Life through music. When something is important to you it tends to infuence your life and it becomes a part of who you are. This something for me is music; I simply cannot live without it. Through this blog I share some insights and reflections upon the music in my life.


Showing posts with label Foster the People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foster the People. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Music from a year

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, there're many lists of best albums for the year 2011 currently being published. I'm not much for making lists of albums, I'm more into collecting songs I like and love and following the bands and artists that are close to my heart. However, I think I should mention some albums that have made my 2011 so much better and of which I am glad that I'm not without.

A part from the reissues of Suede's five studio albums and the fourth solo album from Brett Anderson, which is better than I had hoped for, there are some albums, and bands, that I am honoured to have been listening to, and seen live on two occasions. With no one better that the other, I really love these three albums:
Invasionen - 'Saker som jag sagt till natten'
Foster the People - 'Torches'
Austra - 'Feel It Break'
Other good music from this year, according to me (and I have surely forgotten some), in no particular order:

Lamb - '5'
Other Lives - 'Tamer Animals'
Dum Dum Girls - 'Only In Dreams'
Masquer - 'Cover My Face As The Animals Cry'
Zola Jesus - 'Conatus'
Anna Calvi - 'Anna Calvi'
PJ Harvey - 'Let England Shake'
Visions of Trees - 'Sometimes It Kills'/'No Flag'
Visions of Trees - 'Siren (Novocaine)'/'Sience of Hate'
Lana del Rey - 'Video Games'/'Blue Jeans'

Additionally, I'm sure there're lots of tracks and albums that I haven't discovered yet...

Have you discovered the deluxe edition of Austra's 'Feel It Break'? It includes some of the great "b-sides" from the singles, like 'Identity'.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Rain, rain, rain... Hultsfred July 14

One day of festival and it rained the whole time. One could argue that it's the typical festival weather but no, not at Hultsfred. If it rained during my previous visits to this festival it was only for a shorter period, not a whole day and night like this time. Well, enough about the dreadful weather.

The weather did however affect which bands I saw and how I watched them perform. Like The Drums which I listened to from a far under a roof having a beer. Quite nice place in itself, where later DJs played good music, but I would have preferred standing much closer to the stage, had it not rained. And I didn't see much of Cut Copy, I only heard some songs.

The White stage, earlier called Teaterladan, and the Red stage both had roofs, the first one being a semi-open building and the latter being a tent, and that was very welcome this day. These stages also had some nice music being played at them. The first band I saw was Braids from Canada, at the White stage, nice music with surprises. The White stage/Teaterladan is also a favourite since I have had many good live experiences there earlier years; it was a good start.

Foster the People
Peter, Bjorn & John where scheduled to play the Red stage but due to sickness their gig was cancelled. A disappointment, but at the same stage I later saw a band that truly blew me away with their performance and music, and that band was Foster the People from the US. If you have the opportunity to go and see them live, do it!

At night I spent some hours at the Green stage watching Primal Scream play Screamadelica and later, of course, Suede. Primal Scream were good and made me dance and sign in the rain. And by the time Suede entered the stage I must say I was dripping, even though I had suitable clothes on. So I kind of appreciated the tweet by SuedeHQ on Friday:
Big pat on the back to everyone who braved the rain for last night's Suede set at Hultsfred, Primals were great too.

Suede and the rain...
The band had a lot of energy, and so did I. It truly was a unique experience standing in the pouring rain and being totally satisfied with the situation, after all it was Suede on stage. During Everything Will Flow it almost felt like the rain became heavier, but I might have imagined that. This gig made me lose my voice though, and I still can’t make a sound today! To be honest I wasn’t entirely well before the gig and the rain and the fact that I sang along to (well, tried to) every song by Suede, didn’t make things better. But I had a great time, Suede were great, and that’s what matter!

When Suede had played Beautiful Ones and left the stage I hurried through the mud in the darkness to the White stage to see the last band for the day. This is Head had only a couple of songs left when I got there so I can’t really say much about their gig, but I do like some of their songs.

I also saw some minor bands that I really didn't like, and some that were ok but not really my kind of music, but I won't use any more space here to mention them.

In the days to come I will listen to Tennis and Les Savy Fav that Gimme Indie broadcasted/recorded on Thursday. Due to the schedule I wasn’t able to see them live at the festival. And, of course there are all the bands that were broadcasted on Friday and Saturday to listen to as well; I do like Gimme Indie!