Tomorrow British Columbia residents go to the polls in what could potentially be a ground breaking election. Once again, voters can vote to reject our current 'first past the post' electoral system, in favor of a ratings based system that saves your vote from being wasted if you didn't vote for the majority candidate. A lot of people claim it's too complicated to wrap their minds around, but in the age of Wikipedia, that is pure laziness. It's not like the average voter will be doing the tallying either. I admit, I totally was confused by the first explanation I heard, but there's some handy visual aids online:
Although imperfect, I do support the single transferrable vote system and think it would give the people much better representation than we currently have. My hope is that this time around, the atrocious rein (cuts to education and health care being my greatest gripes) of Gordon Campbell and his Liberal party, as well as the close results of the last federal election, will have opened up more eyes to the importance of electoral reform. In an ideal world, the Liberals will tossed to the curb, more Green party members will gain seats (though there's no chance of them winning, it would be good to have some Green seats to voice our concerns about resources and the environment), and voter turn out will break new records or at least be higher than 2001's dismal 55%. A girl can dream, no?
In Korea, non-Koreans are still such a facinating novelty that just about every foreigner (waygook) ends up on TV if you're there long enough! Last Feb, I was part of a local TV show called "Adventure Club" along with another Epik teacher, Graeme. It's on the Arirang Channel and it offers viewers a "more younger and refreshing approach to tourism in Korea." We filmed for 3 days and did a whole bunch of touristy things and rolled around with a lot of dogs.
From having watched some Korea sitcoms and "gag" shows, I've surmissed that most Korean humour relies on laughing at a buffon who does things wrong. I fill that role here. As a girl, I'm required to appear helpless and silly, while Graeme's masculine prowess is much celebrated.
It was mostly fun, because we got to do a lot of things you wouldn't ordinarily have a chance to. But, there was also a lot of standing around while they set up the shots, redoing takes, and being forced to overact and do embarassing things. It's always interesting to me to see how Koreans see Korea, and how they try and market it to outsiders ... compared to the reality of how everyone actually live day to day, and what foreigners actually enjoy for fun and recreation while we're there.
Thanks to Graeme for inviting me to come along! (Feb 2009, Pyeong Cheong, Gangwon-do Province)
my flight is booked, march 1st! canada bound. i hope to publish a few of the entries i wrote over the last months while in korea. i have a ton lingering in my "drafts" but for some reason my school firewall blocks blogger, so i haven't had time to update.
i adjusted to the food, cultural differences and language barrier alright, i think. manageable. but i will never, never, be able to adjust to the last minute style of Korean planning. overall, that was the most difficult thing.
only yesterday my school got a memo that the teacher replacing me will arrive this tuesday. i leave sunday. so, they ask me if i can just be out by then. WHAT??! BUT... packing! cleaning! getting rid of junk! i have a dog! no one seems to understand why 4 days is not enough to vacate a place. so, now they ar4e suggesting this poor new teacher sleep on my couch for the 5 days i will still be here. which i don't mind toooo much... but i don't have extra blankets, towels, all that. and i'm sure it will be awkward for them. ugh!
i guess giving 1 months notice to your landlord and planning that far in advance doesn't happen here. they JUST gave out the staffing information for the next year yesterday. so with only about 1 week before beginning the new year, some teachers will be moving to different cities. my co-teacher will be 4 hours away, so will also be hurriedly packing up and leaving this next week. she's doesn't have time off that week either. i asked her, how can you deal with that?? it's not enough time! and she just shrugged.
am i the weird one here, i wonder? are westerners too paranoid and controlling about time and sheduling? i don't know.
One of my nicest students gave me some Korean movies to watch over the holidays, including "One Fine Spring Day" a movie that was filmed in my town Samcheok, Gangwon province. It's not a great movie, but I enjoyed watching it since it's full of familiar sights and daily only-in-Korea-isms that have become part of my own daily life (drinking Hite outside Buy the Way, sitting in dirty bus depots, waiting for ramyeon to boil, eating barbecued pork from the hands of persistent, drunk elderly woman..).
It's about a doomed 30 something couple-- A loose, two-faced divorcee and a sheepish, wincing grandma's boy who lives at home-- whose spring romance centers a lot around um, eating ramyeon, and whose turn it is to make it (which I was eating as I watched it).
This early, idyllic eating ramyeon scene, foreshadows how untrustworthy and unfit for marriage the girlfriend character is:
Oh, Snap!
Next: "April Snow" , the most famous thing ever to happen to my town (bus loads of sexually charged Japanese women make a pilgrimage to Samcheok every spring because of it). Every single building it was filmed in bears a commemorative "April Snow" plaque and film poster. At the local hospital, the first thing you see in the funeral wing is a floor to ceiling banner bearing the male lead's coy mug. I've seen Bae Yong Joon's oversized bespectacled face more this year than my own mother's, so I might as well watch this movie once.
One of the biggest adjustments for many “foreigners” (or, Waygookans) in Korea is becoming a visible minority and having everyone around you react to your difference. I live in a smaller rural city, so foreigners are more noticeable than say, a place like Seoul, or even Gangneun. Now when I go to larger cities, it’s so weird to see non-Korean people walking around, and it's weird to be ignored by Koreans.
There are more of us now, but before I knew every foreigner in town, all 8 of them. Here, little kids stop in their tracks, drop their jaw, and sometimes point while yelling “Waygookin!” to alert the other munchkins, like they’ve spotted the mythical Yeti. Older people stare and discuss you unabashedly, especially in restaurants. “What will the Wagook order? Does the Waygook know Kimchi? Can the Waygook use chopsticks? Why is she eating alone?” (an anomaly in this group-centric culture). Sometimes I feel self conscious about having spinach in my teeth or red sauce on my face, because everyone is looking at me. Then I remember, Oh yeah, I’m an outsider. Because sometimes, lost in the business of work, my dull daily routine, the book I am reading or the song on my headphones, I kind of forget I am in Korea and stick out amongst those around me.
Spot the waygookin!
For those of non-Caucasian ethnicities, with darker skin, it is of course even more frequent. But for most Caucasians, it is the first time they have been treated like an outsider. And many of them don't deal with it well. In fact I think the overabundance of curious "Hello, Where are you froms?" is one of the first annoyances that eventually transforms the naive, friendly, fresh-off the-plane newbie-- who at first eagerly responds with a butchered Korean phrase from the back of their Lonely Lonely Planet guidebook (저는“Canada” 에서왔어요!) -- to the hostile, embittered, disenchanted semi-racist teacher nearing the end of their contract, who is more likely to respond with a "Fuck off, I'm walking here!" Or, "Where are YOU from, douche bag?", if they even stop to acknowledge the remark at all.
Once the novelty of your celebrity status wears off, yeah, it is irritating to encounter the same wonderment at your origin, from cashiers, passerbyers, waiters, people in the elevator and taxi drivers (who always coyly ask if I'm Russian due to the large amount of Russian Prostitutes in the neighbouring port city), especially after work when you're tired and don't feel like talking, since making conversation is your job. I’ve definitely felt this annoyance, and anger at being picked out from the crowd and pressed to put a label on my otherness for some nosy stranger. But, it's unfair to single Koreans out on this one. Because I've felt this annoyance everywhere I've ever been, my entire life. The thing is, I probably get asked “Where are you from?” MORE in my own country, Canada.
Me and my older bro, Lee
Explanation: I am 100% Canadian. I was born in Edmonton. The least exotic place on Earth. If one is to accept the Canadian stereotype of cold, snow, beer, hockey, pickups and plaid flannel, then there would be no more typically Canadian place than Alberta. But I also consider myself quintessentially Canadian because of how multicultural my family is. On my mother's side, it's possible my Grandfather has Métis ancestry, but he was adopted so it’s unclear. Her mother's parents came to Canada from Sweden. My father grow up in Canada, but my Grandma lived in China until after the Second world war. And my step-dad and his family come from Yugoslavia. So, for lack of a better definition, my older brother and I are half Chinese with some European and maybe Native mixed in there. This 'mix' results in ethnic ambiguity. When I worked in the service industry back home, I literally faced the 'whereareyoufrom' question on a daily basis (which i dodged in a variety of ways, for the sake of my job struggling to be polite, despite a boiling urge to kick in teeth)
At home, there is no language barrier between people's naked curiosity and the facts behind why I look different from them, why my skin, eyes and hair are darker, why I have a funny last name. At home, strangers in all kinds of situations approach me, wanting to know my origins. The "Where are you from" question became a personal dread right in my first days of Kindergarten. With maturity, I care less about it; but up until after my teens, I was extremely shy and just wanted to be invisible. But in my small town, where half my elementary school was related, I stuck out from my fair skinned peers. "Where are you from?" the other kids would ask. "Edmonton, Alberta" I would respond, looking at the ground. "Um... so why is your skin brown?" they would ask, puzzled. This continued into adulthood, except adults use phrases like "What's your nationality?" (Canadian, asshole) "What's your background?" (Post-Colonial Literature) "Are you Spanish?" (I really want a shirt that says "Not All Brown People are Spanish") and the less tactless yet ever popular, "What are you?" (human? Pisces? hungry?). Same curiosity, different wording. Then there are the creepy guys with a fetish for "exotic" women who sidle up to you; these sick fucks are the reason why pornography is divided into ethnic categories. I'm not sure why they think my friends and I will be flattered by the label "exotic"; It makes me think of a Pygmie creature on display at the zoo. An ethnic restaurant one occasionally visits for touch of adventure. A week long trip to a Mexican resort. Something that doesn't belong. Admired, perhaps, but separate, an artifact under glass.
Grandma, me and cousin, out for dim sum (Grandma is scared of the flash, haha)
My younger brother's father is from Yugoslavia. A place as foreign and distant as China, where my biological father is from. But because he appears white, no one questions where he came from. Once in college, I went out with a group of friends including a young girl on exchange from Germany. But no one asked where the blond haired blue eyed girl was from... it was my "nationality" people we met asked about; it was me they assumed was the visitor from another country.
So, while I totally get the irritation and offense foreign teachers in Korea, I don't think it is entirely fair to translate these frustrations into hostility, or judgments upon Koreans as a cultural group, because in North America, visible minorities encounter the very same thing. Just think back to High school. At least in my small town, those who exhibited visible difference always faced comments, far less benign than where are you from. People who go overseas to teach ESL are generally an open minded, liberal group with more cultural knowledge and interest than people who never leave home. Yet, even the most fair minded educated individuals seem to crack under the constant looks and questioning.
Now at home, I don't have kids crowding around me asking me questions, and yes it's annoying. But these are kids we're dealing with. And if your reaction to this situation is to blow up and shout at them, you probably shouldn't be in the teaching business. "But Kids at home are taught better, taught to be polite." Maybe, but that doesn't mean it's true. If anything, kids at home are ruder. Put a group of young white kids in a room of an Asian kid and listen to their private conversations, the things they ask the kid who is different. What they might not say around mom still gets said. Curiosity with no regard for decorum is not isolated to Korean kids. This is all kids. I’ve been around enough little kids at home who say in a loud voice to their mom. “That man only has one leg!” “Or, why is that man a different color?” and other embarrassing things. Later, most of us learn this is rude, but the fact that it starts infant hood should remind us that noticing difference and being curious about it is very normal, in all species and cultures. And it isn’t limited to Koreans.
I guess, in a mischievous way, it's an interesting experiment for me to witness the reactions of other "foreigners" to the question. I am fascinated by the reaction of Korean people to me, and of other Foreigners to Koreans, and how they are treated by them. It's quite interesting for me to be asked this question on the other side of the world, in Asia, in response to the other side of me, my English speaking, Caucasian, non asian side of me. Whereas at home, the difference they notice is my asianess.Afterall, most of us aren't from Korea. Unlike when I'm asked this question at home, in Korea, I am from another place. It's a valid question. Most foreigners Koreans meet are sojourners, here for just a year. Many foreigners do settle here permanently, but they still do come from another country.
I definitely understand my fellow teachers when they rant about how annoying it is. But I hope, instead of returning home with prejudices about Korean people, the majority of teachers will use their experience as a "waygookin" to empathize with and better understand those who are treated as outsiders in the nations they were born in and call home.
In high school they skim the 'top' students (by exam scores) and group them into one class. they schedule more "cram class" for them (supervised self-study time, usually until 11 pm, Saturdays and Sundays). On top of that, they are also a target of gossip and bullying from the other students. These "elite" students are groomed to produce top exam scores. Thus, my class interferes with exam prep; they are too 'mature' to pry themselves away from their physics text book to enjoy a game for an hour or do a simple conversation activity. Many go to extra curricular Academies, so their English abilities are higher but it's harder to get it out of them. They are smart girls for sure, but often more difficult to engage. My lowest level girls make more mistakes, but they're so excited to talk to me about the latest Gossip Girl plot, boys, or the co-teacher who doesn't wear a bra that they don't need much coaxing to get talking. So, for this special class, I need to come up more challenging activities, that they can't just ignore since I make them present the final result to the class and my camera (I lie and say the other teachers will watch it... which they don't; too busy. Christ).
Awhile back I held a speech contest where students could talk about anything they felt strongly about. Not surprisingly, a lot of students chose problems with the Korean education system (although a few girls did use the 2 minutes for an in depth analysis of the sexiness of Johnny Depp). I told the students to express themselves freely, and share their honest opinions without fear. The co-teacher was a bit shocked, I think, to hear these normally docile, obedient 'top' students express such rebellious, anti-establishment thoughts. And probably she was a bit confused with my choices for the top 3 speeches. While the standard "Impossible is nothing" "Respect Public Order" "Dokdo is Ours" speeches might impress in one of the Board of Education speech contests (borrrring), I was more interested in creativity, originality, intelligence and spirit.
This is one of my favorite speeches from the bunch. Her original script was much more incendiary, with some musings about protesting, and breaking into the principal's office, but on the day of her speech a Korean co-teacher attended, so she censored a little. Her pronunciation isn't great, but I like when she says "some student's souls leave their bodies and they play outside... they become dead jelly fish." Very true... I've had similar thoughts at the front of the class, looking out at the sea of dead eyes. How sad is it that all she wants is enough time to eat dinner and lunch?
They are essentially good kids. I would have liked to have made more of a difference, if the situation had allowed them more time and energy to give my class.
i hate that I've fallen into the negativity sink hole that nets many a foreigner here. when i find myself toeing the edge of that abyss, i turn to my eternal loves for rebalance... Books and Music. The lack of a library gutted me at first, but just in time, a departing (or, fleeing) teacher with a literary bent gave me his supply, so my book fix is satiated, for now. And, whether homesick, lonely, frustrated, alienated, depressed, confused... music was a saving bliss that padded the difficult times of this year.
Having no TV, radio or English magazines is nice, because I have zero clue what is going on in the mainstream. My students know more about that whole lip-sync, no pants, no instruments "music" than I do. When they play me stuff that is "Very famous American pop song... Don't you know?!" I feel like a voyeur of a strange, foreign culture. Or, geriatric. Is there really a group called the "Pussycat Dolls"?? They are considered singers?? What is this fuckery "Westlife"? Are they popular outside of Asia, and how is that possible? (Unfortunately my infamous Co-teacher has made "Womanizer" her ring tone, so I haven't been able to dodge that little slice of hell.)
South Korean youths have a single file appreciation for music, one pop single at a time which has the life span of a month or so until the next 3 note tune with English chorus takes it's place (and each song comes with it's own 80's aerobics inspired "dance", which everyone from your mother to the army promptly learns. Hilarious!). This of course is partly because Korea is so small, and Korean language music choices are scarce. Plus, there really is no alternative media sources.I am thankful to be from a culture where we have access to a diverse range of music, and to have grown up in a place and time where individualism is encouraged.
I am also thankful to exist in a time when the reserves of musical resources exceed the time I have to enjoy them all. The well never runs dry (if it does i can always start listening to "Sigur Ros" and other shit i know i should like but i don't have time to get into). The small, rural fishing town I currently call home is no musical mecca. How i miss cheap concerts, summer music festivals, finding scraps of album reviews on the bus from free alternative papers like Exclaim!, and lazy Sundays fondling dusty vinyl in used record shops. But, even overseas, thanks to the internet, good music can be got fairly instantly, at little to no cost (in my defense, if i like what i download I'll buy the vinyl, or see a show when i get back. Wtf am i going to do with a CD anyways? Can you even buy disk mans anymore?)
I have so far tried to ignore the overwhelming "Best Of" lists that come out at this time of the year. Mostly because i then come across heaps of new albums i haven't heard yet, and spin into a downloading/listening frenzy and get buried under an overwhelming mountain of music. That's what my upcoming vacation is for. I'm sure I've missed out on a lot, being over here. But, for my own fuzzy nostalgia, and as a reference for future post-Korea mix-tapes, I'd like to record here the albums of 2008 that warmed me the most and saw the most actions on my i-tunes. In no particular order, 10 favorite albums of 2008:
Alas, I cannot Swim: Laura Marling
I am a sucker for female singer song writers with acoustic guitars and folk hooks, who sweetly croon broken heart lyrics through voices alternating soft and hard. (I haven't gone a week without some Catpower since '99). The song that got me into Marling, New Romantic (love that simple jittery melody, and the places where she brings it to a hard stop) isn't even on this album, but there's lots of strong songs here. I really love her voice, and the classic ballad quality of her songs. I always stop and repeat "The Captain and the Hour Glass" to savor the part where she sings "I've sold my soul to Jesus, and since then I've had no fun." Ghosts and Cross your Fingers are monumental; they've turned many a mundane bus ride through the industrial sector into a sublime journey. I think she's one of those artists whose songs are stronger bare, the studio versions do seem a bit overly produced compared to her live shows. Impressive, considering she's only 19.
Fleet Foxes/Sun Giant (EP): Fleet Foxes
These are actually 2 albums, but it's hard to choose just 1, because all these songs could easily belong to one album. Like a lot of great new bands (Midlake comes to mind), these guys seem heavily influenced by bands of the 70's... Crosby Stills and Nash? Beach Boys?Blue Oyster Cult? The nostalgic familiarity of these songs has a pleasant effect on the brain, or perhaps that's just their soaring harmonies.
Crystal Castles: Crystal Castles How did this happen? Suddenly my folk/indie dominated playlists have been infiltrated by loud addictive electro dance music. Is that even what it's called? Anyways, whatever this is, and however, it ended up on my ipod, I really enjoy listening to this album, and haven't grown tired of it yet . It's a drug that scratches some itch my brain has recently developed. Catchy doesn't begin to describe the synthetic bleeps and bloops scratchy samples and melodic screams of found here. I never thought I would see the day that I would enjoy something nearing "techno" but people change, and you can't exactly play Karen Dalton at a party now can you. And, it's excellent fuel for sprinting around the block.
Devotion: Beach House The gorgeous cover art of this album, and their last, perfectly embodies the warm, ornate, rich sound of this Baltimore band. If songs gave off colour, this album would definitely cast a golden umber light. This album doesn't differ much from their first self-titled album. Actually, when I heard their first album, I impatiently skipped through the groggy, similar sounding songs and forgot about them. But like I said, something seems to have happened to me in this last year, leaving me open to different kinds of music. (Maturation? Brain dulled by soju? ) I guess this time around I'm in the right frame of mind to pause and enjoy the syrupy lethargy and sleepy longing crafted in Beach House's organ-heavy music. Lead singer Victoria Legrand has a husky, almost masculine voice that reminds me of Nico and Grace Slick, and Mira Billotte of the bandWhite Magic. I wonder if they've slowed down the play back of these tracks, which would deepen the vocals and add to the dreamy, drugged effect. Gila, in which Legrand languidly turns "lap" into a 3 syllable word, is a standout.
In Rainbows: Radiohead I kinda forgot about them. Then I heard someoneplaying this album, and remembered, Oh yeah, Radiohead is awesome. The factthat they released this album basically for free, on their website, further confirms this awesomeness. Aside from the unique release, they don't really break any new ground here, but I really like all these songs. The band continues to move further from their early grungy rock roots towards more complex, layered, symphonic sounds. I guess technically it was released in the end of 2007, but I was late getting to it, and every time I hear All I Need I will forever be reminded of this year in Korea.
Saturdays = Youth: M83 I don't know much about this band, if this is a concept album, or emblematic of their other stuff.Like Fleet Foxes, this album is heavily influenced by other bands; this time we travel back in time to New Wave of the 80's. Glassy synth, cinematic wind, fragile vocals, crunchy beats... Are those gulls? As the title suggests, it is unabashedly teenage in scope. John Hughes comes up a lot in reviews. At points, it is incredibly cheesy and over the top... but then again, so was everything about the 80's. The prettiness and complexity of the instrumentals make up for the often overwrought lyrics (I wonder if they would be more palatable in Anthony Gonzalez's native French). One cringe worthy, (or secretly indulgent) moment of uber fromage: the melodramatic female voice over in Graveyard Girl: "I'm only 15 years old and I feel it's already too late to live." God, haha. But, I have to admit, I would find probably find some similarly silly, yet (at the time) totally heart felt pathos in the poems I wrote back when I was a precocious, lonely 15 year old girl. And I think that's what Gonzalez is trying to do here... portray the hyper angst and drama of youth with total fondness and sincerity, while indicating with light irony that this fleeting time belongs to the past, hence the shimmery 80's soundscapes. I think. Anyways, I did end up listening to this one pretty often, in the shame-free privacy of my headphones.
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds My older brother got kicked out from home when he was about 16 and I didn't see him much. But he always mailed me mix tapes of whatever he was into at the time, which helped me get through the excruciating early school years. There was a lot of Nick Cave & The Bad Seedson those tapes. Murder Ballads and The Boatman's Call will always have a special place in my heart. I haven't heard much from Nick Cave since, though I have since enjoyed his writing projects (the film The Proposition and an anthology of his poetry). And I heard he won a mustache growing contest (if he didn't, he should.. wow). So, maybe some of my fondness for this album is owed to nostalgic remembrance. This year seems dominated by bands paying homage to past artists, and the same could be said of this album. Nick Cave is known to step into the skin of characters, from 19th century dandy, to Jack the Ripper, to apocalyptic preacher. His performance here could be compared to the seedy city rock of Lou Reed, Iggy and the Stooges, Jim Carrol and on Accidents Will Happen, Joe Strummer. He's from Australia, but like his predecessors, he's using the underbelly of New York as a backdrop for these sordid tales of sin, God, sex, death, aging and murder. Younger artists would come off pretentious trying to inhabit this territory. But Nick Cave is enough of a legend in his own right to pull it off he off coolly, with humor and finesse. Not many would dare shout "Bukowski was a jerk!" (in We Call Upon the Author) but Cave is enough of a literary talent in his own right to get away with it (and, he's right, Berrymanwas better). The melodies are not particularly innovative, but as usual with Nick Cave, it's his lyrics and stories that are strong, and at this point in his long career, he's free to shed the self-conscious anxieties of young bands, and just have fun.
Real Emotional Trash: Stephen Malkmusand the Jicks New albums from old favorites (Pavement was another youth fetish) have a certain priority or predetermined status for me, I guess. I'm worried that with age, I'm becoming like my parents, who basically only listen to the same 15 odd bands they always have (Beatles, CCR, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Tom Cochrane... My mom will buy whatever new album Stevie Nicks puts out, but I don't think any new artists have made her CD fold in a long time). In a decade, am I going to become closed to new bands, and stuck on the same old ones, regardless of quality? Well, blame the myopia of old age, but I see this solo album as another chapter that builds upon a solid musical career. If an unknown artist came along with this, I might not have listened to it as much. But seen as a piece of a musician's evolving trajectory, I have more interest and willingness to spend time getting to know these melodies, and a lot of admiration for the maturation of Malkmus' song writing. It did take some time for this album to grow on me. I'm terribly impatient and tempted to skip songs when the intro gets too long, a habit I'm working on. Because once you let the songs unfold in their own time, you can relax and appreciate the melodies and guitar riffs, especially on songs like Elmo Delmo. This is a pretty solid rock album, that doesn't readily provide singles; it's best experienced in full album totality. In contrast to Nick Cave, I would say Malkmus' lyrics are fairly weak, sometimes silly (though this irreverence has purpose) while the melodies stand out. It's the sound that counts here, and if you're already down with Malkmus' quirky brand of erratic bluesy rock, and have the patience for long, fuzzy musical jams, then this is the good stuff.
Youth Novels: Lykke Li Another shamelessly electro dance pop choice. Good grief. But, this Swedish band is undeniably ... catchy. In a good way; The female lead singer has a pleasant voice, and live videos online show the band mates do have instrumental chops. Remember last year's indie pop single Young Folks, by Peter Björn & John, the one with the hypnotic whistling? Well this album was produced by the Björn of that band, and has a similar bouncing, yet slightly cold, wistful quality that elevates these tracks beyond shallow MTV slop into this new arena of alternative electro pop I've somehow wandered into. The album is quite produced, but stripped down live, you can spot their folk roots.Favs: Little Bit, and Good, I'm Gone, seen here in an awesome live version.
For Emma, Forever Ago: Bon Iver I had to stop and question adding this one to the list. Because I've been so stuck on the big single Skinny Love, and due to that awful impatience with drawn out intros, I hadn't really given the rest of the album much of a listen. So last week, I put on the winter woolies, grabbed the reluctant dog and went for a long walk in the snow until this album was done start to finish, no skipping allowed. And wow, I'm so glad that I did. This is a perfect winter album, for the obvious reason (Bon Iver = Bon Hiver, or 'good winter' for non-franco parlophones), and because apparently it was recorded alone in a cabin in the woods during one man's winter hibernation. And if we want to get all literary, Winter is the perfect season to represent the end of a relationship, which this album is clearly about. These tropes of winter, loss, and isolation are thoughtfully maintained throughout the entire fabric of this album, from the titles (Flume, The Wolves, Creature Fear...) to the stark bareness of the melodies. And Justin Vernon's icy falsetto, and the parts where the pain breaks through, perfects the motif, especially when he's basically howling ( i have a fondness for wolves). These aren't cheery topics for sure, butVernon's raw emotional delivery and personal honesty brings a human warmth and intimacy, so that despite the themes of solitude and winter, somehow this album avoids being chilling and aloof. Yes, Skinny Love remains the centerpiece of this album and a personal favorite, though I'm not sure why. Musically, it really is a simple tune, not so different from so many acoustic folk songs before it. But for anyone whose gone through a break up or 3, it has a strange ability to resurrect memories, and cause an unwilling throat lump.
So there it is.... I've forgotten a lot, but if i don't stop myself at 10 it will spiral out of control. But I can't resist some notable mentions:
Distortion- Magnetic Fields (another old favorite band; a lot of these songs sound familiar, they don't do anything new. but, it is a good album) Modern Guilt- Beck (a few great singles and some forgettable songs too) Parc Avenue- Plants and Animals (alright, definitely a band to watch) In the Future- Black Mountain (really good, but not exactly my favorite kind of music) Laulu Laakson Kukista- Paavoharju (i really like this one actually) Santogold- Santogold (a few singles, but can't say I like the whole album) Oracular Spectacular- MGMT (same same.. 2 great songs, that's all) C0nor Oberst- Conor Oberst (I probably listened to Bright Eyes more than any other artist in high school. I like this album, Sausalito, Get-Well-Cards are good tunes, I don't Wanna Die (In a Hospital) is fun. But I don't know... the magic he had on I'mWide Awake, It's Morning is missing here. It seems like this prolific song writer (this must be like his 20th album by now) may have run out of new ideas, for now. He couldn't even find a title for this one.
*And the award for most over rated, I still don't get it band goes to... Vampire Weekend. I've heard people compare them to Paul Simon. And I don't understand how that's a compliment.
