This is the title of a song by French artists, Kwoon. I cannot remember how I came across it except that it was very random; possibly through a web design site that led me to a random blog that led me to the YouTube video.
The animation is by another French artist, Yannick Puig, and I think it is the combination of the music and the video that make this piece so stunning, compelling me to play it over and over again and write a random blog post on it.
The animation represents so much that I love about art. This guy has awesome talent and has joined my list of artists that ignite passion. He has a very interesting web page on the making of this video; an explanation of the story, how he and Kwoon shared common points that made for a perfect match and his love for insects, plants and the mineral kingdom that feed his well of inspiration.
I was interested to find out what music genre Kwoon fell into as I am not very learned in these things and after googling it was surprised to discover a knew one: Post-rock! That’s one I never would have guessed.
I never feel I am very articulate when it comes to expressing how I feel about something but after reading some of the comments from YouTube I think enli85 says it all:
“Whats better … Song or video – i realy cant decide – but both of them are piece’s of art, and mixed together ? …Good Lord. Oscar.”
After work on Friday (11 Dec) Mat and I had to abandon our newly arrived guests (Squealer and Mally from Stroud) for we had our long-awaited gig to go to – Green Day
After leaving a little late and then queuing for half an hour to buy t-shirts we missed the support band, Jet, unfortunately. I then queued for another fifteen minutes to buy chips and pies as we hadn’t had any food before leaving and were both pretty hungry. However, it was all timed really well because as we were just finishing the last chips the lights dimmed and the crowd errupted.
The first thing I noticed was, even though the tickets said no photography or filming equipment allowed, there were camera flashes going off left right and centre. I’m glad I had decided to take my camera anyway and I took a few shots and video clips here and there to capture the moment. We had pretty good seats; although they were right at the side of the stage, so the acoustics weren’t as good as they would have been in the centre, we were at the front of the first level above ground so got a really good view of everything.
Following the recent release of their long awaited new album, 21st Century Breakdown, Green Day are now on tour. They are set to play in the UK around the end of October and Sydney, Australia in December.
As soon as I heard this on the radio I decided this would be one concert Mat and I would not miss out on (previously being too late to score Neil Young tickets and also dibbing out on the Foo Fighters back in 2007). Tickets went on sale at 9am on 30 June and as Mat was off sick with food poisoning I was able to persuade him out of his sick bed long enough to hound the website until he had secured a pair
Here is sample. This is their current single in the charts from the new album:
Last weekend we all decided to go on a mission to check out the Warriewood Blowhole properly as it was such a nice day. Mat and I have been before but to see it properly it involves climbing over the edge of a cliff down a rope and I didn’t have the courage so always waited behind.
This time I was determined to conquer my fear of heights and go for it, as nothing could be as bad as the fifty metre Diamond fire lookout tree I climbed in Western Australia, which I am yet to write about. The Blowhole is located on the south cliff of Warriewood beach and is a tunnel going all the way through the cliff which you can swim through. You get to it by walking through a reserve and ignoring the danger sign that warns of a dangerous cliff edge and advises to keep away etc. etc. There is a path that goes down to the cliff and then all the way round the cliff to the other side. To get down to the blowhole you have to climb down two ropes onto ledges further down the cliff which then enable you to scramble down to it.
There is then a little ledge about fifteen feet above the narrow inlet that you can jump off, into the water, making sure you time it correctly so you jump into a wave as it comes through. I think you have to be careful about height of the tide as well, but it was fine when we got there. The rope descent was no where near as bad as I thought it would be and in actual fact was dead easy.
Here you can see Mat preparing to jum off the ledge into the water with Nick and Kat in the background. The second picture shows the height of the cliff behind and also some people in the background climbing up the bottom rope:
So how are these three things related you are probably wondering?
Well, after the non existent storm that was promised to rage over Sydney last night it did at least begin to rain this morning. Of course it was dry by the time I left for work but it wasn’t long before the drizzle and intermittant showers started and by 8.45am the consensus was to jack it in for the day. Once home I set to doing a little tidying and what not and decided to put some music on. After deliberating for a while I decided on the radio and started listening to Triple J through the computer. Just recently I have heard some good stuff on this station and have taken to listening to it in the car instead of my usual cd of choice, just because I thought about all the good stuff I would have missed out on if I didn’t (I am not usually a huge fan of the radio, easily bored by music that does nothing for me).
Anyway, about an hour ago my ears perked up when I heard an intrumental guitar piece that instantly grabbed me. After the opening bars a fantastic electric guitar came in and I thought to myself “that sounds a bit like Neil Young and Crazy Horse”; my absolute all time favourite artist.
I listened keenly to see if the DJ would announce who it was afterwards, not holding out a lot of hope as they have an annoying habit of not doing this very often. Anyway, to my delight they said it was from the soundtrack to the film Dead Man, and to my surprise went into a little bit more detail saying that it was in fact written by Neil Young (my musical ear is obviously more finely tuned than I think it is). Not only that, the soundtrack was not recorded from a score but instead Neil Young apparently just sat down and played from his emotional reaction to watching the film. This just goes to show that the man truely is a Legend! Here’s the piece from youtube:
(Mum, this is a video, not a picture and to play it you click on the little sideways triangle!)
I was just thinking to myself, “Bloody Hell, Triple J has introduced me to another little gem” when they went on to mention that Neil Young would be touring Australia next year. “”Oh my god!!! Can it be true?” If I could see anyone live in the whole world it would be Neil Young and he is actually coming to Australia?
Yes, but only three shows: one in Brisbane on 21st January 2009, one in Sydney on 24th and Melbourne on 28th. “Gold, he’s in Sydney!” “F*&@, all the Sydney tickets are sold out already!”
“This is too pants to be true!” I was already thinking of my dad who said he might be coming out in January and how fantastic it would be if we could go together (he introduced me to Neil Young when I was little).
My thoughts instantly turned to ebay and I did a quick preliminary search. To my delight there are quite a few on auction already, starting from around $450 for a pair. If it is within my power I will be going to that concert. I remember years back Neil Young did a tour in the UK but my dad only found out about it the same day or something and it was too late. I do not want to miss out again.
And that is the story of how fate whispered in my ear for me to listen to Triple J who introduced me to what looks like a great film, a fantastic soundtrack and the tour of a musical legend!
I have been very naughty of late and haven’t made any posts in a while but thought I would stop by quickly to say Mat and I are going to a Cog concert tonight and to share some music with you.
Cog are an Australian progressive metal band from Bondi Beach. I first heard them on the local radio station, Triple J, where I also heard Pegz and The Herd for the first time so all in all it’s quite a good station.
Anyway here is a cog track from their new album, Sharing Space. This is the first one I heard but there is no video for it:
This is another one off the same album with video:
This was the first Aussie hip hop track to catch my ear when I moved out here and I just thought “wow, this is sick!” Someone has finally posted it on youtube so I can now share it on my blog.
I love bushcraft and being in Australia with all the different native wildlife and aboriginal heritage of bush tucker etc, this track, for me, embodies that wild and raw aspect of the country: “munchin on witchety grubs”, “chasing tasmanian devils”, “diets of fresh yams and honey ants”, “eat vermin for lunch with Steve Irwin”.
Have a listen and see what you think. Like raw UK hip hop I think Aussie hip hop is another sub-genre with a lot to offer.
Bro, this one is especially for you cos I think you will appreciate it
I owe my appreciation of hip hop and rap to my bro who introduced me to the genre about ten years ago now. I used to spend long hours just chilling round at his yard and consequently, as he is big into his hip hop, got to listen to a lot of it.
Rap Artists is a website which lists hip hop and rap artists’ song lyrics. As well as this, each artist that is listed also has a biography and other information of interest, eg. discography listing. The site is quite comprehensive and has a lot of useful information aside from the lyrics including a forum. The one disadvantage that I can see is that so far it only lists what I would class as popular artists or American artists. I did a search for a few of my UK faves, Taskforce and Phi-Life Cypher, and these were not on here, neither was The Herd or Pegz (Aussie hip hop artists that I have discovered since living over here). However, new artists are being added all the time so maybe they will feature in the future.
For the last six weeks I have been driving Hayley’s car to work as she is on holiday. As I didn’t have my own transport when she left she very kindly let me borrow it (a HUGE thank you to Hails cos it’s been fantastic) and I have kept driving it up until the end of last week so that Mat could tinker with the Suzuki when he got home from work.
However, I have been driving the Suzuki this week as Hayley’s car is out of fuel and I haven’t got around to filling it up yet; lol, lazy or what! Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me last night that the Suzuki now has a CD player in it, something which Hayley’s does not have and something which Mat’s ute does have but due to lack of CDs we’ve just got out of the habit of using it. So, this morning I grabbed the new Foo Fighters album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, on my way out of the door and slipped it into the CD player as I drove out of the drive.
The first track was The Pretender which I banged out as loud as I possibly could:
Wow, I hadn’t realised how much I had missed listening to music of my choice as opposed to the radio. I’m not knocking the radio and Triple J has certainly introduced me to a few new Aussie bands that I really like, however, nothing beats listening to my faves at top volume, something which is hard to do at home when there are “neighbours to consider”.
This should mean my journey home is a lot more pleasant also. For some reason I’ve never minded driving to work as there’s never much on the roads at 6.30am and I normally have my head in the clouds, literally, gazing at the views as the sun is rising and trying to see good photo opportunities. The home trip, however, normally takes twice as long, it’s down hill so the views are disappearing and the rush hour traffic riles me no end (must get around to writing a post on Aussie drivers!).
I say music really is vital nourishment for the Body, Mind and Soul!
I love this song, it’s my favourite of Linkin Park’s since “In The End”. It was the theme tune to the Transformers movie which we watched a couple of months back; I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it. Subsequently they have been playing it on the radio a fair bit over here.
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