beauty's where you find it

i can forgive the designer self-referenciality and the product placement for the hit i get off

the Holiday

because:
yes, Jude Law is stunning, and we saw it from Shopping onwards (another film with an excellent OST, btw - not lydon... who was it now? red snapper?)

you know i use google and spellchecker to correct and edit these blog posts, but you'll never know how much is just off the top of my head, and while i have been watching The Holiday, (Nancy Meyers - Something's Gotta Give, John Krazinski - Away We Go)

Hans Zimmer of Driving Miss Daisy fame (self-referenced in The Holiday)


John Powell did Robots... anyway)

there is a particularly relaxed piece on the s/track which is entitled, For Nancy. Nancy Meyers, the director and writer in question, also wrote a film me and my Mum loved, called Baby Boom, with Diane Keaton and Sam Shepard... and a young Chris Noth, for spotters.

i always notice the score.

one of my new favourites is someone named Rene Aubry's work on The Gruffalo, short CGI film which I loved and watch with my 3-year-old a lot.

the music is quite singularly beautiful...

stunning

and here on itunes for under $11... must get a new iTunes card

and i am always impressed by not only how much it contributes to the film's sum total of beauty (which is quite a lot, when it comes to The Gruffalo)

but also how much it is a language of mine.

films, music, art, production, placement, the language that film uses to tell you the story beyond the dialogue.

the Non-Diegetic sound :)

liszt & mania

franzlisztomania.wordpress.com covers it more thoroughly than i really want to, but what worries me is the idea that by having women thrown at them for so long, certain men permanently damage their ability to love, believe, connect and mature.

i think this essay is written by someone who hasn't watched enough Entourage, and the reason i have liszt in my head at all is the excellent use of a slice of quintessentially self-important pop outift Phoenix's track 'lisztomania' when

[season six SPOILER ALERT]








Eric and Sloane become engaged.

i love Sloane as a character, love E as the kind of guy who would be aware that you don't let a woman like Sloane go without a fight, the kind of fight that may end up in the kind of lifelong fidelity that both empowers, ennobles and irritates Ari (who is, in his own hideous way, a poster man for the series. and Vince will never be a man until he gives his heart a chance to do what his cock is so apparently brilliant at).

and where does it leave women and their sexuality in this equation?

to me is becomes a true question of value. if you don't value what women are and do in your life, then you can never hope to understand how to meet that value in exchange.

sex is only one part of it.

and it keeps reminding me of that brilliantly offensive speech given by Mooj in the 40 year old virgin ("it's not about cock and ass, it's about children, it's about love, it's about connection")

and also the bit in The Apartment, where the Doc is telling Jack Lemmon's character to "be a Mensch... a human being".

because we're at our best when men and women are equal, in bed, in life, in work. not the same, but equal, and until some men get left alone long enough to realise this, they can't grow.

but they are probably the kind who leave behind an extrafamily of children to make the same mistakes all over again.

wild oats. domesticated men.

i wish i felt more optimistic about it all sometimes.

anyway, here's the pop song:




p.s. "Franz Liszt, born 200 years ago, was a phenomenal child-prodigy and the greatest pianist of his day. He had innumerable affairs and assorted children (one of whom married Wagner), and he ended his days as a priest."

labels

labels are for communication

they hold nothing in, nothing down and nothing back


i wrote that on the flyer for a dj set i used to have, in the front bar of a pub on a weeknight.

i am thinking a bit about labels today because they are proving their worth.

as a music person you start to know you can rely on other passionate individuals for recommendations, but also, that such recommendations can come simply in the form of a record label.

secretly canadian and sub pop have both put out amazing stuff lately, or should i say *more* amazing stuff.

like this: washed out, on sub pop



kompact, k7, k records, thrill jockey, southern, a perfect gentleman, sarah, too pure, creation, drag city...

it's a good place to start, the recent releases catalogue of a beloved label.

likewise, it's worth tracking down the label based on even one, but especially two or three great releases.

and if anyone can find me a better pop song than

gardens & villa - star fire power

(find it here on the forking forkcast)

i'll eat my hat, label and all

love

~ listener

you, at the back

have just discovered that that track i love quite a lot, miles behind me by hotel lights, is the songwriting work of the drummer from ben folds five, darren jessee

and lookee - there's a new album due out in august!
http://www.hotellights.net/

and i apologise to his inevitable wife, girlfriend or whatever, but i think he might be my new crush...

blipping brilliant

added several new pieces to the blip

http://blip.fm/anaesthete

and noticed that my much loved amiina have a new CD out. puzzle.

thinking of getting the new fleet foxes album too, after it dawned on me slowly that they are fucking brilliant. can't pass up that title helplessness blues

helplessness.

funny to think about the chance/cause/effect/reaction that creates the situations in your life.

as long as i continue to listen to music i feel more likely to survive the despair.

it would be good if i had the same attitude to eating. but it seems in times of trial the first thing i do is cease ingesting.

i would bottle coriolis and drink it if it could. and why won't someone upload a version of that so i can share it with you? i have spent an inordinate amount of time in that track.

i realised something last night. i couldn't sleep. lay awake with fragments of a new favourite piece of music circling in my mind. for me, one of the pieces of proof that i have absorbed a work of music is when i can hear it, in full or in part, played on my internal mental stereo.

i always had a theory that the human individual was at the mercy of a terminally incomplete, biased and inferior recording system from which to try and transcribe the evidence of their life.

and that led to a theory that if god was anything, it was a perfect recording of things. of the moments before, during and after those things that somehow became defining parts of your understanding of who and what you were.

me?

i am a sad song. minimalist heartbreaker in minor chords and lingering.

i am also a 4/4 beat for shameless booty-shakin' to. hands in the air and breathing the sheer glory of being alive.

the pendulum swings, the venn diagram is drawn, between these forces. to grieve and to exhault.

but eventually i will have to eat something...

love

~ a listener

still listening

new dawn, new day, new PLAYLIST!

so, what's in the new car CD and at-home-preferred playlist? Well, a quick impulse buy of an iTunes $20 voucher got me a backlog of dance-pop (guetta/cudi, duck sauce, MSTRKRT/Chromeo and Glee Safety Dance), mixed in with some gifts from friends (Black Cab, Jezebels) and some of my trusty epic electronica and postrock. Which I Love.

I reckon that MSTRKRFT Chromeo remix is awesome enough to get me tracking down some more remixes by them, and even the whole of the remixed Chromeo Fancy Footwork (entitled Fancier Footwork, ahhh, those smoothies).

Weird Crush shout-out here to P-Thugg from Chromeo, actually. Is it his reminiscence of Turtle in Entourage maybe, because Jerry Ferrara did register with me (a cute, cuddly twenty-something who can fulfill your needs? sweet.)

interview with P-Thugg on Some Kind of Awesome

and for just plain excellent new pop - Two Door Cinema Club's What You Know and Pigeon John's The Bomb.

All. Good.

Holland, 1945 / Neutral Milk Hotel / In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
What You Know / Two Door Cinema Club / Tourist History
Tenderoni (MSTRKRFT Remix) / Chromeo / Fancier Footwork (Remixes)
Memories /David Guetta (feat. Kid Cudi)
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! /Do Make Say Think / Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn
The Bomb / Pigeon John / Dragon Slayer
Singular feat. Matias Aguyao / Discodeine
Safety Dance (Glee Cast Version) / Glee Cast
Barbara Streisand (Original Mix) / Duck Sauce
After The War / Black Cab / Call Signs
Hollywood / Marina & The Diamonds / The Family Jewels
Hurt Me / The Jezabels / She's So Hard
Coriolis / Penguin Cafe / A Matter Of Life...

interested in Googling this music? Try www.google.com.au

x

~ listener

the end of a road

bookended by playlists

here's how it ended

Lump Sum / Bon Iver / For Emma, Forever Ago
Lua / Bright Eyes / I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
I See A Darkness / Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Love Letter / Lisa Mitchell / Wonder
Coriolis / Penguin Cafe / A Matter Of Life...
Colorado / Grizzly Bear / Yellow House
Brainy / The National /Boxer
It's Not Up To You / Björk
Holland, 1945 / Neutral Milk Hotel / In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
What You Know / Two Door Cinema Club / Tourist History
So Long, Baby / The Wedding Present / Watusi
They Can't Take That Away From Me / Fred Astaire / Cheek To Cheek
You Could Be Happy / Snow Patrol / Eyes Open

shoulder shrug shuffle

it's odd to realise how much a genre means to you until you're called to defend it.

electronica.

i fucken love it.

i would miss it if i were never allowed to hear it again and it has begun to occupy a place in my listening habits which render it pretty irreplaceable: ie. i can do other things while i listen.

poetically composed lyrics always have to be heard, even when you know them by heart.

repeated individual words, like in caribou's sun

and totally wordless, lengthy tracks like the pantha du prince stuff...

are possibly my most beloved new musics.

so this is pantha - bohemian forest (note youtube embed code is now iframes... interesting)



see ya

~ listener

it's a blipping addiction

can't WAIT for these guys to kick out an iPhone app so i can stream this stuff, but for the past few months i have been toying with this online radio thingo, and i love it.

it will possibly eclipse my blogging shortly, so if you want to follow me on blip, go here:

http://blip.fm/anaesthete

playlist is so far nearly all super mellow electronica

cheers

~ listener

what we like

no remix, no unwanted gift wrapping

just the original mix

holy fuck, that's a solid track

well, they got their wish. they're raison d'etre fnar fnar, inspiring someone to be offended when they were promoted as part of sydney festival

it's brilliant in a way, an artwork in itself, their name

i can barely say it on the radio if i've played them, along with fuck buttons, they make life hard for an announcer, but holy fuck have become one of my joint album(s) of 2010

latin, featuring this:



and 55 cadillac, featuring this:



are my two.

you heard me. albums of the year :)

awk & holy fuck

and for memory and something that possibly combines the energy of the two, is this amazing old track from 2003 (that's 8 years now or something like that)...

wow, she wrote all of those songs?

i was just looking up cathy dennis in the hope of triggering a memory of the song of hers i had taped off the radio and really liked. maybe 'just another dream'?

and going searching, as i do, i found this list of songs she's written for other pop stars like toxic!

i can't find the original song i wanted. it's still somewhere on it's tape, and i haven't really heard any new pop for a while...

so how about some old pop for a friday?

cyndi lauper covering the big O roy orbison



and a massive hit that got me in the end :)



and that's me done for tonight

happy 2011

~listener

vale ralph mclean

a friend, a mentor, a fellow aesthete

we said goodbye to him today

i couldn't wear black. i put my daughter in her pink frilly fairy costume she got for christmas, and wore my own outrageous hi-top golden dunlop volleys

and said goodbye

at la mama in carlton

so, in tribute to my friend, i am coming out. no longer unknown. i am hermione. i am anaesthete, i am theparisend.

*waves*

bye ralph



and to the online world which he really understood... we lost a user too
http://www.youtube.com/user/artzmedia

through ralph i got several of my talented friends to appear on yartz, but few as successfully as luke whitby.



one of the last things i did for yartz was a not particularly good interview with a young musician named johnny flynn. i felt ill, i wasn't on form (ralph, i'm sorry), but he did perform two songs to camera. as soon as i can, i will see about getting those pieces up on youtube.



i think yartz has to go on, in some form. it must. it will.

i truly thank him, thank you, for the opportunity to do what we did, for community tv.



mischa - he brought out the best work in you.



scott and ralph agreeing about a film! :)



many of you join with me in mourning his passing... the community he was part of.

better for having known him, lucky to have loved him, shocked to have heard him :)

rest in peace

vale

ralph



x

~ hermione

meredith 03 - rat vs possum

Pills by rat vs possum http://t.co/6GqHGRx

christmas

01.



02.



03.



x

in memoriam

merry christmas

love and rest in peace

~ tul

meredith 02: washed out and kyü

although i can't find anything that sounds like the set did live at meredith, this band remain a favourite from last weekend.



and these girls from nsw, alyx and freya, making music that put me in mind of amiina, and bjork, but also arvo part and more minimalist/tribal choral music. very interesting. feminine. powerful and organic.

here's their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/kyusounds

and here's a youtube of their song 'pixiphony' to a mash up of their rather eccentric publicity shots



and now i'm going to bed!

~ listener

meredith 01: Cloud Control, and MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS | HOLLYWOOD

bloggered straight from youtube...



because some poor kid's nice audio-only is disabled when viewed on an iphone...

and my first new favourite from meredith

embedded old-school

mellow electronica

while i process the sum total of my responses to the meredith music festival, here is someone who played far too late for me to get to hear , but captured my heart with one track

germanic minimalist beat beauty...



pantha du prince

~ lnr

belated friday

sadly a power short in the room of the unknown listener knocked out my internet last night, so no Friday Pop update, but I thought I'd pop in and post two of the most endearing tracks I've put on my new car listener.

first, something from that amazing triple CD by magnetic fields - 69 love songs



and my favourite from andrew wk's genre-destroying album of solo piano improvisations, 55 cadillac



love

~ listener