Whoa, I just realized I don't know any Thomases.

Unless I'm forgetting one, in which case I would be a terrible person. I actually don't know any Thomases, and my facebook can attest to that. Yes I checked.

Today, I have a special singer-songwriter to present. His name, is Thomas Cook. That's his stagename by the way.

Thomas Cook is in fact a part of a Korean band, called My Aunt Mary. I'll probably cover them soon as well.

But it seems that his solo project is as good as any band could go. As the singer-songwriter movement is not so noticed in Korea, Thomas Cook is one of those who put a unique taste to the Korean music scene. Check this one out. It's called, Youth. 

 
Gives a feel of 10cm I'd say. In some ways like acoustic Nell as well, as evident in this next one, called Path to home. 

And sometimes kind of like John Mayer. Like this one, called Forthrightly. (again, excuse my translation, it could be Honestly.)

Lastly, I'm going to throw one in that doesn't really remind me of any artist off the top of my head. This one is called, I'm nothing at all. 

All these different colors are only a fraction of the musical sound that Thomas Cook makes out of his voice and guitar.

If there was an artist that need to be heard, it would be Thomas Cook. His songs always have something to say, have a message and I can tell from his songs that he only says things that are need to be said. Just like how his latest album had a 10 year latency from the last one.

There's no ostentatious attitude neither pompousness. Nor does he have overly crafted melodies or exhaustively repeated lyrics. His music is all about honesty. Everything is truly him. I believe that when the music reflects the person, that's when a musician becomes integrated thoroughly with his music, and that's when a musician can be happy, solely with his music.

I don't think that music is just about pleasing other people's ears. It's also about finding your inner self, drawing out those deeply hidden truth by the sturdy rope that is music.

Thomas Cook, has found his inner self in my opinion. I sure hope I can do the same.

Taking in all that Holiday Goodness

Nothing like a good holiday cheer to really set up a nice day in my opinion. Add family and good music, you get the entire Big Mac combo. Now, good music. Was there a more debatable topic? The definition of good music, differs greatly by each person. However, this is where I present my opinion, so I'll give you my definition of good music.

To go straight into the point, Frank Sinatra would be an example of good music. It's smooth, it's relaxing, and it never goes sideways. With Frank Sinatra, not a song can go wrong and if one ever does, it's usually because the song itself is bad to begin with. Sinatra's voice is truly one of a kind. The sort of ringing depth that seems to emanate from the very base of his soul. Allow me to present exhibit A.

Every time Sinatra hits a good note, I feel like he's shaking me by my shoulders and saying, "hey buddy, this is it. This is the spot." His voice is so powerful and spirited, I feel it has a corporeal existence just by itself. That as soon as his voice escapes the speakers it materializes in front of my eyes and turns into something that I can not only simply hear, but feel. Feel it tickle my ears literally, and make me smile as soon as it touches by skin.

Mr. Sinatra's philosophy on love certainly is as great and rare to be found today as his voice is. Allow him to lecture you on love on this next song.

and this next song.

And there are many more like that. The lyrics to every song, sometimes plain, sometimes filled with metaphors, are always honest and coming from a speaker of truth who have seen life's ways.

I got introduced to Mr. Sinatra through an old friend of mine whom I've kept in touch with for a long time. At first, I listened to it because I thought it was good study music, and it certainly is. It's soothing, it's melodious, and it's not too blindly stimulating.

Then slowly I realized that swing music is surprisingly enjoyable. It was certainly the sort of thing I would listen to on a lazy sunday afternoon. Besides Sinatra however, I haven't really found other swing musicians, but I'm still satisfied. I have about four hundred of his songs to cycle through. So give a listen, and see if you like them. I can assure you, that you really aren't going to find songs like this anywhere, all due to at least one fact: Sinatra's voice. Enjoy!

Sanding out the roughness of my mind with some good tunes.

Here we are ladies and gents! Holidays have arrived and the great cheer is in full effect. Finally, my head can now rest, and there isn't a better way to do it than to read a fine book with some smooth melody playing in my ears. A Murakami Haruki sure is a safe bet for a fine book, and for some smooth melody none other than Uyama Hiroto comes quicker to my mind.

Mr. Hiroto is a Japanese DJ and hip hop music producer whose style reflects a heavy influence from jazz. If there was a genre that would define his style in one word, it'd be Nu Jazz. Now I don't know anything about Nu Jazz, yet, so I'll stop my commentary on the genre right here before I say something hysterically illogical. On with Uyama Hiroto.

I don't listen to hip hop. At all. But this one's a definite keeper even for me. Hiroto's melodies, flying freely above, have a distinct form and style to them that you can only glean by listening to them. Here's 81 Summer. 

and Stratus 

Unlike many so called DJs and hip hop producers, the ingredients that Hiroto puts into his music are all critical elements that make up the overall sound. Nothing goes to waste. Hiroto structures his songs so that if even the most unnoticeable section of the song is missing, it would bring down the balance of
the music.

However, what really draws me to this artist like a moth to flames is his jazz influence, evidently expressed in this song, Waltz for Life Will Born. 

The best of all is that Uyama Hiroto's ability to fuse various styles together into a unique piece of music is just uncanny. Like this next one, Ribbon in the Sea. 

This sort of music I really enjoy listening to, because you can't categorize something like this. This piece can stand by its own, and not called as something definitive so easily. I like that. A song that has character, a personality. It's really hard to find something like that these days, but Uyama Hiroto has gifted us generously with his own cache of rare genius.

Before going back to my reading and relaxing time, I'd like to say that it's good to be back on the blog. Sorry if you guys missed me, I just couldn't muster the time to do it. You'll certainly see me more frequently now, so stay tuned! I'll be back tomorrow. On that note, I shall leave you with a couple more of my Uyama Hiroto favorites.

There needs to be something more in this world, and I can't find the answer

We live in a terrible, but a beautiful world. It's a good place, inherently, but we've twisted it. It is not a deed of a single person, but an atrocity committed by all of us. A debt we owe that we'll never pay. A poisoning that has stopped more than just hearts.

I feel there's something missing. In me, in you, in all of us. We run around trying to find that last one puzzle piece, only to collect more of what we have, take things that don't fit, and break others.

Today's artist is The Album Leaf. The Album Leaf is a solo project founded by Jimmy Lavalle in 1998. Hailing from San Diego, Mr. Lavalle is known for his soothing, ambient style. These couple next songs are Over the Pond, and Window.

 

 

Some may call it a wave of depression coming over, but I appreciate this style. It's the sort of sound that brings one back to the beginning. To that place where they began. The place where we could be refreshed, and renewed. The next song, Twenty Two Fourteen, surely does it for me. 

 

The Album Leaf's style could be distinguished as post-rock, but I think it's much more than any other post-rock project that I've ever been in touch with. Sometimes, once in a while, we need that something that will make us see, what we are doing wrong. Listening to the Album Leaf, I saw my past, my mistakes, my faults, my wrongdoings that I've committed, and poured them out, in front of Mr. Lavalle's music. I hope it can do the same for all those who pass by this humble place. 

I apologize for my long hiatus, and coming back in so long with a depressing post such as this, but I wanted to let you know that sometimes, when life's sufferings get too hard to bear, music may be the only solution. It was mine, and let it be yours if you please. I'll leave you with some more of The Album Leaf's goodness. Good night everyone.

Studying until daybreak.

Not quite, but close to it. I'm probably studying until late night. My take on all-nighters, is that they never work in a profitable way. Sleep is lost, and that sleep is eventually made up. So there's no actual gain in hours of studying, because all the sleep debt acculmulates to a point where the sleep repoman leads you to the bed in a tight grip of insatiable slumber. Then you curse out loud after waking up from a thirteen hour sleep. I've done it, my friends have done it.

So I'd rather wake up at daybreak, rather than study until daybreak. It's just better that way. It really is. Therefore I should be studying right now in order to sleep at a normal hour. However, I'm searching for music through youtube, again. Although this one's pretty good. If you haven't guessed the name yet, here it is, Daybreak.

Now this is the kind of song I'd listen to at daybreak after waking up from a comfortable night's sleep. A morning song. A song to ensure a refreshing day. On that note, here's another feel-good song from Daybreak. It's called, It's great. (although the definition can shift based on context.)



How can so much positive emotion exist in one song? Beats me, but ask these guys, since they seem to be hoarding all the galaxy's optimism.

Bands like these, are simply direly needed in this morbid world that keeps on cutting out items from the list of postivity, and offers only a bleak vision of the future. Daybreak's music however, is more than enough to bring that spectacular daybreak to anyone's night.

Daybreak formed in 2005, and debuted with their first album in 2007. Since then, they've had quite a number of album releases. Quite prolific for a band that hasn't been around for that long.

One aspect of this band I really enjoy is their utilization of instrumentals. Since explaining won't suffice. Just listen, to this next song.

As you can hear, there is a variety of instruments that make up the band's sound. The wind section especially gives off that live-music-at-a-jazz-bar feeling. However, I'd say their sound is more towards the alternative rock sound rather than jazz. Like this next song, called Popcorn.



Before I die of excess happiness from listening to this band, I'm going to say the truth however. It's just too, bright sometimes. It's like, it's always daytime. At times, there's no emotional tension or melodic dissonance to nicely toss up the musical salad at all in these songs, so the band sort of comes off as very unicolored and commonplace, since there are a lot of bands that make songs like them. There's needs to be more variety in their sounds, otherwise they'll only attract people who are into these songs. These next couple songs will demonstrate my point.



And then they do have more moody songs, like these ones.



But it's too, typical. There are thousands of songs like this out there, and therefore songs like this often automatically lose any sort of meaning to whoever's listening, because they have lyrics and melodies that have been tried and tried exhaustively . So what they need to do, is do more songs like from their first album. Like these ones.



The second one is actually a cover of a classic Korean song from back before the 90s, but the gist is that they all have a color of their own. That's what Daybreak needs to do more, and it's not just for Daybreak, it's for every band out there. The reason I'm blabbing on about this, is that from listening to their music, I still have no clear picture of Daybreak's "sound" that is unique to only them. There will be people who disagree with me but from all these songs, I see no clear style. There is a style of course, but it's not so definite. If I'm getting too confusing, go back and check out Nell.

Of course, I might be just talking crazy, but I believe that every band should discover its own color, and stick to it, at the same time being flexible.

A band is like a person. Only when the band projects its uniqueness into full blossom, it truly shines.

But what the hell, I'm being too anal. It's great music anyhow. Great enough that I could probably listent to it until daybreak. On that note, I'm going to hit the sack. Peace!

10cm of laziness

It's a great time, to be struck by the lazy bug. Lately I've been extremely sluggish. Perfect timing really, I mean finals are just around the corner, no big deal. In other words, I'm freaking out.

So to calm my raging soul, I've brought another band from back in my days of struggles and boggles. They are 10cm. 

10cm, is an indie band from Korea, comprising of two guys, Kwon Jung Yeol on main vocal and percussion and Yoon Cheol Jong on vocal, guitar, and when the need arises, tambourine. The name of the band derives from the fact that they have a 10cm height difference between them.

Officially they debuted in 2010, but in fact they were around for a bit longer, in the time when they were aspiring musicians from the wild jungle of the Korean underground music scene. I remember when they were just a couple guys with guitar and djembe in hands, shooting videos on the streets of their songs. There are quite a few of them. This was the first one I ever saw. It's called, Tonight I'm afraid of the dark. 

Also, this other one is the famed Americano. 

Although they did record studio versions after their major label debut, I love this version much better. It's full of that raw spirit one can only call, music. It's unprocessed, uncut, and most of all, fresh. Well it's been a long time since then, and 10cm's presence has now pervaded the Korean music industry, along with various television programs as well. Now I'm not going to gripe about 10cm getting some credibility and spreading its name out. However, artists do have that tendency most of the time, to lose sight of their original frame of mind when recognition and popularity suddenly swamp them. Luckily, it seems that 10cm is going strong with their musical heart beating steadfast and strong. Check this song out, Love Starts at a Milky Way Cafe. 

And this one, I'm Dying. 

It's not that he's actually dying. It's an expression for saying that one's being driven crazily annoyed by something.


Anyways, overall, I really like these guys. In the short time between their major debut and present time, they've truly become something out of the ordinary. Not only have they spread their sweet chocolate mousse of musical goodness like wildfire, but they have generated tremendous interest in the indie music scene, making 10cm the oasis of musical ingenuity in the great desert of big money music industry that has been dominated by k-pop, which in most of the time, is equally arid of any sort of finesse or creativity.

Their sounds, their lyrics contain that musical innocence, shaped by adventurism and innovation that used to be the gold standard during the early 90s and the 80s. The vocal's voice, unspoiled by any modern studio trickery, raw and heartfelt, adds to the young spirited brilliance of pure artistry.  

I love listening to these guys, and moreover, covering these guys, because when I strum their melody, I feel that it's different, that it's unique. When that rare chord, often not found in today's Korean music industry, rings through my hand, my ears, my body, I feel joy. I feel comfort, because I become aware of what sort of gem I've found for myself, that it's truly one of a kind.

I'll leave some more for your own perusal, but keep an eye on these guys. They are bound to make history, and their songs, will be remembered for many years after.