The Study Music Collection: Fennesz + Sakamoto

Okay so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. By short I mean sometimes I'll just literally have a sentence or two. Yeah, I can be lazy like that. For the next month. I'm going to do this thing called, the study music collection, where I will post youtube videos that are album lengths long. Often, they will be what I think, (mind the 'I' please) is good for studying. This will probably go on until exams are over, which is in June. So if one day I decide that Metallica's Master of Puppets album is a great study music, then for those who don't agree with that, tough luck. 

So first up is Fennesz + Sakamoto. We've already had Mr. Sakamoto's music up here. He seems to have done a lot of collaborations with other artists, so he'll be coming back from time to time. Fennesz is an Austrian guitarist who does a lot of electronic music. What happens when you combine the two? See for yourself. Or I mean, hear for yourself.

Check Please! These Guys Are F*CKING AWESOME, Presenting: Glen Check

Okay. I usually don't flaunt national pride, but this time I have to. Glen Check, Korean Indie Band. I'm not even going to do any explanations, I'm just going to jump right into the point. You ready? You really ready? Okay here we go.

Holy awesomeness. I have not heard a band that I was crazy for as much as I've been for Glen Check since I found Nell five years ago, which is another Korean indie-band. There was a time two years ago when I fell in love with Escort, but that was because I was feeling disco craze. I'm a bit picky when it comes to bands. The coordination and the right amount of consonance/dissonance. So many times I'll hear some boring four-chord spamming band without even a solid melody and some really cliched lyrics that have been picked out from a random list drawn up by a mainstream radio station. The litmus test I do is whether I can guess the next chord or not. Sad thing is I usually do, and when I do I just crumple that band up in a ball and throw them in my memory trash can. These are about 95% of all the bands out there in the world.

Then there are some bands that try too hard, and they usually end up sounding like a cacophony of random notes with a direction that cannot be saved by a musical Indiana Jones with a compass. I am so desiring to name-drop some of those over-achievers but gosh, I won't. I'm not here to defame anyone.

These guys though. There is definitely dissonance, the uniqueness of seemingly separate notes that are coming together when you take a step back. Then again, there is balance. Just enough so that it doesn't turn anyone off.

I'm not getting the tennis balls but I will buy it from the seeming reference of the title, that there is 'racket' being caused. Anyways these guys are Koreans from abroad. One of them is definitely from UK, since the vocalist's voice has an accent and they've confirmed that one of them is indeed from UK. In any case, they are all about simple but cryptic-enough lyrics that complements their sound just right.

Their first studio album, Haute Couture, has been out since 2012. Buy it. Seriously. I've only ever bought from iTunes twice in my life. Once for Escort (a simply sweet disco band led by a korean-american), and Glen Check. They are worth supporting. I want them to give me more. I want them to play wherever I am. I want to go and watch them play wherever they are. This was the Dreaming Jukebox and I will sign off because the blogger is currently going through technical difficulties by the means of musical seizures in his brain.

I'd Like One Order of Relaxing Sunday Please. (Presenting, Haruka Nakamura)

Just a relaxing Sunday, but then there's the Superbowl of course. Some made up American holiday called Superbowl Sunday, where there's copious amount of junk food, alcohol, loud shouting, getting angry at an inanimate object (the TV will never talk back at you no matter how much you scream at it), and somehow, just somehow, getting a dose of adrenaline out of watching people try to deliver a ball to the other side. I usually try to actively avoid this tradition as it actually goes against my ideals of what a Sunday should be. I'm not talking about church. I'm talking about just sitting and relaxing while feeling your thoughts floating out of their sockets.

So it was fortunate that I ran into Haruka Nakamura's music, since his tone and style totally matches the kind of Sunday I'm striving for. He seems to be a pianist and composer. His website is actually a very minimalist set up so I can't tell you much about him. Time for the music to speak instead!

Fantastic. Just what I could just melt into. Sunday music all the way. Dissolves all that enraged shouting of the football-crazed (mind you though most of them are probably a football fan for this one day) fanatics. I want another one.

In words of Thor: ANOTHER!

Getting a bit too comfortable in my chair here I think. The Japanese composer-producers do have something that others don't have. I mean, Nujabes, Uyama Hiroto, and probably the countless rest I haven't discovered, all have that special factor that European or North American counterparts don't have. That art of subtlety. Or maybe because Haruka Nakamura is under the same label as Uyama Hiroto, Hydeout Productions which was founded by Nujabes.

To listen to that hint of Nujabes influence, here's one.

Definitely hear it right? There's that Nujabes tone, which is also in Uyama Hiroto. Anyways there are also these hour long clips of these on Youtube, so feel free to turn one of them up for a good study session or something.

My name is Alex, and today was a Sunday. Just a Sunday, a good relaxing Sunday.

P.S. Here's one of those hour long clips for you (gets a bit too repetitive by the middle of it but gosh it's a cool tune):