Latest Music Favorites

I wanted to do a favorites post but there were too many materialistic things that are yet to be photographed, so why not do music favorites instead? 

Because everyone will take the time to listen to the songs I'll post here, obviously...

Consider this post a playlist from me to you ♥

And Also The Trees / So This Is Silence

This is one of my favorite post punk bands, and I was happy to find this song from their first album, I somehow haven't heard it yet!!

 I know it's a pretty "dramatic dark post punk oh so goth now" song but I just love how anguished the singer sounds and the guitars are perfect, the bass is threatening and the atmosphere is just right.

Still dying to see them live. They are also one of the few bands the lyrics of which I actually want to read.

"The boy walked round the jagged rocks

caught between ideals and desires
He sinks into oblivion
And there was silence, as he sat so still
Averted face stares at the floor"

And Also The Trees / Candace

I have to post this other song by them that I recently discovered, which is exactly the opposite in atmosphere to the one above. This song is from their acoustic album When The Rains Come released in 2009, which I haven't listened to yet.

I pretty much poked everyone around me with this song and I usually feel like posting is on FB more than once a day, but I hold myself back. The drums will make you cry and the text is so, so sad...

"But not to me she's lying 

with her head on my knees

The sound of the roof then she's suddenly

Not with me anymore

And the shapes slide brighter than before"

The Smiths / Suffer Little Children

I've mentioned getting into The Smiths' first album a while ago, and the last song there touched me most. I don't know why, it has a certain introverted character to it only The Smiths can deliver.

I like the thought that every Smiths song can be played perfectly just with an acoustic guitar. Something in the composition of it excites me. Less is more, or something like that hehe.

King Crimson / Starless

I wanted to include Fallen Angel instead, but it's not available on youtube here in Germany so might as well be another amazing song from their amazing album Red. King Crimson are one of my favorite progressive rock bands, because they can get so dark...

I don't listen to progressive rock that often anymore but it's nice to come back to it and get inspired to play music and do things differently. Mainly because the musicians making it are so damn amazing.

If you want to take a HUGE step out of the post punk closet - give me your hand and listen to this.

Marylin Manson / Birds Of Hell Awaiting

Here's to a soft mainstream landing to end the post. I never liked Manson's music, it never excited me and sounded more like layers of production, gimmicks and concepts over actual music. But to be honest with you, his last album is actually pretty good! Still horribly superficial, but it's all blues songs, and blues is, as we all know - eternal, and can rarely sound bad.

So I'm kind of proud of Manson to be taking a different direction. There's a new person playing the guitar there and it sounds really cool and dark. Now I think I will actually like to see him live for a change.

The entire album Pale Emperor is very recommended, here's a youtube link.

Tell me in the comments if you liked any of these! What have you been listening to lately?

Maria Alexander

Back from 2 weeks in Israel

At first I was contemplating: here I grew up, discovered myself, acquired aspirations and goals, met the love of my life; these streets I walked since I could remember myself, which I could now walk with my eyes closed; this is the city that I loved, like which there is no other, I could walk to the beach in 15 min from my parents' house, I could see the rest of the city on the mountain from their balcony, a view I will never forget.

And after 2 days I remembered why I left it all.

Despite growing up in Israel and living there for more than 15 years, with each passing year it was made clear to me that I don't have a future there. 

It began with the laid back rude and in-you-face mentality and horrifyingly unfair prices, and ended with the boiling hot weather and the none existing gothic (or any) subculture that is not welcomed nor understood there.

Visiting Israel after 3 years of life in Berlin is like a blow in the face. I am so thankful for growing up there, and am proud I left.

This is not my parents' house, but a lot of houses in my neighborhood look like this. Ruins from the inside and out.

Also, look at this pretty necklace I bought there:

Now back to studying, playing music and eventually - contemplating some more.

Maria Alexander

Music Memories Tag (Zoe London)

I found this tag on Zoe London´s channel. I rarely watch her, but this tag is definitely for me!
Let´s talk about music, cause what else is there?


1. Your worst gig experience?
In terms of music, probably any kind of crust punk gig I ended up in at one of the local Berlin squats. Crust punk just makes life so much worse...
Anyway - if to not mention the incredibly disappointing Agalloch gig I went to with my Danish boyfriend last Summer, it would be one recent Totenwald gig.
Not because Totenwald played badly, hell no - they were great, but because of the crowd.

The setting - Köpi, the local squat.
The bands - Totenwald are warming up an old Russian post punk band (отдел самоискоренения/ Department of Selferadication).
The crowd - consisting mainly of old drunk Polish punks. And unless you are one, you would know how annoying old drunk Polish punks are. They were all over the place, pushing and jumping around everyone and basically having the time of their lives, only that it triggered my Anxiety and I felt very unsafe. The evening was ruined.


2. A music video that blew your mind?
Has to be Street Spirit by Radiohead. It´s the ultimate music video, makes me want to cry each time I see it and I sometimes wish I could live in it:

3. Gig that made you lose your shit?
My first ever Opeth gig.
I was 18 and really excited to see my (still) favorite band. It felt like we were waiting 3 hours until they went on stage, it was hot and stuffy even though it was winter but no way I was going to give away my spot in the 3rd row (sound was a lot better from the middle of the hall, tbh).
When they played all the songs I longed to hear, I felt like I was praying while singing with them. It still felt so in the second gig.
There´s a Blast From The Past post about it, too.

18 going on 12

4. The band you wished you could join?
Well, I am very happy about our Girls Like Us so far ;) but my recent crush are Mystified. Just listen to this:

Otherwise: A Perfect Circle, Placebo, Portishead and basically any band that makes a song I love would make me want to join on all instruments.


5. A song that reminds you of your partner/friend?
Wintertime Love by The Doors will always remind me of my first year with Boris. He has burned me a CD for our first date including all the good bands I´ve been at the time oblivious to - Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

6. Best gig ever?
Probably that Opeth one. But there have been so many gigs in recent years that it´s too hard to name only one. And they all have been best in different ways. Some of the classical music concerts I´ve been to in my teenage years have made a huge impact on me as well, especially listening to Musorgsky´s Pictures At An Exhibition by the Haifa philharmonic orchestra.


7. The last song you listened to?
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me by The Smiths. I´ve been discovering their first and last albums lately and it´s amazing.


8. A song that sums you up?
Ok, so I can go all Opeth on you with yet another self-pitying song about sadness and dismay, but composition-wise that would be In The Night by Bauhaus.
Just because this is the kind of music I would love to play/ compose, its energy and diversity (yes- diversity because it has dub elements with goth vocals and punk rhythm in the fast second half).
Bauhaus have shaped my musical expectations quite a bit.
I could have named 10 more songs but I will restrain myself.

9. What music era do you wish you were around in?
The early 80s, before things began to get cheesy and stereotypical, and just when punk began expanding into post punk.


10. Surprising music fact about you?
I wonder if there is something you don´t know yet? That my music tastes are incredibly diverse but still I will listen to 2-3 bands from each genre and will pour shit all over the rest? That I am incredibly critical when it comes to music I love and hate? That I have a love-hate-relationship with anything goth related but still identify with it strongly? That music is something so personal and vulnerable to me that I will dismiss anything that does not touch me 100%? That with all my love for bands I will still not purchase records?

 Here´s something regarding band matters, that Boris has taught me to believe: people play their instrument the way they first heard it in their first ever conscious encounter with music.
Example: you are 13 years old and just started to learn the guitar, and you have been listening to 70s rock for a while. Big chance you will play (or want to play) your guitar the same way you heard it in your headphones.
The music we listened to in the beginning of our "musical path" delivers strongly into the music we later on would want to create.
And I still find a lot of Baroque music from my recorder playing days transfer into the way I play bass. Because there´s no bass like the independent Baroque counterpoint.


I had fun, and welcome you all to do this tag!

Maria

Girls Like Us / Single Tonight (rehearsal session)

I am really happy to share a rehearsal recording of a previously unheard song by our band, Girls Like Us!
I would love it endlessly if you could check it out!!

Sound quality is shit but we are glowing with drive! ♥

Links go without saying:


Girls Like Us
Official Facebook.
Bandcamp.

Maria

PS

See you in 2 weeks, time to visit the past.