I got my hands on The King Is Dead by the Decemberists, as well as Smith Westerns’ new LP Dye It Blonde. I was about to get Anna Calvi too, but I just couldn’t find it! One for the future, then.

Briefly, I love both albums, Dye It Blonde slightly more than The King Is Dead for now.

The King Is Dead is the Decemberists’ Americana album. It’s pleasant and bright and more than a little sunny. A far cry from the unwieldy Hazards of Love, it strikes me as a very assured and confident performance. Almost too assured and confident, in fact. The music sounds brilliant; the band simply seems to be growing into its own with each new release, at least, sonically. The album is definitely full of wonderful tracks, catchy as hell and infinitely replayable, though I did find one or two slightly plodding. That said, it does feel like it lacks a little something. It doesn’t have the strangeness of Castaways and Cutouts, the vulnerability of Picaresque, or the sheer sense of adventure of The Crane Wife, and as a result, comes across as being a little too perfect. Still, it’s a very pleasant album and I am sure I will be listening to it over and over again in the course of the year. Do give it a shot.

At the same time, I’ve been very impressed by Dye It Blonde. It’s a wondrous piece of work that is ridiculously listenable. Sure, it’s full of fun, as you would expect, but it’s also informed by a remarkable seriousness. The lads may be young and possibly new to the game of love, but they certainly don’t show it. In fact, they seem to know the rules so much better than most. Technically, it is a highly accomplished album, with the synth and guitars filling out the first-rate melodic talents of the band. It’s a young album, an energetic and indulgent affair (and I mean that in the best possible sense). But it’s also youthful in the sense that it betrays the sensibility that no one should be afraid to get heartbroken. What a way to begin the new year in music.

All right, I’ll try to locate a copy of Anna Calvi when I head out on Sunday.

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I’ve just finished Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. A very beautiful book. I’m basically trying to squeeze in as much reading as I can before the exams right now.

Been making friends here and there,which is always a lovely thing.

It’s also a big week. I’ve a couple of interesting things to do (that is, unless you consider assignments interesting as well) and also some big decisions to make. I hope to get things sorted out soon. More on that as it happens.

I’ve also been chasing my submission. And I wonder if I should do something to the two short stories I have on my hands right now.

Yes, next week is the ominously named Week 13, which means school will be over soon. I have one essay left to complete. Well, actually, I have one-and-a-half. There’s also a small quiz early next week. So it’s not exactly plain-sailing all the way to the finish line. The exams loom in incredibly unappetising fashion.

The weather’s been pretty crazy. Incredibly warm sometimes and then inexplicable rain. Today was one such warm day, though today came without the rain.

And that’s about it. Because I haven’t been sleeping and my brain feels like kueh tutu.

There is a new Decemberists song available for download, and you can get it from their main page [here]. I like it. Feels confident and not overdone. I was perhaps less surprised than when they released “The Rake’s Song”, but in a good way. I’m looking forward to the new album.

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This is also by no means a best-of list, especially considering how my tastes can sometimes be rather esoteric. It’s more of a review of things that I’ve enjoyed in the past year. I hope that you and yours can too.

So, if you’re running short of ideas and running short on time, consider giving these a shot. Alternatively, give yourself a little Christmas treat after a long year.

Books

2666
Roberto Bolaño

For a period of time after reading 2666, I couldn’t read anything else without feeling underwhelmed. Bolaño’s opus is a towering achievement, at turns absurdly funny and hopelessly dark, at once irreverent, unabashed, sprawling and intense. While it is true that one’s mileage may vary with regards to certain portions of the text, the quality of Bolaño’s prose never slips, which ought to be a remarkable achievement except for how it is overshadowed by the book’s immense ambition and spectacular beauty. It is works like these that inspire the very sort of hope that we should have in art, where imagination is vested with powers incomparable and the written word has the ability to intone, inspire, crush and create. It is works like these that remind you the importance of art, as well as its limitless nature.

[You can get this in a couple of humongous hardcover editions, a new one-volume paperback, or the box set that split it up into three books. I liked the one I have the best, which is the three-book edition.]

All-Star Superman
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely with Jamie Grant

Grant Morrison is my favourite comic book writer, and sometimes one of my favourite living writers. I say sometimes because in the multitude of his ambitions, he quite frequently (if I dare say) falls somewhat short. But on the good days, when it all comes together, Morrison is able to take the comic book medium to quite incredible heights. All-Star Superman sees Morrison in some of his best form, reimagining the Superman story in a manner both bold and brilliant. It all comes together (with Quitely’s art and Grant’s inks) in a package that makes you realise the things that all things are possible in the comic medium.

[You can get the collected edition in two volumes, which are available in hardcover and (I think) paperback. I'm not sure if you'll have too much luck hunting down the individual issues.]

Death At Intervals
José Saramago

Of Saramago’s many otherworldly talents, one of them appears to be the ability to make the most absurd plots function. In Death At Intervals, he tells the fable of a country in which everyone, one day, just stops dying. At the hands of a lesser writer, this would probably have drowned in some unspectacular, but Saramago somehow manages to pull it off. What emerges is (as one would expect from a Saramago novel) a bleak exploration of human nature. Every celebration is simply a secret waiting to reveal its cost.

What I didn’t expect, however, was just how humorous the whole thing was. In these pages, Saramago finds the perfect balance between the more piercing perspectives into human beahaviour and the somewhat irreverent and unexpected jokes. It’s a brilliant thing to see. (He wryly lampoons everything from the government, the mob, and even the editors.)

The second half of the novel takes an even more unexpected turn and I am well aware that this will probably not succeed as well as the first half of it. Within it, Saramago decides to personify death, and his characterisation of her is arguably less likely to be as convincing as the remarkable first half of the novel. Nevertheless, I liked it, because it surprised me how it had a certain type of sweetness that I wouldn’t have expected to see outside of the very best children’s fiction.

[This is available in paperback in a variety of covers. There was a black hardcover a while back, but if you ask me, the purple Vintage edition with the cute comic art cover is probably the best representation of its contents.]

Pandora In The Congo
Albert Sánchez Piñol

At the heart of Pandora In The Congo is a writer who writes the tale of a certain Marcus Garvey. It begins by caricaturising the adventure novel, and then bursts into one of its own in the tradition of Conrad and Rider Haggard.

Piñol seizes you from the get-go with his startling imagination and boundless energy, and leads you through a novel like the architect of a good rollercoaster ride. It has thrills, spills, blood, wit, candour, altruism, hearts of darkness, romance and discourses on human nature. It asks difficult questions! It enthralls and excites! It has murder! It has villains! It has ugly humans doing ugly things! It has frightening underground humanoids! It has romance in the trees! What’s not to like?

[I've only ever seen a paperback edition of this.]

The Way Through Doors
Jesse Ball

Jesse Ball’s book is in essence a variation of The Arabian Nights. It is a scheme of things that appeals to us, I think, because of our inherent desire to believe in the power of stories. In order to prevent Mora Klein from slipping into slumber (and thus causing her dreadful harm), Selah Morse, our wonderfully unreliable narrator, has to tell her stories. It is a celebration of the artform in a manner both earnest and sweet, albeit slightly challenging because of its charming oddness and unusual form.

This was a happy accident for me. I picked it up not knowing what I was getting into. I ended up delighted and rather mesmerised. There is a purity and beauty to this that reminds us that perhaps the best parts of our lives are reserved for those unafraid to dream.

[I got this on paperback. I don't know if it comes in any other form, but that Vintage edition was put together in the most lovely fashion.]

Bonus Mention

Your Inner Fish
Neil Shubin

Here’s one additional book I thought I ought to mention. Unlike the rest of the books here, it’s a non-fiction book that essentially deals with the theory that we’ve all evolved from fish. It’s written with great clarity and much enthusiasm, and I’m sure this will win Natural History more than a few new students.

Music

Abbey Road [2009 Remaster]
The Beatles

The Beatles return with their entire catalogue remastered, and I am of the opinion that they are quite remarkable. Nowhere is this more welcome (well, to me, anyway) than with Abbey Road. The differences between the remaster and the original will probably not be as pronounced on Abbey Road as compared to some of the other albums, but it’s these differences that reinvigorate the album and give it a new dimension. The percussion pulsates in She Came In Through The Bathroom Window. The bass drives The End forwards in a way I could never have dreamed. Like I said, it’s not that the differences are night and day, but what differences they are.

Funny feeling, this. It’s 2009, and the Beatles rock again.

[This is available as a single album release and, if it's a special someone who happens to be a Beatles nut, as part of The Beatles Stereo Box.]

The Hazards Of Love
The Decemberists

The Decemberists returned this year with a gigantic rock suite telling the story of a pair of star-crossed lovers, an evil child-killing fellow, a jealous mother, a forest and a river. I suppose if there was anything characteristically Decemberist, it would be something like this.

The band has probably not sounded better (so far), with top-notch production (just listen to the opener) and some of the best musicianship they’ve yet exhibited (all around, though Chris Funk’s electric guitar and Jenny Conlee’s organ will be the most immediately impressive). And really, who wouldn’t want to see the grand, operatic ambition of telling a story like that with excellent music? The album’s massive ambition is a thing to admire, although it sometimes does end up being the album’s greatest fault. It feels every now and then as if they haven’t got enough material to sustain the suite; and sometimes slips into a sort of Disney phase (the romantic sides of the album, in particular). Nevertheless, there’s plenty of good music here, and it’s a spectacle that you really shouldn’t miss.

[The album is available at the Decemberists store, among other places, but I wanted to note that if you get it there now, you will also get a DVD of the animated feature that they put together to accompany the album.]

Humbug
Arctic Monkeys

Humbug is a carnival with a dark twist, a biting poison and the occasional moment of sweetness. Unlike the first two endeavours of the Arctic Monkeys, it is a quite successful attempt at making an album as a cohesive whole. It definitely feels as if they don’t feel the need to impress so immediately anymore (most notably in the very controlled and cheekily vulgar opener, My Propeller), and that shows in the care that has been taken in crafting some of this music. There are fewer hooks, fewer catchy singles, fewer overt displays of showmanship, but definitely a marked maturity to their musicianship. It’s an excellent album by an excellent band that’s showing signs of moving in the right direction.

[All major record stores, and probably most minor ones too.]

Middle Cyclone
Neko Case

Nature and the need for love frame Neko Case’s latest album, and in this balance we find something pleasant, bittersweet, and ultimately sweeping. There is a cinematic quality to this album as it moves from country to noir to rock and even to the spiritual. The range of it alone is impressive, and is made even more impressive by her incredible voice. And while it is one of the very best voices in the business, demanding your attention at every turn, credit should go too to the band for managing to produce a Walden-esque aesthetic within the confines of the album.

Resembling a midsummer night’s dream of forests and fireflies, of rain on the fields and creaking cicadas in the dark nights, tinged with more than a hint of heartbreak, the album turns out to be a thoughtful endeavour that I found thoroughly enjoyable.

[It's really not anything like the cover.]

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix

Early Phoenix stuff has always somehow struck me as promising and yet lacking in some way. That wasn’t at all the case with this cleverly titled album. It’s an album that tries to deal with the grandiose themes of love and angst and disappointments and living in frame of their now-mature sense for pop-rock. In doing so, Phoenix abandons their sophisticated and excessive arrangements for something more urgent, something that breathes. It understands loneliness. It understands hurt. It asks that you pull your socks up. It asks that you step on the gas and ride into the sunset. By somehow drawing upon Mozart, Liszt, Brain Eno and Daft Punk, Phoenix has produced a work of youth and hope that burns as brighter than anything I’ve heard this year (and many others).

Bonus Mentions

It’s Blitz!
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Together Through Life
Bob Dylan

Two more albums that I didn’t have space for. I wanted to say that even not being the biggest fan of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I really enjoyed It’s Blitz!. Together Through Life, on the other hand, sees Dylan put out music that’s perhaps more… ‘grounded’? I don’t know if that’s the word for it. I have a terrible vocabulary. It certainly has a far less epic feel than the preceding albums in his discography, and doesn’t carry the same sense of importance about it, but it features Dylan in a somewhat more relaxed mood, delivering some very clever lyrics and supported by impeccable performances. Excellent stuff.

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I’ve started work on a short story. I can’t remember if I said down here that I was working on one about a week ago, but if I did then that one is scrapped because it didn’t look as if it would work. This new one appears to be doing fine so far, although having not written anything for what must be three months now, it all feels a little like dragging myself through a swamp. But don’t get me wrong—there definitely is a sense of joy. I’m definitely glad to be back in business.

The story is temporarily named Distant Star (I realise there is a Roberto Bolaño book of the same name but it was not intentional). It is I suppose nothing too new for me. It’s not exactly something I haven’t tried before. Yet it’s nice to be doing something like that again after all this time and I’m so far quite happy with the way it’s going. I’ve got about a thousand words down, and it all looks like it could be fine. I actually have no idea where it’s going to go, but at least it looks like it’ll turn out okay.

Irregularities

Project things are just… not turning out the way that you’d expect them to, but then again I guess they never do. As such it looks like a long day ahead for me today, and I might have to push away an appointment that I had arranged for earlier. Gah. That’s the way it goes, as the song will tell you. I really just want to do okay here and get this over with, though we’re not even past the halfway line at this point in time.

Animated Hazards Of Love

“And so: we Decemberists are pleased to announce the official release of Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized, a collaboration between the band and four filmmakers, Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka and Santa Maria — each of whom have created an animation to accompany a section of the music.  At Royce Hall on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on October 19, The Decemberists will perform the entire piece synchronized with the animation, as well as an additional second set of older and newer material. A limited presale will be underway Wednesday at 10am PST at http://decemberists.tickets.musictoday.com/Decemberists/calendar.aspx.  General tickets will go on sale this Friday, September 18.”

[via The Decemberists]

I am more than a little sad that I’ll not be able to attend it. I hope there’s a DVD or the like, though. I’m fairly sure that it’d be great.

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Rock Opera

The Hazards Of Love is a rock opera that sometimes sounds like a musical. It tells the story of William, a shapeshifter who dwells in the taiga and can inhabit the form of a fawn, who one day falls for a river maiden called Margaret. After a tryst or two, Margaret finds herself pregnant, while William incurs the wrath of the jealous forest Queen. Along the way, a really evil man, the Rake, gets involved somehow. And all you need to know is that at the end of this starcrossed lovers story, William and Margaret fulfil their destiny.

Rocking Arrangements

This story is spun into a massive hour-long song cycle that oscillates between folk song and hard rock, with all sorts of other genres fitted in snugly in between. The entire song cycle proceeds using a number of melodic motifs arranged into a musical sort of format, with variations each time. In general, it all works out quite well. I was particularly impressed with the opening, actually, with a wonderful, flowing stretch of songs from Prelude to The Hazards Of Love 2 (Wager All).

Write Right

Some of the writing really sparkles. The Rake’s Song, in particular, is a stand-out, with clever turns of phrase (“I was wedded and had whetted my thirst”) and sometimes devilish humour. It even has a bit of foreshadowing stuffed into it at the end, and overall, really shines.

That’s not to say the rest of the writing isn’t any good. There are stretches in which we see Colin Meloy at his lyrical best, and it’s just about everything you would expect of a Decemberists album.

Sometimes, though, the writing did leave me a bit cold. Parts of (Wager All) reminded me of Disney cartoons, for instance. It does occasionally feel as if he doesn’t have as much material as he would have liked, and some bits feel a bit rough around the edges.

Sounds Good

Whether it be the guitar-Hammond exchange at the end of The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing or the opening The Hazards Of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle The Thistles Undone), this is the best the band has ever sounded on record, as if expanding on the brilliant production of The Crane Wife.

Rock Band

The band, too, is in excellent form. Chris Funk’s remarkable guitar work and Jenny Conlee’s lovely Hammond organ displays are the most outstanding. Guest performances by Shara Worden, who puts in a performance as the Queen that I absolutely adore, and Becky Stark, who plays Margaret to perfection, are spot-on.

My Melody

The songs mostly don’t manage to stand on their own, which, given the nature of the album, is to be expected.

A few of the tracks really stuck with me. The Hazards Of Love 1 was a great opening, and Won’t Want For Love (Magaret In The Taiga) shortly after that is a track I really love. If there was a chorus to the entire album, it’s the motifs established by The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid, in which William and the Queen have an unhappy exchange. The Rake’s Song comes across as one of the strongest of the lot, and is certainly one of the few that can hold its own like a normal single. I found Annan Water captivating, and the ending section, with The Wanting Comes In Waves (Reprise) seguing into The Hazards Of Love 4 (The Drowned), was quite successful.

Last Thoughts

The Hazards Of Love is most certainly not for everyone, although that could be said about every other Decemberists album. It has a few rough spots too, sometimes seeming as if it stretches itself a bit thin. If you’re a Decemberists fan, you’ll most likely love it, and if you’re not, then you might want to give it a shot if you’re in the mood for something different. Me? I really like it.

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So I’m kind of just dropping by with a bunch of random things.

Opinion Soon!

I’ve been listening to The Hazards Of Love, and I’ll be putting up some thoughts on it as soon as things settle down a bit.

All The Plans!

I’ve also been listening to the not-so-new-anymore Starsailor album All The Plans. It’s not bad. Certainly like it better than the last one. It hasn’t quite won me over in the way Silence Is Easy did, but there are a few songs that I’m quite taken to. The opener is really good, and there are a number of others that have a bit of sparkle to them. A really decent album.

In Fact!

After the exams, I really hope to be doing an assortment of things that just need doing. Like getting a haircut. Getting a shave. Blogging properly. (Sorry.) Writing. Watching movies. Meeting friends. Dentist’s. More writing. Reading. Some games. Hunting unicorns. Loads of editing. You know, the usual things. It’s just that there isn’t the heart for these things when the exams loom dark and dangerous. Especially after that math paper.

H1N1!

Speaking of exams, I now have to go an hour earlier for my examinations because of the swine flu outbreak, because apparently we have to pass a temperature screening before being allowed to take the paper.

I’m sure these precautions are great and all; but sometimes I get the feeling that the half the media reports emerge from the shadow of fear-mongering.

Three Bags Full!

Photographs of the near-perfect baby mammoth found. [via National Geographic] Beautiful stuff.

Touch!

Researchers at John Hopkins University seem to have discovered that microRNA production is at some level regulated by touch/cell density. [via PhysOrg]

Goats!

Google mows their lawn with goats. [via The Official Google Blog]

All right, back to fend off Physiology.

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Three papers down. Math was worse than I thought it’d be. Signals was slightly better than I thought it’d be. Cell Biology was, hmm, I don’t know. The usual, I suppose. One more paper, though. Physiology, you better watch yourself.

Goodbye, April

Flip your calendars!

Hazardous

I was supposed to write some comments about The Hazards Of Love today, but it really just came in through the mail yesterday. That said, I’m just very happy to receive it, no matter how late. The signed booklet was a bit of a bonus.

I’ve listened to it once through. It’s certainly different. Not quite the catchy tunes of some previous efforts, and more of a cultured endeavour, an expansive drama that seems to go by very quickly despite being about an hour long. I’m still not sure what I think of it. Wasn’t what I was expecting, but certainly surprised me in a good way.

Friday Neuroscience

The brain works best when in the right rhythms. [via PhysOrg]

Sleeping and memory. [via Newsweek]

Gaming Goodness

New PixelJunk game forthcoming. [via Kotaku] I spend more time playing PSN games than actual PS3 games on that machine, so this news fills me with joy.

Sars Wars

There’s this slightly over-the-top Thai movie called Sars Wars. I’ve never watched it before, but the wackiness of the trailer makes me want to.

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Terrible things seem to be looming over the horizon. The exams look remarkably unfriendly, but for now I first have to deal with a test on Friday that involves too much studying. It’s not looking too bad, just not very good, although the forecast is less optimistic for the exams. That said, let’s take it one problem at a time.

Checking It Out

I was puzzled as to why my Hazards Of Love order was taking so long, so I dropped the Decemberists Store an email on Monday evening. The reply came somewhere in the middle of the night yesterday, and it appears that it got lost in the sorting process and is now presumably on its way, with a signed booklet to boot.

Lovely, prompt service. Great stuff. Just makes your day a whole lot more pleasant.

I just want to get a first listen to it now, though, so I really can’t wait.

Two Episodes

Went through two more episodes of Doctor Who‘s Series 4 (one a day), and the impression was a whole lot better. The Pompeii episode had those really beautiful sets and a really nice volcano, and the script was sharp. The Ood episode after that worked very well for me, for some reason, though the lines were sometimes a little dull. And Sontarans in the next story. Simply brilliant.

For Today…

Signals lecture, plus I want to finish up notes for my cell biology. Not terribly exciting, but at least it won’t kill me. Sometimes that’s all you’re ever going to get.

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Here is a list of stuff that’s been hogging my Songbird lately:

• Radiohead: Mostly Hail To The Thief. for some reason, although I’ve also returned to In Rainbows and the live album I Might Be Wrong.
• Doctor Who OSTs: I started with a few favourites, like the theme song and All The Strange, Strange Creatures. I then took a liking for Doomsday. But most recently it’s been about the songs with lyrics, especially Love Don’t Roam performed by Neil Hannon and The Stowaway performed by Yamit Mamo. I’ve also grown to really like Voyage Of The Damned Suite. I think it all somehow reminds me of when I was in the school band.
• The Decemberists: In anticipation of The Hazards Of Love, I’ve been listening to excerpts from The Crane Wife and Picaresque. Colin Meloy’s live album has also been a regular feature. We’re about a month away, and I really can’t wai.
• You Only Live Once: The song by the Strokes. Rather frequently, too. For some reason, it gets me going in the mornings.
• And…: Well, the rest has mostly been mood-dependent, though it’s included Southern All-Stars, Muse, The Flaming Lips, Gil Shaham, Thelonious Monk and Lykke Li.

Week Ahead

The week ahead is my recess week, though I suppose that gives the impression that it’s meant for my annual holiday. Well, it’s not. It’s the time when I’m meant to be catching up on work and worrying about tests. Well, it’s less than ten days so I suppose it will all pass very quickly.

Any Better?

Not really. Still not sleeping. Still rather incredibly sad every now and then. But I think the dust is settling and it’s not like anything else has been messed up because of this anyway. I’ll be back, I think, or maybe I already am, albeit somewhat changed. But you know that old saying about things changing and nothing perishing.

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Sometimes you get up feeling completely lousy. Sometimes you get up thinking you’re being chased down by a bear. And sometimes you get up and all your best ideas don’t seem very good at all. On Saturday, I woke up thinking that everything I’ve thought of for Singapura is actually trash. On Sunday, I woke up thinking that it’s not all so bad.

Things just happen that way. The one conclusion I can safely draw from this is that Singapura is still far too young and I’m not at all ready to try my hand at writing it. The nice thing though is that I think I’ll eventually have two projects to plunge myself into once I sort it all out. One of them is Singapura, of course, and the other is something a bit more unusual, though I’d like to mess around with it to tell what it actually is first.

That one other thing seems like a pretty tasty idea and I’m going to see if it works out over the next few days. It’s a good note to start the week on, if nothing else.

At the same time, I better start making inquiries on making submissions.

A Few Links

The Tournament of Books is going to begin in a couple of months. [via The Morning News] The book I was rooting for last year suffered an early demise, and I can only hope the same doesn’t happen this year.

I saw this very amusing form of the Monster Manual dressed up like a children’s book here. [via io9] It’s a book called Monster Isle by Jeff Miracola. Actual link. [via Monster Isle] I think I’m going to try to find it at a local bookstore.

You can get a free download of The Rake’s Song from the Decemberists upcoming album The Hazards Of Love if you just follow this link. [via The Decemberists] It is a very traditional folktale weaved into a decidedly folk arrangement. Very nice stuff. Not for the kids.

On Saturday, I came across Nikki Farquharson’s site Random Got Beautiful, which is a sort of image mashup based on colours. [via Random Got Beautiful] I thought it was a great site, and so thus the link.

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