musicality mostly thinks about work
hi there -
musicality has just not been going strong since I started working all of a year and a half ago.
not promising much – will just post things I come across more often (not just music stuff).
The Dark Side of Oz from Bryan Pugh on Vimeo.
A nice man made the effort to post the Dark Side of the Moon synced up with the Wizard of Oz – I had never done this before… it’s so much fun.
happy watching!
best,
tanmay
daily musicality
musicality didn’t rush this
hi there
haven’t been round these parts in a while. rest assured my excuse for the lull is much better than what i usually try and pass of as an excuse. we’ll not get into it.
we’ll get into some new (and some old) music.
musicality
(have been listening to this
… and have been thinking)
Built to Spill, There’s Nothing Wrong With Love
… here’s to the pacific northwest and an almost perfect record
Black Star, Mos Def and Taleb Kweli are Black Star
… here’s a style of music i really don’t listen to enough of or know enough about
Best Coast, Crazy About You
… hyped? yes. but hyped for good reason. it’s a jangly pop record with a heart. i was bound to love it.
Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker
… not a loyal Ryan Adams fan but can’t shake this album and I’ve really gotten to adore some of these songs in the last month.
Surfer Blood, Astro Coast
… it’s a hell of a lot of fun in the way the Vampire Weekend debut was a whole lotta fun.
Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard, One Fast Move or I’m Gone
… simple structures that tell us so much about these two (very different) very talented songwriters and their relationship with writing.
Megafaun, Heretofore
… always nice to see a band try and find it’s own sonic space.
as ever there’s a good fixin of Spoon in my life and I have been listening to Wilco and Death Cab a lot more recently as well.
in fact, here’s a gem of a video with Ben Gibbard performing “Title Track” from We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes alone at SXSW this year:
hope you’re well.
enjoy.
musicality, watching west wing episodes
hi there
hope you’re enjoying your may. it’ll soon be june.
haven’t honestly had a whole lot of time with music this break. the one album i have fallen for all over again is that Wilco gem (not YHF or A Ghost) – Sky Blue Sky.
yeah, just got won over again by the beauty of “Impossible Germany” and “Either Way.”
just that plain, just that simple
so there and hope the weekend treats you well.
love, tanmay
musicality, we’re up too much
hi there
(trying to leave NY – March ’07. can barely remember that day. am getting old-er, huh)
haven’t written in a long time so consistenly (omg, two posts in as many days!)
just kind of tripping over myself listening to the Wrens’ Meadowlands.
also, who knew I liked “Title Track” from We Have the Facts?
anyhow.
musicality is up way too much and asleep at all the wrong times
The Raveonettes – The Christmas Song
The Postal Service – We Will Become Silhouettes
Spoon – Anything You Want
Hava Nagilah
U2 – Sweetest Thing
Wilco – Handshake Drugs
Wilco – I’m the man who loves you
Death Cab for Cutie – Earth Angel
@ Lala – here
also, you can come across the strangest covers browsing youtube and refusing to study.
love, tanmay
musicality, love love love
hi there,
just a short burst.
for final finals season at NYU.
musicality, love love love
listen once through Lala @ http://tinyurl.com/34qy3ah
Death Cab for Cutie – Title Track
The Decemberists – The Crane Wife 1 & 2
The Dismemberment Pan – You are Invited
Dntel – (This is) The Dream of Evan and Chan
The Elected – Fireflies in A Steel Mill
Spoon – Written In Reverse
Wilco – I’m the man who loves you
The Wrens – Hopeless
Spoon – Written in Reverse
Wilco – I’m Always In Love
New Order – Love Vigilantes
Heavy Stereo – The Gift
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son
Beck – Girl
Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism
The Lucksmiths – Don’t Come With Me
The Postal Service – Brand New Colony
Spoon – Don’t You Evah
Spoon – Stay Don’t Go
Toploader – Dancing in the Moonlight
Death Cab for Cutie – Earth Angel
Coldplay – Don’t Panic
Heavy Trash – Kissy Baby
Belle & Sebastian – Step Into My Office, Baby
The Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice (Stack-O-Vocals)
Death Cab for Cutie – This Charming Man
The Lucksmiths – Guess How Much I Love You
goodluck. hope you’re all well.
love, tanmay
musicality says buy an amp
hi there
you look great. mr. lyman there’s looking good as well.
i look better, i hope – the weather in california has that effect. it’s the most wonderful, gorgeous weather a man can imagine. northern california spoils you. it spoils me.
at home, i get to spoil myself. oh, it’s so wonderful.
yet, here i am not just writing this to babble away – though, let no man underplay the sheer joy of summer in all its glory – i do have something to say.
get an amp.
amp those headphones.
amp them. make sure you’re hearing what’s on the record.
here’s something i’d recommend. have auditioned it but don’t own it – might in a few months depending on where i’m living.
NAD’s C315BEE Integrated Stereo Amp
through Amazon here
It’s a deeply competent and thoroughly trustworthy integrated stereo amplifier that will really do your music justice and make those cans sing. Yes, we want to make those cans sing – which goes to a continuing theme here at Musicality: get yourself some high fidelity equipment, man.
what threw my mind to this line of thinking was hearing Spoon’s latest amped through my trusty Sennheiser’s and a real hifi.
thanks for reading. hopefully listening.
tanmay
musicality, predictably back for a Spoon record
hi, hello
so, if you know me at all then you’ll know i’ve got a little bit of a mania when it comes to Spoon.
it’s kind of embarrassing – in my defense, it’s been like this for years. thusly, i have to write about the new Spoon record.
i’ve spent a whole lot of time with this record – first, when it was available as a stream on NPR, then when I got the stuff on lala (which is the most wonderful thing ever, btw), and now as I’ve got the CD & am glued to my headphones.
first let’s do a quick thing. yes, i do recommend this record. i know that’s awfully predictable on my part but you should hear me out.
Spoon – Transference (Merge, 2010)
There is something such as a ‘the Spoon sound.’ It has a lot to do with focused, deliberate use of sounds – instrumentation, voices, samples.
Everything you say, everything you do on a record counts just as much as the stuff you don’t do – the stuff that you allude to as you make all these sounds counts as much as the made sounds.
Guitars, drums, and pianos are everywhere – as well as thoughtful production considerations. Even the earliest records that were really jagged, angular rockers had this sense and it persisted into what was has been their popular breakthrough and their most accessible record (though, Kill the Moonlight & Girls Can Tell are as accessible, if not as glossy). Transference is wholly informed by the established ‘Spoon sound.’
Let’s not forget Britt’s ridiculously awesome vocal performance. Without his voice there is no ‘Spoon sound.’ His voice lays textures on top of and in between all the instrumentation that are perfectly balanced and are always considered.
Now that I’ve mentioned Britt by name, I’ve got to say something about the particular and innovative drumming of Jim Eno. Mr. Eno’s flourishes are magical and restrained. These guys don’t show off.
They can’t show off because their business is largely deconstructing pop sounds. Across their records, trying to pick apart pop sounds and reconstructing them is always on Britt Daniel’s mind – as the primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist.
That’s what all the deliberation is about. You are economizing. You don’t throw everything and the kitchen sink into the recording – or, when you throw anything into the recording you have to make sure that the song’s not overpowered by it’s components. Gimme Fiction went to town with trying to pick apart pop sounds and economizing the structures that came together when you reconstructed pop music through the ‘Spoon sound.’
Transference takes us deeper into the heart of what Spoon’s been doing all these years. It’s a record about their process – it’s got tons of material that’s come straight from demo recordings with little or no tweaking. The record is, in fact, the first one the band’s produced – it’s actually just the founding members of the group, Mr. Jim Eno & Mr. Britt Daniel, that produced the record.
I’ll be completely honest with you, the first listen of this record was underwhelming – or, better yet, it was fucking confusing. This isn’t the record they were working towards on Gimme Fiction or Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Though, they weren’t working towards Girls Can Tell when they put out Telephono or A Series of Sneaks. It took the second and third listens to get a sense of what the hell was going on.
It took till I got my headphones going with the CD for me to be floored. I got the groove before I got the real feeling of this record. That’s what it’s like with these guys, though. Even Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which is seen as their pop record, required a fair amount of listens and good fidelity in listening to get a sense of the record’s in’s & out’s.
I could go on and on about every song (and I might come back to this and do that).
Better still (at least for now) – just go listen to this record. It has awesome flow so try and listen to it in one sitting at least once.
One free listen is available over at lala.com – here http://www.lala.com/#album/1801721326119947844/Transference
Musicality Picks (note: i seriously do dig every single track) – Before Destruction, Written in Reverse, Trouble Comes Running, Out Go the Lights
winter break starts yesterday
hey there
been a while. realized i hadn’t posted. actually haven’t had a lot of time to do much of anything – until last night (or, well Wednesday night since i just slept through Thursday.)
a rather intense semester is over. have no idea how to feel – i feel relieved that that’s done but there’s so much to be done that i don’t know if this relief is warranted.
anywho. really, just been catching up with musical happenings recently. will be home soon and will go back to the well on music listening – alas, the list will definitely include:
- We Have the Facts & We’re Voting Yes, DCfC
- Gimme Fiction, Spoon
- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco
- Know By Heart, the American Analog Set
if you know me at all (or have read this, rather uneven, blog before) then you won’t be surprised at all by that list.
except a few posts over this break and i think i’m going to start doing the non-music bloggery again on musicality.
hope y’all had a wonderful Christmas Eve and have a joyous Christmas day (and Boxing Day).
best,
tanmay
musicality, hardly about music
hey, hi, howdy, hello
there’s hardly any chance that i could be enjoying this summer more.
it consists of reading, listening, watching, thinking, working (in moderation), and more thinking.
I’ve learnt a lot about random things. figured out just how much love i loudspeakers and hifi equipment – and how much more i love television.
so, here’s just a run down of some things i’ve had the chance to enjoy. music and other
Burn Notice
There is no greater badass than Michael Westen. Seriously, there can be no bigger badass than that dude. And the character is played perfectly by Jeffrey Donovan. I know this show ain’t high drama but it’s an amazingly executed show. The show has a very particular visual style that has matured and is gorgeously produced this season. There are hiccups with the HD broadcast but they aren’t so distracting that you’d be pulled away from the magic of our super spy in his quest to help himself but, first, help others. Honestly, early on this show was just a passing distraction – it was visually appealing but the storyline wasn’t pulling it’s weight in the first half season. It’s turned into this smart and wry tale about a man that really is trying to do the best he can in some very strange situations. It’s worth checking out and, I’d say, getting hooked.
Hulu (here) the latest 5 episodes – new ones show up with a week’s delay -
Ha Ha Tonka’s Novel Sounds of the Noveau South
Southern Rock. It’s something. This album and this band are news to me. I’d heard of them in passing – with a Kings of Leon reference in tow and passed on listening to them. Forgive me, I loved Kings of Leon way back when but the wheels came off that wagon a while back (like what happened to Oasis post-Morning Glory) . This is an album that has almost everything I look for in pop music – smart songwriting, well-done vocals, and beautiful production quality. It might run low, as a whole, on innovation but “Hold My Feet to the Fire” in itself makes up for that lacking in the any of the other songs.
Bluray
I think fidelity to recordings is the most important thing when presenting any media – a movie, a song, or a television series. Bluray is as close as we are to getting absolute fidelity in AV terms. Sure, there’s better resolution stuff that will come – oh, I’ll tell you easily that I know all too well the limitations of bluray – but it’s the best we’ve got right now. And, boy, is it something. It provides the best sound out there - in fact, what little it lacks in it’s capacity far as video quality is concerned it more than makes up for in it’s capacity to provide near-perfect information when encoded correctly.
I’m not championing running out and buying an expensive system – in this economy I’d be a douchebag to suggest that (disclosure: I haven’t made any hi-fi related investment for myself recently either). I’m saying that when you get a chance go and grab a well priced player – and don’t buy discs right now, go get a Netflix subscription if you don’t have one. Disc prices will come down and I’m going to recommend waiting the year or two to start amassing a size-able collection. However, it’s easy to see that player prices are going to plateau because we’re already hitting remarkably low prices – the tech in more expensive players is better but it’ll become available at a better price point soon enough. So, invest in a cheap player for now and pass it on in a few years – it’ll definitely keep for two years if you buy anything slightly above the lowest end of the market
Here are two very capable players around the $200 price point on amazon: Samsung BDP-1500 and Panasonic DMP-60. Here’s an LG that gives you the ability to stream Netflix titles that are available to watch instantly – a slightly higher price point but still well under $300 – LG BD370. Oh, and for those that may dare and have the accompanying equipment to really use such a player, I’d say get the Denon DVD-3800BDCI (it is surely in a higher price range and not for those faint of heart in hifi matters) – it’s Denon’s flgaship and is most definitely prosumer King of Bluray Players right now (also, I’m in love with this machine – it performs as well as something three times as expensive far as audio quality is concerned. It’s way more than a Bluray player – it’s a bluray/cd/dvd/dvd-audio player that can really do it all exceptionally well.)
You don’t even have to go out and buy an HDTV – you can enjoy the upscaling of DVDs (that almost all players now do in a competent, if not always remarkable, manner) and enjoy bluray discs sized to fit your resolution since players will generally play nice with non full-hd tv’s through HDMI, RCA, or Component video connections.
Hell, I’d say wait till christmas and get a small HDTV/Monitor to boot (not even necessarily something 1080P) – size really isn’t everything and, in all honesty, having the utility of hooking up something around 24 inches to use as a laptop/computer monitor and as a reasonably sized TV is just better sense than investing in tech that might not be worth the investment since new standards in display technology are around the corner (well, post-recession corner, anyhow).
When, and if, you do take the leap, I’d suggest you check out a few discs to see the magic of Bluray – “Wall-E”, “Casablanca” (yes – that Casablanca with Bogie and Ingrid Bergman), “Mad Men: Season 2,” and “Spiderman.”
there are other things that have kept me busy – one has been an obsessive pen-and-paper approach to designing a useful interface for an online publication. more on that, and other stuff, later.
for now – enjoy,
tanmay
