chakravyuha

Bjork – All is Full of Love
The accompanying video features two lesbian robots.. but this is Bjork who has even turned herself into an art piece. I’ve never really understood her art or her music but this song is ethereal, haunting and quite simply the most beautiful piece of music I have heard in a long time. Considering this is Bjork, the lyrics are fairly accessible.

Eddie Vedder – Hard Sun
Eddie Vedder – End of the Road
Both songs are from the soundtrack to Into the Wild and I must say go a long way towards restoring my interest in contemporary rock music. I was afraid I was turning into an ambient/atmospheric/light-groove music sissy (current interests include Royksopp, Air, Eluvium etc. so that should tell you something).

Kenny Wayne Shepherd – Blue on Black
One of my favorite rock songs (and has been for a long time)… It’s slightly bluesy in tone and the lyrics are killer.

Supergrass – Fin
mmmm.. moody..

Grant Lee Buffalo – Fuzzy
Grant Lee Phillips has one of the most distinctive voice.

Explosions In The Sky – Your Hand In Mine
God Is An Astronaut – Remembrance day
Euphoria – The Road
Nightmares on Wax – Les Nuits
Instrumental goodness. The Nightmares on Wax number is fairly old (and my favorite among these) but the rest are fairly recent.

Conjure One – Center of the Sun
Man.. Poe’s voice is beautiful.

MIA – Paper Planes
MIA is psychedelic.

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – Bhindi Bhagee
A brilliant, quirky and fun song on the immigrant neighborhoods of London. This is so removed in style and mood from The Clash that there’s no way to know that you are listening to the guy who was The Clash. As to the title, “Bhindi” in Hindi is “Ladyfinger”.. yes.. as in the vegetable ladyfinger. Lord know what “bhagee” means though… “bhag” means “run” in Hindi but I am not sure that that’s what he intended. Otherwise the song would translate as “The Ladyfinger Ran”.

Gotye – Heart’s a Messs
Gotye is an Australian artist. I checked a couple of places (iTunes included) and I could not find his songs for sale easily. However, here’s the video of this song.

Queensryche – Scarborough Fair
Queensryche is a band out of Seattle that was born the same time as the grunge phase. They were overshadowed by other grunge heavyweigths (Pearl Jam, Nirvana etc.) but have a pretty solid body of work. Although Simon and Garfunkle set the traditional folk song in counterpoint (the Canticle part of Scarborough Fair) which made it unique and beautiful, I like this re-imagining much much better than theirs. Queensryche have taken the old folk song and have adapted in into a rock format very very effectively. There’s no counterpoin here but it’s short, sweet and heavy – all at the same time, so good.

Timbaland – Apologize (feat. One Republic)
Nelly Furtardo – Say it Right
Both under very heavy rotation on commercial (read that largely uninspired, payola-infested, lifeless non-visual broadcast medium) radio last year. That should, however, not prevent you from enjoying Timbaland’s signature snare drums and style. He produced Nelly Furtardo’s song too and features in her video for this song. Good stuff.