alternative sounds takes a break

As if this blog wasn't irregular enough, I'm taking a break for about a couple of months.

My iMac, which has the program that converts my songs into the format you see here, has died on me. Here's what happened. I'm still thinking whether to buy a new one or have it fixed. Either way, it'll take a while before my online life gets back on track. If you wish to know when I start blogging again, please e-mail me at alternativesounds {at} gmail.com

Now as to why I've been quiet for a longer while than usual, yes, that was a bit rude, not making good on my promise of a diverse all-woman March. Weird as it may sound, my frame of mind has just been focused on something else. Since my last post, I've not only quit my job, but I've also left the world of journalism where I spent many happy years. Truth is, I had long been wanting to shift careers, but it wasn't easy for me to do, being in a place the language of which I don't speak, and not having letters of higher learning after my name. You can imagine how happy I was when I got this new job – the title and description will bore you, but it's exactly what I'd been looking for – and so I wanted to make sure that my mind was a fresh, clean slate before my first day. I'm still getting through the learning curve, but I think I'll be fine.

In other news, I had 10 days off in between jobs, and during that time, I finally had the chance to organize my CDs. I think I overdid it. I separately alphabetized my English-language and world-music albums by artist name. Then I stacked my compilation CDs by genre and alphabetized them by album title, then my soundtrack albums by film title, and then my freebie CDs by the names of the magazines they came from.

I've also been buying a lot of new albums. Here are some of them, and it pains me that I couldn't blog about them just yet:

• Air : Pocket Symphony
• Andrew Bird : Armchair Apocrypha
• The Arcade Fire : Neon Bible
• Archie Bronson Outfit : Derdang Derdang
• Arctic Monkeys : Favourite Worst Nightmare
• Bright Eyes : Cassadaga
  
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah : Some Loud Thunder
• Everybody Else : Eponymous
  
• Grinderman : Eponymous
• Kings of Leon : Because of the Times
• LCD Soundsystem : Sound of Silver
• Low : Drums and Guns
  
• Matt Costa : Songs We Sing
• Modest Mouse : We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
• Rodrigo y Gabriela : Eponymous
  
• The Shins : Wincing The Night Away
• Tracy Thorn : Out of the Woods

Anyway. I was actually able to convert three songs into Flash format before my iMac died. Here's the rest of what I promised last month.

fall at your feet : mary black
click here or on the image below to listen



Fall At Your Feet by Crowded House ranks high up in my favorite songs of all time, and this cover version doesn't disappoint. Mary Black, an Irish folk artist, made it her own and even infused a lot more emotion than the original.

zomaye : gigi
click here or on the image below to listen

A strong reminder that some of the best beats in music can be heard outside the English-speaking world. Gigi is from Ethiopia.

recovery : new buffalo
click here or on the image below to listen



I saw this act in Sydney last year. Very good.

women's march : part 2

I uploaded these songs a few days ago with the intention of writing some kind of a tribute to each of the artists, but I realized that's too big a job for the amount of time that I have, as these are some of my favorite female artists from the 90s whose work I find still immensely relevant to this day. The 90s were a great era for women in music; there was so much diversity in rock alone, from Hole to Mazzy Star to PJ Harvey to Tracy Bonham. These are the ones I listened to the most, and here they are, with whatever comes to my mind. Next up: notable female artists from this decade.

sinéad o'connor : red football
sinéad o'connor : sacrifice
click here or on the image below to listen



Did you know that more women aged 15 to 44 suffer death or disability from domestic violence than from war, cancer, malaria and road accidents combined? Sad but true. I grew up in a household full of strong, nurturing women, who selflessly raised, educated, and provided for me and my siblings. It is simply beyond my understanding why women should suffer from violence at home, and biases in the workplace, in politics, in many other facets of society. Not a lot of female pop artists take up these issues in their work, as these women do in one way or the other, and you can't blame them. It's not a light issue, and forms of entertainment, be they music or film, are less likely to have mass appeal when the contents are heavy. Never one for commercial success, Red Football is doubtlessly Sinéad O'Connor's most up-front statement for women's rights, followed closely by No Man's Woman. What this song achieves is it delivers an unequivocal message without being moralistic, because with the kind of statistics I cited earlier, calling an end to violence against women no longer needs to appeal to people's morals and hope for change. It needs to confront. It needs to provoke. It needs to agitate, as the ending of this song does. Of course, Sinéad is not only to be appreciated for her bravery, but also for her vocal uniqueness. Which is why I also have to post Sacrifice, her remake of the Elton John song about infidelity, which Sinéad delivers with unfurling anger – you will notice her tone change when she sings "We lose direction, No stone unturned." Even for a Sinéad song, this song is heavy on reverb at the start, but it only highlights what she can do with her voice.

paula cole : happy home
click here or on the image below to listen



If you knew Paula Cole from her breakthrough album This Fire, you would know right away that Happy Home, from her debut album Harbinger, would be anything but happy. In fact, it's a song about the opportunities that women miss and the compromises they make – willingly or otherwise – when they carry the role of wives and mothers. But what's good about this song is it's a story of two people: the mother suffering a crisis of what defines her identity – a problem identified and best described by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique – and the well-meaning daughter trying to figure out what was going on. It reminds me of the relationship between the young Ed Harris and Julianne Moore character in that excellent film, The Hours. Best Line: But everybody could feel the suffocation, Underneath the façade of a happy home. Best Part: The mix of acoustic and electric guitars after the bridge where she sings "Home sweet freedom, flowing in my mind." Oh, and on a side note, Paula Cole is coming up with a new album, Courage, due out on June 12 from her own record label, Decca. It's been a long time since her last album Amen, and I can only expect the kind of brilliance she displayed in This Fire, which earned her only the second-ever female Producer of the Year nomination at the Grammys.

crossroads : tracy chapman
click here or on the image below to listen



Yes, I know Crossroads – both the album and the single – came out in 1989 as a follow-up to her hugely successful self-titled debut. Like many, I had ignorantly dismissed Tracy Chapman as a one-hit-album wonder, until she released the song Give Me One Reason in 1995. The album where it's from, New Beginning, renewed my interest in her music. While I listened to the loud spawns of the grunge era, I was also rediscovering and enjoying the quiet acoustic beauty of her sound, which is why I will always associate this song I'm posting with the 90s. If you really think about it, even in songs like The Promise, there's a lot of sorrow in her music, but she never makes them sound hopeless or desperate. Her voice doesn't have the range or versatility that the rest of the artists here have, and that many others use for dramatic effect, but it beats in itself, not with anger, but with willpower. Hers is the voice of quiet defiance, and this is something you will hear in Crossroads, which is about a woman's refusal to make compromises – over what is open to interpretation. It's easy to think she's singing about her creativity as an artist and selling out, but a woman forced into a marriage she didn't want could also probably relate to it. Best Line: Standing at the point, The road it cross you down, What is at your back, Which way do you turn. Best Part: The intro hooked me to the rest of the song.

caught a light sneeze : tori amos
click here or on the image below to listen



I'm not a Toriphile, but I did enjoy her music immensely from Under the Pink to Boys for Pele. The albums that came after were just too labored to the point of being ponderous for my taste – save for the couple of cuts she did for the soundtrack to the film Great Expectations in 1998 – until she released Scarlet's Walk in 2002, which was a watered-down version of even her old self. That said, what I liked most about Tori Amos was not so much her lyrics as her voice and her sound, from the piano-and-voice restraint of Merman to the more elaborately arranged Tear In Your Hand. Most of the time, her lyrics are too coded for me to comprehend; I don't think I've ever agreed with anyone about what Silent All These Years meant. Caught A Light Sneeze is no less easy, but there are enough hints to say it's about the meltdown of her relationship with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails – the reference to Pretty Hate Machine, the Nails album that catapulted them to fame, was a giveaway. Best Line: I need a big loan from a girl zone. I have no idea what it means, but it sure sounds good the way she sings it. Best Part: How she lengthens the words "building tumbling down" at the chorus.

ghost : indigo girls
click here or on the image below to listen



I first learned about the Indigo Girls when their album Swamp Ophelia was given to me as a birthday gift by someone I dated. While the relationship didn't last long – it was in fact my shortest ever – the impact of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray's music on me did. I was so impressed with that album that I immediately looked for their prior work and discovered Rites of Passage, where Ghost comes from. Where do I even begin talking about this song? This is a true gem, one of those that immediately capture you with its sound, then with its lyrics bit by bit, and then ultimately its totality. Your appreciation of it just grows the more you hear it. There's just so much natural beauty in this song that whenever you listen to it, you're touched by one aspect of it that's different from the last – from a poetic line or two, to Emily's tearful wail, to Amy's somber backing vocals, to the way their fingers slide on the strings of their guitars. What first struck me was the first line in the chorus – There's not enough room in this world for my pain. It sounds so spontaneous and therefore sincere that it reaches out to your own sense of pain and longing. And when Emily sings I'd walk into the fingers of your fire willingly, you feel your own vulnerability. The literary references – from Helen of Troy to Achilles to the Pied Piper – are cleverly employed. I get goosebumps every time I hear this: And you kiss me like a lover, Then you sting me like a viper, I go follow to the river, Play your memory like a piper. The best line? It's hard to choose, but it would probably be the first line in the final verse: This bitter pill I swallow is the silence that I keep, It poisons me I can't swim free, the river is too deep. The best part? I love the bridge, where Emily delivers an evocative wail, followed by the reversal of the duo's vocal roles.

women's march : part 1

March is all-women month at Alternative Sounds, being that part of the year when we celebrate International Women's Day, which was on the 8th. I thought I'd make a conscious attempt to increase the representation of female artists in my blog. This first installment consists of artists from the 80s. The next one will be those from the 90s, followed by women of folk and women from around the world.

all i want : susanna hoffs
click here or on the image below to listen



Before there was Lisa Loeb, before there was Natalie Imbruglia, before there were Frente!, Luscious Jackson and The Corrs, there was Susanna Hoffs. The most prominent one-fourth of The Bangles was the original pop-rock sweetheart, who exuded vulnerable sexuality with her delicately saccharine voice and wistful acoustic guitar. To someone growing up in the 80s and who was just beginning to form his own hormonally influenced notion of an ideal woman, Susanna Hoffs was the definitive girlfriend material. Madonna was too wild. Cyndi Lauper was too weird. Bananarama were just too bleached. With her hoop earrings, tapered jeans and Aqua Net-architectured curls, Hoffs came out of VH1 and MTV like a singing porcelain doll, a small, shapely creature with the face of an angel, graced by a full set of lips that broke into a disarming smile, and wide eyes that charmed every time they half-closed. In other words, Susanna Hoffs was the first female artist that gave me the bone. She came to her peak in 1989 when the band released Eternal Flame – that irresistibly mushy ballad to undying love, the first three words of which provoke a universal sigh. But at age 48 – basking in the acclaim of Under The Covers, her 2006 album of duets with Matthew Sweet – Hoffs is still beguiling as ever, outlasting her 90s facsimiles, while her voice has hardly changed. I'm posting her 1996 cover of the Lightning Seeds classic All I Want, which she manages to make cute and edgy with her trademark rasp at the chorus. She only changes the instrumentation, giving it an minimalist treatment but keeping to the pace and form of the original. Best Line: Confidence, coincidence, call it a sin, it's just like people say. Best Part: I love the drums at the intro and the jangle of acoustic guitar at the first chorus.

soap and water : suzanne vega
click here or on the image below to listen



If you're not new to this blog, you might notice that there's a new personality in the header art. Why didn't I think of putting Suzanne Vega up there the first time? I've been a fan since Luka, which I realized even at 13 or 14 was a remarkable song. I had been exposed to pop music that dealt with social and political issues before, or since I cared enough to actually mull over the lyrics – from famine (Do They Know It's Christmas?) to war (State of the Nation) to teen pregnancy (Papa Don't Preach) – but somethig was different about Luka. For one, who thought of writing a song about child abuse from the point of view of the abused child? (If you hear something late at night, Some kind of trouble, some kind of fight, Just don't ask me what it was) The words are haunting enough; the melody couldn't have accompanied them better. The brilliance of the songwriting becomes even sharper when compared to What's The Matter Here?, about the same theme, released on the same year (1987). (I'm tired of the excuses everybody uses, He's your kid, do as you see fit.) Make no mistake – the 10,000 Maniacs song, written by vocalist Natalie Merchant, is equally brilliant, but Luka is more poetic and empathetic. In fact, a poet who happens to sing is what Suzanne Vega is. Her songs are always full of symbolism. They're not always obvious, but they speak to you in ways only you can understand – just listen to Gypsy. Luka is one of the easy ones; Soap And Water is another – a song about a couple's separation and how it ravages the emotions of the child. But see how beautiful she illustrates tragedy – Soap and water, Wash the year from my life, Straighten all that we trampled and tore, Heal the cut we call husband and wife. It's hard to think of another female singer-songwriter who approximates her breed of intelligence. Best Line: The verse I just quoted. Best Part: The six guitar notes that run throughout the song.

circle dream : 10,000 maniacs
click here or on the image below to listen



Resolute is one of the words I use to describe Natalie Merchant's voice. It's an amazing instrument she has. You hear her sing, and you know she's out to make a statement – from depression (Like The Weather, which you can listen to right here) to media desensitization (Candy Everybody Wants) to unwanted pregnancy (Eat For Two). Or at least that's what I think the last song is about. Motherhood is a theme that Merchant writes about with emotional acuity, free of clichés and mawkish testimonies. Circle Dream, from the band's 1992 album Our Time In Eden, is a celebration of life – and here you'll see some parallelism between her and Suzanne Vega's songwriting, because it's from the voice of the unborn child itself. Best Line: Her warmth coming near, calling me "sweetness," calling me "dear". Best Part: Natalie's own backing and harmony vocals.

say, whatever happened to...

I've had this idea for a post since watching the Grammys a few weeks ago and seeing the Dixie Chicks receive their award for Song of the Year. The award is a songwriting honor, and it was nice to see a long-lost face go up on stage. Dan Wilson, of the post-grunge band Semisonic, co-wrote the song with the Chicks, as well as five other cuts from their album Taking the Long Way. The sight of him made me wonder what had become of his contemporaries. Semisonic emerged in 1998 with the hit Closing Time, from the album Feeling Strangely Fine, and disappeared since. A song Wilson wrote appeared in the soundtrack to American Pie in 1999 – a duet with Bic Runga which you can listen to right here – and that was the last I heard of him, or cared to know about him. So now he appears to be back, not just as a songwriter, but also a solo artist. MTV.com reports that Wilson will release the album Free Life this summer, produced by Rick Rubin, who was Producer of the Year for his work on the Dixie Chicks album. I guess they are still group-hugging. Anyway, Dan looks like a good guy, and sounds like it too, and I wish him luck. In the meantime, here are a couple of his contemporaries that have gone up in smoke:

pathfinder : gay dad
click here or on the image below to listen

Also known as Cliff Jones, Gay Dad released Leisure Noise in 1999, which was decent enough to make it somewhere at the bottom of a few year-end-best-albums lists. But with a name like that, and a sound that was neither original nor innovative, Gay Dad was never taken seriously. Their sophomore album, Transmission, was a considerable flop, although some thought it to be better than the first. The band has split up since, and I have no idea what Jones is up to now. I have the full Leisure Noise in my iPod; I think the songs are pleasant enough to keep. Pathfinder is my favorite, because it manages to be emotionally playful – a rousing intro, a wounded refrain, a carefree chorus, and a torrid bridge – without being messy. The post-Siamese Dream Smashing Pumpkins was a bit like that, and Pathfinder actually reminds me of the pacing of Perfect and 1979 – not to mention that Jones occasionally sounds like Billy Corgan. Best Line: You know that crying won't help you now, if it ever did at all. Best Part: The torrid vocals at the bridge, 2m 08s into the song.

someday we'll know : new radicals
click here or on the image below to listen

Now here's a band whose loss is regrettable. The New Radicals burst into the scene in 1999 with their album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, and their debut single, You Get What You Give, was a smash hit. I loved its video of chaos at a mall. The song was a standout, and the album brought a freshly loose pop sound that was clearly coming out of, but veering away from, the dark angst that defined rock for the most part of the decade. Sadly, the New Radicals disbanded before the release of the second single, which is this song. Band leader Gregg Alexander went on to become almost a Grammy winner. Like Dan Wilson, he worked behind the scenes, and wrote and produced The Game of Love, the 2002 duet between Santana and Michelle Branch, which won the following year for best pop collaboration with vocals. In Someday We'll Know, Alexander gives a jocular twist to the familiar sigh over a star-crossed relationship – both in lyrics and in tone. The song is full of wit – Did the captain of the Titanic cry? Someday we'll know – and he delivers it with unsentimental sincerity. Best Line: Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart? Best Part: Where he sings "Why aren't you here with me?", 2m 47s into the song.

with love from bollywood

dil kya kare : adnan sami
click here or on the image below to listen

This was supposed to be a Valentine post. The last month has been both hectic and nerve-wracking. I had a fascinating business trip to India to report on the business of Bollywood, which sort of explains why I'm putting these two songs up. You probably know that the Indian film industry is the largest in the world, producing over a thousand films a year, which is thrice as much as Hollywood produces. But did you also know that it used to be funded in large part by the underworld? That changed in 2001 when the government finally recognized the world of film-making as an industry, which meant financial institutions could now lend to film-makers. Also, Bollywood actually refers only to the Hindi-language film industry, which is based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay, hence Bollywood). Hindi films make up just a fourth of the total output; the rest are in any of the couple dozen other languages spoken in India, but largely Tamil and Malayalam, spoken in South Indian states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Anyway, it probably is true that most Indian films stick to the formula of boy-meets-girl, both are pulled apart, but end up happily anyway – all expressed in often outlandish song-and-dance numbers in posh MTV-like sets or against Alpine mountains (yes, some of them do film in Switzerland in lieu of Kashmir, an area of conflict between India and Pakistan). And because music in films is so pervasive in India, both music and film industries are hard to separate. But before I bore you any more, let's get on with the songs, and the movie they're from.

salaam-e-ishq : various artists
click here or on the image below to listen

These two songs come from the film Salaam-e-Ishq, or Tribute to Love, a minor hit in spite of the number of A-list Bollywood actors in the cast. I was told that part of the reason is it veers away from the formula described above, following instead the lives of six couples intersecting in the end. (Critics liken it to Love, Actually, which I haven't seen in full.) I saw it in Mumbai (without subtitles, but the plots were easy to follow) and I thought it was way too long at 3h 45m, and some of the story lines are simply not compelling enough. (I especially liked the couple living in London where a married middle-aged man falls for a vampish dance instructor, the Delhi man who couldn't commit to marrying his girlfriend, and the British girl who went to Udaipur to stop her boyfriend from his arranged marriage.) But I think it's pretty much universally agreed that the soundtrack is outstanding. I love these two songs the most, Dil Kya Kare because it's tender and sweet (although it is in fact about pain) and the seven-minute title track, which is a dance tune that still has a largely traditional sound. (Quite a number of Bollywood songs are actually funky enough to put Western dance tracks to shame.) I'm posting the lyrics to Dil Kya Kare below, because I asked what it's about at a travel forum, and someone was kind enough to translate it for me. Below is his translation, which I have liberally amended in some parts.

We're back to regular programming after this post.

Dil Kya Kare
(What's a Heart to Do?)

In the slow searing night
I burn in the rain
I drown in memories
What can the heart do?
I am lost in myself
There is something I wish to say
But I end up saying something else
I endure this strange pain
What can the heart do?

Through a meeting of the eyes
Through an exchange of words
Someone has taken
Someone has given
Salutations to love

Throughout the day I feel like I'm missing something
I don't know what it is I wish for
I am alone in crowds
What can the heart do?

I have forgotten the day, the month and the year
I sweat in January
I am not comfortable anywhere
If I sit I forget to get up

I head for the doorway but I keep walking about
Restlessness has set in
I laugh while I cry
Someone moves about in my memory
Whether I am asleep or awake
Why do I lose my way?
Why do I hum endlessly?

I set out in tattered jeans
Unaware if I'm wearing a shirt
Or if a button is undone
The heartbeat plays all kinds of tunes
What can the heart do?

the rest of the best of 2006

arizona : alejandro escovedo
click here or on the image below to listen



An outstanding Nick Cave proxy. The song is very personal to the singer-songwriter who overcame Hepatitis C due to over-boozing, but I just love its manly-man sound. The long electric-guitar notes that undulate in the middle of some lines and that are left to tail off end-of-verse make the emotion of this song about passion and self-restraint.

black and white : upper room
click here or on the image below to listen



Upper Room is a new British band with a sound that harks back to the best of the 80s with a fresh twist. While the songs in their album deal with the typical alienated-youth themes of apathy, rejection and pain, there isn't a lot of emotional baggage in their sound, thanks to the light arrangement, swirling with catchy guitar melodies and smooth vocal harmonies, and Alex Miller's voice that's at once glum and sanguine. It's like drinking mint tea in bad weather.

half-assed : ani difranco
click here or on the image below to listen



Amazing guitar work on this one – raw, hasty, arrogant.

no use crying : embrace
click here or on the image below to listen



They weren't exactly the popular choice to record the World Cup anthem for England last summer, but Embrace gets my vote for their rally-the-troops instrumentation that's a more rousing treatment of The Verve.

patience of angels : boo hewerdine
click here or on the image below to listen



A great song returns to its owner. Popularized in the early 90s by Eddi Reader, Patience of Angels was composed by this former The Bible frontman. What smart songwriting this song has. She's all Tuesdays and forgetfulness, and a little money saved. The sentence doesn't make any literal sense, but it gives you just the right amount of hint at the character of the subject that it almost forces you to create your own story about her life. The song could have done without the sprinkler-from-outer-space intro, though.

peace and hate : the submarines
click here or on the image below to listen



My favorite song in my best-of list. One of the most impressive debut acts of 2006, The Submarines are US couple John and Blake, and their album, Declare A New State, is a collection of songs each of them composed during a prolonged break-up. Theirs is a feel-good-movie rather than a rock-and-roll kind of love story, and the outcome is a sweet and clean work of art, illustrated with vivid lines by their simple lyrics that are tangibly real-world even in their clichés. Take a line from the chorus: Still I love you with all peace and hate. With my series of break-ups and get-back-together episodes in the past, I could have written that!

safe in your arms : beth orton
click here or on the image below to listen



somewhere down the river : elf power
click here or on the image below to listen



the yeah yeah yeah song : the flaming lips
click here or on the image below to listen



The second-best first song from any album of 2006.

you only live once : the strokes
click here or on the image below to listen



The best first song off of any album last year.

yours and mine: calexico
click here or on the image below to listen

merry christmas, i'm sorry

Though that sounds like a title for a Morrissey song, that's basically what I have to say. It's Christmas eve and this is my last post for the year, and I'm sorry I didn't even get to finish my Best Songs of 2006 list. But that will be the first thing I'll do in the new year. I'll be back on January 4th and add 6 to 11 more. Please send me an e-mail at alternativesounds{at}gmail{dot}com if you would like to receive updates of this blog. In the meantime enjoy this song that I posted a few weeks back to spruce up my profile in a travel forum. It's called Yumeji's Theme by Shigeru Umebayashi, used in the Hong Kong film In The Mood For Love.