Life as we know it

Sometimes when you wake up from sleep, you wake up straight into the most pensive you have been since you last remembered, where every surge of emotion sticks through, almost guiding every little thought and action; Sometimes you wake up feeling like today you're going to take over the world, you can do it all. Sometimes you wake up wanting to do nothing more than just lie back, and let the world envelope you.

With this emotion surging through me as I woke up today, here's a beautiful track by Angus & Julia Stone, Draw Your Swords

The song's progressive overtones and the syncing to your slowed-down-heartbeat drums really put you in that pensive state where you are drifting and thinking of the only one.

See her come down, through the clouds

I feel like a fool

I ain't got nothing left to give

Nothing to lose

So come on Love, draw your swords

Shoot me to the ground

You are mine, I am yours

Let's not fuck around.

When Angus so painfully asks her to "draw your swords" I can't help but think of the lines from Fight Club (Although a lot of you are thinking of the David Fincher film, I am referencing to the novel by Chuck Phalanuik that it is based on) where Chuck reminds us "That old saying, how you always kill the one you love, well, look, it works both ways." Although the book is knee deep in homoerotic symbology, this quote works just fine for the love that Angus speaks of.

It has always intrigued me how love has been categorically connected to death at a number of levels, ancient arabic literature talks of the seven stages of love being attraction, infatuation, love, reverence, worship, obsession, and death; and my source for the same is Gulzar Sahab's poetry in Dil Se's Satrangi Re

Continuing the mood that Draw Your Swords builds, there is another stunning song by Agnes Obel; Riverside

I heard this track for the first time back in 2011, a very talented photographer friend of mine sang it while strumming her guitar and I was instantly hooked to the simple progression and the deep symbology in the lyrics; it reminds me of the line from Dhobi Ghat about how you can go and tell all your secrets to the sea, etch them on the beaches and watch as the water takes them away.

Oh my God, I see how everything is torn in the river deep,

and I don't know why I go the way

down by the riverside

This friend has also clicked one of my favourite photos of all times,

Another song that creates that mood and more is Kettering by The Antlers, check out their abstract and provoking animated video here;

When I first heard this song, I ended up writing this fiction piece in the form of letter;

Dear Ann

I know you won’t like most of what I will write here, but you must know what has brought me here today. I had absolutely no rhyme or reason to visit this hospital the day when I first saw you. Someone I knew had fallen sick and I should have kept to the route marked on the brochure, I should not have taken the shortcut through the oncology department. I should not have slowed down on seeing an open room, I should not have stopped on seeing a girl cry, alone. But I did. I think you must have figured out by now that I don’t have any aunt who is also in oncology. She does not have breast cancer and I only said that because I wanted to talk to you, I only wanted to talk because I did not want to see someone be as sad as you were that day. You wiped those tears off in quick jerky motions and asked me to get the fuck out of your room, I should have left, I should have never come back but I sat down instead, and I told you that it will all be okay. I should have never lied.

The next day when I came by just to see you, you weren’t there. You had gone off for some tests I believe and I felt disconnected. I saw your name for the first time then, Ann White. Your hospital records were right there, suddenly I knew your birthday, your address and the fact that you were alone. You were too young to be alone, too young to have cancer. I think I died a little inside that day, I shouldn’t have, I was in the oncology department, what else should I have expected? But I died in that one minute and suddenly I felt as if I owe you a debt, a debt because, because. I could never figure that out. When you came propping by an hour later and found me there you didn’t smile, you were too tired to scream too, you just quietly asked me to leave, and I did, but I knew I’d come back.

The following week I saw you hooked to those machines for the first time. Pipes and tubes running from all over your body. Sucking the life out of you. It was an August morning when I was sitting next to your bed and reading a newspaper when you had your first massive seizure. When I saw morphine being pumped into you because you were in so much pain. When I saw you cry because you were in so much pain. I remember how we started talking because you were too tired of me visiting you and going back without saying a word, and how you hated the soup there. We bonded over the sucky soup. But we bonded.

It was a week later when I came to see you and tapped on your vitals monitor and pointed out how it seemed in good shape when I saw you shiver, you didn’t answer me and I saw you shiver and I did not know what to do. That evening you acted like nothing had happened, you kept talking like nothing had happened. You kept reading that book on Learning French like nothing was wrong. You read it like you would need French soon, you kept living and every night I died a little more inside when I saw you living like this, knowing everything.

I should have kept this from you, how I felt. But I didn’t and you asked me to leave. You felt like I was trying to make you feel weaker, alone, dead. But I wanted you to know that I knew how strong you were, how alive you were. I just could never get it through. A month and half since I had known you is when you went into your semi conscious state. Too weak to ask me to leave. I always told myself that you like me next to you, I hope you did. Maybe I should have left too but I couldn’t. And I spent 13 nights on that couch next to your bed, waiting for a good news, waiting. When the doctors told me that there was nothing they could do. When they told me that it was the end, I was not ready to accept it, and I didn’t. I stayed on. On the 14^th day you left me Ann.

I’m placing this letter next to you, I hope somehow it reaches you, wherever you are. And I hope you’re in a happier place now.

Love

S.

Anyway before I become more morose, let's end this post with Caught a Long Wind by Fiest;

Till next time, cheers!

Tripping the Hop

This one is for you Miss K, for making me believe that curating randomness isn't that bad an idea.

In class yesterday, we were asked to do something called "Focus Writing" which is quintessentially writing without lifting your pen off the paper till you are told to do so. Usually for a span of 2 minutes or so, the only sound in the auditorium is of pen nibs scratching on paper; one of these Focus Writing Assignments was to write about our first love, so while most wrote about their first crushes, and the film actresses that made their hearts flutter, I wrote something to the effect of "my first love was my music"

With this, I think it is only apt to start this journey with my latest find, Lykke Li, a rather talented Swedish artist whose songs contain "a wide variety of instruments, including violins, synthesizers, tambourines, trumpets, saxophones and cellos." (Woohoo)

Did I mention she looks like a dream?

Anyway, moving on, here is a very beautiful live rendition of what is currently her top track, it's called "I follow rivers"

I find the whole cowbell on the drumkit bit super fascinating, speaking of drummers, there is this rather oddly shot amateur clip of Sahil Sarin (No clue who he is, or how I stumbled across this video) and if anyone can recognize what he plays at the end of the video, I will love you endlessly. (Insert goey kiss emoticons here)

The laaaaast little bit almost sounds a little Pirate of the Caribbean-ish, Anyway, moving back to why this post is called Tripping the hop.

Not this kind of tripping.

This is an ode to one of the lesser known but pretty kick-ass genre of Trip-Hop;

Somehow the smooth overtones of Li reminded me of another amazing band that I have come to love, Portishead; I heard this British band for the first time in 2012 (Thank you Shachi) just before coming to MICA and instantly fell in love with the haunting voice of Beth Gibbons. Kick back to this incredibly sexy live version of Glory Box from Roseland NY;

The mix of jazz and hip-hop beats into such an ultra trippy music makes for a perfect make-out backtrack. And if you aren't into "all that", give this a listen, same concert, different track.

I'm still trying to find some music that invokes the same kind of emotion that this track does, but till it does I'm going to let Portishead be what defines perfect Trip Hop to me; More music soon.

Cheers!