In Continuum.

Origins II

Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague is a French band that I came upon while surfing through random videos on Youtube. It was a clip from a French movie Bande à Part by director Jean Luc Godard. It was a clip of three person dancing to a song in the film, but that song was replaced by the song called Dance With Me by Nouvelle Vague. Dance With Me is actually a cover of the original by The Lords of New Church, and that is the tradition of the band. They'd take an original song and spin it into a Bossa Nova song, which what attracted me to the band initially. There is this thing about Melanie's voice that attracted me to the video initially, because there really isn't anything special about it at all. You can do a search of it on Youtube, and you will know what I mean. However, the fact that they used the Nouvelle Vague version just made everything different. Check it out if you do have the time, and their brilliant albums as well.



The Postal Service

As mentioned before, there was a great hunt on the internet by yours truly, to find out about Let Go by Frou Frou after watching the Garden State trailer. Checking out the soundtrack, I discovered another song called Such Great Heights by Iron and Wine. Initially, I thought Iron and Wine was the original singer of the song. It turned out that it was actually a song written by Ben Gibbard, the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie. Which must have been why the lyrics had Ben's signature written all over, because it was just the kind of poetry that you'd find him writing in the back of a touring trailer. Anyway, Ben Gibbard had a project other than Death Cab for Cutie, which was the band called The Postal Service. They are an electronic band that does music with mainly their computers, but the lifeless beats come to life with Ben's amazing lyrical skills almost every time. I found my way to their album, and their own rendition of the song Such Great Heights - which I absolutely adore. Anyway, the album wasn't an instant hit on my playlist, but it sure grew on me over the years and eventually took over a lot of other songs to rule the world of electronica for me.



Rachael Yamagata

I think I was searching for Norah Jones on Amazon.com one day, when the picture of her album popped up in the corner of the page. I remember looking at the picture and thought how beautiful the picture was, with her hair falling all over her face in a black and white picture. The way her eyes were looking downwards towards the floor, as if to contemplate the next delicate word to say - it was just beautiful. That was the first time I met Rachael Yamagata, and it was love at first listening the moment I downloaded a couple of her songs off the internet. I remember listening to her songs in the middle of Babina India, and all the way back home from there as well. I guess in this case, there isn't a fanciful story behind the singer nor were there any programs used in the process. It was just the case of an attractive album cover, and that is the end of the story. But still, I guess there are times when the cover of the book does reflect the contents of it, and Rachael Yamagata sure as hell proved that we her elegant and delicate lyrics.



Ray Lamontagne

Unlike Rachael Yamagata, whose beauty stole my breath away at first sight, Ray didn't have a pretty album cover to boast. His first album has a picture of a devil dancing with a blindfolded woman. His second album has a single torch lighted in the dark - that's it. The album covers pretty much summed up a part of the his personality, the kind of person who is mysterious and elusive at the same time. I remember looking through John Mayer's album page on Amazon.com when I saw Ray Lamontagne being recommended by the users. I clicked on him not because he has a pretty face, but because he has a strange name that I didn't know how to pronounce. But this man has some of the best guitar-driven music I have ever heard - not to mention the kind of raw beauty his lyrics possess that is unique to himself. There is something about the way his songs brings you to a different twilight almost every time, and I bet it is thanks to the fact that he looks - not to be blasphemous - like Jesus Christ. He worked as a carpenter for a part of his life - how's that?



Sia

Death intrigues me, it always has - despite the hint of fear that comes along with my curiosity. Whenever there is a book or a film about death, you'd probably find me reading or watching it in the comfort of my room or in the theaters. It is interesting to see the different perspectives of people, on the way they view death as the inevitable. I remember watching Six Feet Under once - yes, death - and it was the season finale of the season. There was a piece of music played in the background, with a simple piano and the voice of a girl with a broken voice. The word 'broken' hardly justifies Sia's voice, but that is how I felt when I first heard her. There was a kind of vulnerability in her song "Breathe Me", the way you would see a friend in the corner of a dark room with blood all over her slitted wrist. That song remained on repeat for a long time on my computer, and it is a song that I dare not touch unless I really need to. Because in the song, I find more than just melodies and words, but the part of me that peers over the edge every once in a while. And it scares me - it scares me to death.



Sigur Ros

Sigur Ros was introduced to me by a person, but I have never met that person ever before in my life. Song recommendations usually come from friends, or television shows. But this band was introduced to me by a person whom I have never met, or talked to before. The person is Evangeline Lily, also known as Kate from Lost. For a period of time, I was head over heels for her, browsing through the internet for related pictures and videos. And yes, I do have such boyish hobbies every once in a while, and I don't suppose there is anything shameful about telling the world about my admiration for Evangeline Lily. She is an astounding woman after all. Anyway, so there I was watching her interview on MTV's TRL when the host asked what kind of music she has been listening to these days. She replied a band whose name sounded like "Cigar Rose", which turned out to be "Sigur Ros" in the end, as she so kindly spelled out for the audience. Nobody in the audience, including myself, knew who she was talking about, and it was brushed aside faster than you can say the word "What?".

A few months went by, and the release of the film Children of Men drew closer and closer. The trailer of the film was uploaded onto Apple.com, and there was a piece of music that was probably the main reason why I wanted to watch the film. It was the part of the trailer when you see Clive Owen on a boat, pulling his way through a narrow drainage system and out into the open sea. The piano piece in the background was simply uplifting, and I used Soundtrack.net to find the name of the song this time around. It turned out that the song was Hoppipolla by the band Sigur Ros, and that immediately rang a bell in my head. Evangeline Lily's face popped up in my head again, and there was a boyish grin on my face for the rest of the day.



Wolfmother

There aren't a lot of bands coming out of Australia that makes it big around the world. That is if you don't count Silverchair and Crowded House of course, every band or singer that came out of the country after those two bands sank in the middle of the Pacific on their way to America. Then of course, came Wolfmother. Wolfmother's music was first used in an iPod advertisement, with the likes of The Fratellis and The Vines. These bands all made it somewhere in the music industry simply because Steve Jobs liked the idea of having their songs in his iPod advertisements. The song "Love Train" was as catchy as every other song that Apple ever used, and I found out about the rock band that sounded much like a drunken Led Zeppelin. Besides, the lead singer has a crazy afro to boot, and their music is even bigger than his afro. Do check them out, they will blow your clothes off.



Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Unlike a lot of other bands whom I checked out because they have cool names, I checked out the Yeah Yeah Yeahs because they have a stupid name. OK, 'stupid' is perhaps not the right word to use, but the band name just sounded incredibly sloppy the first time I heard it. It was like the band members never bothered to come up with a more creative name - which in retrospect, makes it even more creative. I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the sidebar of the iTunes Store, and checked out the album reviews tagged with the page when I clicked on it. Surprisingly, their album "Show Your Bones" were receiving raving reviews from every critic possible. It was definitely an album worth checking out, and I remember the first time I tried out their songs. Karen O's vocals blew me away and right out of the window with her spit exploding through the speakers and onto my face. That was the kind of force I felt with the band, because that is the kind of garage rock they make. I fell in love with the way Karen O screamed, moaned, groaned, growled in all her songs, and it defined the band from everything else that I have heard - and probably everything else that I am going to hear, too.



Zero 7

Arguably, Zero 7 had the best song on the Garden State soundtrack. Let's face it, if you are in a room full of half naked girls, and you guys are stoned at the same time, "In the Waiting Line" is the song you want to play to make the atmosphere even higher. That song has this hypnotic element to it, and it makes your head spin while listening to it - very much like what drugs would do to you in a club. But amidst the melody, the song weaves through strange realms that I have never been to before, and it was the best song on the soundtrack the first time I heard it - no questions asked. That was when I was first introduced to their music, and was blown away by how comfortable and sleek their music is at the same time. It felt like putting on a bathing gown made of suit after a hot bath, and that is how well it fit into my ears the first time I heard it. Besides, if Jonathan - the avid fan of smooth jazz - approves of it, it has to be good stuff.