Happy Birthday Vane

Cause life at the 319 in Mexico City is a trip...one that revolves around people that have adopted themselves as family, making it a place that more than one could easily call Home.

Here is a Happy B-day song that talks about life, growing older and traveling along with people you love,

Enjoy,

MM



Fuel up - Stornoway

Curled up in the back of the car,
9 years old you don't know where you are,
And your head's on the window your eyes are just closed,
There's a voice in the front and a hush on the road,
You're a passenger but your mind is travelling on.

Open your eyes and your 9 years older,
Hands on the wheel and your racing on over to lie with your first love you can't wait to see her,
You borrowed the car and you think you're the driver,
But now you're the passenger to your own heart and it takes you travelling,
Travelling on...

When the morning broke and the sky fell down,
It went black as night and the wind blew round,
And stole your directions you lost your way home,
And you felt like a passenger left by the road,
But I'll tell you the reason you couldn't get home,
Cause there's nowhere you've been and it's nowhere you're going,
Home is only a feeling you get in your mind,
From the people you love and you travel beside,
You may feel like a passenger but now you're the driver,
You've got to go travelling, travelling on
Because if you break down it's a cold hard shoulder...

So fuel up your mind and fire up your heart and drive on
Drive on drive on...
And when your days are darker put your foot down harder,
Drive on drive on.

And it's nine more years you've been driving now,
But tonight you're stumbling through your old town,
You met up with a schoolfriend who's still just the same,
And you talked all the same shit you talked in those days,
And now you're drunk and you're sad for the old times passing you by,
For there's no rewind so you might as well play while your time is rolling away,
And get back on the road it's a beautiful day,
Pick up all the friends you can find on your way,
And if you lose direction they'll be there guiding you on,
Guiding you, guiding you on...
Because we're all going the same way down this long road,
Yes, we're all bound the same way down this long, long road...

So fuel up your mind and fire up your heart and drive on
Drive on drive on...
And when your days are darker put your foot down harder,
Drive on,
Fuel up and drive on,
Fuel up and drive on,
Drive on...

The Decemberists - The King is Dead

The new album from The Decemberists can now be listened in its entirety in NPR's All Songs Considered website.

The album sounds definitely different from what we heard before in "The Hazards of Love", depicting the ample range of Colin Meloy's band. This album in fact might represent a new era for The Decemberists, moving slightly from their deep theatrical approach full of British folk influences from previous albums, showing now a lighter, more approachable sound, which by itself makes this a very interesting and worth listening to album.

I anticipate myself listening to The King is Dead over and over throughout 2011. This album might in fact, represent a big hit to my "best of 2011 list", reducing the available spots to 9 very early in the year.

The album will be streaming at NPR's website until its upcoming release in January 18.

Enjoy,

MM

Jónsi - Kolniður (From Go Live DVD)

Mi track favorito del increíble disco de Jónsi (Jón Þór Birgisson), vocalista de Sigur Rós. El vid es parte del CD & DVD "Go Live" que es toda una joya. Enjoy...

Lovers - Dark Light (2010)

Pop bien hecho por este trío de chicas de Portland, OR. Irremediablemente al escuchar Dark Light, su primera producción, se vienen a la mente bandas como The XX, si bien no llegan a tal excelencia, confirman el hecho irrefutable de que el buen pop puede ser fino e interesante. Les dejo un vid y el link a la página de Badman Recording Co, que es quien los edita.

About

---

Loud and proud, Portland, OR based Lovers is a synth-driven pop band of emotional intensity and complexity. Their new album Dark Light crafts an intimate portrait of female friendship, sexuality, and evolution as an infinite process, creating an expansive sonic landscape of colorful wonder and hope. The album is already receiving accolades from reviewers worldwide.

---

Dark Light

"Carolyn Berk's songs are full of breathless melancholy and a sinking, infinite sadness. In them you hear hints of the circus-fuineral magic-realist run-on folk song of Neutral Milk Hotel, the dreamy twilight grandeur of Mazzy Star, Bright Eyes' last-gasp soliloquies, and the ghost-haunted majesty of Magnetic Fields' loneliest highways. But I'll be damned if Berk isn't a more entrancing spell-caster than any of them." - The Boston Phoenix
GET IT

MGMT at Daytrotter - Jan 3 2011

A nice way to start the year...MGMT at Daytrotter.

As always the post from Daytrotter (below) could not be better...

Enjoy,

MM

Link to download the session with 4 tracks

Post from Daytrotter:

MGMT
We Hear Of Love, Of Youth, And Of Disillusionment
Jan 3, 2011

Here lies a testimonial for MGMT. We're not sure what you know about the Brooklyn band led by Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden and we're not sure how much you've heard of their work. Many more of you likely heard their debut album, "Oracular Spectacular," that comet of a record that rocket-shipped them into the brighter lights and enormous stages, than their second, "Congratulations," arguably a better album and one that showed their boundless creativity and, just as importantly, their massive balls - yes, their cajones. It is a record that they didn't have to make, but they did it anyway because they couldn't conceive of just making a simple, huge-hooked, dance-pop record again. We're not at all sure how many copies it sold, nor do we necessarily care, as we find it to be incredibly intriguing, a psychedelic labyrinth that will seemingly still give us more and more for years and years, the longer we listen to it. It was a record that VanWyngarden's father, a writer for the Memphis Flyer, famously defended as a textured and sometimes difficult "grower" when it was getting kicked around a bit at its release. Some of you may have heard the reports that the band was less than phenomenal as a live band, back in the day. Well, we'd like you to take a knife to all of the ugly or negative thoughts that you might harbor, for the MGMT that exists right now - fleshed out with bassist Matthew Asti, guitarist James Richardson and drummer Will Berman - is an exquisite ensemble and has never been better, entering the building here in Asheville for its MoogFest appearance at the Civic Center to the songs of Rodriguez and then matching all of the energy that Big Boi left out on the stage prior to them. Given the time, it's easy to see the group going on to have one of the more impressive discographies of all of the American bands that have surfaced in the last 10 years. Kind and considerate, not to mention thoughtful and slightly bashful as a person, VanWyngarden has the beginnings of a great frontman, singing like a young Mick Jagger and wisely letting the dense and multi-dimensional songs take the forefront, rather than any canned shenanigans or showy, immodest energy. The music on "Congratulations" is a dominance of visions, a rodeo of spirit and essence, a dynamic display of the strange corridors of a young man's mind that's busy contemplating and commiserating with the depths of such an odd muscle and what it's capable of pulling off. "I Found A Whistle" begins with an acoustic strumming that reminds us of an old Neutral Milk Hotel progression, and it's a song that feels like a flooded time capsule or, even more, a time machine that with the bleating of the whistle discovered can transport us into those thousands and thousands of expired years, that let us fall into the arms of dusty and spooky history, along with the yellow tricksters and thieves. There's a man with a pistol, waiting in the moonlight for the word and there are others abusing that whistle and seeing things they maybe shouldn't be seeing. VanWyngarden sings on "It's Working," "You know it's not the same as love/Cause love is only in your mind/Not your heart," and these are the more reasonable, though darkened insights that we mostly get from his lines - ones that come across as the thoughts of an older, albeit burnt soul. We hear of love and disillusionment. We hear of not knowing which end is up and there's a lot of connective tissue holding the chaos together.

Discos del 2010 - Ale (Perro)

Les dejo la lista de los 10 discos del año para Ale (Perro), colaboradora oficial de Musical Soulmate, saludos a todos.

1.- High Violet - The National

2.- The Suburbs - Arcade Fire

3.- Total Life Forever - Foals

4.- Brothers - The Black Keys

5.- This is Happening - LCD Soundsystem

6.- Plastic Beach - Gorillaz 

7.- Volume Two - She & Him

8.- Beachcomber's Windowsill - Stornoway

9.- All Alone In An Empty House - Lost In The Trees 

10.- Maximum Balloon - Maximum Balloon

It all started back then...The National - Daytrotter Session - July 9, 2007

I wondered how could we start a new year.

How are we going to get higher, more complete, satisfied with what the new 2011 is hiding from us? And I thought on how all this started...

A few years back my brother (amarillo) and I discovered a fresh but strangely mature band from Ohio, then NY...one of those that touches you from the first chord, a deep and powerful sound that ends up taking over your head after reading through the lines of their impressive lyrics...

It was like opening a new window to our lives.

Wishing all of you the best in 2011. below, I leave the link to The National's Daytrotter session from 2007, one that contains 4 tracks that could change your life, just the way it did to ours.

Enjoy,

MM

Listen to the Daytrotter session here

Alps by Motorama

Gran álbum de los Rusos de Motorama, bien bien under... enjoy

Download

Critics and experts pick the best albums of 2010

From metacritic.com
"Below is our updated running tally of the albums most frequently mentioned by individual music publications in their year-end Top Ten lists. Although most of the lists come from publications whose reviews are included on this site, we have also included a few extra lists from prominent music stores, websites, and publications not normally found on Metacritic. Note that if a source ranks more than the standard 10 albums, we will not include titles ranked 11th or worse. In case of a tie for first or second, each album will receive the full points for that position. Our points system works as follows:

• 3 points for each 1st place ranking
• 2 points for each 2nd place ranking
• 1 point for being ranked 3rd – 10th, or for being included on an unranked list"

	Album / Artist	# 1st Place	# 2nd Place	# Other	Points
1	My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy 92 by Kanye West	19	8	27	100
2	The Suburbs 86 by Arcade Fire	7	13	21	68
3	This Is Happening 84 by LCD Soundsystem	6	2	26	48
4	The ArchAndroid 91 by Janelle Monáe	6	4	16	42
5	Teen Dream 82 by Beach House	6	2	20	42
6	High Violet 84 by The National	3	6	16	37
7	Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty 89 by Big Boi	0	3	25	31
8	Contra 81 by Vampire Weekend	2	1	13	21
9	Brothers 82 by The Black Keys	1	1	14	19
10	Before Today 85 by Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti	0	4	10	18
11	Halcyon Digest 86 by Deerhunter	0	2	14	18
12	The Monitor 82 by Titus Andronicus	0	2	13	17
13	Have One on Me 85 by Joanna Newsom	2	1	8	16
14	Swim 83 by Caribou	2	0	10	16
15	Thank Me Later 75 by Drake	1	0	12	15
16	Teflon Don 79 by Rick Ross	2	2	2	12
17	Body Talk 85 by Robyn	0	1	10	12
18	Treats 84 by Sleigh Bells	0	1	10	12
19	The Age of Adz 80 by Sufjan Stevens	1	0	8	11
20	Hidden 82 by These New Puritans	1	0	7	10
21	Sigh No More 68 by Mumford & Sons	1	1	5	10
22	The Guitar Song by Jamey Johnson	1	1	5	10
23	Plastic Beach 77 by Gorillaz	1	0	7	10

Happy Birthday Musical Soulmate

Hoy exactamente hace dos años escribí el primer post de este blog, cuyo objetivo original permanece intacto, compartir entre los amigos entrañables nuestra enorme pasión por la música. En el camino hemos tenido la oportunidad de escuchar tantas cosas, de muchos conciertos, festivales, discos que se quedaran en nuestra memoria para siempre y que de alguna manera son parte de lo que hoy nos define como personas.

Gracias a todos por compartir este viaje, a los amigos que conforman el increíble crew de Musical Soulmate, a MM por su invaluable e incansable participación como co-escritor compartiendo su impecable gusto musical y a todos los lectores por visitarnos. Happy Birthday Musical Soulmate!!!

Les dejo un vid de otro cumpleañero en este día, el enorme y respetadísimo Eddie Vedder cantando Yellow Led Better, track histórico y parte del soundtrack personal de muchos de nosotros. Enjoy...