Category: music

Overjoyed

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Yes, it’s finally just (about) 48 hours until Bastille play Kirstenbosch Gardens, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for quite a long time now. Sadly, the weather forecast is currently not looking so hot. Or dry. Hmm. As with all Kirstenbosch concerts, the show goes ahead no matter what the weather throws our way.

Still, I’ve done plenty of concerts in the rain before, so herewith Overjoyed – perhaps the most underrated song on their Bad Blood album – with its unnecessarily complex Alt-J-style drum machine background and David Lynch-esque “girl next door buries diary in woods and becomes a prostitute” themed video.

Looking at their recent setlists, we can expect to hear Overjoyed on Wednesday evening, which will please me, if no-one else.

If you’re going along on either Wednesday or Friday, here are the times that things will be happening (valid for both evenings):

17:00 – Gates Open at Kirstenbosch Gardens
19:05 – Bed On Bricks
20:20 – Bastille
21:30 – Concert ends

Expect parking chaos and potentially *gasp* mud.
But above all, expect Dan Smith, his hair and that voice.

5FM do it just right

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Well done to 5FM, and especially to Gareth Cliff.
Your mix of news, views, memories and music was just right yesterday morning.

I’ve shared it on here before, but this was the first song I heard when I switched on yesterday, and will now always be inescapably linked to the events of the last 48 hours.

Song and coverage, both wonderfully appropriate.

Nytt album fra Morten Harket

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Good news from the former a-ha frontman is that:

Morten Harkets «Brother» får verdenspremiere under Spellemannprisen den 18. januar

All of which means that the new single Brother (following on from the recently released There Is A Place) will be premiered at the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammies i Stavanger konserthus next month. From there, the album will be released in March and then there’s a European tour starting in May. Other dates will follow later in the year, but there’s no mention of Cape Town just yet (nor will there be).
The album will only be finished this month, meaning that the release in March is some five months behind schedule. This also means that it is now ineligible for the 6000 miles… 2013 Album Of The Year Award, although it has an infinitely higher chance of being selected for the 2014 version.

I guess we need an a-ha video to pass the time:

 

Forever Not Yours from the Lifelines album of 2002. Almost 12 years ago *weeps quietly*. Bit of a bizarre Socialist Noah’s Ark theme to this one, with an interesting twist at the end. Not quite sure what message the boys were trying to put across here, but if it was anything important, I haven’t got it. Sorry.

You Will See Me

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The new album Repent. Replenish. Repeat. from Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip is good, but the last track You Will See Me is outstanding. Now they’re releasing it and thankfully there’s an outstanding video to go with it:

Warning! Contains some naughty language!

It’s dark, angry, passionate, mocking, inspired and inspiring – but by all the wrong emotions – it’s gritty and it’s thought-provoking. It’s also been playing on repeat on my iPod for the last month. This is really good stuff, with more to hear and understand each time you listen to it, and it also demonstrates amazing Pip’s lyrical fluency. While the likes of Tinie Tempah are reliably informing us that:

I got so many clothes, I keeps some in my aunt’s house.

Pip is sharing lines like:

I will use you to cruise through any writer’s block,
Any lazy days when a glazed gaze invades my mind’s cave of creativity.

and warning us:

I will wipe out entire races,
I will erase faces and displace with great haste and no graces.

All in all, it’s a spectacular work of art and passion. Although you may note that it does lack the festive feel of certain other Christmas singles.