music

All posts tagged music

Still alive… sorta.

Published February 27, 2013 by kurolace

Hi sweet strange-lings…

I’m afraid I’ve been absent for a while. Unfortunately I’ve been ill and having issues for the last 2 months, involving an ER trip, a fever, many strange symptoms, and multiple doctors appointments. I’ll spare you all the tedious details and say that it has been diagnosed as “anxiety”… Which is a bit frustrating, but I suppose I can see how the doctors came to that conclusion. I’ve been told to work on reducing stress, find some way to be more social, and to try out a paleo diet (a la whole9life.com). The Paleo diet thing seems like it might be stress inducing in itself, seeing as I live with 3 other people who are not really keen on doing it. For those who don’t know, this particular eating style requires the complete avoidance of all grains, legumes, and dairy. This method is supposed to reduce inflammation and help with a wide variety of health concerns. Its a bit expensive though, in my mind, seeing as you are supposed to eat a lot of organic stuff, and grass-fed, free-range meats. For me the key to success will be figuring out how to pre-make stuff, because I hate cooking all the time.

Unfortunately my mom had a heart attack in January, while on a cruise in the Caribbean… It was supposedly minor, and she has been a home for several weeks now. But as you can imagine, I’ve been a little distracted and busy, so I haven’t had much time to make anything. I also recently started a business course at the community college and volunteering at the hospital. But hopefully once I’m used to it all, I can get back to posting on a more regular basis.

Recently I finally downloaded the newest The Birthday Massacre album “Hide and Seek”. I totally love it 🙂 So here is a one of the best songs from it:

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Music I Heart: Azam Ali, Niyaz, Vas

Published September 21, 2012 by kurolace

I listen to a fairly wide range of music, and for a long time I’ve had an interest in middle eastern music. A few years ago I had the good fortune to stumble upon an album on iTunes by a Persian group called Niyaz. The self-titled album stayed in my car’s stereo for AGES because I loved it so much. It falls into the dance genre, I would think. (wikipedia says: “Niyaz’s music, described as “mystical music with a modern edge”, is primarily a blend of Sufi mysticism and trance electronica”)

Anyways… Niyaz’s female vocalist is Azam Ali, who also happens to have several solo albums as well as having been part of another group called Vas. Vas falls more into the “alternative world music” genre according to wikipedia, and the music usually features instruments like the tabla, goblet drum, dulcimer, and tambura (sorta like a sitar).

I found a video on YouTube with one of my favorite Vas songs, “The Reaper and the Flowers.”

 

And a Niyaz song from their first album:

 

I suppose it should come as no surprise that I used to take middle eastern dance classes… for about 2 years I was into it pretty heavily. Unfortunately there was a car accident, and a back injury, which took me a long time to get over. And since then I haven’t been able to get myself back into it…maybe someday in the future 🙂

Review: Unquiet Grave (The Ultimate Goth Collection)

Published February 19, 2012 by kurolace

I have a lot of crafting and DIY posts I want to write, but I haven’t had a chance to get some pictures taken… so in the meantime I’d like to write a brief review for one of my best purchases ever!

Now, I’m not exactly a scene kid, mind you, and my musical taste is rather eclectic. I pretty much never listen to the radio and I don’t really go clubbing… so I discover most of my music via random searching on iTunes.

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Cover

About 8 months ago I was on iTunes, trying to find some new music to listen to. I decided to go ahead and just type “goth” into the search bar to see what would show up. There were a few results, but the one that caught my eye was “Unquiet Grave.” Apparently this collection was originally released on several separate discs… but iTunes offers the entire collection for just $16! And its 131 songs! I pretty much thought that given how many songs there were, I was guaranteed to like a least a few of them. So I went ahead and bought the album / collection… it took awhile to download, but as soon as it finished I put it on my iPod and started listening…

I was really thrilled to discover how many of the songs I liked. I recognized some of the artists, but other than Abney Park, I hadn’t really listen to any of them. There were a few songs which I immediately loved:

“Dark Romantics” by The Awakening

“Breathe” by Flowers & Machines

“Vision in Black” by Advent Sleep

“Love Lies Bleeding (Part Two)” by Black Atmosphere

“Funeral Night” by Bella Morte

“Vote for Love” by Tiamat

And a handful of others….

When I first get a CD, I click through all the songs and pick out the ones that catch my attention. Later I’ll listen to the whole album while I’ve working or crafting, and then I discover a second set of great songs. So, for Unquiet Grave, the second set of songs that I fell in love with tended to be some of the slightly slower / softer songs, such as:

“The Sky is Blushing” by Jennifer Hope

“This, My Melancholic Masquerade” by Autumn Tears

“Bell, Book & Candle” by Stare

“Doganch” by October Hill

“Raining in Kyoto” by Adenosine Tri Phosphate

“Fireworks” by Ocean 8

“At Mortlake” by Peter Ulrich

“Dragon Song” by Corpus Delicti

“myphilosophy” by Inner

“Desert Snow” by October Hill

And other…

The collection has a pretty wide range of music types.. from industrial, to IDM, to rock, to “ambiance” types… One thing you’ll notice is that none of the stereotypical, old-school goth artists are present (Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, etc)… but in my opinion that is a good thing, because we’ve all heard of those artists anyways!

The only disappointment came when I decided to get back on iTunes to check out some of the artists that I had liked songs from… Either I couldn’t find them on iTunes (I guess they aren’t popular / current enough), or I didn’t like what I did find. Of course, as we all know, sometimes it can be hard to decide if you like a song just by listening to the sample snippet on iTunes, but I also don’t want to buy an entire album just because I happened to like a single song by that artist. (So I guess what I need to do is go to Barnes & Nobles and see if I can listen to some longer samples.) I also am guessing that perhaps some of the artists featured in the collection were sort of “one-hit-wonders,” at least in regards to goth-y music, or that their usual style isn’t properly represented by the single song included in the Unquiet grave collection.

That being said, I highly recommend this collection of music. Especially if you are new to goth music or are looking to sample a larger selection of artists. I mean, come on, its only $16! Which is like $0.12 / song! I’m sure that you’ll find at least a few songs you like, and perhaps a lot more than that!