Balanço

Com 2010 quase na metade, já consigo antecipar 2/3 do meu top3 dos melhores álbuns de 2010...

Ef - Mourning Golden Morning

Um tratado na arte de fazer post-rock. Não reinventa a roda, nem ninguém o exigia. Épico, dramático e inspirado.E até certo ponto, inesperado. Não porque a qualidade da banda e dos seus 2 lançamentos anteriores estivesse em questão, mas porque as mudanças de membros não costumam perdoar ( ler entrevista à banda aqui no Bearded Russian ).

Ólafur Arnalds - ... and they have escaped the weight of darkness

O que eu penso da música deste senhor já foi aqui dito - não o vou repetir. Um passo firme na direcção do minimalismo, "... and they have escaped the weight of darkness" mostra o lado mais deprimente e melancólico da música de Arnalds, como se a paisagem fria e bela da sua terra natal ( Islândia ) se transformasse em som.

Kuki Ningyo (Air Doll)

"I found myself with a heart I was not supposed to have."

Hideo ,(Itsuji Itao) um homem solitário de meia idade, que nos é aduzido subtilmente aos primeiros minutos, serve mesas num pequeno restaurante e mora nos súburbios de Tóquio com Nozomi (Bae Doo-na ,"The Host", ''Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance''). Um homem simples que vive numa rotina um tanto ou quanto banal. Cumprimenta-a quando chega a casa, conta-lhe como foi o seu dia no trabalho à mesa de jantar, e à noite tem relações sexuais com ela, sussurrando-lhe como é bonita. Porém, o que escapa à banalidade é o facto de Nazomi ser na realidade uma boneca insuflável.

Numa manhã como tantas outras, Hideo despede-se da sua companheira de horas mais sós, e esta, deixada tão carinhosamente na cama tapada, metamorfoseia-se, magicamente com um toque simplista e nada explícito, numa mulher.‘’Encontrei um coração’’, como mais tarde o virá a dizer.

Nuzomi descobre um mundo lá fora. Vestida com o seu fato de mulher-a-dias pornô/anime, vagueia pelas ruas imitanto as falas das pessoas e comportamentos.

À medida que vai perdendo o seu andar mecânico e as suas linhas de junta de cola, arranja um trabalho numa pequena loja de vídeo onde se apaixona pelo seu colega Junichi (Arata, "Distance," "After Life’’). Mantém assim uma vida dupla. Uma vida subserviente aos favores sexuais de Hideo e à mudez, e uma vida quase humana ao lado de Junichi.

Nozomi tenta encontrar significado para a sua existência, chegando até a visitar o seu ‘’criador’’ Sonoda (Joe Odagiri, um Geppetto de ‘’Pinóquias’’ para adultos), pondo em causa os seus ‘’deveres’’ para com Haido. Mas logo começa a perceber que as suas vidas paralelas são inconciliáveis.

Todo o elenco protagoniza um papel fenomenal que nos agarra do príncipio ao fim. Todos os pequenos ''character build ups'' têm, a seu tempo, uma conclusão.

E apesar de Bae passar longos minutos no seu curtíssimo ‘’birthday suit’’, a actriz consegue fazer com que o público não a tome de todo como mero objecto sexual, mas sim como uma personagem delicada e inocente. Consegue até que as mulheres mais invejosas se esqueçam das suas belas pernas durante 125 minutos, e criem empatia pela sua frágil personagem.

Kore-eda faz com que vejamos a sua vida de blow up doll pelos seus olhos não insufláveis.

Festival de Cannes -- Un Certain Regard

Elenco: Bae Doo-na, Arata, Itsuji Itao, Joe Odagiri

Realização-guião- produtor-editor:Hirokazu Kore-eda

Baseado no romance gráfico (Manga) de Yoshiie Gouda

Produção: Toshiro Uratani

Director de fotografia: Mark Lee Ping-Bing

Música: World's end girlfriend

Distribuição: Fortissimo Films

Idioma Original: Japonês

Lançamento:2009

Duração:125 minutos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWPPof8L7H0&feature=related

Ólafur Arnalds

Gelo que faz levantar o pêlo dos braços

Uma melodia de piano,lenta,construída à volta de meia dúzia de notas,luta para se desembaraçar de uma camada de violinos e chegar à tona. Assim poderiam ser descritas muitas das composições deste músico. Com uma sensibilidade e maturidade musical enormes para alguém com apenas 23, Ólafur Arnalds será, muito provavelmente, a próxima grande exportação do panorama musical Islandês. A mistura de elementos electrónicos com música clássica e crescendos dignos do post-rock não é nova, mas poucos conseguem fazê-la de forma tão eficiente.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ih2sWFAGYs

James Vella (Yndi Halda/A Lily) : two sides of the same coin

The Bearded Russian returns with another interview, this time with James Vella, member of Yndi Halda and mastermind behind A Lily .With post-rock having a bad time with dozens of Explosion in the Sky and MONO wannabes, I wanted to know what have they, one of the most promising bands in the genre,been up to.

It has been three years since Yndi Halda's debut, "Enjoy Eternal Bliss" was released and critically acclaimed. What have you been up to since 2007?

James - As a band, we’ve actually been working quite steadily for the past three years. We toured all the territories that our first record was released – UK, Europe, Asia, the US – and began writing the follow-up to that record, but we’ve done so sporadically, more part-time than bands usually tend to. The members of this band don’t spend a lot of time together – we all live far away from each other – and we’ve all been busy studying or working for the last few years, and so the work we’re able to do with yndi halda is a little spread out.

How different is the new stuff that you have been writing,compared to "Enjoy Eternal Bliss"?

James -To us, it seems very different. Of course, it’s the same 5 people working on the music, and so I’m sure there will be a lot of noticeable similarities, but we’re a little older now, a little more musically aware and capable. I’m really excited about these new pieces of music, they’re my favourite songs we’ve ever written and there is only a little bit of work left before they’ll be ready to record.

The new songs are vocal – we’re not an instrumental band any more – and it seems like the extremes of the first set of music are being simultaneously pulled in their own direction: the pop parts are a lot more pop now, and the classical-influence stuff is a lot more classical-sounding.

When are you planning to release a new album?

James -We have no strict release plans. We’ve just finished a set of demos of most of the new tracks, which should give us some idea of direction for the record itself, but we’re mostly just allowing Jack and Brendan to finish university for the moment, so we can start working on the album all together once we have a little more time. I’m hoping we’ll be finished by the end of the year, but there’s still a lot of work left to do.

A writer from the Silent Ballet said of your debut : "Few bands have come out of the gates with such passion, and this is why Yndi Halda has gathered such a following." .Does that ( and the rest of of press and fans ) pressure you guys in any way,when composing new songs?

James -There is a lot more pressure this time around than with the first album. The first set of songs was written while we were at school, an entirely unknown band recording its first tentative steps. I think it must make some difference to how we write and what we end up writing, but I don’t think we really find ourselves feeling nervous at all, more just more selective…perhaps because we don’t want to let people down, or perhaps because we’re just more mature songwriters now and so are more capable of composing exactly what we’d like to.

In the last few years the post-rock scene became a lot bigger. In an endless market of post-rock bands, what do you feel that you bring to the genre?

James -We don’t really think of ourselves as a post-rock band. None of us listen to “post-rock” music very much (we do all like bands like Do Make Say Think, Tortoise, Talk Talk, Labradford, Sigur Ros etc., but this isn’t by any means our genre of choice), and none of us really intended to make post-rock music. I understand why people consider us a “post-rock” band, but it’s not something we concern ourselves with. It’s never on our minds that we need to bring anything novel to the genre, because we don’t really follow it or consider ourselves within it.

Our favourite bands in the genre are generally bands from the first wave of post-rock, the bands that really defined the genre and sounded like nothing else at the time. I guess this is my impression of post-rock, that it was interesting and exciting at one time, but I can’t really think of any current bands that fall within the genre that I listen to often.

About A Lily. You plan to release a new album, "Joy and James: the songs I lost in the fog" by the end of the year. What can you tell us about it?

James - I’m really excited about the new A Lily record. It’s been with me for around 10 months now, and it feels great to have it finished. It’s currently being mixed, which will take a couple of weeks, and then I’ll figure out the release plans. In a sense, it’s a concept record, with one major theme running through it, and a few motifs that appear and reappear in various forms. I recorded the whole thing in my home set-up, apart from a couple of drum parts and some piano, and have some friends playing woodwind, brass and string arrangements – some of these friends are joining the live band, which will be touring once the record is finished.

Your debut "wake:sleep:" and follow up "I Dress My Ankles With God's Sweetest Words" are two very different albums, one electronic release and the closer to folk music. What influenced you this time, to write " Joy..." ?

James - Musically, the album is a lot more pop-centric than the previous records. The first album was written largely on a computer, while the second was an acoustic record that I wrote while I didn’t have a working computer. This new album is somewhere in between. I gained enough interest in acoustic music from God’s Sweetest Words to continue using real instruments as a foundation rather than addition, but remembered how much I missed making drum loops from home recordings when I started using a computer again.

I’ve never really written a “verse-chorus-verse” album, and I really wanted to do something like that on the A Lily record. Something that I can experiment with and have fun with, but that structurally resembles pop music.

Besides Yndi Halda and A Lily, you are also the owner of O Rosa Records. What is you main goal, with the label?

James - The main goal of the label is to return something to music in general. I feel like writing music is a beautiful thing, but something that’s necessarily very insular and a little anti-social, especially the way I write, alone at home. I wanted to do something in music that takes in more people and looks outward, and so for me the ideal way to do this is to release other people’s music, to present unto the world something that I feel it can benefit from.

Recently, however, I haven’t been doing so much with O Rosa. I work in music during the day and wouldn’t want to spread my efforts too thin. I’m maintaining the label’s back catalogue and making sure everything that’s been released previously is getting attention, but I don’t plan on releasing anything new anytime soon, unless something really special comes up.

How hard is to keep a label running,in the age of mp3s and digital music? In a time when anybody can download an album in a couple of minutes, do you believe that packaging and design/artwork are getting more important than before ( pre-internet! ) ?

James - I’m a huge fan of packaging. Maybe it belies the current climate, but I never download music rather than buying it. I always much prefer something tangible that I can hold. I appreciate that the immediacy is desirable, especially now than anything is potentially available at any given time, but I’m hoping that there are enough people who share my opinion and will continue to buy physical formats.

I don’t think that packaging is necessarily any more important than before – I’m not sure this will convince people to wait for a CD or vinyl rather than downloading, - but for me it always has been important.

What are your plans for the future?

James - Current top priorities are finishing and releasing the new A Lily and yndi halda records, and then touring both. Feels like a lot of hard work ahead…!

Ef : a shy, semi-optimistic morning

After the mighty upcdowncleftcrightcabc+start, the Bearded Russian continues his talks within the post-rock genre,this time with Ef,one of the biggest names in the scandinavian scene. After 2 critically acclaimed albums, the swedish quintet turned into a trio and released "Mourning Golden Morning".

You guys released your new album "Mourning Golden Morning" two weeks ago; how were the reactions to it,both from the fans and press,so far?

Niklas : The press have been very positive so far. Of course some people don’t like it, what else could you expect, but at least 9 of 10 is praising it – and it means a lot to us, cause we put pretty much effort in promoting it properly. The fans have also been giving us very nice comments on communities such as Myspace and Facebook and we’ve been playing almost all songs from the new album on the tour we’re currently on and people have showed positivity to our new live set.

What can you tell us about the album? What are the main differences, when compared to your previous work?

Niklas : Personally we think it’s more straight on, more direct and focused. A little bit harder, but without loosing that emotional tenderness, and the dynamics we always have been striving after. We still try to create epic, explosive and experimental rock.

Both "I am responsible" and " Give me beauty...or give me death" were very well received by the press. Did it pressure you, when you were writing "Mourning Golden Morning" ?

Niklas : Not really. Our earlier albums are pretty different from each other. “Mourning golden morning” kind of wrap it all up. When we started the process of writing “Mourning golden morning” we decided to go all the way. Rent a “real” studio, a “real” producer and put a lot of money into the production. Before we’ve always been doing everything by ourselves with help from friends. And this fact also gave us a extra spark to create something that varies from earlier work. But this also made us more nervous when we started to send out the early promo copies to magazines, blogs and such… How would the critics react to us this time?!

You've been through some line-up changes. What happened? Did that affect the songwriting process in any way?

Niklas : Yes… “Mourning golden morning” is recorded as a three piece. Earlier we’ve always been 5. All songs were written with just guitars and drums. It went pretty quick with the writing process and the recording sessions were floating really well. Though it was a hard time sitting up all nights in the studio, making up and record bass lines. And improvising pianos etc..

Also Daniel Öhman is back in the band after two years break (during the “I am responsible” area). Some people say you can hear that, since songs he have been working a lot with the early material from “Give me beauty…”. Claes left the band early 2009 to focus on immanu el – who also put a lot of energy into making some kind of break in Europe. They tour a lot and just released their second album as well… But there was no fights etc… Just lack of time.

The album will be released in vynil by a german label called Kapitän Platte. Nowadays, when an album is only a couple of "clicks" away, how important do you think it is to release special editions and vynil editions to the fans?

Niklas : We’re really happy that it gets released on vinyl. Personally I’m a vinyl freak and hardly buy CDs. But there’s still people asking for this, that’s why we try to put time and energy into the artworks. Make it look nice, with digi paks etc. We also release it in UK with handmade artwork, silk screened on eco cardboard by Shelsmusic. I would definitely rather buy a album that I can really feel that someone have created with their bare hands. We also release it in Japan with a bonus track, which you also can download at iTunes. So we try to make some stuff more exclusive if you actually want to pay money for it.

Besides yourselves, there are a lot of good post-rock/instrumental rock bands in Sweden, like Immanu El,September Malevolence,Pg.lost,Jeniferever... Would you say that there is a strong post-rock scene in your country? What do you think of it?

Niklas : I would say that there’s a lot of post rock/experimental bands from Sweden – yes. But the “scene” is pretty small. There’s some people who really burns for this, but you can hardly get a show, and less likely: get a tour together. Sweden is big, but not populated enough. Long distances makes it hard to get something going. Which is sad.

What have been listening/reading and watching lately?

Niklas : Personally I’m a huge fan of the TV-series “Lost”. Music wise I’m really into what I’d call sophisticated and rhythmic indie such as Arcade fire, Yeasayer, Local Natives, Efterklang and stuff with both melodies and loads of drums. Books I don’t read.

What inspires you to write a song?

Niklas : Our everyday lives. What happens with us, around us, and the people we hold dear.

What are your plans for the future?

Niklas : We’ll tour as much as possible, and try to go to new territories and countries. We’ve plans for France, Spain and Portugal in the fall. We also hope to get the album a proper release overseas (US) – and maybe start working on a EP.

upcdowncleftcrightcabc+start :5 became 4 - and rawer

Upcdownc are a peculiar band not only because of its name."Embers", the band's 2008 release is probably one of the greatest instrumental rock albums of all time.So,why the recent sudden change to a rawer,heavier sound? That's what the Bearded Russian tried to find out.

First of all, please introduce yourself and explain to us what upcdowncleftcrightcabc+start is all about.

Chris : We've been going now for 10 years and have just released our new album "Firewolf". It's our first album as a four piece and kind of explores new territories for us as it's a lot more darker and heavier than our previous recordings.

You guys released the "Firewolf" EP some months ago. Can you tell us about the recording process of the album?

Chris: We recorded the album in a weekend pretty much live except for some vocals. We try and keep our recordings as live sounding as possible.

Your first two records, "And the Battle is Won" and "Embers" were critically acclaimed. How is "Firewolf" doing in the press so far?

Chris: We've again had good reviews all round for "Firewolf" which is great for us as it was our first independent release and sales have been good too.

What about the fans? How was the reaction to the new songs?

Chris: We've been around for a while now so our fans have evolved along with us but we are also attracting new fans too which is always good.

The biggest changes between your previous work and "Firewolf" are the inclusion of vocals and a shift towards a more direct,raw sound.

Did you guys felt that the new songs needed vocals and a less epic approach, was it your way to distance yourselves from the current instrumental rock scene

Chris: We had a member leave so a change was really on the cards. It wasn't something we deliberately gravitated too, it just seemed to happen within rehearsals. A lot of anger was pent up around the time to for various reasons, so that helped.

One of your tracks,"Black Lodge", will be used on the soundtrack of a videogame.How did that happen ?

Chris: We were sent a contact email about it and just followed it up not really expecting much to come of it. Sheer dumb luck I guess.

What are your plans for the rest of the year? Are you already working on a follow up to "Firewolf"?

Chris: We have already recorded a new album and are just waiting to get it mastered etc. We are not really sure about a release date yet. It's something we'll be concentrating on more after the UK tour.

What do you guys do,besides the band?

Is it easy for a rock band to survive nowadays in the UK ?

Chris: We all work regular jobs. It's only as easy as you make it for yourself really. You can still release music and play without being signed. Getting label interest is at an all time low now due to the internet so you just have to go it alone and hope for the best. We do it because we enjoy it.

In the last couple of years, the instrumental rock scene became bigger and bigger, and, like in every scene, dozens of generic unoriginal bands started to appear.

Being an experienced band with 3 Eps and 2 LPs released,what do you think of this?

Chris: We try not to pay attention to scenes. I think that the instrumental blue print has become stale as of late and quite a lot of the big guns are miss firing but it's just what happens. We're all striving for the next thing, the next sound. We feel that if you sat and listened to our 3 albums, you would notice a change between each one.