Falling behind in what could be

Higher Love. James Vincent McMorrow. Sunny today. Made pancakes (american kind). Ate them with almonds, honey, banana slices and cinnamon. I've already had two cups of masala chai today, also drank coffee. Drew today for the first time in a long time. Used charcoal and some red. Suddenly feeling more inspired to blog, write and post pictures, but I have to send my mac to some kind of service center first. All the photographs I want to use are there. Everything is there.

I want all that is not mine

Friday morning. Early. Woke up at 7.30am, even though I'm not going to my morning classes today. Coffee with steamed milk and endless moments reading the newspaper (the culture pages) and the zines that come with papers only on friday. Looking through blogs and exploring instagram (a new world of photographs, beauty and fun opened up when I made my account open and began actually using the app), making breakfast smoothie and staring into the grey sky and how the wind is touching the trees outside. Listening to Daughter's new song Smother. Sometimes I live for these mornings and for these songs.

You're so baby

Ok, so I tried to find the recorded version of this song, but without luck, so this live version will have to do. Ariel Pink's has made an amazing cover version of the Donnie and Joe Emerson song Baby. It's the kind of song I want to blast on high volume while making dinner, spatula in hand, swirling around, dancing, moving. 

 Oh, and just a side note. Just started my studies about a month ago, and it's taking up a lot of my time. In many ways I'm feeling more inspired, but in many ways I feel like I'm all emptied out. Just not feeling the inspiration I need to use real time on this little blog. But I'll get there again. Meanwhile, I still post a lot on my tumblr.

All mine

My friend played this old Portishead song one thursday afternoon, and it's just so good.

What I'll do

I saw this series of photos by René Groebli here, and I absolutely love them. Oh, the white shirt, the stockings, the little night slip, the sleeping back, the haircut, the whole setting and feeling. I felt like these photographs would go great with King Cole Trio's What I'll Do. I was right!

Splitting threads of thunder over me

Today I wouldn't mind...

1. Doing my eyes that way, my hair and yeah, also (why not) wearing those shades

2. Wearing a crop top and high-waist shorts

3. Listening to Fineshrine by Purity Ring on repeat

Photos from FGR.

Lost in the heat of it all

It's very difficult to actually blog or think about blogging at all when you're on vacation. I rather be out in the sun and in the water than on the internet. But between putting on sun screen and taking long dips into the clear, salty water I do indeed have lots of time to listen to and to enjoy music. Music and summer go hand in hand without exception. Here are three good songs right now. Enjoy until the next "quiet summer spell" is over and reality kicks in... 

 White featuring John Mayer / Frank Ocean 

Lost / Frank Ocean 

On The Sea / Beach House

As long as you can dance around the room while you lie to me

Ah, another great Twin Shadow song; I Don't Care.

Let me know you're innocent

and tell me all the things you've done

And talk about the parties and the boys

that you got undone 

I---I don't care

I---I don't care 

As long as you can dance around the room while you lie to me

Take this waltz

Another film, another pool scene, isn't it so? Take This Waltz is a film directed by Sarah Polley, starring Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby and Seth Rogen. It's a wonderful exploration of loneliness, fear, what makes up a relationship and what it really is/means to deceive someone. I loved it, the simplicity of it. And I know, yet another film with a "oh-we're-floating-around-in-the-pool-smiling-at-each-other"-scene, but in this feature I felt like it wasn't just fluff, but that it was an important element in telling the story. 

As you may have guessed, the film borrows its name from Leonard Cohen's song Take This Waltz, which towards the end of the film fits perfectly in with it's heaviness. Under are some of the lyrics, mainly the part I really love:

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay 

Take this waltz, take this waltz 

Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws 

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you 

On a chair with a dead magazine 

In the cave at the tip of the lily 

In some hallways where love's never been 

On a bed where the moon has been sweating 

In a cry filled with footsteps and sand 

Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay 

Take this waltz, take this waltz 

Take its broken waist in your hand 

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death 

Dragging its tail in the sea 

After seeing this film I've also been getting hooked on Micah P. Hinson's steady and almost, for me at least, heartbreaking voice. Tell Me It Ain't So isn't exactly a song from the movie, but just had to include it just to make a point of how many different things one can discover and gain from watching just one single film (if it's good that is!).

I can't get to your heart

Feels good that Twin Shadow has another album out, and just in time for summer. So good for summer afternoons that turn into summer nights and early mornings, just before the sun appears.

Lost in the world

I think I might have included this song in some kind of post before, but doing something good twice really doesn't hurt, does it? It just so happens that Bon Iver is one of my favorites in all of this world, and that Justin Vernon's voice makes my heart go at quadruple speed. It might not come as a surprise then that I absolutely love this collaboration he did with Kanye last year or whenever it was. All I know is that this song is pretty, pretty solid, in lack of a better explanation. The best explanation is the song itself, I guess.

Velvet morning

I've listened to the Temper Trap's new album lately, but it hasn't yet entranced me in any special way. I do like some songs though, particularly Miracle. I think it's just that I expected a grander sound in many ways, a continuation of their first album but on speed or something. I listened to them trying to convince myself on my way to class, but finally mixed it up again and found that Velvet Morning by Weird Dreams suited me much better today. A good song for walking under the morning sun.

On the run

So lately I've been running a lot. I've made myself a route around my neighborhood that my new Nike + GPS app I've just downloaded (I know... getting serious here, haha) tells me is about 8 kilometers. Running is always such a hassle when beginning, but after about half an hour it's quite ok, even bordering on fun... or at least refreshing. But running is nothing without music, at least not for me. Here is a selected number of songs I listen to when running. The actual playlist on the iphone is longer, but I always end up skipping over half of the songs I've put there. These songs do my running some good. Some of the songs I don't really listen to usually, but nevertheless they have the right energy and tempo for staying on track and trying to keep going.

Like all of your sadness reduced to a color

I often find albums that I'll listen to all the way through, even though each single song might not please me as much as I would like. Some albums I get obsessed by, and I have to listen to them like there are no other albums in the world. Those times trying to find another song on my iPod seems like an impossible task - at that moment there just doesn't exist any other music that I could possibly want to listen to. 

Twin Shadow's debut Forget is one of those albums that I listened to a lot when it first came to my attention while on a trip to London in 2010. It's one of those albums that I had quite the listening session with, but not on the verge of obsession - more of a healthy listen - and as I see now a album that I continuously go back to when I just want to listen to something that makes me feel something. I guess I can put it this way; it's an album I listen to when I feel energetic, when I'm walking to somewhere, when I'm jogging, when I just want to listen to something good. The strange thing is that I don't consider Twin Shadow one of my favorite artists nor Forget one of my favorite albums, but still I keep going back. 

I think the thing that's interesting about this album (to me, that is) is that I keep changing which song I prefer the most. Like now, I put Tyrant Destroyed first because it's the song I prefer right now. In a couple of weeks I'm sure I'll be back to Slow or Tether Beat. What I'm attempting to say is that every song definitely has many layers, in which you can discover something new every time you take the time to really listen. Just like with people, huh? I like when music feels like a person/someone you not only have to listen to, but that you have to pay attention to and understand. And the best thing of all is when this happens naturally; when music is like someone you want to listen to and someone you really want to understand and get to know.

Harsh and stubborn that river bends

I was going to include this a couple of days ago in my little post and few words about my longing for live music essentially. But I couldn't. This little video, this little but so big performance deserves to stand on its own, and indeed it does. A great friend of mine showed me Erik Enocksson's music a long time ago, and every song is just perfect in its own way. This little concert was done out in the woods (as you can see) somewhere in Sweden. It's just one of those very special things that words can't really express. These excerpts are a part of a documentary showing one of Enocksson's last performances, I think. Close your eyes for this one guys.

You turn my legs into spaghetti

Clearly longing to hear some live music right now. I'm looking forward to nice summer evenings with incredible bands playing incredible music. I hope it'll be many of them this year.

Michicant / Bon Iver

Thirteen Thirtyfive / Dillon

I Know Places / Lykke Li

Paradise Circus / Massive Attack

Lost In This World / Kanye West and Bon Iver

Coming down

Justin Vernon's voice always makes me want to cry. Everything he does with Bon Iver is amazing, unfathomable and breathtaking. Here he covers the Anais Mitchell song Coming Down. I haven't yet seen Bon Iver in concert, partially because I haven't been in the right place at the right time, but also because going to concerts of artists I love often has a discouraging effect, because I discover they're not as I thought. Of course, of course, of course I know that Bon Iver is nothing but amazing, and that I could never be discouraged or disappointed by them. That's why I'm currently searching a bit to find tickets for the summer. Luckily they're playing many shows this summer, so I have nothing to worry about, I just have to make sure I'm in the right place at the right time... and that I don't lose it when I see hear them. Cuz I'm gonna!

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Both of us without any maybes but musts

So not to turn this completely into a music blog... but there's so much good music to be shared. And music always makes things better, doesn't it? - the good stuff better and the bad stuff just a little bit easier (make that a whole lot easier).

Jet Out of The Tundra / Lotus Plaza

Vapor Trails / Grouper

Genesis / Grimes

Believe / Cant

I'll Take Care of U / Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX

NoWayBack / oOoOO featuring Butterclock

End Come Too Soon / Wild Beasts

Strange grey days

Today is one of those...

Song is Strange Grey Days by Chains of Love.

I killed for love

Some dreamy music for a nice, sunny morning. I've liked Chromatics ever since the songs Night Drive and I Want Your Love, but this time around I like them even more. Their new song Kill For Love gives me a The Jesus and Mary Chain/Lost in Translation-vibe, which indeed can only mean good things.

Kill For Love / Chromatics

Hologram Girl / Miniature Tigers

Boreal / Hundrer Waters