Sunday, February 17, 2008

Valentine's/Singles Awareness Day Mixtape '08

I know it's a little late, and to tell you the truth I wasn't going to do a Valentine's/Singles Awareness Day mix this year, love, in a singular sense tends to leave a sour taste in my mouth, that and crushing cynicism that makes me bitter and overwhelmingly depressed at times. But, I figured what the hell, no use crying about it. So this year is definitely focused more on some of the sadder love songs as opposed to some of the happier songs included on V-day mixes from yesteryear. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this mix and hopefully your Valentine's Day was a little better than mine.

1. Asobi Seksu - Walk on the Moon
2. Iron and Wine - Naked As We Came
3. Bright Eyes - Lover I Don't Have to Love
4. The Album Leaf - Always for You
5. Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Follow You Into the Dark
6. Patrick Watson - Luscious Life
7. Muse - Endlessly
8. Stellastarr* - Untitled
9. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
10. David Gray - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
11. Explosions in the Sky - Your Hand In Mine

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Two sausages kissing...

...is what I fondly refer Sigur Ros' third album as (Google Image "Sigur Ros album art" and you'll see what I'm talking about), and with news of their fifth outing being recorded as I write this, you can imagine how giddy I am quickly becoming. Sigur Ros is just one of those bands that you can just get totally lost in. The hauntingly beautiful ethereal music they create, coupled with Jonsi's incredible falsetto, is just incredible. They somehow manage to combine post-rock, experimental, classical and minimalist elements and craft them into truly breath-taking songs, but you already knew that didn't you? So we'll have to wait for the new Sigur Ros album until late this year, which means that we might not get to see it until next year, but until then you can pick up that documentary DVD/CD combo they released this year (try eBay), or just throw in one of their four albums and wait patiently.

Sigur Ros - Hljomalind
Sigur Ros - Untitled #8 (The Pop Song)
Sigur Ros - Staralfur
Sigur Ros - Olsen Olsen
Sigur Ros - Untitled #4 (The Nothing Song)
Sigur Ros - Von

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Feeling sorry for yourself?

Todays' post will be short in the sense that I will be focusing primarily on my personal life instead of offering witty remarks about music and/or other forms of popular culture that I happen to be consuming at the moment. I have come to the conclusion that I am in desperate need of change so I have been looking into moving overseas to teach for a year or so. Someone once accused me of "running away", however I explained to her that I have nothing here to run away from so that couldn't be possible. Anyway, my life has been reduced to this sort of vicious cycle of making me feel depressed and generally bored with whats going on. I'm sure everyone can relate, you get up do the same thing every day of the week, then on the weekends you go out and do the typical drinking/partying only to wake up the next morning and realizing that nothing you did changed anything and you still have to drag yourself through the same shitty week without any sort of reprieve all because she's not with you. I know that I sound like I need Zoloft or something, I can cope with my distress fairly well, besides I'm too busy to complain about anything for any significant period of time, let alone be crippled by sadness. I'm a victim of my own devices, as we all pretty much are, and we all tend to do things that do nothing save for hurt us in the long run. We all need some sanctuary, if you ask me. (What a totally awesome segue into today's song, which I'm a huge fan of by the way, but sure enough I can't make you download anything, although I can really recommend it, and since my opinions are the only ones that matter, you should take it as a sign that you should be clicking on the link below, if you haven't already)

The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary