Musical Monday: CHRISTMAS MUSIC!

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday, where every American, no matter where they are, where they're from, what they believe, or what they look like can gather together in a spirit of goodwill and gratitude and eat wonderful food with family. I love the time spent gathering together, preparing the meal, and sharing stories (some for the first time some for the five-hundredth) over a meal together.

Thanksgiving also means that you can start listening to Christmas music!! Or at least start listening to it publicly =)

Unfortunately, while Christmas classics are wonderful, it can be way too easy to overload on the same 12 songs the radio plays ad nauseum in the next month or so, but that's why we have Musical Monday! (so we're not trapped by iHeartRadio's attempt to indoctrinate our tastes to a formulaic algorithm that makes it easier for them to make money off of artists)

Luckily, there's YouTube, Spotify and tons of other ways to create your own Christmas playlist. There are also independent media outlets like KEXP or RELEVANT Magazine that put out  Christmas music you can freely stream. RELEVANT even allows you to freely download the entire two-volume album of Christmas songs!

Check it out here:
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/the-drop/very-relevant-christmas-vol-5-part-one

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/the-drop/very-relevant-christmas-vol-5-part-two

This album is full of amazing new songs and wonderful reinterpretations of holiday standards. Volume one is a little more upbeat while volume two is a bit smoother and slower to allow for introspection. I've already downloaded and played these all several times and have some new favorites for Christmas seasons to come.

What are some of your favorite Christmas songs?

Need even more Christmas music in your life? Check out this Christmas-themed Musical Monday from the ghost of Christmas Past

Musical Monday: je suis triste

So the Paris attacks shook a lot of us this past Friday. Waking up to news of the Beirut bombing just that morning, and watching the news about Paris unfold from the office and the number jumping to over 100 by the time I got home lent some moments of not quite despair but certainly some anger, uncertainty, sadness, compassion, and other complicated emotions. They're still roiling in my stomach somewhere and I haven't quite figured them out all the way yet.

Personally, I don't think I can write anything better than my immediate reaction on social media: "So many terrible things in the world. Be humble, do good. Spread love and kindness. Pray for one another. Be patient. Give joyfully of your time and self to others."

But somehow I feel like that's not enough to encompass it all.

Since music and poetry can help express feelings, and since there are some very talented songwriters out there, I discovered this song their weekend and it has stuck with me, resonating in my thoughts. The slow crescendo and build through each chorus, the lonely bellow in the background, the soft twinkling, the pauses between phrases to allow the words to sink in.... it's all so well done.

No Hell is the first single off of Cloud Cult's upcoming album, and I discovered it on KEXP's Music That Matters podcast.

Cloud Cult: No Hell

Lyrics:

Mama said the stars are the universe's eyes
I can feel them watching over me most of the time

We grew up believing we could learn how to fly
We came from the Earth, but we belong to the sky

I saw your soul without the skin attached
You've got the guts of a coyote pack

We've been kissed, we've been cut
But we do what needs the doing
We're just rainbows dreaming we're human
Please excuse the lights shooting out of my head
I keep 'em in a cage but they come out when they see a friend
You must be a friend

You're never really going to have control of it all
So you best get cool with where your chips are gonna fall

We are the sun
And mother's milk
And cusswords
And poetry

There's no use in running unless you run like heck
The best things we've learned, we learned from the wreck

Jesus coming back as a woman this time
Handing out hugs in the clinic line

And someone tell the devil we don't need no Hell
We're all pretty good at beating up ourselves

As kids we believed that the angels talked
Everything is magic until you think it's not

It's easy to be thankful for the things you've got
It takes guts to give thanks for the things you've lost

And we grew up believing good wins over bad
So you gave away your heart but the wolves attacked
But then a bigger heart grew back

Please excuse the words coming out of my mouth
I'm a happy man but there's some things that I need to get out
I need to get out...

There's no use in running unless you run like heck
The best things we've learned, we learned from the wreck

Jesus coming back as a woman this time
Handing out hugs in the clinic line

And someone tell the devil we don't need no Hell
We're all pretty good at beating up ourselves

Musical Monday: Fall For These

St. Kilda: September
So I was supposed to blog about this last month I'm sure, but it took me awhile tog et back to blogging. The beautiful almost ethereal atmospheric guitar and other instruments hint at optimism while the lyrics are steeped in pessimism, love me a good contradiction (warning, if you play it at work, they drop one curse word a few times)

El Vy: Return to the Moon
So stoked that Matt of The National and Brent of Ramona Falls combined the best parts of what they do to form El Vy.
How stoked? Well, I used 40% of my family's data plan last month streaming the video throughout my commute to work (...oops)
Taylor Swift even recently included it in her list of "Songs to make your life more awesome" instagram post (further proof that we are essentially twins, but I's like to go n record to say I like it first!

Also, I had been waiting for this since March (I know, super hipster of me to say I liked a song before it even came out but here's proof that I knew it's be awesome):

1. jules bitz ‏@itzbizr  Mar 30

   @ramonafalls Spore & Archimedes Plutonium still get me every time. Prophet remains one of my favorite albums of the last 5 years

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2. Ramona Falls ‏@ramonafalls  Mar 31

   @itzbizr aw, this arrives at precisely the moment I need some encouragement to keep going. Thank you so much for listening and caring.

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3. jules bitz ‏@itzbizr  Mar 31

   @ramonafalls yay, so glad to encourage! Your music is amazing, thank you for sharing your talent & I look forward to any new tunes!

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   10:29 AM - 31 Mar 2015

Musical Monday: Monday

So it's been awhile... 

But keeping with the theme, today's Musical Monday comes from an artist who's taken two years since his last song and has never given the clamoring masses what we've wanted, a full-length album, in the eight years since being a finalist in Australian Idol. I've talked about Matt Corby here before and this certainly won't be the last time, considering he'll be bringing us more songs this year (YAY!).

Musically, his sound has matured and progressed. He spent time trying to learn proficiency in all the instruments he plays on this album, which should be easy on this first song as all it is, is some snaps and stomps and his vocals. 

Well, it may be a bit more complicated than that, and what he accomplishes is beautiful but the lyrics are about losing his faith and, while he's never been an artist to shy away from deep stuff, this song makes me sad for Matt Corby the person. 

This song is filled with such beauty and melancholy intermixed with almost apathetic introspection. When it ends, it leaves you bereft and with an itchy pointer-finger over the replay icon.

Here it is, 

Matt Corby: Monday

Foto Friday: All Is Beautiful

This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with a dear friend out in Delaplane, Virginia. Since she had some errands to run in the morning and it was a bit of a drive, I left early to go for a hike so I didn't spend more time in the car than out of it. She recommended Sky Meadows Park and it was absolutely perfect. With many different small trails, overnight campgrounds, a covered picnic & grill spot, and a lovely historic area, it really has something for everyone.

My hike was made even more magical as I listened to the pre-release of the first of three Gungor albums to come out this year, One Wild Life: Soul (which I'll hopefully have a review of out soon). The nature imagery and orchestral arrangements of some of the songs and the songs of great praise to the Creator, made me stop in my tracks with an enraptured smile holding my hands out to embrace the wonderful world around me quite a few times.

Here are the photos I captured that day

Foto Friday: More May Flowers

For want of more creative ideas, and a desire to at least try to slowly ease back into blogging, here are some more May flowers taken either at my Mother's garden or the Smithsonian Rose Garden. I was at the rose garden before a kickball game on the National Mall and trust me, had my sister Ms Pinky not been there to limit my time to under a minute I could've spent 20 there taking hundreds of pictures.

(All photos taken with my iPhone 5s & edited in Camera+)  

And here's a celebration video for making it this far (someday I want to listen to this while meandering along a Mediterranean beach):

Foto Friday: May Flowers

Perhaps a bit of a misnomer as most of these pictures were taken in April but what better images to accompany the rebirth of spring and (hopefully) the rebirth of my blogging than these beautiful flowers from the past month. (all photos taken with my iPhone w/o any edits).

The little park by my house:

On a lunch-time walk by work: 

On a hike in Maryland:

The front courtyard of my apartment complex:

The garden at the church across the street from my office:

That's all for now (we're (re)starting slowly, baby steps). Hope to see you soon!