Lykke Li magically covers and verses together with Kings of Leon’s single Knocked Up.  Both vocals additively cascade and strengthen throughout the song, eerily creating a memorable duet that’s immersed in lyrics of chaotic masculinity, and melodic shades of pure uninhibited feminine vulnerability.

Taking all I have to take, This takings gonna shape me
People call us renegade ’cause we like living crazy
We like taking on the town, Some people getting lazy

Knocked Up (Rodeo Remix)

Waiting Room is the 2008 debut from Vary Lumar, a quartet of talented musicians from Boston, MA. Their album which was produced by 37ft Productions and released by indie label Swoom Records, was proudly recognized by NE Performer Magazine as album of the month. Together Vary Lumar integrate their own personal influences of rock, punk and shoegaze, transcending their own individuality throughout their ever-changing and mesmerizing sounds. To personally witness Vary Lumar live is an experience that casts a hypnotic spell, always engaging the entire crowd. Recently vocalist/guitarist of Vary Lumar, Paul de Pasquale kindly contributed to MIA. Please enjoy the following Q&A below.

L i s t e n

Grapes II
Lost Parade

MIA: Musically, how did the band form, what past experiences do you carry with you?

PAUL: The band formed while attending college, focusing on music and other art forms in Boston, MA. I met Rob Fusco (drums) the first night in town, shortly after moving into our apartments right behind one another. We spent many nights during our first year at school just making noise, with one guitar and as many pedals as we could get our hands. It was during one of these nights the word Vary was written down in a notebook and on the other side of the page there was Lumar. Within six months we met Rob Laff (bass) through mutual friends and shortly after that we put the pedals away, and spent most of our time jamming. By mid 2005, we had played a hand full of shows changing up our lead guitar player from show to show. It was during that Summer we met Ben (guitar) who had watched the show from the crowd..approaching me right after the set saying “great set !..you guys really have something strong and alive”…I responded with a “hey!..thanks..I’m glad you enjoyed it”….and then he followed up with ” I want to be in your band ” and within is week he was. The rest of the time up until the recording of “Waiting Room” was spent playing shows, discovering the Vary Lumar sound, and trying to finish school.

MIA: Describe the feeling of living and making music in your city, feel free to share a memory or a certain place that makes you feel like home.

PAUL: I have never thought about how Boston has shaped or inspired our music. We all grew up in different states throughout the east coast…so home is very different for some of us. I can say personally, hitting the tail end of my teen angst, as well as being fed up with school… my earlier creations for the band would of been loud and angry despite the city we were in. Sometimes, we found it difficult after a day of school or work to meet up and get into creating music..mainly because we spent all day away from one another, never making a stop home, and even never having time to eat dinner. However, Boston has been good to us for the most part, and we were all lucky enough to live in the backyard of Fenway Park. I think having our little small neighborhood with a small community park right outside gave us all the sense of “home” that we needed at the time. It was also within these few blocks, we had met many of our earlier supporters, as well as contributors to the local art scene. During the Fall of 2007 the band moved a town over to Allston, MA, into a real old home to call their own…you know the kind that lets the warm air out, and traps the cold air in…the good kind. Living together has put us more often on the same page, putting out the same vibe while having no restraints when playing or writing, which is allowing us to fine tune and define our sound. Living together has taken our music to a whole other place…unfortunately, we have not been able to share the newer sounds outside the Lumar home yet..but I am sure we will sooner than later.

MIA: Do you enjoy to perform live? How does the band like to get ready and is there a favorite song that you like to play for your audience?

PAUL: Rituals are great, but we don’t have any kind of set thing…I guess it depends on where we are and what day it is. I can say for sure that Saturday night gigs or any shows on the road allow us more time to get on the same page…which usually means a long car ride or just a bite to eat together. Sometimes we come from long days and have about a total of 30 minutes of face time before we play..so we do our best. During the past summer we found much inspiration tending to our vegetable garden hours before a set….now we like to build robots. We enjoy mostly everything we play…if we really don’t enjoy it then it gets taken out of our set pretty quickly….although Lost Parade is always a good time. Lately we have been playing new material which is just exciting.

MIA: What has been the most impacting compliment, or criticism, your band has ever received?

PAUL: In this day and age everyone has something to say about your music…somethings open your eyes and somethings turn your head. We make sure to not let the compliments go to our head and to not completely ignore the criticism…because the outside perspective is always good. Like any other band we have been given our fare share of good and bad reviews, but the only compliment I can say that has had a huge impact on us would be on the quality of our live show. The band has always had a different type of connection on stage, which to me I value more than anything else we could be doing.

MIA: Within your songwriting, is there some type of element that has brought about a certain mood in yr writing, making you feel more/less different than when you started? How long has the recording process taken to complete your album and to finally believe that it’s ready?

PAUL: Songwriting changes just like anything else in one’ s self. Personally, when I started writing I was 15 years old and very inspired by acoustic singer/songwriter types. Around the time the band started to form, I was tired of writing about love and was starting to feel that being a solo artist was a bit too self absorbed. I felt that connecting with other musicians would help bring up new feelings and experiences to write about. The material on “Waiting Room” has a bit of everything…love, hate, raw points of realizations, & honesty. Some people would say that the lyrics have political undertones, but I wouldn’t put it like that…maybe more social undertones. If anything the lyrics do more visually.

Waiting Room seemed to never be finished. I don’t thing an artist can ever be finished with a piece of work..but then again it depends on what kind of artist you are. We went into recording the album with a good strong base of material to work with…somethings we kept, some ideas were trailed and scratched, and some just happen to come alive at the right moment. I think the biggest struggle for us was trying to accept that we had to finish, and once we did we couldn’t go back and add or take away. In the end, we are happy with the majority of the album and if anything have a better understanding of what to do and what not to do next time.

MIA: What qualities do you hope listeners may take from listening to your music?

PAUL: Well, our new music will offer something quite different from “Waiting Room”, but overall our music no matter how it changes from song to song or album to album, we like to express a wide range of emotions. I think listeners can expect anything from feelings of your everyday life to being lost in an unfamiliar mystical place.

MIA: Name some of your favorite albums of 2008.

PAUL: Anything I would write down probably wouldn’t have a release date of 2008, but more so just albums I took more of a liking to in 2008. It is kind of exciting listening to an album for the first time after it has been out for 20 years. There has been some good new stuff out in 2008, but not a whole lot that screams out in my mind. Not that music in 2008 is horrible or anything……well put it this way I own a record player and it gets turned on more than my ipod. So I will do my best.

Sigur Ros – Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust (2008) – One of the only releases this year that grabbed my attention, not only have I enjoyed every release from this band, but this album was such a new direction for them and I thought they did a great job. Usually, changing your sound once you have made a career off of it can be a great turning point for a band, and sometimes it can be a band’s downfall..and this album shows the bands longevity, which is hard to come by these days.

Squarepusher – Just A Souvenir (2008) – I have always been into listening and creating electronic music, as well as drum & bass. Squarepusher blends a unique mixture of acid jazz, funk, hip-hop, rock and classical music in a electronic/drum & bass form. Squarepusher is an unbelievable musician in many ways and truly gifted on bass and drums. This in another artist who demonstrates longevity from album to album. One of my favorite albums is his 1998 release “Music Is Rotted One note”.

MIA: Name any favorite visual artists and how it may inspire you.

PAUL: Any artist that is ahead of their time…is usually enough to inspire me. Usually most eastern art I find to be extremely inspiring. Paintings & sculptures of Tibetan cultures , Nepal, and many other art forms of the Himalayas. If you find inspiration in this form of art….take a trip to the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC…an amazing experience.

Stanley Kubrick – 2001: A Space Odyssey – Visually, a masterpiece and still to this day has elements about it that you can not find in other films. The collaboration between the cinematography and the music within the first 30 minutes of the film comes to be an inspiration every time I watch it.

Arrested Development – TV series – one of the funniest tv shows (soon to be a movie) of my time. Extremely clever writing and performances by everyone involved. Another unique & ahead of it’s time work of art.

MIA: Please share a mixtape with a theme of your choice.

PAUL: Colorful…

Echoes – Pink Floyd
Castle Made of Sand – Jimi Hendrix
The Great Curve – Talking Heads
Great Expectations – Miles Davis
You Enjoy Myself – Phish

From Stockholm, The Concretes are a Swedish indie pop musical creation that began in 1995 with vocalists Victoria Bergsman, Maria Eriksson, and Lisa Milberg. After acquiring new members, the small group gradually grew into an eight piece band. Before Victoria eventually left the Concretes to be featured with Peter Bjorn and John for the popular single Young Folks and moved on to her own solo project Taken by Trees, her voice was an instrumental force that drove an adorable and innocent charm to the entire band’s sound.  On the Concretes’ debut Boy You Better Run Now and their self-titled albums, a natural warmth left a dreamy impression that escaped within their foreign, whimsical and colorful sounds.

L I S T E N

Warm Night [the Concretes, 2003]
Other Ones [Boy You Better Run Now, 2000]

Pour myself a cup of coffee full of sober nights
Cos nicotine and coffee are my friends in this fight

And you, you keep me warm
You, you keep me warm
All your cigarettes and cups of coffee
It keeps me warm

Believe me I can play games cos I know all the rules
Believe me I can pretend cos I’ve studied the masks

But I don’t wanna play any theatre for you
I don’t wanna stage a single piece for you

Keep Me Warm, the single from Ida Maria’s 2008 debut album Fortress Around My Heart showcases a humbled reaction to feeling almost lonely, sad and grateful all at the same time. At the age of 23, Ida’s talent has been collectively recognized for her charisma, defiant attitude and energetic live rock shows. Although some critics wish that her songs were stronger, the early rawness which enhances within her neatly-crafted Norwegian melodies is all that one needs to hear, Ida Maria is truly destined to be known.

Many thanks to Jinners & Nora for the recommendation.

It’s been a long time coming,
but tonight, because of what we did on this date
in this election at this defining moment
change has come to America.

A Change Is Gonna Come was written and first recorded in the early sixties by R&B sensation, Sam Cooke. Originally Cooke had heard Bob Dylan’s Blowin In the Wind and was so emotionally moved that he felt compelled to create a response. Although, A Change Is Gonna Come wasn’t released until after Cooke’s death in 1964, it became a theme that exemplified the sixties’ Civil Rights Movement. Now nearly 35 years later with the inauguration of our new President Obama, the song still speaks an honest message that showcases how people keep striving for the inevitability of change.

Image:: Vogue Magazine

Today marks my 27th birthday. Growing up, a friend and I would occasionally talk about the Forever 27 club, a group of rock musicians who died all at the age of 27. We were intrigued by the mystery  of  how Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison died within a ten month period of one another, and were  devastated and shocked by the early untimely death of Kurt Cobain.  We believed deeply in those lyrics from an old Billy Joel song that maybe “only the good die young” and figured it was our mission to become everything that we could be by the age of 27, before it was too late.

In contemplating the realization of our idea back then, it was easy to put so much pressure on the thought of death, that we didn’t see past how much it would take to actually get to our own personal levels of satisfaction.  So many times, it was hard to pretend that a wish didn’t often cross with certain acts and goals that could properly change the world. But now, instead of maintaining the old dream, Forever 27 begins to present itself as something shiny and brand new. Taking on a different role, almost like a milestone or a time-line that challenges every mental and meta-physical place ever known, this year allows past memories to crawl into a warm hiding place and prepares the long lost future to properly take flight.

Artwork by Deluca/Russo, John Koehn, and Martin Torsleff

Music Is Art was recently asked to play a game of war against Pretty Much Amazing. The rules include two music websites that are paired up with one song (for this round, Boyz by M.I.A.) and 25 songs based from each blog’s Itunes Genius Playlist feature.

Below are a few songs from this week’s game:
Please visit PMA to view more of the MIA playlist and vote!

Boyz – M.I.A.

Sad Sad City – Ghostland Observatory

Operate – Peaches

Mirando – Ratatat

~*~

Artwork by
Natasha Wescoat

the baby namboos are a trip-hop group that began their british rhyme styling back in the late 1990s. with the production and songwriting elements of tricky’s cousin mike porter, the hypnotizing collaborations of all three individual vocalists claude williams, leo coleing and aurora borealis, and the occasional lyrical suprises of tricky on their debut, ancoats 2 zambia, the baby namboos showcase an atmospheric reaction to their calming sensation of electronic ambience in slow downtempo waves.

l i s t e n

holy
provoked

art & recommendation by cathrine

Originally based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tally Hall is a five-piece band that creates infectious music, self-described by the group as fabloo.  Known for their good humor and uniform of different colored ties, Tally Hall has built a strong fan base who loves their music, ideas and style all across the world. Recently, vocalist and guitarist of the group Rob Cantor, kindly collaborated with Music is Art to share in on a few questions and answers about the band. Enjoy!

Listen: The Whole World and You

MIA: Musically, how did the band form, what past experiences do you carry with you?

ROB: The band took shape in our sophomore year at college, when Andrew and I ended up living together through a mutual friend. Enlisting Zubin on the bass (which, until that time, he’d never so much as touched), we played our first show in a basement theater in Ann Arbor – we got the gig because we could supply the PA system. Soon thereafter, we accrued the skills of Steve (our brief first drummer) and Joe, and began taking every gig we could find, most of which were at frat parties. Musically, I’m sure those shows were abominable, but there was a carefree feeling in the party gigs that we still try to channel.

MIA: Describe the feeling of living and making music in your city, feel free to share a memory or a certain place that makes you feel like home.

ROB: We’ve recently re-located to NYC from Ann Arbor, MI. I’m not sure this new place is home yet, but there are certainly spots in Ann Arbor that well up band memories. The one that comes to mind most clearly is the dingy, dusty, crypt-like basement at our college house on Division Street. The floor was crumbling cement, the walls were caked in cobwebs, and the ceiling was unadorned floorboard underbelly, but we managed to coat in enough Christmas lights, posters, and cheap area rugs as to make it feel remotely homey. We’d spend hours down there working out the arrangements for the songs on “Marvin’s…” The transformation was such, in fact, that Seventeen Magazine, for a “On Campus” story of some sort, held a photo shoot down there — one photo from the shoot made it into the magazine, none of us were in it.

MIA: Do you enjoy to perform live? How does the band like to get ready and is there a favorite song that you like to play for your audience?

ROB: Performing live is half of the job, and it’s the more direct part. There is instant gratification in it, whereas writing and recording is a much more delayed and labored form of satisfaction. It can also be nerve-wracking, especially for someone so self-conscious as me. Not thinking too much while performing is the ideal – just feeling. We don’t have any special preparation practices – just rehearsal and such. Favorite song to perform live? Right now it’s a new one called “Never Meant To Know,” but this changes often.

MIA: What has been the most impacting compliment, or criticism, your band has ever received?

ROB: My parents like everything we ever do; that’s very nice.

MIA: Within your songwriting, is there some type of element that has brought about a certain mood in yr writing, making you feel more/less different than when you started? How long has the recording process taken to complete your album and to finally believe that it’s ready?

ROB: I can say that “some type of mood” is just the thing a song is trying to evoke. The arrangement, the lyrics, the instrument timbres and the little nuances join forces and transform into a singular, particular, and emotive idea- a mood of some kind. The process for our new album is still in the early stages – we’re writing and recording demos, and we hope to begin recording early in 2009. Not sure how long it will take when all is said and done.

MIA: What qualities do you hope listeners may take from listening to your music?

ROB: Truth and Beauty?

MIA: Name some of your favorite music or albums to listen to.

ROB: I’ve been listening to old Soul and R&B music lately – Motown (especially Marvin Gaye and the Four Tops), Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and many more.

MIA: Please share a mixtape with a theme of your choice.

ROB: Bands We’ve Had the Pleasure of Playing With:
Summer Grof by Spinto Band
Presents by Via Audio
Hold It In by Jukebox the Ghost
Hard Times by Parlor Mob
Means To An End by De Novo Dahl

“I have drawn and made things since I was a kid. The visual world is a place I can dream in solitude. I think about the present and how can I reach out to gather the past and the future and draw them towards me. I try to follow the lines, tracing the invisible. Sometimes it’s a simple matter of bringing something into focus, or drawing forward the spirit I imagine lies hidden inside a thing. Other times, it’s finding the flamingo that lives inside the shadow of my heart. Or I could try to cry a circle for the green eye light of a sea horse.”

London’s Isis Gallery is extremely proud to present The Creek – the first exhibition in the UK of artworks by the internationally renowned Antony – January 17 through February 28, 2009.

Antony’s artworks open up landscapes that are at once otherworldly and confessional. Often fragmentary in appearance, these images map the his dreams and subliminal states; polymorphic realms give way to indicated spirits; pen marks and scratches conjure archetypes and invite the fear and grace of the unconscious to emerge.

The primary elements go through many stages – drawn on, burned, soaked in the rain, thrown away and reclaimed, drawn on again, stained or dried over a fire. These are then arranged and photographed. The intimacy of this unique gallery space then heightens the focus and clarity of these spells.

Recalling the notebooks of William S. Burroughs and Antonin Artaud, Antony’s works employ a transgendered intervention to readjust the colonial topography of the American Dream, seeking to identify a sense of crisis, morality and truth upon which a path forward can be forged. Taken as a whole, these collages describe the arc of a dream atlas in which each diverse aspect is unified through the desire for healing.

The Mountain and The Sea
Painting by Antony

Listen: Cripple and the Starfish (2000)