonalds in a lame greasy attempt to ease the pain of the humiliation.



DO's
- Do all the mushy stuff, like compare your girlfriend/ boyfriend to cute animals, no one has to know and it helps get over the hang over.
- Do stay in Bed with your malboro lights, your magazines, your coral coloured nail varnish or your i phone ( so you can secretly twit when she goes for a pee).
- Do go out and grab a sushi in your H&M hoodie, and run back home under the rain to get back under the quilts.
- Have Sunday sex, go back to sleep, wake up and scan the fridge for whatever you can fry up.

Enjoy!

Junior Boys- Dull To Pause
Dr Dog- Heart It Races (Architecture in Helsinki)
Arcade Fire- Wake up ( where the wild things are version)
Asobi Seksu- Thursday
Gang Gang Dance- House of Jam
Grand Archives- Sleep Driving
Grizzly Bear- Alligator
High Places- From Stardust to Sentience
Papercuts- Unavailable
Passion Pit- Smile Upon Me
Peter Bjorn and John- Paris 2004

It's bigger than hip hop bears!

I listen to Dead Prez when I have pent up anger or feel slutty , Grizzly Bear when I am relaxed or on long train journeys, now that the two have been mixed together by The Hood Internet redubbing it "Two Weeks of Hip Hop", I don't really know if I can find the right occasion to listen to it, I don't really want to be slutty on long train journeys.

Still it's a keeper:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/59361264797c5c79/

Florence and the Machine- the dog days are over

Florence And The Machine - Dog Days



It's like the school fair that went wrong, instead of playing tombola and pin the tail on the donkey, it's "lets take mdma and dress up as pervy clowns".

When the video starts you imagine the typical romantic Aurevoir Simone video, girl in white dress finds herself in forest with leafy crown in her hair, waking up from a dream about Unicorns, thats until Florence ( the singer in case you hadn't guessed) stacks herself on a root and then it all goes down hill from there. No longer are you in an Enid Blyton novel, but in pure playschool hell, where pilled up clowns and kiddy transvestites, rip your hair and shove glitter in your face. I am surprised and disapointed that the video doesn't contain arsenic laced cupcakes. Oh well it's just what I like, a girl who finally takes cuteness a little less seriously.

Ra Ra Riot- Can you tell

I love this video, other than the fact that the song is fantabulous, and that the album appeared in the top 50 of Hypem's 2008 Zeitgeist, Ra Ra Riot are the type of people you just want to be friends with at all costs ( yeah you can shove my head down the toilet)
I should really be posting videos that bring the reader into summer time, with airy tunes and white dresses with clubmaster raybans, but this video is like watching a christmas special of Friends in the middle of summer, it makes you miss the nice things that winter has to offer, but you arn't going to admit it are you.

I also like the idea of the guy (or the singer Wes Miles) standing outside of your front doorstep with flowers peeking sheepishly through the window, and the cellist Alexandra Lawn swinging on the swing attached to the garden tree. Generally the only thing that I see swinging are the 40 year old neighbours in the flat opposite to mine, and the only thing that waits for me outside of the door, is a rundown staircase that smells of festering curry. This band from NY, advertises life without responsibility, and masters in images the feeling you get when you fancy someone so much that he or she has you literally dancing on hot coal in limbo land.

Hair buns for the soppy ones.

Pin it up, I say!!

Quite frankly, I have never been a fan of loose hair. To begin with, my hair is rather unmanagable, I have few of it, it's thin and is coloured blond which all together gives a rather rubbishy and unhealthy appearance to the hair, making it almost impossible for me to let it lustfully loose.
However THANK THE LORD the bun is back.
Yes yes I agree that the loose buns with glittery "greek looking" head bands, have been spotted on at least every single 19 year old who heads down to the social club on a friday night in the hope of impressing/pulling/marrying Birdy Nam Nam or some other Dj who walks around with his whisky coke in hand auto proclaming himself the new french touch, and it is true that the bun on the thinning head of a 60 year old bourgeoise, does not really inspire the " Venus goddess look", but if done correctly, can look rather stunning.

I finally decided therefore to head down to the expensive temple of hairdomness Accessorize, spent at least a weeks worth of my food money on bows , hairbands and other unnecessary hair pieces, got home and tried out the whispy, out of bed bun with a beaded hairband around the fringe, and I was rather chuffed with the result.

Of course I loathe myself for sinking down to the level of the trendy 18 year olds, and I feel a little bit like a 70 year old who thinks that by wearing velour jogging bottoms it'll make her look 20 years younger, but in all honestly the bun is easy to do. First of all it makes your neck look longer and therefore more graceful and the bejeweled hairband in the blond hair really does give off that flirty, innocent, pretty but negligé effect. Finally the bun because of its bourgeois connotation, gives off that juvenile look of the private school girl who just got fondled by the school prefect in the bushes behind the netball court. For once that i don't feel like shaving my hair off, and a haircut that knocks off 3 years, I say yes to the messy bun.

ps: (Sorry about the picture, Unfortunatly I am not garanteeing the Diane Kruger effect with this hair do, but she remains the best exemple of how to pull off the look without looking like a pigeon's nest after a storm)

High Places in Low times

Do we really want cute animated videos during an economic crises?

I've been cruelly mocked and shunned for picking tracks off the Skins series. I have been told that even googling the track using the keyword "skins" is considered as high treason and a sign of complete ignorance for " real and decent indie music". Well this video be it official or not found through intense "Skins googling" proves the contrary.

2009 is not exactly a time for celebration and excess. In a time of hardcore credit crunch, dare smile in the street and you're suspected of being either a smug banker or trader with massive bonuses, and should consider yourself lucky not to be taken hostage by desperate and unemployed factory workers (phenomenon currently taking place in France).
However whilst ( secretly) skimming through the Skins music listings I came across this song "Jump in" by High Places which is played in Episode 6, and I truely believe that this video is just what the doctor ordered.

Yes it's a video about cute animals , yes it's all a bit playschoolish and we would all look so much cooler if we spent hours talking about the gripping reality of Dj Mehdi videos, but seriously in a time when everyone is worrying about how they are going to pay next months rent, don't you think it's about time we watched a video that looks like a film about Haribo on drugs and just sit back and enjoy the simplicity of animals swimming about in a river?
This does not make you a teletubby lover, nor a mishy mushy sponge, just someone with a bit of sensitivity who enjoys something thats a bit soft around the edges, in a time when the only other thing thats gone soft and mushy is your wallet and your future.

Other than just enjoying a colourful and playful video, High Places were considered by Stereogum in their review of the band in December 2008 as the band to be watching, defining it as " two brooklyn kids with dire at heart and carefree melodies, with a really luminescent melodic psych"
So to be fair yes this song was found on skins, yes the video is about a crocodile a bird and a squirrely thingy but isn't it nice to feel like you are playing with playdoh at playschool again with not a care in the world.

Bombay Bicycle Club- Always like this

Always Like This



Is it really true that you can like Bombay bicycle club's new video?
It seems that yes.

Indeed the singer Jack Steadman is overly Gawky, and in his latest video, Always like this has the tendancy to irritate any average human being, in his attempts to look dislocated, schizophrenic and just.. well weird. He also reminds us of that guy that everyone knows, who turns up to parties, sits on a couch, beer in hand, pills sorted out by colour on the coffee table, whose silence and obvious look of disaproval pointed at the peasants singing "I get knocked down" by chumbawamba, makes even the most ignorant and happy of beings feel uncomfortable.

But as much as Bombay Bicycle Club seems to embody your typical trendy, " I read Proust and pop Lexomil" Londoners, and even if you have that nagging feeling that you shouldn't be liking this video because it's been done 20 000 times before, and you're sick and tierd of seeing unimaginative directors, put young scrawny boys in council estate or middle class urban back drops, you can't help but watch their video to the end and feel a bit good about yourself afterwards.

Not only does the song take you down memory lane, remembering those nights when you were happily drunk with friends at 4 am searching in the city summer air for the nearest Kebab shop, or of the days when you knew that you were supposed to be revising for you exams but were fucking about in the park behind your block of flats, like a 16 year old pissed on cider, the familiarity of the video which could have been shot pretty much anywhere by anyone, is also what gives it that uniqueness.. reminding us along the way of how great it is to enjoy the simple things that the city has to give like an illuminated shop window, open corner shops, and bus shelters to sober up in.