theme ONE HUNDRED!!!

[cabaretlights.livejournal.com]

BEFORE THE END CREDITS



The movie's wrapping up

The denouement is going down
There is a sense of finality
But it's not over yet.


(No theme more appropriate to commemorate 100 posts (!) and the end of the year,
because even at a milestone,
there is always more to come!)

ninety-nine

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

Song
Varnaline
Songs in a Northern Key
2001

My dad gave me a burned copy of this album--a gold Maxell disc with a Sharpied "Varnaline" scrawled on its surface in his distinct
handwriting; he didn't include the tracklisting. I was at McGill, it was around this time of year.  I'd gotten into the habit of spending breaks between classes on the ground floor of McLennan library with my Discman and a black, zippered pouch that held twenty carefully-selected CDs.  I often sat near the windows facing Sherbrooke street, leaning forward, an elbow firmly planted on the desk, my chin cupped in the palm of my hand.

On a swirling snow afternoon, I took a break from Tori Amos's Scarlet's Walk and popped the mysterious Varnaline CD into my Discman.  I liked track one well enough, but it was track two--"Song"--that make me sit up straight and put down my highlighter.  It was one of those rare music moments you can't quite put words to--when you feel a shiver building at the top of your spine and you can sense that it is going to course down to your tailbone, but you're not quite sure when to expect the drop; like the moment before a rollercoaster crests a hill.  I remember telling my dad that I wished I could hear it again for the first time--to somehow relive that initial stomach-churning experience and flutter of excitement.

I think I fell instantly in love with the sound of this song...that pounding drum, steady bassline and rumbling guitar.  I love the way it thumps along, verging ever-so-slightly on distortion, making the ache to "find sleep somewhere" all the more painful (something I related to when I first heard it...McGill and sleeplessness seem to go hand in hand).  I liked the idea that the speaker was trying to find THE song that would help relieve his insomnia, a song that he could "take to the other side of sleep" (beautiful!). 


I've always known that I would share this song with you at some point.

ninety-nine.

[cabaretlights.livejournal.com]

Midnight City
M83
Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
2011

♥: Sometimes I find/pick up on songs ages before they become incessantly-played radio hits (cough). Sometimes, though, I come way late to the song-party; this seems to be one of those times.

I've liked M83 for awhile -- the first time I remember listening to them was in 2007, at my mom's house for my 21st birthday party -- I'd kicked my mom and V out of the house for the night, and a few of my friends (including Julie) came over with booze, weed, Super Nintendo, and music. My friend Kat put on M83's "Car Chase Terror!" and I was stunned speechless. What strange new electronic magic was this? Even though the voiceover was fairly cheesy, I was hooked. I downloaded everything I could find when I got back downtown, and had an amazing musical experience with -- to this day one of my favourite fall songs -- "We Own the Sky" in October '08.

But M83's been getting hipster-popular, as have most bands I like, in the past while. And it's not that it changes my ultimate enjoyment of the music -- but I gotta admit, when a band I like (not love) gets to the point where everyone ~cool~ has them on their iPod, I tend not to leap to their new stuff immediately. So while I'd downloaded Hurry Up, We're Dreaming when it was released last year, I only unzipped it this week -- and then, only because The Buzz has started playing this song -- and I think it's been on the airwaves for awhile. And you know what? Sometimes it's nice to be late to the party, because everyone else's musical-ejaculation over it has faded slightly, and instead of feeling somehow possessive of a song that's become popular, I can have my own experience with it.


So, my own experience with this song is that: when I first heard it, it sounded like something I'd heard before, somehow -- like, not similar to something else, but legitimately a song I'd already heard, but hazy, like I'd only heard it in a dream. It got stuck in my head, it got under my skin, it attached itself to my veins and pulsed. It's a really kickass example of the type of electronica I most love: layered, melodic, explosive, expansive, building, with hooks and vocal structure. I just REALLY LOVE, LIKE REALLY LOVE, THIS SONG. I love dancing to it in my room, I love blasting it in my car, I love hearing it on my Senns, I love unwittingly playing it back in my head, I love that they pull off the saxophone at the end (unlike a certain opening band we know) -- I love every little bit of it.