it’s one of my all-time favorite Cocteau Twin songs. a bit more obscure, on the b-side of the Aikea-Guinea ep. i got this ep on vinyl at some point during my lonely years and Quisquose felt like the perfect, most precious accompaniment. i love the plodding piano. banging slight dissonances. Liz’s cacophonous howls. it doesn’t …
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one caress
i’ve been obsessing over this one lately, some 26 years after the fact. i’ve always loved it – it belongs to an echelon of elite martin-vocal songs – but i never gave it its proper space because of the earlier ones. the earlier songs – martin’s lead vocal songs and DM as a whole – …
joanna newsom
she’s magical, so talented and having found a unique voice at such a young age. she absolutely seems like a wood nymph, definitely evokes feelings of the woods. or is it just that this style of music doesn’t reach this height, or this audience, and its novelty is so titillating to virgin ears? when i …
MG
Europa Hymn from Martin Gore’s solo electronic album (MG) is perfection. Equal parts melancholy, reflective, poignant. What is its tone? Absolutely wistful. In view of beauty. Perhaps bowing down to beauty. A hymn, paying honor to something grand, something transcendent. Martin Gore knows how to translate this very emotion to music so skillfully. He brings …
The Thompson Twins
i sometimes forget how much i love the thompson twins. that is slightly inaccurate – i love 5 of their songs, and the rest are just ok. but those 5 that i love, i love so, so much. the thompson twins are 80s, but a bit dreamy too. you can probably guess the 5. Hold …
come to me
The last 2 minutes + 30 seconds of “Follow Me” by Sweet Trip can count on its own as one of my favorite songs ever. It combines all the musical elements I love: dreamy guitars, reverb, dreamy male/female vocals, electronics, and a pounding dance beat. Seconds resolving to thirds, sevenths resolving to the root – …
Howard Jones
When I was 8, I loved Howard Jones. He was the first artist that I really sought after on my own, hearing one song and longing for more. That first song? What else: “Things Can Only Get Better.” It was lost on me as an 8-year-old just how adult contemporary and downright motivational speaker-y Howard …
boards of canada
boards of canada is one of my favorite bands, but i can barely stand to listen to them. sometimes, they are just too overwhelming. there’s something so indelibly on point about their music, like they can see right into me, driving right into my blood cells and brain cells, it can be painful, heartbreaking. just …
Shout!
Shout! is another underrated early-era Depeche Mode song. Much of it is in a major key, sounds kind of distant and positive – but it’s bordered by a mildly dissonant header and footer. It makes for a nice complement. Who knows what they are talking about. “Break away tonight / I wanna hold your hand …
music vs lyrics
embarrassingly for me, it is not usually about the lyrics. a song gets me with its melody, its chord progression, its impeccable choice of instrumentation. maybe not something to be so embarrassed about. after all, throughout college i had this whole thesis brewing in my head about how words are a mere articulation, oftentimes a …