Posts Tagged ‘PJ Harvey’
January 11th Mixtape Guest Blog from Huseyin Kishi
First guest mixtape of 2012 is brought to you by a member of the Twitterati, Huseyin Kishi. It’s a mystery how he crams in university work with the amount of informative articles and songs he digs up. I highly recommend you follow him if you’re interested in politics and the doomed climate we currently reside in. He also has insanely cool music taste and I’m forever in his debt for introducing me to Mariee Sioux.
Click here to play Huseyin’s mixtape on YouTube but may I recommend that you watch and not just listen as his choices are very much all about the performances and poetry as well. ♥
- Trespassers William – Different Stars Live (A song of great beauty and truth)
- Mariee Sioux – Wild Eyes (A transcendental journey)
- Tim Buckley – Phantasmagoria in Two (Jeff’s father, perhaps anguish is passed down)
- Julie Doiron – Condescending You (Never bettered, simply bitter)
- PJ Harvey – The Darker Days Of Me & Him (A song which sets her apart from anybody else, it is philosophy with music)
- R.E.M – Losing My Religion (Timeless)
- Carry Me Ohio – Love acoustic/Lost verses (An articulation of the contradiction of sorrow, loss, love and celebration)
- Idaho – To Be The One (Abstract words cemented in blossomed feelings)
- The Civil Wars – Billie Jean (from Later with Jools Holland, wonderful reworking of a classic)
- Alela Diane – Age Old Blue (Just another folk-tale)
A Tribute To John Peel
I recently made a plea for people to keep their ears open, how as a music lover I think it is essential to keep discovering new music. I want my life to be a constant soundtrack, ever-changing, ever-growing, sometimes heartbreaking sad, sometimes joyous and ecstatic, sometimes a precious secret, sometimes shouted from the rooftops. I hope it constantly evolves, taking me to places and down paths and through emotions like a trusted old friend.
John Peel will always be an inspiration to me. His faith in his music choices, his ear for picking out the next big thing at times years before they reached critical acclaim is a talent that I suspect cannot be taught but one I will always strive for. There are DJ’s working hard at keeping that legacy of supporting new music alive. Namely Steve Lamacq and John Peel’s son Tom Ravenscroft, who he must be immensely proud of.
I am sure many of you will be flicking through your well-worn copies of Margrave Of The Marshes this week, some of you may be catching John Peel’s Shed at Jackson Lane like lucky me. I guarantee all of you will be playing music he championed, maybe without even realising it. From PJ Harvey to Pulp via The Undertones and Nirvana.
As an oh-so painfully awkward teenager it was music I felt most connected to, spoke to me when I felt misunderstood, alone, gangly, spotty. John Peel brought me a lot of the music that saw me outgrow my acne, get a much fatter bum and find my confidence, my footing in the world.
So to him. Thank you. ♥
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Image from Future Radio
July 24th Mixtape – 2011 Challenge
This weeks mixtape turned into a challenge set by Marc via twitter. I have two standard responses to challenges. The first is to approach it with an energy & ferocity equal to Keith Moon’s drumming. The second it to approach with a slow pod, calmly confident I will get there in the end much like listening to Guy Garvey. I’ve approached this somewhere in between. I started off whizzing through it but then trying to whittle it down was a plodder.
I was to list my top 25 tracks of 2011 (so far) and although it sounds easy enough to do Marc had put his in order too. Well, painfully I’ve managed to get the list down to 25 after spending 5 days on it. As for showing favouritism, I just couldn’t do it. Every time I tried I felt guilty about placing Anna Calvi before PJ Harvey, or Black Lips over Bon Iver. So, although my list is no way near as cool as Marc’s here are the tracks that have stood out for me this year. Hope you enjoy, click on spotify to listen, the final three tracks are via YouTube.
If you have a playlist challenge for me email me at fromdesktilldawn@gmail.com. ♥
- Beirut – East Harlem
- Metronomy – She Wants
- PJ Harvey – The Words That Maketh Murder
- Emmy The Great – Iris
- Bon Iver – Calgary
- Lykke Li- Sadness Is A Blessing
- Wild Beasts – Bed Of Nails
- The Black Lips – Family Tree
- Friendly Fires – Hawaiian Air
- Anna Calvi – Blackout
- R.E.M. – Uberlin
- Sleigh Bells – Riot Rhythm
- Cold War Kids – Louder Than Ever
- Sparrow & The Workshop – Snakes In The Grass
- The Joy Formidable – A Heavy Abacus
- Wye Oak – Civilian
- Fleet Foxes – Someone You’d Admire
- Patrick Wolf – The City
- The Strokes – Undercover Of Darkness
- Foo Fighters – Rope
- Wu Lyf – Lyf
- The Go! Team – Buy Nothing Day
- Little Dragon – Ritual Union
- The Horrors – Still Life
- Bjork – Cosmogony
Morrissey Dumped for PJ Harvey
Such is the power of music that an ex-colleague from four years ago emailed me out of the blue today. To share with me that she loves the new PJ Harvey album, and I quote “it’s pure genius. Perhaps where Morrissey once was but no longer is”.
High accolade indeed from one of the Morrissey faithful. More on the man himself another time.
Little moments like this make me tingle, that your ears register an amazing sound and you want to share it with someone. Even if that someone is a person who you haven’t been in touch with for a while, just because you know they will appreciate it in the same way you do.
Quite rightly so as well. I’ve adored the woman since I laid eyes and ears on her as an awkward teen and she helped me see that people with the most interesting things to say and sing were not groomed in soulless girl bands. Her latest album could well be a contender for my album of they year, and it’s only February! I’ve been spotting comments of a similar nature from mere mortals up to the dizzy talents of Arcade Fire.
All hail Polly Jean Harvey. ♥
