Why Thank You, Yes I am a Smug Little Shit (Presenting The Seoul Philharmonic)

Oh Herro, you decided to come back? Why did you? Did you not see the sign that this is a music blog where I do whatEVER I want to do? Oh you did. Okay well let's get started.

I felt like appreciating some Beethoven and Tchaik so I turned up one of my favourite orchestras in the world, the Seoul Philharmonic. If I may add why I like them, no it's not because I can tell that they're better than other orchestras. Simply it's because it is conducted by my childhood idol, Chung Myung-Whun.

Here's some Eroica. That's 'Eroica' mind you, Italian for heroic, there's no 't' in there.

Sorry about not warning you that this was a 55 minute clip. To redeem myself on that mistake here's Tchaik no. 6 with 50 minutes. 5 minute less of your time, not too bad eh?

By the way, do you know what I hate the most when I go to classical concerts? PEOPLE COUGHING. HOLD YOUR FUCKING COUGHS YOU FUCKING PEOPLE, JUST CHOKE ON IT DON'T LET IT OUT.

Sorry, I got a bit out of hand there. But this is a space where I pour my rage and anger and infuse it with the dark side so that I can barter the blog page with a Sith Lord for a nice red lightsaber. I hear it's quite a handy flashlight.

Let me get back on track though. Mr. Chung was a prodigious pianist from a young age, studied conducting at Julliard, and trained under great musicians like Artur Schnabel and Maria Curcio (that's wikipedia working its magic). Needless to say he is now a superstar in Korea, recognized for his wide contribution for classical music in the country. He was even nominated as a UNESCO man of the year.

The Seoul Philharmonic is also a bombshell of an orchestra. Certainly the best of Korea, and one of the finest in Asia if not the world. It was the first Asian orchestra to get a contract with the Deutsche Grammophon, one of era-defining classical record labels. Now there will be some people who will say 'Yeah, but Vienna Philharmonic does it better hurr durr durr.' Well to those people, I will kindly unfurl my middle finger at you and keep it straightened until you get my point.

However, let me not explain it further. Let me just, explain through the music.

Glorious. Beethoven is always glorious. There is a reason why I keep on playing his sonatas. Hopefully though, you found today's entry entertaining. I shall bid you good night, until tomorrow's whatever randomness I think of.

Study Music Time: (Presenting Ludovico Einaudi)

No, actually not study music. More like drinking tea while scrolling down Facebook casually looking at other people's gorgeous lives while crying about mine music.

Ludovico Einaudi is an Italian pianist and composer who writes often for films. I first encountered his music on Les Intouchables, that beautiful movie. Check it out if you have time. Frankly I need to get some work done so I'm going to keep this short. Very short.

First off, Primavera:

Film scores are often my significant personal pleasures. Watch me as I put the Dark Knight and Man of Steel soundtracks here. I might as well, since the most listened to album on my smartphone is indeed: the Man of Steel OST, and the Halo OST. I'm not even kidding.

Kettle's boiling and I need some more tea. Let me occupy you with some more music. Here you go.

That was the music from Intouchables. Incredibly soothing isn't it? By the way for those of you who are wondering, yes I did go to get tea. What do you think I am, a liar? Do you think the internet is a place for lying? Do you? DO YOU?

Of course you don't. That's why you're here to listen to some music put up by a pompous showoff who thinks he can totally pull off an cravat.

But let me not do Mr. Einaudi further injustice.

Here is Oltremare

Why do these videos keep on showing landscape photos? Are they trying to do something zen-ish where you are supposed to relax looking at bundles of leaves on sticks while you listen to soothing music.

Anyways, let me not make this blog a garbage can of my thoughts (actually it is if you haven't noticed).

Mr. Einaudi's music does have that film score feeling to it, but it can certainly stand alone very well in my opinion. Not just as a background music but also a performance music. It's superb. Contemporary piano music just do not get the recognition it deserves in my opinion.

Anyways I am going to sign off by leaving you this other one from Les Intouchables. Beautiful piece once again. My name is Alex and you have been the most patient audience tonight. Ciao.

Sick and in Love: Presenting Shing02

Recently I noticed that I was listening to the same things over and over again on my smartphone. That's usually a sign that life is getting dull. So I'm getting back on this blog. Put some new music up, and you know, actually search for tracks I haven't heard.

Now, Nujabes is someone I've heard of, not very new for me. He passed away in 2010 by a tragic car accident, but he was one of the biggest Japanese DJ/Producers, and get this, he pioneered the genre of nu-jazz in Japan.

Shing02, a Berkley graduate, is a Japanese rapper and producer and one of those few rappers who rap in two languages: English, Japanese. He was also a close friend of the late Nujabes, and this is a music series they collaborated on, called Luv(Sic). Here's pt. 1.

Got the nu-jazz feel in there? According to Shing02: '(sic)= The Latin adverb sic - meaning "intentionally so written" is used for misspelled words. In this case, Love = Luv, thus Lovesick = Luv(sic)''

You got that? Ring me when you do.  

Moving to Part 2: 

If you think this is a 2-part thing, you're mistaken as we move on to-

Pt 3:

How far will this go? Well, unfortunately this was the last part of this project that Nujabes worked on. Afterwards, Shing02, affected deeply by his friend's death, felt the need to continue this journey, which culminated in this next part that is particularly beautiful in lyrics.

Pt.4

Try to pay attention to the lyrics here:

Snow flakes in January
Heart warm like February,
I wouldn't ordinarily
March to the drum, play a fool like April
May the best dance in a Juno bridal
Power of the will, Julius and Augustus
Aw you know, it's just us
In a new semester, back in September
boy, I wonder if you still remember

Meet me half way from mars to venus
beep beep, the chase is on between us
Retweet the sweetest piece of confection
hand made device for remote connection
ask a question,
wait for an answer and make a suggestion
a time and a place for a first impression
second and third to a fourth dimension

All of mainstream hip hop on the radio can't come up with this.

Now we're almost there, just think of this as a 5 act operetta.

Pt. 4 (I like this remix better so I put it up instead of the original)

Did I say it was a 5 act opera? I'm sorry, it's actually 6. But ladies and gentlemen, I give you Shing02 in video, in real time, rapping his heart out with Uyama Hiroto, Nujabes' protege.

Pt. 6

There you have it. From part 1 to 6. I don't usually listen to rap, but when I do, I make sure it's a chill Asian dude with sick rhymes.

Kidding, I do listen to rap and hip hop from time to time, but only when I like it. This is one of those cases. Henceforth why I'm turning the jukebox back on with Shing02. By the way if you're wondering about the title, yes I am sick. Of course I am also in love. Love you too Sarah. Peace.

After Graduation, Is There Life? Morrie겠어.

If you got that awful pun above, my god, hats off to you. After three months I came back to this blog, because I honestly missed it. Amongst the frenzy of after graduation planning, I had forgotten about the Jukebox. But I don't want to forget about the Jukebox. There are so much memory, and so much joy that I left here! Therefore, today I moved on and accepted that I could not live without looking for new music, especially K-indie. So here goes another round of searching, and I pray I stick to my plan this time!

Morrie: born 1985, debuted in 2010, and has released three albums since. One album per year, and just from that I can see how dedicated she is.

What really grabbed at me first, was her voice. Soft, almost tickles my ears, and just flows very naturally. She is not overly exerting herself at any point, and becomes one with her singing. Try her music out first with this one.

The calm guitar melody just lets her voice seep into the music, and in the end you have this really comfortable feeling that makes you crave for more. Now you might know, if you've been here with me for the past year, you would know that I always have good music up. But seriously, I feel that Morrie ups the bar this time. A perfect artist to start off my new beginning.

This song I especially like. Particularly due to the horn section that gives a different spice to this song than her other songs, let alone other indie acoustic songs. The level of polyphony she achieves in the above song is truly remarkable.

Now you may ask, why is she wholly singing in English? The answer is that it's a Korean song. Korean songs nowadays will almost all the time have English. Point is though, with Morrie, I think the fact that it is English works perfectly as it would have if she was singing in Korean. Because here, she doesn't sing for the lyrics. She is singing for the music, as if her part is merely a gear in the entire mechanism that forms the music, and her voice just naturally glides along amongst the other instruments. And with her, you simply need to take in the music, and enjoy it as something unified, and wholly-made. In other words, just sit back and relax.

In closing, I shall leave you off with something that sounds very lively and makes you want to bounce around like a little princess, as I am doing now. I feel that it's a perfect song for the fresh start that I am making myself today. Enjoy!

It's going to be a K-Pop Christmas

All right, I'll be honest. I don't really listen to K-pop. I like K-indie, K-rock, K-other stuff, but don't really pay attention to K-pop. There are a lot of songs that I like though. I like 2NE1, I enjoy SNSD from time to time, not for their legs but their songs, and I'll turn to other K-pop bands if I enjoy the music. Being Christmas and all, I decided that I would look for some Christmas-themed K-pop songs.

Starting with this one:

I only know two people from this combo. Si-kyung and Hyo-Shin. That's pretty much about my K-pop knowledge for me. But this is a pretty cozy song with a nice combination of various singers (and a rapper).

Up next is Sweet Sorrow, a four member a capella vocal group.

I do have to admit, this is really cute. And gosh they're so adept with their voices. I give applause to their ability to harmonize into such vocal richness.

Next are some big names among Korean singers. Kim Bum Soo, and Lena Park.

I'm not even going to comment on how good that is.

Anyways, I was surprised to find original Christmas songs from K-pop. Often artists just rehash old carols, but Koreans are awfully inventive. Hope you found these cozy enough to get you into the holiday spirit.

I'm Dreaming of a White Kristmas.

I've got a chocolate calendar which I'm popping little milk duds out of day by day. So far, I'm on day 17. It goes all the way until 25, which is Christmas. It's actually taking a tremendous amount of self-control for me, since I'm not at all someone who eats chocolate in single pieces. But it's pretty fun, counting down to the grandest holiday of the year. As people say, the waiting is often sweeter. 

So I thought it'd be wise to dig up some Christmas albums. 

Here's J Rabbit, bringing you some unique covers of traditional holiday music, like this one. 

I don't often listen to carols, unless it's really one of a kind. Carol albums these days come out like factory made cars. This indie duo though, is really something. Just look at that video where the two of them do the work of a small band. 

J Rabbit really is a rare find. I admire their versatility, and their inventiveness in giving old songs fresh outfits that works perfectly. After I've indulged myself enough in their ear-tickling Christmas goodness, I'll probably dig in to find some more of their original songs, and you should too. I hear they've got quite a history of great albums in their stockings. 

In the meantime though, let us all raise our glasses full of eggnog to a little Yuletide cheer from J Rabbit. 

50 Shades of Gangnam Style

That would be an awesome book. Please understand that I am heavily drunk in caffeine and am bored out of my mind, while my superior is still late to work and I have nothing left to do.

So I went and looked for all the original covers of Gangnam Style. Not dance covers. Those don't count in my books. Anyone with two legs and two arms working can do that, and I've been seeing it everywhere so frequently, that I'm simply not amused by the horse dancing anymore, at all. Christ I'm sure I can teach a monkey to dance like that and put it on Youtube for a quick one million views.

After a plenty of listening, I think I've got it down to a handful of instrumental covers that are worth checking out as much as the original one. Like I said, I only listen to the ones that don't have the original song playing in the background, or have electronic playback accompaniment.

This one's a pretty cozy one. I like the acoustic transition they made. A completely different feeling from the original song, but it's a very pleasant spin on the original electronic madness that is Gangnam Style. In fact, it would be safe to say that it is almost a separate song, with a slower jazzy coffeehouse-esque guitar instrumental, and calm, mellow vocals. It's not something to dance to, and yes Gangnam Style is a dance song. In my opinion though, this is a cover version that has more merit in listening to. So for the moment, calm your horses.

This version doesn't quite use instrumentals, but they sure know how to use their voices like instruments. Behold, the Pentatonix, and their five-piee acapella version of Gangnam Style. I have to admit, this one's pretty creative. Throughout the song I was constantly caught by surprise from the unpredictable use of their vocal skills. Thumbs up. Listen away.

And now we have the famous Korean guitarist, Sungha Jung's version of it. Like every other guitar covers that he does, it's just full of acoustic awesomeness.

Anyways, I'm going to stop there, partly because I have to get back to work and partly because I'm running out of great covers to post, but do let me know in the comments if you find one!

For the shits and giggles, here's Psy's Gangnam Style, all in its glory. Happy ridin' folks.