oxalis

my top 11 albums (and tracks) of 2011

oxalis — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:49:05 +0000

I know this is probably rather late, but I have been having so many projects in the last few months, so I never really have time to review what sort of music I have been listening to in the past year.

2011 was a rather strange year for me. My return to Indonesia put me back to listen to Indonesian indie bands again, which was really, really nice, but in the other hand the indie music seemed not as exciting as two or three years ago.

I was also happy that two of my most favourite bands, Pet Shop Boys and erasure, released their albums in 2011. However, I was not very excited about them. Well, Pet Shop Boys’ album was not really a studio album.. it was a musical for a ballet performance. The music was really nice of course, but it was nice if you listened to the album from the beginning to end, not to shuffle it in your media player. And it seemed that I expected too much from erasure. I thought their latest album would be more like “Nightbird”, especially after knowing that they held several concerts in forests, which really sounded like a great concept.

Anyway, since I finally joined last.fm (yes, I’m terribly late, I know) I finally have the statistics of albums and tracks I listened to throughout the year 2011. It’s easy and quantifiable. But the drawback was that not all tracks I listened the most were the ones I like the most. Some because I wanted to go to their concert, some because I wanted to make a mixtape, etc.

So first, I will just put my top 11 albums and tracks of 2011 based on my likings (not the total number of the tracks/albums being played)

top 11 albums of 2011

1. Mirrors – Lights and Offerings

2. Darren Hayes – Secret Codes and Battleships

3. Acid House Kings – Music Sounds Better With You

4. Pet Shop Boys – The Most Incredible Thing

5. Moby – Destroyed

6. Erasure – Tomorrow’s World

7. Elbow – Build A Rocket Boys!

8. Jens Lekman – An Argument with Myself
[this is an EP btw, but i think it's eligible for the list..]

9. Luky Annash – 180 Degrees

10. Beach Fossils – What a Pleasure

11. Future Islands – On The Water

top 11 tracks of 2011
1. Mirrors – Searching the Wilderness
2. Acid House Kings – Are We Lovers or Are We Friends?
3. Darren Hayes – Perfect
4. Moby- Sevastopol
5. VCMG – Spock
6. Tahiti 80 – Easy
7. Pet Shop Boys – The Grind
8. Elbow – With Love
9. Erasure – Just When I Thought It Was Ending
10. The Mummers – Call Me A Rainbow
11. Beach Fossils – Fall Right In

last.fm
Now to the last.fm. I must say I listened to a lot of old songs too, so only a few tracks and albums from my chart were those released in 2011.

Here’s the album chart first:

1. Fran Healy – Wreckorder [64]
2. Erasure – Erasure [59]
3. Billy Joel – The Hits [55]
4. New Order – The Best of New Order [54]
5. Darren Hayes – Secret Codes & Battleships Disc 1 [53]
6. Tom Jones – Greatest Hits Rediscovered [50]
7. Darren Hayes – Secret Codes & Battleships Disc 2 [46]
8. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – The OMD Singles [43]
9. The Bluetones – A New Athens [43]
10. Candle Thieves – Sunshine And Other Misfortunes [42]
11. Acid House Kings – Music Sounds Better With You [42]

As you can see, only two albums were released in 2011

It’s the same thing with the top 11 tracks:
(ps there are 9 tracks being played 10 times from #10-19, so I will write my most favourite ones)

1. Au Revoir Simone – Another Likely Story [15]
2. Belle and Sebastian – I Want the World to Stop [13]
3. Darren Hayes – Perfect [13]
4. Math and Physics Club – Baby I’m Yours [12]
5. Pet Shop Boys – Being Boring [11]
6. Spring – Baby Blue [11]
7. The Bluetones – Culling Song [11]
8. KT Tunstall – Fade Like A Shadow [11]
9. Mirrors – Ways To An End [11]
10. erasure – Sono Luminus [10]
11. Tom Jones – It’s Not Unusual [10]

I also had a look of my top 11 artists in the last 12 months from last.fm, and the number one was, still..
pet shop boys

1. Pet Shop Boys [207]
2. Erasure [176]
3. Saint Etienne [144]
4. Darren Hayes [133]
5. Travis [125]
6. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark [122]
7. Bee Gees [112]
8. Au Revoir Simone [106]
9. Sheryl Crow [83]
10. Aztec Camera [80]
11Math and Physics Club [78]

Tagged: 2011 review, acid house kings, beach fossils, darren hayes, elbow, erasure, future islands, jens lekman, luky annash, mirrors, music, pet shop boys, the mummers., vcmg

float at antara

oxalis — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 01:46:52 +0000

16.12.2011

It was quite a nice surprise when Float –a “sweet” folk band whose songs “Pulang” in 2004 melted the hearts of those both in the indie scene and general audience– gave an intimate, acoustic performance at Antara gallery that cloudy Friday night.

Personally I hadn’t heard about them for a while, and in fact I had never seen them live before, so I was more than happy when I heard they would be playing downstairs.

The performance started rather late unfortunately, at 9 in the evening, but the gallery’s cafe was still jam-packed with people. Mostly they were the band’s friends or their loyal fans, so no wonder everybody sang along to their songs.

Also, at the start of their performance, one of their friends gave away a green book filled with their lyrics. So people could sing along just as if they were in a church. This green booklet was much nicer of course, since church booklets are often not really well designed, usually made using ms word with either times new roman or comic sans fonts.

Float performed in two formations that evening; Meng with the original members Bontel dan Remon and with the new folks who looked so pro they seemed to have been graduated from music schools.

*just checked their website, the new members are from the band Ecoutez! (Leo Christian on bass and Iyas Pras on keyboards) and Chlorophyl (Timur Segara on drums and David Q Lintang on guitar)*

The songlist included “Sementara”, “Surrender”, “Stupido Ritmo” “3 Hari Untuk Selamanya”, and of course people all got gooey and giggly (oh dear I’ve been watching and reading too much of Blackadder) as they played their hit “Pulang”.

During that evening the gallery also displayed album covers with stunning artworks from the world’s greatest bands. These albums are a part of Bang Oscar’s extensive LP collection.

link to the band’s website: http://floatproject.com/
link to youtube documentation

for more photos from the cozy gig, click here.

Tagged: antara, exhibition, float, galeri foto jurnalistik antara, gfja, gigs, jakarta

merry christmas!

oxalis — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:46:55 +0000

Tagged: christmas

photobook exhibition at goethe haus

oxalis — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:54:55 +0000

09.12.2011-23.12.2011

I heard about this exhibition from a friend, who took part in the workshop of making photo books. I stupidly, missed the info about this photo book workshop. It was a complete miss for me, as I had been wanting to take part in this sort of workshop for ages.

titing

But anyway, I went to the exhibition that Thursday afternoon with Titing and we both felt like two children being lost in a public school library. OMG those photobooks were gorgeous! Well of course they were, as the books displayed at the exhibition were the winners of “Deutscher Fotobuchpreis 2011” (German Photobook Prize). But there was one book that completely distracted me from the others. And it was, none other, the book about the works of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. *going hysterical*

kunst des lichts, laszlo moholy-nagy

The book, Kunst des Lichts, was a catalog of the exhibition with the same name. I was bloody lucky to be in The Netherlands when the exhibition was in Den Haag. I even went there twice, mostly to be immersed in the photograms. (I miss going to Gemeentemuseum again.. *sigh*)

The other books at the exhibition was very nicely varied. All sorts of genres and techniques were there, it truly was highly inspiring. There was also a book by Peter Bialobrzeski, the German guy who won a World Press Photo award in 2010 with photos shot in..
Jakarta.

Yes, I don’t think an Indonesian photographer have ever won a WPP award with a photo of Jakarta. Unless if the city is drowned in bloody civil wars or hit by an 8.5 earthquake. Which I prefer not.

I also like some more ‘personal’ photo books. There was a photo book with a cover like a children book’s cover, and I think it was really cute. Photo books on big structures and architecture were also fascinating. And stage photography of course.

the adorable fran healy of travis

I took my Supper Snapshots book (it was a personal photo book, not published btw) to show it to Titing and how I wish one day that book could be among the other books in the exhibition. I even already had a slight idea of leaving it there, so people would think it was a part of the exhibition

titing with supper snapshots book

opening the supper snapshots

more photos from the exhibition can be found here.

Tagged: exhibition, goethe haus, jakarta, photography

[mixtape] i wanna be a dj at a gay party

oxalis — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:55:03 +0000

i wanna be a dj at a gay party

PET SHOP BOYS – Being Boring
BRONSKIE BEAT – Smalltown Boy
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD – In Private
ERASURE – A Little Respect
CULTURE CLUB – I’ll Tumble 4 Ya
VISAGE – Fade To Grey
FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD – Relax
SOFT CELL – Tainted Love
VILLAGE PEOPLE – Y.M.C.A.
QUEEN – I Want To Break Free
GEORGE MICHAEL – Too Funky
SCISSOR SISTERS – I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’
THE B 52′S – Love Shack
R.E.M. – Shiny Happy People
K.D. LANG – Constant Craving
ELTON JOHN – I Want Love
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT – Rules and Regulations
DARREN HAYES – On The Verge of Something Wonderful
bonus track: ANDY BELL – Call On Me

[download]

you can also watch their videos on my youtube playlist here.–

Perhaps, a tea party would be more specific. Yes, I wanna be a DJ at a gay tea party.

A plan of making this mixtape actually struck me more than a year ago, when I still lived in the Netherlands, a country with a strong gay culture. There I went to the pride parade and gay pubs but I was rather disappointed by the songs played by the local DJ’s. I kept thinking that I might have done better.

For this particular mixtape however, I made some strict criteria for myself, and the main criterion was that the artists included in the mixtape should be gay, instead of putting songs that are famous among gay communities but the singers are not really gay.

An additional criterion is that the artists should be gorgeous

Anyway, putting these criteria, I basically just can’t leave for example, Elton John, the ultimate gay icon yet unfortunately has no (or very, very few) songs for dance parties. So instead of making a mixtape for a dance party, I think it would be nice to make one for a rather relaxed and cozy tea party where I could include Elton, kd lang, and Rufus.

Enjoy.

Tagged: andy bell, b 52, bronskie beat, culture club, darren hayes, dusty springfield, elton john, erasure, frankie goes to hollywood, george michael, jimmy somerville, kd lang, mixtape, pet shop boys, q, queen, rem, rufus wainwright, scissor sisters, soft cell, village people, visage

djakartartmosphere // bedroom musicians

oxalis — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:41:15 +0000

Foto-foto ini diambil sebagai bagian dari workshop Djakartartmosphere pada 24/09/2011 – 15/10/2011 (bekerja sama dengan Galeri Foto Jurnalistik Antara). Dipamerkan saat acara Djakartartmosphere pada 22/10/2011.

Di awal tahun 2008, Ganesha Mahendra dan Ridwan Yuniardhika mendirikan netlabel In My Room records yang mengkhususkan diri untuk menampung sesama musisi yang membuat rekaman kamar atau bedroom recording. Mereka menggarap musik secara mandiri di rumah (atau lebih seringnya di kamar mereka), bukan di studio profesional.

Tiga tahun setelah didirikan, In My Room records kini mengakomodir puluhan musisi kamar yang penggarapan musiknya dilakukan secara mandiri di rumah (atau lebih seringnya di kamar mereka), bukan di studio profesional. Materi yang masuk ke netlabel ini didistribusikan secara gratis sesuai prinsip lisensi hak cipta Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) yang membolehkan siapa saja untuk mengunduh gratis namun tanpa menggunakannya untuk kegiatan komersial atau menggubah karya musik yang ada.

Dengan adanya gerakan seperti ini, musisi tidak lagi harus bergantung ke industri kapitalis untuk mengekspresikan diri mereka ke publik. Mereka dapat mengeksplorasi sebebas yang mereka mau, dan keluar dari genre musik populer yang seragam dan latah seperti yang marak terlihat di acara musik pagi televisi swasta.

This set of photos were taken as part of the Djakartartmosphere workshop 24/09/2011 – 15/10/2011 (organised with Antara Gallery of Photojournalism). Exhibited during the Djakartartmosphere event on 22/10/2011.

In early 2008, Ganesha Mahendra and Ridwan Yuniardhika founded netlabel In My Room records that specialised on fellow musicians who did bedroom recording — instead of recording their music in professional studios.

Three years later, In My Room records accommodates dozens of bedroom musicians. The materials received by the netlabel is distributed for free under Creative Commons license (BY-NC-ND) that allows other people to download and share the songs for free, as long as they credit the artist, don’t change the material, and don’t use it commercially.

With this sort of movement, musicians no longer need to rely on capitalistic industries to express themselves to the public. They can basically explore whatever they want and escape from the popular genre often appears on television.

**
dhendy

ganes

irawan

ridwan