An Ode to South African Music (Part Two)

It has been awhile since my first "An Ode to South African Music" post and I'm just going to assume that you all have been waiting in anticipation for the next one. If you weren't, just leave me ignorant and blissful.

Luckily for all of you, I was inspired, P.H.Fat is coming to town! - which is what I was planning to say when I was going to finish this post before Saturday night but alas here I am on Monday evening.

So I went to P.H.Fat and it was amazing. With all of the fighting it took for me to get to the front and all the sweat, I must have lost about two kilos. To sum my evening up; What's your favourite ice cream? Mother fucking lightning!

They're great, see for yourself.

 

P.H.Fat - Jump 

Das Kapital is a young musical force to be reckoned with that refuses to be tied down by any one genre. He seeks to take people on an introspective journey through intricate percussion, brooding melodies and dark bass. 

Das Kapital broke into the "mainstream" consciousness with this personal favourite of mine; 

 

Bon Iver - Skinny Love (Das Kapital Rerub)

The Stella's are a band that I came across by chance, when myself and a friend pretended to be people on the guest list to get into their E.P launch - mostly for shits and giggles (also free beer played a part). It seemed rude to not give them a listen after sneaking into their event and they happened to blow me away to the point where I actually bought their E.P Cut Throat.  

Dirty, four chord, rock 'n' roll reminiscent of the proto-punk days of The Stooges and MC5. 

It wouldn't let me put the video on here so I had to make this stupid link

The Stella's - Taking Chances

Part three will be posted at some point in the future (attempted to make this as vague as possible).

Love Always, 

Nicole

Romance Rant

Why is it that I can sit in the Journ department for hours on end with a brain full of lollipops, rainbows and cheese but as soon as I get home and get into the shower  at 2 a.m, all of a sudden ideas and inspiration just magically appear. So as I rinsed the conditioner from my hair, reliving conversations from earlier in the night, where my friend described her love life as being as dry as the Kalahari Desert (or something like that) and as I do (sometimes), I got to thinking and;

It kind of bugs me that the epitome of romance in this town is hooking up against a wall in a dingy dark club or double booking your meal in the dining hall. Personally, I can't think of anything less romantic than staring lovingly into each others eyes over some "Hong Kong Chicken" and you know why I've put that in quotation marks, I question that what they give us actually is chicken.

What happened to going for coffee or God forbid, lunch at a restaurant?

Now don't get me wrong, romance in this town is not extinct (I'm talking about the couples that have romantic picnics in bot gardens and all that sickeningly adorable stuff) but it is an endangered species. I also don't think that this lack of romance is specifically just in Grahamstown, romance seems to be dying no matter what the zip code.

I also think that technology has made things more complicated then they have to be. Twitter and Facebook - I'm looking at you. "Oh is that tweet about me? I bet it is. He totally likes me" It's just a tweet, calm the fuck down and don't read so much into things. How about we all just grow some balls (or lady balls) and say something to the person we want? - No, why would we do that, that's far too uncomplicated.

Thinking about my workload I doubt I would even have time for romance so I have no idea why I'm ranting about it, (but like I said 2 a.m) , as I am in a long term relationship with Journ 3 but at least I get fucked on a regular basis (by Journ, just incase you didn't get that joke and are now thinking that I am a trollop, not that I'm insinuating that if you have sex on a regular basis that you're a trollop, fuck it, you know what I'm trying to say).

As a self proclaimed realist, life isn't a movie and nobody is really expecting that Notebook kind of love, well at least I'm not, but it's not too much to ask for something real? Is it?

Love Always,
Nicole

P.S, It just wouldn't be right without some music, so here's one of my obsessions at the moment.

San Cisco - Awkward 

Infatuated

Infatuation; the state of being carried away by unreasoned passion or love: expresses the headlong libidinal attraction' of addictive love.

We've all been there. I'm here to give it a soundtrack.

 

The Kooks  - Sway 

 

Death Cab for Cutie - I will follow you into the dark

The Smiths - There is a light that never goes out

Woodkid - I love you 

Lewis Watson - Into the wild

San Cisco - Reckless 

Love Always, 

Nicole

Tyler creates

Odd Future have a reputation for being amoral rap hellions turning the worlds youth onto rape and devil worship (I'm not even kidding), the music of Wolf Gang's de facto leader frequently stews on things internal: the contents of his fucked-up head and heart. 

With Wolf, Tyler, the Creator displays a radical growth as a composer, producer and arranger. Wolf contains some of the best songs he's ever written. '48" is a surprise,"Lone" and "Answer" explore some deeply personal shit with poise, and "Rusty" is one of the most striking lyrical performances on the entire album if you can look past the self-serving chest-beating.

Answer

Awkward, which is one of my favourite songs on the album, finds a chopped and screwed Tyler ruminating about his first love, the girl he just couldn't hang on to, his heartbreak compounded by a sweet Frank Ocean finish.

Awkward

Wolf is the sound of a creative mind coming into possession of the proper means to carry out it's ideas. When the album isn't busy telling us that we should like it more, it's delivering reasons why we actually should.

Love Always,
Nicole 

Freaks and Geeks

The more things change in the music world, the more Childish Gambino's commitments to Asian women and pop-culture references stay the same. The style wrapped around those Childish Gambino mainstays is evolving for the better, though.

For a successful comic who's decided to fight for rap legitimacy, Gambino's determined to talk about his roots despite his present success and to employ a style that some find incompatible with his hipster TV writer persona. If you think he's being tongue in cheek when he injects "street swagger" (can't believe I'm allowing these words on my blog, just this once, I promise) into his lyrics and delivery, these songs won't change your mind outright but you might take a second look.

Freaks and Geeks

Firefly

Heartbeat

These Girls

 (Personal favourite, it's good I swear)

P.S, his real name is Donald Glover (no relation to me, unfortunately) and you can watch him on Community, 'cause that show is fucking awesome. 

Love Always, 

Nicole 

It's a trap

My posts generally consist of the same genre and style of music and this week I'm here to prove that I'm not a one trick pony. So the next few posts will be exploring some different (but in a good way) shit.

A genre that is mutating as quickly as it is gaining exposure through the ever expanding world of hybrid dance genres - Trap.

I'm no expert so I'm not going to say anything because I'll probably just sound like a dick. So just listen; it's good. 

 

Yellow Claw - Kaolo 

Major Lazer - Original Don (Flosstradamus Remix)

Just Blaze and Baauer - Higher

Love Always, 

Nicole

This is my life

I spend my life looking for new music and I'm okay with that.

It just seems fair to share what I find. 

 

  

The Middle East - Blood

 

Passenger - Let Her Go

Daft Punk - Get Lucky

Daughter - Human

We Are Scientists - Spoken For 

Atlas Genius - Trojans

Love Always, 

Nicole

Consider Rock and Roll Saved

Rock and roll used to be about greatness, about escape and heroes. Once, you could get lost in an album, entangled in it's world. It's been a long time since this has been the case. Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys has changed that. It's a fast-paced, catchy pop anthem, with punk undertones. It seems like My Chemical Romance are done with hiding alter-egos and made a back-to-basics rock album.

It give us all the things that punk has never been able to provide: romance, sex, the adventure of the open road and sheer nihilism-banishing energy. It channels the band's genius taste for the absurd and the outlandish into a record inn gleeful love with macho pleasures of old school rock and roll. The jazz hands aren't visible to the naked eye, but they are there in spirit.

It is clear that the band have not let go of their conceptual theatrics as the record is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland of pop culture, with the band playing a bunch of outlaws known as The Killjoys. The Killjoys are battling the Draculoids and Better Living Industries, and this galactic themed conflict unfolds by way of anthemic, call-to-arms rock ("Na Na Na"), angular textures ("Party Poison"), dance-tinged ("Planetary GO!") pieces that all build up to the stadium-sized side of the rock palette. There's a snarl and a wink to the whole album, even though it swings wildly from power-pop jams like "Bulletproof Heart" to ballads like "SING" and dance-infused tracks like "Planetary (Go!)." "The Only Hope For Me is You" stands as the lone weak track on the record. It's pretty standard broken heart fare, and uninteresting as a result.

Bottom line, though, this album is a lot of fun. It rips by at an intense pace and re-establishes My Chemical Romance as the kings of evolution. There are a ton of possible singles on this release, but more importantly, there are a lot of songs you will want to listen to at high volume in your car. Beyond that, it's an album that begs to be played live.

   

Love Always, 

Nicole