Off Topic.

I seem to have several un-published posts. That's fine.

Today I have been listening to music that always seems to alter my perspective on what music is and can be. It all started when I grabbed Sufjan Stevens' Age of ADZ. The standard listen to this album is that I listen to the entire thing at least once, then skip back to track ten and loop it until my voice is horse. I will be the first to admit that of all the songs to sing along to, I sure did pick the closest to being a 2004-core emo set. I think I just enjoy the range jumps in that song and how it ALWAYS seems to be accessible to my limited range. There is also something therapeutic about singing "I want to be well" in a rhythmic round to then be followed by yelling "I'm not fucking around.." a billion* times in a row. The other thing about that song is how impossible it would be to recreate live without having two-thousand* people on stage with you. I would also like to take this moment to point out how the drums in the crescendo are lame and weak.

*May be a hyperbole.

The second album I sat through in its entirety today was A Silver Mount Zion's he has left us alone but shafts of light sometimes grace the corner of our rooms. This will probably always remain as one of my top post-rock AND classical albums of all time. The movements are beautifully timed, the layers are perfectly separated... AHHHH I could go on for days. The thing that happens when I am listening to this album is that I get completely enveloped into the music and I can't seem to concentrate on anything else going on around me. Though haunting, I never find it depressing. Though beautiful, I never find myself stumbling. It is just completely what it is. I can't say that I know to many albums that I can say that about.

Last but not least is Sigur Ros with their album (). This album has a tendency to bring me to tears when I'm (not?) in the right frame of mind. Everything I said about ASMZ? Make it so, then double it. If you have ever seen the videos they released around that album, then you know exactly what to feel. It's claustrophobic, restrictive, degrading and fucking amazing. Untitled Track 8 has broken me down on several occasions just because of the several minute build to the most intense explosion of cacophony I can think of ever to be created by men. Fuck. I can never think of an album that has moved me more in my existence than that one has. It has shaped me as a person and has changed me as a musician and all without saying a coherent word. Quite literally. The album is written in the fictional "Vonlenska/Hopelandic" because the singer was sick of people trying to figure out what he way trying to say. If there was an album I could hear just before I lost every last frequency from my hearing, it would be this one. I think I have (at least tried) to share this album with every person in my life so far. I really do have to thank Johnny for getting me into them back when I was in grade 10. If he had any clue how much this album has meant to me, he would probably rub it in my face for ever doubting him.

Well that turned into a gush fest. I don't think I realized how much I enjoyed that album until I started writing this.
As I mentioned, I have a few posts that I never posted either because they are incomplete, or they were just not good. They are all full of something neat, so maybe I'll just combine them and GIANT-BLOG.


-J

5) Yeah, I'm still doing this.

AHHH! Now that was the very definition of a busy week. I am officially first aid qualified and I'm pretty sure I clocked over 40 hours in the work place again. Time moves on, and Easter is here, and I got to see Sigur Ros last night!


It was pretty amazing. Oneohtrix Point Never opened the show. He's almost like if you were to cross Aphex Twin with Sigur Ros; pretty strings and choir samples, sliced together in a frantic collection of sounds.


Sigur Ros themselves, I felt, started a bit weak. They had this curtin in front of them for the first couple of songs. I had a neat effect for a little bit, but they weren't doing enough with it to warrant how long it was up. As soon as it dropped, I felt like the show began. I can't really remember the set. I did mean to take notes. I wound up sitting there, gapping maw, blown away by the brilliance and beauty of what was in front of me. They played every song that I wanted to hear (minus BaBa from the EP BaBaTiKiDiDo, but I would have been REALLY surprised), and even the songs I didn't care for on album sounded amazing. I still haven't heard the newest release, but now I almost have to because of how BAD ASS the songs were. The one piano player/aux percussionist had a full rack of metal slabs to get a proper "pot and pan" feel.

The back drop for the set was all the modified music video clips you can find from past shows. They did a good job at meshing images displayed on the screen and some of the stage lighting to make things seem like they were one. The lighting was really cool; either really organic lights set up like stars, or frantic strobes and spot lights to convey the frantic nature of some parts. Joining Sigur Ros on stage was a horn section (who, though very talented, I have no clue who they were) and I thought it was Amiina rejoining to fill out the string section, but I have been corrected. Everyone played their parts brilliantly, though it was fun to hear the occasional bunk note.

Now for things I could talk about any day.

Bioshock Infinite is staring me in the face. I really would like the time to get that plastic wrap off. I am beyond stoked that it has finally been released, now it's just a question on when to play it.

To my dearest metal heads: please do yourself the favor of looking up the Toronto band Titan. They are by far one of my favorite bands in Canada and my favorite metal band who haven't broken up. Bone-crushing rhythms and tear-evoking melodies in a soul-destroying arrangement with relentless and bloodied cries piercing through the cascading collection of melodiousness sounds. Parts and pieces of their sound reminds me of the Hamilton local band named Hoosier Poet, which is another one of my favorites.

Here is a horrible sounding live video. It's still pretty, though.

Here is the BandCamp for the new album.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that I love bands that remind me of Buried Inside and all of their brutal, beautiful sounds.

AND NOW FOR ME TO GUSH OVER BURIED INSIDE!

This band still holds the status of the prettiest band I have ever heard. It is the only band that can brutally beat the shit out of my ears and I cry with joy and absolute awe. I came in durring the era around their second album 'Chronoclast: Selected Essays On Times Reckoning And Auto-Cannibalism' and what a brilliant time to find them. The album is one long song broken into ten tracks with names to keep the theme going. Might I add that I'm pretty sure the drummer uses a single kick the entire time? Isn't that just amazing?
I was rather depressed when I found out that I missed their last show a couple of years ago. I had heard that they were coming up to ten years playing brutally fast music with hectic shows and mostly just playing for food and new an end was in sight. Of course, when someone offered me tickets and didn't mention it was their last show, I thought I'd have another year at least. Boy, was I red.

Shit quality, but you get the idea.