adarsh.me

Monthly Top 5 albums - July 2010 I didn’t listen to lots...

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:08:09 +0200

Amit Trivedi - Udaan (2010)

Amit Trivedi - Aisha (2010)

The National - High Violet (2010)

Danger Mouse & Sparklehouse - Dark Night

Vishal Bhardwaj - Omkara (2006)

Monthly Top 5 albums - July 2010

I didn’t listen to lots of new albums this month. Mainly because it’s holidays; my routine has been messed up. Also, I’ve been listening to Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol on audible.com and this time, I’ve even managed to sleep on the plane unlike 2 years ago. However, a few masterpieces managed to squeeze in. Here we go.

July has been Amit Trivedi month. Kudos to him for bringing new sound to bollywood. His sound is crude, rock-based. He doesn’t use Indian classical music. He barely uses orchestras apart from his theme songs, which could turn out to be a disadvantage for his moving further in the industry. But his tunes are catchy, inspiring and easy to hum. He will go far and very fast! He had two movie soundtracks released last month.

Amit Trivedi - Udaan (2010)
Amit Trivedi - Aisha (2010)

Two different movies with different themes and Amit scores high marks in both. Udaan has a light soundtrack with a recurrent combination of instruments all along. I hope it’s Cannes tag will allow it a wide distribution territory. Aisha is more of the typical bollywood with new freshness breathed in by both the cast and the music.

The National - High Violet (2010)

This album has been waiting for a while in my Spotify bookmarks. I finally gave it a try and I was really satisfied. High Violet is for those who’ve fallen for Bon Iver or Noah and the Whale. In other words, High Violet is a sad affair that has been doing really well in the charts this year.

Danger Mouse & Sparklehouse - Dark Night of The Soul (2010)

Dark Night of the Soul, the mysterious album from Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and David Lynch finally got an official album this summer after an initial announcement for spring 2009. It took more than a year to come out because of a dispute between EMI Records and producer Brian Burton (a.k.a. Danger Mouse). The album features a wide range of singers including James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, and David Lynch. Choose the right moment (you know…that moment when life seems dim) and listen to the album. It grows really fast into you.

FREE DOWNLOAD on onethirtybpm

Vishal Bhardwaj - Omkara (2006)

I’ve kept a spot for the genius filmmaker and music composer who i revisited again this month via Omkara. I happened to buy the DVD of the movie in Paris and we sat down to watch it again 2 days ago. Naina Thag Lenge and Jag Ja Ri Gudiya were already favourite tracks but this time I payed attention to the rest. There’s not a single composition from Vishal Bhardwaj that I’ve hated… (let’s not count The Blue Umbrella, shall we?)

tuneage: Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse feat. Suzanne Vega -… (adarsh.me)
Motumaster!!!! yashi2612: Track from Amit Trivedi’s score for… (adarsh.me)
First Listen: Danger Mouse And Sparklehorse Team Up With David Lynch For ‘Dark Night Of The Soul’ (npr.org)
Movie Review | ‘Udaan’: A Coming-of-Age Tale From Vikramaditya Motwane (movies.nytimes.com)
Monthly Top 5 (+2) Albums - June 2010 June edition is yet again… (adarsh.me)

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Revenge (Featuring the Flaming...

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:10:31 +0200

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Revenge (Featuring the Flaming Lips)

Dark Night of the Soul (2010)

Flic-en-Flac

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:31:51 +0200

Flic-en-Flac

Usual scene at the bus stop

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:44:31 +0200

Usual scene at the bus stop

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-25)

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:00:51 +0200

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-25):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

bantha-fodder: Colorado | Grizzly Bear GOOD NIGHT. What a way...

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:22:50 +0200

bantha-fodder:

Colorado | Grizzly Bear

GOOD NIGHT.

What a way to end Lemon House (2006) !!

Motumaster!!!! yashi2612: Track from Amit Trivedi’s score for...

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:40:37 +0200

Motumaster!!!!

yashi2612:

Track from Amit Trivedi’s score for Udaan

This was love at first sound! Amit Trivedi is having a Rahman-esque start to his very promising career. It takes a lot of talent and vision to produce a new kind of sound.

The unconventional lyrics are written by none other than Anurag Kashyap! And they are brilliant!

my legacy...kind of

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:51:24 +0200

as a geek i tend to impose my choices upon other people. being the only one in my immediate environment who actually follows tech news, i know what’s best for your PC. really, nobody around me knows about android; the iphone still wins thanks to marketing; nobody around has figured what twitter is about. thus it was interesting to come back to Mauritius and find my home PC still running the software i was fond of 4 years back. And my lil bro is actually fond of them. he’s even installed them on my parents’ laptops.

here’s the picture: google pack, google toolbar, avast, jetaudio, spyware doctor. on my side, it’s something else now. i’ve caught the itunes bug, browser toolbars now just waste screen estate, the google pack makes no sense anymore, microsoft security essentials is pretty robust, i rarely turn on IE. i guess i’m a lifehacker addict!

on every single PC i’ve come across these days, i’ve had a tendency to do 2 things. first, run pcdecrapifier and second, replace any free protection suite with lightweight microsoft security essentials.

coming back to find computers running my old choices feels like i’ve left a legacy, a software legacy. it’s creepy. what’s even creepier is people just accept it when i change their computer settings. they know i’m doing the right thing. they trust me…

my elder bro calls me ‘cyber boy.’ recently i’ve earned another name: ‘shri satya cyber baba.’ I’d better shut up and accept it.

Microsoft Security Essentials hard to beat (billbennett.co.nz)
threadsy (adarsh.me)

"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read,..."

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:19:01 +0200

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.”

- J. Krishnamurti, Indian Philosopher

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-18)

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:23:07 +0200

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-18):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by

Back in Mauritius! Dholl-puri pose re-enacted :)

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:38:00 +0200

Back in Mauritius!

Dholl-puri pose re-enacted :)

doctorswithoutborders: A little girl holds her younger sibling...

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:35:46 +0200

doctorswithoutborders:

A little girl holds her younger sibling inside the building where MSF runs a weekly mobile therapeutic feeding center and the ministry of health runs a primary health care center in Dekulidham village, about 10 km outside Biraul, India.

From the video “India: Invisible.”

India 2010 © Stephanie Sinclair/VII

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-11)

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:33:27 +0200

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-11):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

tuneage: Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse feat. Suzanne Vega -...

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:55:57 +0200

tuneage:

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse feat. Suzanne Vega - “The Man Who Played God”

It’s that age-old story again: artist(s) record great album, label decides to get it’s underwear in a wad and refuses to release the album, artist finds a loophole and releases the album anyway. Sunrise…sunset, just another day in our ridiculous music industry.

Thanks to this all-too-typical tale (read the Wikipedia entry if you’re interested in what happened this time), one of the best albums half-released last year was the Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse/David Lynch collaboration known as Dark Night of the Soul—if the base cast isn’t enough to get you interested, the project also features collaborations with artists like James Mercer, Jason Lytle, Julian Casablancas, the Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, and a few other notables. And if you’re still not interested, then you and I probably won’t agree on much.

Overall, the album carries somber tone (as you might expect from the title), but there’s enough variety from all the different guest artists to make this a non-issue. This simple song about how anyone can play God in their own imagination is one of two songs on the album featuring a female guest vocal, and is one of my favorites from the record.

Thankfully, EMI has come to its senses, and Dark Night of the Soul will finally see a proper release tomorrow, July 13th. And if you just can’t wait until tomorrow to hear it, you can still stream the entire album over at NPR.

The Niort dungeon

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:49:14 +0200

The Niort dungeon

pakistani: The Derek Trucks Band (feat Rahat Fateh Ali Khan) -...

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:48:20 +0200

pakistani:

The Derek Trucks Band (feat Rahat Fateh Ali Khan) - Maki Madni (Album: Joyful Noise - 2002)

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan collaborates with Derek Trucks Band to sing the famous Naat (poetry/song in praise of Prophet Muhammad) once sung by the maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Thanks for that post. I don’t know a lot about Rahat before Mann Ki Lagan.

“Murkh” मूर्ख is the word of the week on Courrier...

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:33:26 +0200

“Murkh” मूर्ख is the word of the week on Courrier International.

Violence is still part of primary education in Indian classes. Teachers still treat their pupils the way they were themselves treated, humiliating them physically or mentally like with the word ‘murkh’.

Calligraphy by Abdullah Kiaie.

Summer time au miroir d’eau

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:41:59 +0200

Summer time au miroir d’eau

Beirut’s Nantes covered by Les Gens de...

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:33:00 +0200

Beirut’s Nantes covered by Les Gens de Lafontaine

Here’s a glimpse of what you could hear at my place last Saturday. For a year now, we’ve been meeting once a week (almost) in my living room to play just for fun, discovering each other’s musical backgrounds. We’ve just been doing covers so far. Let’s hope we get to create our own stuff next year.

By ‘we’ I mean Les Gens de Lafontaine, which comprises

Gaëtan (Guitar)
Fadil (Guitar)
Me, Adarsh (Vocals)
Vincent (Drums)
Akshaye (Vocals, Piano, Melodica)

So before we all set sail for summer holidays, we decided to do our first ever live show. It’s been full of glitches here and there, but on the whole, we had a positive reaction from our friends. You have here our rendition of Beirut’s Nantes taken from The Flying Club Cup (2007).

Setlist des Gens de Lafontaine (July 3, 2010 Concert - The first ever!)

Jerk it out - Caesars Palace
Deux Pieds - Thomas Fersen
Letter to Bowie Knife - Calexico
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Where is My Mind ? - Pixies
Ballad of Cable Hogue - Calexico
Violet Hill - Coldplay
Stray - Calexico
You Don’t Understand Me - The Raconters
Mr Writer - Stereophonics
Nantes - Beirut
Heavy Cross - Gossip
Jimmy - Moriarty
Days of Fire - Nitin Sawhney (ft Natty)
Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones
Santeria - Sublime
Rich Girls - The Virgins
Zephyr Song - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Don’t Panic - Coldplay
Killing in The Name - Rage Against the Machine

What’s your verdict?

Hand of Mrs. Wilhelm Roentgen: the first X-ray image,...

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:59:45 +0200

Hand of Mrs. Wilhelm Roentgen: the first X-ray image, 1895

from a collection of “first” images (via kottke)