Aphera Music

Well hi there!

With Christmas in clear sight and all that jazz it certainly seems like time for some kind of best albums of 2011 list to show up sooner or later. Nope! But don’t worry something is coming, and what Larissa and I have agreed upon is a sort of “Top 10 Musical Moments of 2011″. It’s something new but this year we found it particularly difficult to agree upon/find 10 albums that fit the list. Despite this, we still had a rocking year in music so we’re just doing it differently.

In other news, Radiohead appears to be serializing their releases lately. They released a 12″ not long after The King of Limbs and they’re doing it again next week with their two newest songs, “Staircase” and “The Daily Mail”. Listen to a radio rip of “The Daily Mail”. Sorry about the quality but if you can wait three days a proper mp3 is sure to come around.

Daily Mail by weallwantsome1

Best,

George

Sometimes when a band follows its own formula too closely we accuse the band of becoming stale. It’s always a disappointment to hear the exact same thing from album to album. However, somehow, Justice managed to come out with a new single, “Civilization”, and excite us with the same enthusiasm, choppy sound edits that we heard in Cross without letting down our expectation for a fresh aesthetic. I could not be more happy about this single.

Adidas added the sounds of crowds cheering, athletes moving and breathing to their own edit of the song and made it even better. This Adidas commercial, with the help of Justice’s single, is epic.

Middle of a gchat conversation:

“Not your typical ladykiller right?” says George.

“Ladykiller,” I think. “Where do I always hear that?”

The answer is Okkervil River’s “Girl In Port.” I scanned my itunes to find the song and immediately found myself re-hooked to Okkervil. What a great time to rekindle that relationship; Okkervil is schedule to release their new album this year on May 10^th.

More Sufjan and just in time for the Holiday Season! According to Between Hipster’s and God there if Sufjan Stevens, Sufjan and the National have collaborated to bring us hipster friendly Christmas songs. The funny thing is, I’ve been listening to an old album of Sufjan’s called A Sun Came for my Christmas music fix. It’s not a Christmas album, but something about Sufjan often sounds so Christmas-y.

STREAM HERE

Sideways visor, flourescent tape, weird dance moves. I saw a chicken head in there. This is apparently Sufjan Steven’s live outfit. Larissa had the unbelievable fortune of getting to see him live for realz. I have to settle for Jimmy Fallon.

Last night Sufjan rocked Fallon, which seriously begs the question, why is Sufjan on Fallon? (I’m sorry Fallon, you’re actually a cool guy.) Whatever… He performed an abbreviated version of “Too Much” on the late night show. Though he kinda looks like a mess, Sufjan rocks well and quite competently (actually way beyond competently). CHECK IT:

It’s that crazy multicolored rectangle with “Aphera Music Player” written on it. It looks like this…

If you click on it you get a box that pops up with a whole playlist of music you can listen to. The music on there comes from my weekly playlists and George’s recommendations.

It’s been there since the birth of the Aphera Music blog. But it’s recently come to my attention that many of you were unaware of it…

The question that comes to mind is, why have you still been reading our blog?! The highlight of Aphera is this player. Sure, it doesn’t really let you download the music, but it’s a GREAT collection of songs. The reason we hide it is so that we don’t get shut down like some of the other blogs that post illegal music on their site.

So start using Aphera to its fullest potential. Do it, click on the box. You may just be pleasantly surprised.

As you know, we’ve been dormant for the majority of the summer. Regardless of, and perhaps in spite of our inactivity the world of music kept spinning (those bastards). On Monday’s post, Larissa already pointed out several albums that came out that you most definitely should not have missed. All this week we’re posting and we have a surprise for you on Friday. But right here, right now, I’m letting you know what I happened to catch as the last several months flew by…
KANYE WEST:
He’s at the top of his game. He’s putting out a new song every Friday (the last several of which have been absolutely fantastic) and he has a whole album coming out in late November. He also performed on SNL not too long ago. It was one of the most sensational and elaborate live performances the skit show has ever seen. Watch below.

DEERHUNTER:
I had never really been that huge of a fan Deerhunter but when I stumbled across this video, I fell in love with this song and now band. Doesn’t Bradford Cox’s performance in front of the camera remind you of Thom Yorke circa Pablo Honey? He sings so sweetly, “No one cares for me/ I keep no company.” It’s a sweet sentimentality and excessive self deprecation that reminds us of how chillingly pleasurable it can feel sometimes to wallow in our own miserable corners: “Cuz I’m a creep/ I’m a weirdo.”

MAJOR LAZERRRRRRRRRRR:
“Hold the Line” is his newest pseudodubstep HOT OFF THA PREZZ sounding track. Guaranteed to make your go ooooooooooh. DL it here and watch the video below.

GORILLAZ:
I was considering going to see these guys two months ago for a concert the day before my birthday. It was going to be a birthday present to myself but those prices were WAAAAY too steep. 75 bucks just to sit  in the back of the crowded UIC Pavilion? No thanks, but I did enjoy this brand new track of theirs!

Forgive me for maybe having mislead you a bit about the nature of this post. Yeah sure, a lot of time has passed since we were last consistently posting and this is definitely not an accurate representation of all good things that have passed since then. However, I still feel like being a little timely with what I’m showing you, and besides, I can hardly remember all the good things that happened this summer. So enjoy what I’ve given you anyway and see you again tomorrow!

Here’s something to satisfy your need for an acid trip simulation: a video for Flying Lotus’ “Mmmhmm” from his 2010 Cosmogramma. The weed references should be obvious but the rest cannot be as easily attributed to any single drug. Here you go:

“KNOW YOUR DOPE FIEND. YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT!”

George already mentioned P4k’s newest love child, Tame Impala, (take a listen!) but let me continue.

I fell in love with the guitar phasing, and the John Lennon style vocals – both quintessential 1960s characteristics.

Contrary to what you’d expect, Tame Impala’s copycat ways sound neither forced nor over the top. There is something natural, beautiful and refreshing about their 1960’s familiarity.

Listen to “Solitude is Bliss”

I spent my birthday listening to The White Album while lounging by the side of the pool. God, some of those song are just plain creepy. But others such as, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, are just creepily good.

For most of us, refreshing Beatles albums never gets old. But for those of us who don’t feel that strawberry fields are forever, we have a solution. It’s called Tame Impala.

I started preparing for my presentation in War and Peace around 1030 am today. I had the next couple hours to pour over Seifrid’s article, decipher what the guy was talking about, find examples in the 1200 pages of text to support his point, come up with my own opinion and then pose questions (I hope my prof does not find this blog!). I did it. My point is that this whole process got me thinking about what makes music good.

First, this is what makes Tolstoy good. The Seifrid article talks about Tolstoy’s obsession with the visual experience and his frustration of having to use words to depict it. Tolstoy felt like there was serious “realness” lost once something visual had to be translated into text. Thus, in order to try to bypass that problem Tolstoy wrote from the sensory experience of a particular character. The problem is that even while character Pierre is seeing light, Tolstoy has to tell you that Pierre is seeing light. So Siegel pointed out that there is this whole laying effect going on of a visual experience passing through the characters perspective and then through Tolstoy’s and then finally to the reader. By the time the reader “sees” what the character does it’s already passed through several lenses. This got Tolstoy all worked up and he didn’t know what to do about it.

The thing is, this is also what made the dude amazing. It made him describe something like “death” in the most ridiculous way. So any normal author would say, the guy got shot and fell over. Tolstoy describes what the guy sees off in the distance, let’s say a horse, and all of the sudden the horse becomes blurry, and the guy notices that something on his right side feels sticky and all of the sudden he sees the sky. Then the guy wonders what happened to the horse…. Tolstoy never actually says he got shot and fell over, you as the reader have to figure that one out.

So the reason this makes him so good is because it takes something we all know, like the smell of the air, and makes you think about it. How often do you walk outside and think about the clothes touching your skin, and the ground pressing up at your feet – not often. Tolstoy would make you notice all that stuff.

Anyway, this made me think about what makes good music good… to be continued…