seeyat

  Jade Bird is one of those artists who just emanates pure power with her music. I'm sure I could listen to her sing something that had absolutely no meaning written with complete gibberish lyrics as long as she sang it with the same band backing her and that ever-present emotion. The instrumentals are always perfectly matched with the theme of each and every song and as she came from parents with a background in EDM, it makes a twisted sort of sense.

  Electronic music is basically a collaboration of noises that you can choose at will from a collection that's always available at your fingertips so I suspect she just felt it necessary to minimize the use of what she may not have found to work for whichever particular song she was working on and accept no substitute for what she wanted to show. Her debut album includes an acoustic track exclusively recorded with her guitar as well as an ending track softly playing out accompanied by the piano.

  With an acoustic guitar and her voice, she is capable of drawing me in and keeping me entertained... intoxicated by the sound and somehow finding a way to make me feel what she wants me to feel. I first found her while browsing YouTube and eventually finding that she had an album being released in the upcoming future, so I preordered it and cut myself off from listening to any more of her... just to experience her album the way I imagine any artist who actually spends time creating one wants.

  This is an album with subtle adult themes and no harsh language so you can be comfortable listening to it no matter where you are or who you're with. I'm only just beginning to dabble in music reviews so I couldn't tell you exactly what to expect or how to classify her aside from classic-style soft rock with a blues feel to it. The lyrics have been perfectly chosen to tell you a story and the instrumentals carry you through all the way. Give it a listen, you'll relive her memories and feel her pain.

Maybe you've heard this all before... but Love Has All Been Done Before.

Be Love,
~Bryan

  This morning it was brought to my attention that jazz can actually sound quite good with moderate, perhaps heavy electronic elements. I have to say, I am absolutely pleased. I could leave this playing all day and love what has become of my life.

Ours Samplus - Poetree

I'm sure you can all see what drew me in. The link is something worth clicking. I think we can all use some jazz once in a while. In fact, as far as I had known... this style wasn't jazz. No matter, I may not be able to chat about it, but I can follow this profile and hear some good tunes.

  I finally sat down and thought about Eat The Elephant, the newest A Perfect Circle Album. I know, it's after Tool released theirs, so I'm pretty far behind but I have had no other people to talk to about it. The music today often falls into a pop category wherever we go and there aren't people lining up to talk about the lyrics of it all. The wonderful thing about APC and Maynard in general has always been a willingness to speak without fear about anything that comes to mind. If there is an issue that's held to heart, it will be put to words.

  Track 2 - Disillusioned, has hit home pretty hard for me. It is focused on the increasing issue of people getting lost in their electronics and becoming "addicts of the immediate." We lose touch with the people around us when we only look down at our smartphones. I for one enjoy using someone else's phone to look things up which gives me a chance to have a short conversation with them. Someone brought up the point of it becoming an arcane art form, that of conversation, and I can at least partially attribute that to smartphones.

  It's hard to relearn when there are two directions involved. I'm genuinely concerned for today's youth and their obsessions... I know it's fine to see them walking around with some headphones or whatever but when they just jump onto their phone for everything, it upsets me to know they could be testing each other's minds in little quizzical ways just asking about something they don't personally know. That's how our minds expand, and we learn how to learn. This is the point in our technological evolution where we have bypassed the use of our minds to expand ourselves and started relying on only the information a select few dedicated people have given us in the past.

  Every time I pass by a bunch of teens at least half of them are staring down at glowing screens while being led by the sheep dogs of the group. The Dresden Dolls said it well long before any of this happened, we need to "sing for the kid with the phone who refuses to sing" Lost in technology... I swear it isn't hard to have a small laptop if you really need it, or have a tablet that's just bulky enough to need to store it in a hard-to-reach place. Something that intentionally slows us down, just to the point of requiring some thought before we look anything up. Or alternatively, ask a question and give those around you a chance to talk to you because maybe they'll enjoy it enough to keep the conversation going.

  I urge you all to listen to this song with an open mind, don't look up the lyrics unless you can't easily understand them. They are delivered in a way that intentionally gives us time to think about what's being said and in tones that, when we listen closely, can drive home their meaning. The rest of the album is just as beautiful and the lyrics could be controversial to some but none of it is hateful or anything. James Maynard, one of the singers, has a personal history with an incident involving his mother who was crippled even after praying every day and attending church each week, so he has no love for God but this only shows in the form of hate on a single track from the album, Mer De Noms. Judith is still a beautifully written song but it's certainly not a positive one.

  In short, listen to A Perfect Circle and form your own opinion. Eat The Elephant is certainly an awesome way to start as it has the variation of Tool's 10,000 Days and showcases the rock and ambient elements displayed in all APC's other work. Just like everything else Maynard touches, it feels right to me.