Category — Music

On August 16, 1960, a 32-year-old U.S. Air Force Captain named Joe Kittinger flew in a helium balloon to 102,800 feet (roughly 19 miles) above the Earth … and jumped. His free-fall lasted 4 minutes and 36 seconds. He experienced temperatures approaching minus-100 degrees Fahrenheit. As he fell, Kittinger neared the speed of sound, his pressure-suit-encased body traveling at more than 600 mph before he opened his parachute at 14,000 feet. To this day, he still holds world records for highest parachute jump and longest-ever free-fall.

I just discovered this band and listened to their last album titled “Í Annan Heim” (To Another World). I love it. A mixture of eerie rock sounds, bright indie pop melodies and classical strings, topped with high pitched female voice singing in Icelandic. It really sounds like a fusion between Múm and Sigur Rós. They have been making music since 2006 and just release their new album. They released their first LP, Það kólnar í kvöld (It Gets Colder Tonight) in Iceland 2007 and in Europe and Japan the year after. After the release, Rökkurró got offered to support Ólafur Arnalds and Múm on tours abroad.

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Release: May 3, 1982
Country: London, UK
Label: Elektra / Wea
Genre: Rock
Sounds like: -

The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member. The Cure first began releasing music in the late 1970s with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys (1979); this, along with several early singles, placed the band as part of the post-punk and New Wave movements that had sprung up in the wake of the punk rock revolution in the United Kingdom. During the early 1980s, the band’s increasingly dark and tormented music helped form the gothic rock genre. The Cure have released thirteen studio albums and over thirty singles during the course of their career.

Pornography is my favorite album from The Cure, and is one of my favorite records of all time. In my opinion, there are three albums that Robert Smith calls the trilogy that best expresses the true feelings of The Cure. Those albums are Disintegration, Bloodflowers, and Pornography. For sure, this was Robert Smith’s darkest hours. Throughout “Pornography,” Robert Smith moans about death, war, sickness, loss, and the general degradation and perversion of society. A lot of critics have described the early Cure music as depressing. Especially when the first words heard on the album are “It doesn’t matter if we all die.” And then there’s lines like “I’ll watch you drown in the shower.” Recorded during a time when Robert Smith was victim of depression, drug addict and when the band was on the brink of collapse, the results are pretty haunting. It seems like the music perfectly reflects the health of the band and its members in 1982. There’s no album in existence that really comes close to the sound of this one, except maybe “Disintegration.” The entire album is like suffocating in despair. This album is heavy and slow. Gothic keyboards, tribal sounding drums, and Robert’s even darker than usual vocals work to make this a totally unique experience. I personally love Cold, The Figurehead and Pornography. As an album, the songs flow perfectly. The Cure is one of my favorite bands of all time, and Pornography is a testament to their genius. A true masterpiece.

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Release: September 25, 2009
Country: Dijon, France
Label: Different Records
Genre: Electronic
Sounds like: Boys Noize, datA, kavinsky

Vitalic is an electronic music artist. He was born in France and his first singles were released in 1996 and 1997, but were confined to the underground electronic music scene. He decided to make music when he heard Daft Punk’s Rollin’ & Scratchin’ in a club in his hometown Dijon. He became good friends with Michel Amato, also known as The Hacker, whom he met in the Rex, the “techno temple” of Laurent Garnier. He really illuminated the world’s dance floors in 2005 with his debut OK Cowboy, an album so corking it made recent offerings from the likes of forebears Daft Punk look very limp indeed. Causing disco tremors all round with astounding singles such as Poney, La Rock and My Friend Dario, it was one of the albums of the year, if not the decade, placing Pascal in a Gallic disco relay between the Dafts and the then-emerging Justice.

Daft Punk and Justice new albums are taking forever to come out, so I decided to get my weekly fix of French house with Vitalic latest album . It took four years for Pascal Arbez to make an album that is at least OK Cowboy’s equal. I’ve actually enjoyed Flashmob quite a bit more than Ok Cowboy. Pascal’s music is dense and so supremely crafted. Flashmob continues much in the same vein as OK Cowboy, with heavy synth but this time with more of a disco sound and a female voice on some of the tracks. There’s something about French House and that nostalgic sound that just works. The tracks are eclectic enough to make listening to this album straight through extremely enjoyable, and yet every song coheres with the last enough to make the whole work a great composition. Played loud enough, this album has the power to provoke riots and dismantle buildings. The sound is colossal and makes Vitalic ready to lead the way again in the French electronic scene. Flashmob is such an rich album, that I have run it front to back several times since it came out and I still don’t see it wearing out anytime soon. Vitalic is an amazing artist, so if you like electronic music you should definitely check out his two albums.

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The comments of each photo form the monologue that appears at the beginning of the Dead Flag Blues masterpiece by Godspeed You! Black Emperor from the album F#A#oo. It comes from an unfinished film that Efrim, lead of GY!BE, wrote and has been working on for a while. I tried to create a photo journal made of the images that pop into my mind every time I listen to this piece. It’s one of the most cinematic piece of music I’ve ever listened to and one of the finest post-rock tracks ever recorded. The voice over work is magnificent, and the latter half using ambient noises is brilliant. I also love the incredibly dark tone, it evokes the image of a country falling into ruin, an urban agony. Bleak, dark and beautiful, this song haunts my images of our future, yet inspires me to aspire for change in the world. You can listen and download the track here. It’s great.

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The car’s on fire and there’s no driver at the wheel,

Release: August 3, 2010
Country: Montreal, Canada
Label: Merge
Genre: Indie-Rock
Sounds like: Wolf Parade, Fanfarlo

“A combination of indie rock muscle and theatrical, unapologetic bombast turned Arcade Fire into indie royalty in the early 2000s. Originally comprised of Régine Chassagne, Richard Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and brothers William and Win Butler, the group formed during the summer of 2003, after Win spotted Chassagne singing jazz standards at a Montreal art exhibit. The grandson of famed swing-era bandleader Alvino Rey, Win was quickly charmed by Chassagne’s performance, leading the two to launch a songwriting partnership. Romance followed shortly thereafter, and the duo expanded its sound by gathering Parry on organ, Kingsbury on bass, and Win Butler’s younger brother, William, on synthesizer and percussion. Drawing from the bandmates’ varied influences, Arcade Fire began mining an eclectic mix of bossa nova, punk, French chanson, and classically tinged pop music, referencing everything from U2′s passion to David Bowie’s eclecticism in the process.” Wikipedia

On August 3rd, Arcade Fire will officialy release their third album, The Suburbs. Well, it has already leaked to the internet this week and I have been able to listen to it a few times. What a great album. Usually, the third album of an artist can decide whether the band quietly fades away into oblivion or push themselves into the musical stratosphere. Leaded by the husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, the Canadian band from Montreal has been around for quite some time and built some amazing albums with energetic live performances. Now, three years since their last album, Arcade Fire crafted one of the best album of this musical generation. Even on the best albums, it’s easy to pick out a few songs that are far better the others on the album but on the Suburbs it’s not. Strong vocals with lyrics turned into a musical “tapisserie.” Funeral was about family and life, Neon Bible was about institutions, this time The Suburbs seems to be about adolescence. The band continue their use of strings, pianos and other traditional folk instruments like on their previous albums but this time they have added some electronic accompaniment that creates a complete and unique musical union. The album seems like a maturation in sound and content but is not diversion from their musical core. It is indisputably an Arcade Fire album; but at the same time it does not sounds like Arcade Fire songs you’ve heard before. They kept their own style without repeating themselves over and over again like so many bands do. The Suburbs is a great album, definitely one of their best.

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