Say hello to my kids

School has been shitty and taking up the majority of my time, along with other things, so I haven't had any time to write anything. That list of "Overlooked Albums" obviously hasn't been completed, but I have a 4-day weekend ahead of me so I'll likely have to time to finish and post that.

I'm going to begin a little "feature"-type blogging... a brief mention about some lesser-known or maybe just very recently-relevant band or album which will be every week or so. Since I've very, very bad at trying to write and post full album reviews regularly, maybe this will work out better.

But anyway...

Though I haven't gotten a chance to listen to it too many times, I'm really enjoying the self-titled EP by the post-rock band, Say hello my kids. I've probably mentioned at one point that I'm very fond of post-rock. It's perhaps my most favourite genre, but like almost all genres, there's a great deal of crap to sift through before you find the goods. Post-rock has the unfortunate reputation of being known particularly dull, and while I would agree to a certain extent (I really don't find too much variety in EitS, the Album Leaf, etc), there really are some excellent bands out there. I typically try to reach out into the more exciting end of post-rock spectrum and only post the real gold here.

That being said, I think Say hello to my kids meets some of the higher expectations of post-rock. Their debut EP doesn't form around any one stable sound, which I like, because it gives them various areas in which to branch off to. They use vocals in a lot their music in an "abnormal" manner for post-rock; there's more focus on lyrics than is typically found. Interestingly enough, the songs with vocals also include the most interesting instrumentation and end up grabbing the most attention. Say hello to my kids resemble a sort of... toned-down version of iLiKETRAiNS that uses the ambient elements of This Will Destory You's music. And somewhere throughout that we hear some Mono-esque dark droning guitar notes and also the shy piano typical of The Tumbled Sea. (ALL those bands really need to be name-dropped around here more often!). It skips around a bit, but I highly suggest listening to the entire EP (which you can download from the band's last.fm). So it's kind of a downer to listen to, but in that good "I want to spend all these dreary winter days alone in my house eating dried fruit, reading out-of-print books, and reminiscing about the ones I miss, being content, but not happy" way. It's not wintertime, you say? Well, I live in Washington and it's always winter here... (rain rain rain rain rain rain)

Rating: 8.1/10

Top 10 Songs of 2009

Recently, I realized that my “best of” list from 2009 was neither very complete nor accurate. So to wrap things up from last year a little more neatly, here are my top 10 songs from as of now:

1. Introducing Palace Players – Mew
2. Passionate introverts (dinosaurs) – A Sunny Day in Glasgow
3. Close Chorus – A Sunny Day in Glasgow
4. Boy Lilikoi – Jónsi (this counts, yes…?)
5. What Would I Want? Sky – Animal Collective
6. Seven – Fever Ray
7. Things Will Never Be the Same Again - jj
8. Summertime Clothes – Animal Collective
9. People Say – Portugal. The Man
10. Islands – The xx

A list of overlooked albums will be posted soon… (as in hopefully before next year ;)

[currently listening to: When The War Ends – Portugal. The Man]

The Antlers at Neumos

I’m beginning to have doubts about the quality of shows at Neumos after seeing two flawless ones at The Showbox last month. It’s nice to be able to get close enough to the band to touch their feet (I don’t actually do this), but it’s definitely not worth it when you can’t hear shit; just the deafening thumps of overpowered bass. And of course, it gets worse and worse the closer you get to the stage. I guess I was also expecting the Antlers’ show to be kind of quiet-er. The sound didn’t work too hot for them here. Vocals were basically gone. Drowned beneath the LOUDNESS. Which is a real shame, since the singer has a pretty nice voice.

But from what I could make out, they played pretty well. I couldn’t see the drummer that well, but the dude on the keyboards was turning all sorts of knobs and tapping all these pedals through the entire show… I found myself watching his feet a lot.

Those little plants on the set were the greatest things ever.

[currently listening to: In The Attic – The Antlers]

my flickr

My mum is a photographer and I've sort of taken that up as a hobby of my own over the years. But I've never really given it that much thought or attention until this year. Right now, I'm taking a film photography class at school and I'm absolutely in love with it. I've been using my dad's negative scanner to document and save my photos digitally as well as physically. I'm going to begin uploading them more frequently on my flickr.

I entered three pieces (2 photos and 1 photogram) into the Washington State High School Photography Competition recently. There were 3,495 entries and all three of mine were finalists in the categories I entered them in (top 18 are finalists)! The photo below placed 5th in b&w landscape, which is considerably better than I expected to do!

The results from the rest of the competition are shown here on the Kenmore Camera site, though only 1st-3rd places are shown.

Yesterday, I saw The Antlers play at Neumos so photos coming soon! (I know I've been neglecting posting things lately)

[currently listening to: Two - The Antlers]