#24 - Copeland - Sleep
One of 3 Copeland songs on the top 30, this represents the first entry. Copeland are a band I admire highly; Aaron Marsh's voice is angelic, fragile, soft, falsetto-driven, and just downright amazing. This song starts with a catchy piano loop intro, and the vocals come in, and a few bars later soft drumming comes in. After the first verse and soft chorus, the bassy interlude that leads into the stronger second verse is wonderful.
It's a well-produced song, and all the instruments are in the right proportion to the others. It's a joy to listen to.
I don't know how I came upon Copeland. I think I'd heard of them through their touring with another band I like, but didn't actually check them out. That is, until David Goode recommended them. I soon went to their purevolume profile, and listened to the 6 songs that were there over and over and over. I would let them run into each other and then repeat the sequence. I shared many emotions with them while listening online.
I bought their cds slowly but surely, as their supply in Australia was horribly low, but can say I've got every single one of their cds. Their most recent effort 'Eat, Sleep, Repeat' had a lot of songs in the top list of about 85 songs which I whittled down to the 85 we have here. And so does In Motion, where this song is from.
When I saw them live, this song really didn't disappoint. I just stood there watching them enjoying playing, while enjoying listening to the produce of their labour. I got to meet 3/4 of the band, and can safely say that they're great people.
Their new cd, a b-sides and exclusive acoustics album 'Dressed Up and In Line' just came out. I hope to get it as soon as it enters Australian shores.
Go to their Myspace now!
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In other news, my brother Matthew, the Mexican Waver, has started up a charity-search engine, where the profits go towards Christian missionaries. I don't know enough about it to say how it works, but here's the link:
www.search316.org
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Ben
Saturday, November 24, 2007
A non-music blog (woo!)
My brother Matthew tagged me in his blog to write about books. Don't know why, because I'm not an avid reader, but hey, I'll give it a crack.
How many books do you own?
Not that many really.. about 20?
What was the last book you read?
Intelligent Church by Steve Chalke, but am most of my way through my second reading of A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren.
What was the last book you purchased?
Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez. An inspiration to small-time filmmakers world-wide, it is a diary style book of the story of the making of El Mariachi for a budget of $7,000, and how it went from there to taking Rodriguez into the limelight, with the film making over $2 million at the Box Office (small for a normal film, but think of the profit margin, films barely ever make even!).
What five books are most meaningful to you?
The Bible - A great book for Christians and those who don't believe.
The Lord of the Rings - You'd hope it stays with you after all that time invested in reading!
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell - Re-awakened me spiritually when I felt suffocated by the system.
A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren - Took Velvet Elvis further. The only book (apart from the Bible) that has made me think for months on end. Though I think a lot of people who like McLaren miss the point with this book. It doesn't give any excuses for cynicism but rather an encouragement to change.
Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez. Makes you a lot happier to realise that you don't have to spend millions of dollars to make films that people will like.
What is your most obscure favourite book?
Good question. Loretta Lux. She's a photographic artist, and the book is basically a short review of her work, and then a whole heap of her work. I found out about her through her work with Anchor and Braille, a musical project featuring a lot of my favourite musicians. Funnily enough, I found the book in a Brunswick St bookstore that has an incredible art/design section (the entire second storey). I think it was about $60.
Yay. Done. I think everyone that I know who has a blog has already been tagged so that would be pointless. I'm listening to Dog Problems by The Format (mentioned in the previous blog) at the moment. Both this band and As Tall As Lions are definitely cranking my tractor.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
#25 - The Format - Oceans
The Format - Oceans
Ooh so we're coming to the end of this first section, I know I haven't posted in a while. Apologies Apologies. If you knew how busy I've been you'd forgive me ;) Anyway, onto the song!
'Aw you've got flaws that you won't admit, yet you tell me it's a sin that I don't believe in, aahhh' One of the amazing strengths is this song's incredible catchiness. I dare you to not like it. A combination of vocals, with oohs, aahs, with hand claps, with a cool keyboard sound fills up the space in this song, which makes it sound full when it needs to sound full, and everything is appropriately placed. I would love to play and sing this song live, I can imagine it would be a lot of fun. The line that probably does the most for me is the final few moments of the chorus, the words go a little something like this: "I hear you're somewhere in the sand, and how I wish I was an ocean. Maybe then, I'd get to see you again." I like the analogy, and the way it's delivered is so summery and wonderful that you wouldn't think it was a song about missing someone you love.
The lyrics reveal a few things about the lyricist and vocalist Nate Ruess. He seems to be a bit reclusive, and doesn't like to go out to clubs and pubs:
"Why am I scared of people in a room?
Why can't they see a good time
are the people close to you?
Why don't I just give in?
Have a drink and shake some hands
Oh ey oh
Oh ey oh"
He also laments close friends moving away, but realises that he's been encouraging them the whole time.
"And all my friends
They break and they bend
They take shape and they tend
to get better with time
and I say
"Who am I to work so much less
You get more
You all deserve what I am walking towards
If you want you should move away""
Oceans is at number 15 on my last.fm list, with 19 plays there, but about 40 on itunes at home, not to mention the other times it has been heard on cd players throughout the year. The band is sitting at number 6 on my top artists list as well, which is well deserved.
The Format write some killer pop tunes, and sound like they're influenced a little by some late 60s and 70s pop music as well as some more modern ones too. The album that introduced me to this band is their second album 'Dog Problems' which has Oceans as well as a number of other great songs on it.
I bought the album purely because it got #1 on the absolutepunk.net yearly chart. It got a lot of good feedback, so I thought, why not. Bought it on a hot day while on a break at Coles, threw it in the cd player in Dave's car (which i was borrowing at the time), and was a little puzzled at first at what I was hearing: big band stuff mixed with 70s harmonies and summery pop. But over that summer I became quite a fan. While at Venus Bay with a few friends I listened to this album over and over, each time it became clearer that this band was something I'd fall in love with.
The Format come highly recommended. Dog Problems is an album of genius, and they actually offered it as a free download for a few weeks in the first half of 2007. In more recent news, they've just released a DVD and a b-side/rarities record (which seems to be more of a trend these days, I noticed about 7 b-sides albums coming out from November-December which probably equals record companies hoping for Christmas purchases).
To watch a clip of the DVD (exclusive to absolutepunk.net), a song entitled 'Time Bomb', which is one of the better songs on the album, click here.
Or to listen to other songs and watch other videos, go to their myspace.
That's it for the first section, hope you've enjoyed it so far :) It obviously makes it a lot better if you check out the music yourself, especially if you don't know it :)
I also recently purchased Sigur Ros' documentary feature film 'Heima' and their album 'Takk'. Beautiful music, also highly recommended!
Ben
Ooh so we're coming to the end of this first section, I know I haven't posted in a while. Apologies Apologies. If you knew how busy I've been you'd forgive me ;) Anyway, onto the song!
'Aw you've got flaws that you won't admit, yet you tell me it's a sin that I don't believe in, aahhh' One of the amazing strengths is this song's incredible catchiness. I dare you to not like it. A combination of vocals, with oohs, aahs, with hand claps, with a cool keyboard sound fills up the space in this song, which makes it sound full when it needs to sound full, and everything is appropriately placed. I would love to play and sing this song live, I can imagine it would be a lot of fun. The line that probably does the most for me is the final few moments of the chorus, the words go a little something like this: "I hear you're somewhere in the sand, and how I wish I was an ocean. Maybe then, I'd get to see you again." I like the analogy, and the way it's delivered is so summery and wonderful that you wouldn't think it was a song about missing someone you love.
The lyrics reveal a few things about the lyricist and vocalist Nate Ruess. He seems to be a bit reclusive, and doesn't like to go out to clubs and pubs:
"Why am I scared of people in a room?
Why can't they see a good time
are the people close to you?
Why don't I just give in?
Have a drink and shake some hands
Oh ey oh
Oh ey oh"
He also laments close friends moving away, but realises that he's been encouraging them the whole time.
"And all my friends
They break and they bend
They take shape and they tend
to get better with time
and I say
"Who am I to work so much less
You get more
You all deserve what I am walking towards
If you want you should move away""
Oceans is at number 15 on my last.fm list, with 19 plays there, but about 40 on itunes at home, not to mention the other times it has been heard on cd players throughout the year. The band is sitting at number 6 on my top artists list as well, which is well deserved.
The Format write some killer pop tunes, and sound like they're influenced a little by some late 60s and 70s pop music as well as some more modern ones too. The album that introduced me to this band is their second album 'Dog Problems' which has Oceans as well as a number of other great songs on it.
I bought the album purely because it got #1 on the absolutepunk.net yearly chart. It got a lot of good feedback, so I thought, why not. Bought it on a hot day while on a break at Coles, threw it in the cd player in Dave's car (which i was borrowing at the time), and was a little puzzled at first at what I was hearing: big band stuff mixed with 70s harmonies and summery pop. But over that summer I became quite a fan. While at Venus Bay with a few friends I listened to this album over and over, each time it became clearer that this band was something I'd fall in love with.
The Format come highly recommended. Dog Problems is an album of genius, and they actually offered it as a free download for a few weeks in the first half of 2007. In more recent news, they've just released a DVD and a b-side/rarities record (which seems to be more of a trend these days, I noticed about 7 b-sides albums coming out from November-December which probably equals record companies hoping for Christmas purchases).
To watch a clip of the DVD (exclusive to absolutepunk.net), a song entitled 'Time Bomb', which is one of the better songs on the album, click here.
Or to listen to other songs and watch other videos, go to their myspace.
That's it for the first section, hope you've enjoyed it so far :) It obviously makes it a lot better if you check out the music yourself, especially if you don't know it :)
I also recently purchased Sigur Ros' documentary feature film 'Heima' and their album 'Takk'. Beautiful music, also highly recommended!
Ben
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