Janine Jansen - Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto

I try to give classical music a listen. I don’t claim to be a connoisseur by any means, but I’m definitely a fan. As cliché as it is, I’m one of those people who are profoundly moved whenever they hear “Moonlight Sonata”. Yet still, I’m not familiar with much classical music at all, when I hear good things about a particular performer, then I look into them and give them a chance.

I heard about Janine Jansen’s Tchaikovsky violin concerto in a podcast called “On Being” by APM, in which Irish poet and writer, John O’Donohue, mentions how moved he was by the performance; “Everywhere she went on this violin, she got exactly what she was looking for… you could almost see the music hurting her even when she wasn’t playing”

After I heard that, I absolutely had to find this performance.

He heard it in live in New York, and I’m not sure where the version I have was recorded but I’m sure it’s just as brilliant as that particular performance was.

I’m not familiar with Tchaikovsky’s work at all, but this performance is pretty awesome.

If you give even a part of it a listen, there is so much raw emotion being expressed, in both the written music and the performance, it’s absolutely spectacular.

Transitions between faster and slower parts are seamless and create an attention-grabbing mood. Everything seems artfully and meticulously planned and yet at the same time has an air of spontaneity and improvisation.

I know what I’m saying sounds somewhat vague and abstract, and honestly you probably will have no idea what the hell I mean unless you’ve heard it. Give it a listen.

Give Seattle Hip-Hop a Chance

Pitchfork Media has a list of their Top 100 Songs of 2011. On the list are Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games” (#19), Tyler, the Creator’s “Yonkers” (#16), Kanye & Jay-Z’s “Niggas in Paris” (#12), Bon Iver’s “Holocene” (#2), and finally M83′s “Midnight City” (#1)

I like most of Pitchfork’s choices (some are weird) they have a pretty good mix of genres and artists of all popularity levels. Yet, nowhere on pitchfork, or any popular music blog for that matter, do I see anything about the Seattle Hip-Hop scene. In my opinion what’s happening in Seattle has the potential to take over Pop Hip-Hop altogether.

Artists like Blue Scholars have taken their time to settle into their style over the past decade or so. Filipino rapper Geologic (or Prometheus Brown) and Iranian producer Sabzi make a particularly effective Hip-Hop duo. Even from the get-go they have had a uniquely fresh style on their self-titled album. Catchy, almost vintage beats and edgy, anti-Bush/proletariat lyrics were their way of catching attention. And they did;

“And your so-called commander in chief, B, I’m telling you the man is a thief, in his hand he holds a plan to ban your freedom of speech.”

The Patriot Act, which he’s referring to in this line, was something particularly questionable, and made many afraid of the possibility of losing their 1st Amendment rights. Yet the best song on the album, in my opinion, is “Sagaba“, a story about an encounter with a beautiful, but distraught woman who is shown the beauty of life by the storyteller. This song is absolute poetry. It’s amazing and it took my breath away the moment I heard it. Blue Scholars have a tendency to make a few out-of-this-world tracks per album.  This trend continued through on one of their following albums, Bayani. The song “Joe Metro“ is probably the most well-known song on the album, and it highlights how adept Geologic is at painting an image of the scene and the societal issues he can’t help but notice on a casual bus-ride. Yet again, absolute poetry. Even though Geo can go too far sometime, he does bring up legitimate political, societal, and cultural problems. Cinemetropolis, their most recent album, is toned down a bit, but carries the same style in beats and flow you’d expect from them.

Macklemore is another great example. His most recent work with producer Ryan Lewis is unbelievably powerful. He goes to places a lot of Hip-Hop artists don’t and raps with a purpose. Addiction, obsessive consumerism, and money are the most powerful themes in his most recent work. In “Otherside Remix feat. Fences” Ryan Lewis captures the macabre mood of the rappers account of addiction to lean almost perfectly using subtle and beautiful intertwining of acoustics and synthetic beats.

“Syrup, percocet, and an eighth a day will leave you broke, depressed, and emotionally vacant. Despite how Lil’ Wayne lives it’s not conducive to being creative”

The song is pure emotion. For me music is emotion, and for me the most powerful music, is music with a purpose. Another favorite by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis is “Wings,” a story about Air Jordan’s and giving into consumerism. This song also has a depth of emotion that is too rare in Hip-Hop today.
 
I hope the next Top 100 of ____ has at least one song by a Hip-Hop artist from Seattle. They deserve it.

Milo Greene - "1957"

Listening to "1957" feels like driving along a bucolic scene in rural America with the windows down on a warm summer's evening.

Milo Greene has made a fantastic song here. Attention grabbing chords, melodic harmonies of voices and a feeling that's just so damn cool.

Nothing else to say.

TOKiMONSTA - "Sweet Day"

L.A. musician Jeniffer Lee (AKA TOKiMONSTA) is definitely on my list of favorite electro-artists of the past year or so. "Sweet Day" has an extremely relaxed feeling to it, and is a very chill song, yet, unlike many relaxing songs, still maintains enough background elements to capture one's attention. I've listened to this song 3 times before posting and the layering she does on this track is pretty great.

What do you think about it?

Welcome

Welcome to my music blog. There isn't much more me to say as an introduction. As you may have guessed from the URL and title of the blog, this is a site for me to post... You guessed it! The shit I like.

The aforementioned "shit" will usually be hip-hop, indie, dubstep/electronic, or just straight up rock. I'll try to make sure the album or song I post is somewhat contemporary (but there are no guarantees). The only one thing these songs/artists/albums/music videos will have in common is that they will all be shit I like.