Wednesday, February 20, 2013

wanderers.

Something else I wanted to drop. A friend of mine lost his iPod and therefore lots of his musicc to technical failure and asked his friends to help him out with some fresh tunes. So I did a mix for him with the freshest shiat, haha. Lots of songs I only discovered some days ago and I also wanted to share it with you internet people. Hope you like it!




Tracklist:

1.) Fatima Al-Qadiri - Desert Strike
2.) Autre Ne Veut - Counting
3.) HAERTS - wings
4.) Kuedo - Vectoral
5.) Bearcubs - Fighting Shadows
6.) H83R - Triangular
7.) TWOS - Feel
8.) Yahtzel - Girls
9.) Shy Girls - Under Attack
10.) Deptford Goth - Union
11.) SOHN - The Wheel
12.) James Blake - Retrograde
13.) ViLLΛGE - Dive
14.) Twigs - Breathe
15.) WIFE - Endings

Sunday, February 17, 2013

past adventures, future plans

Some weeks ago, me and my friend Laura drove off to Berlin to attend the incredible CTM festival. I was mostly looking forward to see WIFE play, and also d'EON. But this festival had so much more to offer! The visit was more about discovering new artists, which worked out pretty well. We were not only impressed by artists like Holly Herndon, Forest Swords or Kuedo (oh my, KUEDO!) but also the location itself, Berghain, which I had never been at, before. This place alone would make me wanna move to Berlin..maybe someday I will put these plans into action. 

But that was not all of the awesomeness we experienced. We also took part in a photo-tour through an abandoned sanatorium near Berlin, called Beelitz Heilstätten. Usually, trespassing is not aloud in this place, but there are guided tours which you can book here and you're allowed to take pictures within a generous timeframe of 5 hours. But you should probably choose a time in summer, to not freeze your hands off, like we did. ;)

Here is one of my favourite photos, make sure to check out the rest of them here. I'll keep uploading some more day by day until I get tired of it, I guess. ;)




















Unfortunately, because I am a noob with DSLR cameras, I took most of the pictures with my mobile phone, so the quality is very low, but I am more practicing perspectives right now, and I guess the pictures are still worth looking at. :)

And as the headline already inclines, there are some more plans. I am going to England in March, more precisely, MANCHESTER! Huzzaah! And yes, I might take some pictures there, aswell. But the main reason for my visit is this.


Before last week, the line up was only HOLY OTHER and WIFE and "Special Guests". So I was wondering who could possibly add more awesome to this already perfect line up. I did know TOURIST before, but BEARCUBS is a completely new discovery and fits perfectly to the sound of HOLY OTHER and WIFE. It's just going to be superamazing, and would you look at that price please?! And may I remind you that I paid more than double the price to see HOLY OTHER play as support for Beach House here in Munich!?

I really do live in the wrong place, don't I? 




Thursday, January 17, 2013

relief.

Uhm, hi! So...I have been neglecting this place somewhat, due to lack of time. But I wanted to give you a little retrospective on the last 12 months, which were possibly the best I have yet witnessed. And I sure hope the awesomeness will continue in 2013! 


Like usual, I wanna start with a review on my favourite records of 2012. I remember that, in summer, I had rashly announced BEAR IN HEAVENs album "I love you, it's cool" as my favourite record of the year 2012. It kind of blew me away like nothing I had heard in along while and so I was sure there would be no other record that could possibly oust this release from the throne. But here comes the Mancunian (yes I had to google that, too) in to the game. Like with BEAR IN HEAVEN, I needed several attempts with HOLY OTHERs "Held" to get into the full spectrum of this – yes I might just call it a  masterpiece. And because it is often too hard to clothe my thoughts into words, I picked out a quote from Pitchforks review on "Held":

"Desire, neediness, vulnerability, fear, pleasure, and confusion are all laid bare. Held is a love album, a modern love album. Not love as aspirational fantasy but lived love, contradictory love-- the real love that stifles as much as it soothes."

With LEMONADEs "Diver" I (re-)discovered my love for synth-pop in the vein of ZOOT WOMAN. I fell in love with tracks like "Neptune" "Vivid" and especially "Whitecaps". There is actually not one flaw on this release full of pop gems. And with the last two records I am still quite surprised as I never got along before, with their previous releases. I think the gates to HOW TO DRESS WELL opened a little with the collaboration on ACTIVE CHILDs 2011 release "You Are All I See" which was, if you remember, one of my favourite albums in 2011. In hindsight, I am very happy that I finally got access to this artists world, since his concert in Munich on the night before my birthday was one of the best experiences in 2012. And with GRIZZLY BEAR I am even more surprised, because on the one hand, it is actually one of the few non-electronic albums I listened to this year, and on the other hand, similar to HOW TO DRESS WELL, I never really liked this band before "Shields". Therefore I am still convinced that the older you grow, the more open you become to several stiles of music and I am looking forward to all the stuff I have to explore, yet. 

Below, you can see some more releases I enjoyed this year, warm-heartedly recommend to everyone who is open for something new and more or less unexplored.



But we're not done here, yet. I imposed myself with the merely impossible task to sum up this year in music by picking out 12 of my favourite songs. By all means, there are lots more than just 12 of them, but here we go:

Unconditional love.

When you get a personal recommendation from your current favourite artist, chances are high, that you dig it. But I completely fell in love with this song from the very first listen.

3) BEAR IN HEAVEN_THE REFLECTION OF YOU
This song had almost been ruined to me by a person. But fortunately I don't let people do this to me anymore.

4) TWIGS_ACHE
What the title says.

5) LEMONADE_WHITECAPS
The one song I desperately wanted to dance to in a club last year. But never had been given the chance to. And I love love love the drums in this one.

6) JOHN TALABOT_ORO Y SANGRE
If 16 wouldn't be such an odd number* when it comes to making best of lists, you would probably see John Talabots "Fin" up above. And: there should really be more songs with screams in them.

7) PURITY RING_OBEDEAR
Oh, look! It's a video from the concert in Munich. Nevermind the bass, though.

8) o F F LOVE_BE AROUND YOU
I still remember how it stunned me, the first time I listened to it. And it still does, today.

9) HOW TO DRESS WELL_STRUGGLE
Probably the most intense live performance from last year.

10) GRIMES_GENESIS
It took a very long time with us, Claire and me. But this song made me fall in love with her. Unfortunately, she did not show up, when we were supposed to have a date last november. Bitch.

11) ¥OIN_TIRED OF ME
This song introduced me to future garage. Thank you very much, song!

12) STAY+_DANDELION SEED
Because we did not have enough weird videos in this list, yet. But serioulsy though, I love the song.


And how about those concerts I visited in 2012. These were my favourite ones:
ACTIVE CHILD - 28th Feb - Atomic Café - Munich
Pure bliss. That is all.
M83 - 5th Mar - Theaterfabrik - Munich
I still think I was the one person in the audience who had the most fun.
BEAR IN HEAVEN - 5th June - KONG -
Munich So the sound wasn't perfect, as I recall, but still these guys were superawesome.
OTHER LIVES - 25th July - Kranhalle - Munich
Those peeps made me want to join a band and stand on a stage myself.
SPRING OFFENSIVE - 18th Oct - Orangehouse - Munich
Unexpected. Intense. Stunning.
HOW TO DRESS WELL - 30th Oct - Kranhalle - Munich
Heartbreaking.
HOLY OTHER/BEACH HOUSE - 14th Nov - Hansa39 - Munich
If only there wasn't the audience. But then again..I had a really great night.
PURITY RING - 15th Nov - Hansa39 - Munich
Best atmosphere.

Also, every time I had the chance to see Carlos play live. Always amazing.



Ok, three more categories, and you're through, I promise.

So what about cinematography in 2012? I must admit, I probably haven't seen too many relevant movies that were released last year, to make a proper judgement. But still I doubt that any movie I didn't choose to watch (for reasons) would be better than the one favourite movie I chose. And this would be:



Michael Haneke has been one of my favourite filmmakers for quite a while. And I was very much lucking forward to see this one. It is one of those movies, that employs your mind for longer than a day, after having watched it.

Other movies from 2012 I enjoyed a lot:

PROMETHEUS
CHRONICLE
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
LOOPER
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
PARANORMAN
SHAME
and of course
THE HUNGER GAMES

and then there were TV shows of course. And one which was pretty outstanding. My favourite show this year comes as a real surprise mostly for myself, since I didn't enjoy the prior season that much. I am talking about:




The current season hasn't even ended, yet. In fact, as you might know, they split the season in two parts and expected viewers to put up with this terribly long latency. Damn you! And as if this is not enough, they ended the first part of the season with the most terrible cliffhanger!

And last but not least. My favourite book, released in 2012. What else would it be than this one:


I don't think I need to say more about this. I don't even know if there will ever be another book that will mean as much to me (and probably lots of other people) than this one. Seriously.


As usual, when encountering my dear followers with epic posts like this one, I thank you very much for  your attention! Stay tuned, I am will try to keep this thing here alive! :)

*I know 16 is not an odd number. In fact it is the opposite of it. But YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, RIIIGGHT!?! D'UHH