Teh Fail

"Burial is the Edward Hopper of our generation."

Thu, 05 May 2011 10:01:11 +0800

“Burial is the Edward Hopper of our generation.”

- Mark ‘k-punk’ Fisher on the “In McDonalds” track.

Zola Jesus is really tiny! (Taken with Instagram at Bowery...

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:05 +0800

Zola Jesus is really tiny! (Taken with Instagram at Bowery Ballroom)

"There’s a certain mainstream gay sensibility that tends to adopt blonde female pop stars as..."

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:48:25 +0800

“There’s a certain mainstream gay sensibility that tends to adopt blonde female pop stars as their own.”

- The Guardian’s Dan Martin in “The Lady Gaga backlash begins”

Grouper was great, the opening band not so (Taken with Instagram...

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:21:25 +0800

Grouper was great, the opening band not so (Taken with Instagram at Le Poisson Rouge)

Dance first, destroy governments later.

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:21:28 +0800

Dance first, destroy governments later.

Monocolumn – Japan focus: the media onslaught [Monocle]

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:28:08 +0800

Monocolumn – Japan focus: the media onslaught [Monocle]:

The ever-optimistic Monocle’s take on how Japanese media cover the disasters.

My interview with David LaChapelle, 15 Feb 2011.

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:58:37 +0800

My interview with David LaChapelle, 15 Feb 2011.

No Boundaries exhibit at Art Stage (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:43:47 +0800

No Boundaries exhibit at Art Stage (Taken with instagram)

BBQ pineapples (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:07:07 +0800

BBQ pineapples (Taken with instagram)

Favorite Albums of 2010

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 03:17:00 +0800

In no particular order:

Mice Parade What It Means To Be Left-Handed

Like if Múm were born and bred in New York City instead of Iceland.

James Blake The Bells Sketch EP / CMYK EP / Klavierwerke EP

Exorcizing the ghosts in Burial’s urban elegies.

Beach House Teen Dream

Victoria Legrand. (lol)

Joanna Newsom Have One On Me

Less nine-minute opuses, more real songs—without the trimmings.

Oneohtrix Point Never Returnal

Space cadet music for scything through interstellar space.

Flying Lotus Cosmogramma

In this case, flying too close to the sun paid off.

Deerhunter Halcyon Digest

Good pop songs that live up to all that hype.

High Places High Places Vs. Mankind

Neopagan chants for technological gods and ghosts.

Autechre Oversteps

ZZZQRQKJJRKAAK!!

Wild Nothing Gemini

I like this for the same reason I like The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.

Last.fm and the Most Listened-To Albums of 2010

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 02:14:00 +0800

My Last.fm listening habits from May to August 2010, visualized.

According to Last.fm’s data and other visualization/data-analysis web apps, the top artists I’ve been listening to in 2010 who have released an album or EP during the period:

Beach House Teen Dream (Had a long go—the album leaked late 2009)

Joanna Newsom Have One On Me

Seabear We Built A Fire

Eluvium Similes

Toro y Moi Causers Of This

The Black Dog Music For Real Airports

Bill Callahan Rough Travel For A Rare Thing

Four Tet There Is Love In You

Happy Birthday Happy Birthday

School of Seven Bells Disconnect From Desire

Of course, some of it was played on loop while sleeping (Seabear, Eluvium, Black Dog), and some bands have multiple albums I’ve listened to over the year, so the numbers are kinda off.

Over at the laboratory, John Cage preps his most important...

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:51:08 +0800

Over at the laboratory, John Cage preps his most important experiment to date: to find out just how many ice cubes it takes to screw a sound artist’s head on right.

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering..."

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:06:29 +0800

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

- Carl Sagan, who passed away on this day in 1996.

(See also: #sagan forever.)

Not one for sentimental platitudes, but hope he’s making apple pie from scratch somewhere.

lolerature: Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Why...

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:50:15 +0800

lolerature:

Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Why waste time trudging through dense, affected prose when LOLspeak can do it in 2 sentences?

The Age of WTFz

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:16:00 +0800

The problem I have with Sufjan Stevens isn’t his music, which tends to either live up to its vaulted ambitions (Illinoise) or fall flat on its ‘experimental’ face/phase (Run Rabbit Run). The problem is Stevens himself.

He’s made up to be this indie wunderkind, soft-spoken and sensitive, the man/boy of every hipster girl’s dream. He’s this quirky musical prodigy, the black sheep in the New Weird America family—Christian, clean-cut, ‘complicated’.

The 50 states project was impossible from the start—c’mon—and all of a sudden he became the poster child for all that leftfield (as far as Pitchfork could go) stuff. His music will be whispering from the speakers of some independent bookstore/coffee shop downtown, being ‘different’ yet not quite from the other bands on their iTunes list. Perfect music for reading, writing but not arithmetic.

That’s the problem with Sufjan Stevens—and The Age of Adz did nothing to change that. If anything, Stevens found his niche and burrowed deeper into it. The album is mediocre at best; there’s everything you’d expect from Stevens…and nothing much else.

The press are calling it a ‘return to form’, but only ‘cause of the tragedies that were that stupid Rabbit album and the inexplicable one about an expressway (an expressway!). All just to put a tick next to “experimental phase” in career trajectory checklist, no doubt.

Stevens’ chamber pop tricks get tiring (cue choir, brass instruments, et al.) and there’s nothing on The Age of Adz to redeem all those maximalist embellishments. It’s just too much. We know you’re ‘different’, Sufjan, but you’re not that different.

That said, “All Delighted People” from the EP before this album is a really good song.

“The operators of LimeWire continue to tout how “proud” they are of their service. To be...

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:22:20 +0800

“The operators of LimeWire continue to tout how “proud” they are of their service. To be clear, for the better part of the last decade, LimeWire and its operators have violated the law, and in doing so, enriched themselves immensely.”

RIAA - Music Notes Blog - October 28, 2010

RIAA you pieces of shit what the fuck is wrong with you. There’s clearly something broken in the old music distro industry. Instead of suing everybody, fix yourself.

“Enriched themselves immensely.” Jesus Christ you pompous motherfuckers need to update yrself with the 21st century.

Truth.

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:07:59 +0800

Truth.

Coldplay 'most sleep-inducing' band—Telegraph

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:16:12 +0800

Coldplay 'most sleep-inducing' band—Telegraph:

Not sure how anyone can doze off to Chris Martin’s annoying caw.

Want this rat-robot as pet.

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:21:27 +0800

Want this rat-robot as pet.

Fashion is Repulsive, and Other Albini-cisms

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 10:54:56 +0800

Mr Albini, your thoughts on the recording industry might be antiquated, but these witticisms will ring true forever:

“I don’t rate movies as an art form.”

“The same thing happened with the Internet—people said access to music on the Internet was going to kill the music industry. What it killed was the record industry.”

And my absolute favorite:

“I think fashion is repulsive. The whole idea that someone else can make clothing that is supposed to be in style and make other people look good is ridiculous. It sickens me to think that there is an industry that plays to the low self-esteem of the general public. I would like the fashion industry to collapse. I think it plays to the most superficial, most insecure parts of human nature.”

Here’s the interview.