Wipe the dust from your eyes

Folk & then some.

Marion - Dan Croll

Open Season - High Highs

Fathers Be Kind - Ivan & Alyosha

I've Got You - Meadowlark

My Love Took Me Down to the River to Silence Me - Little Green Cars

Home - Dan Croll

Selene - Imagine Dragons

Susie - Mikhael Paskalev

Imik si Mik - Hindi Zahra

Always Like This - Bombay Bicycle Club

The Light Is You - Said The Whale

Ragged Wood (Fleet Foxes cover) - Kate McGill

Youth - Daughter

We Sink - Chvrches

Coolie (Prairie Song) - The River & the Road

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I haven't been blogging much, or rather not at all, but I've been writing plenty. So much has happened & all of it has been inspiring: catching Imagine Dragons & Dan Croll in Stockholm, going to London & spending hours in antiquarian bookshops & reading outdated poetry journals, & of course, Paris. Paris is perhaps the most inspiring of all. Walking the streets alone is a dream & the lines & melodies come quicker than in most places. I remember feeling so incredibly euphoric that I wanted to stop time if only to savour the moment of actually being there. 

But more on that soon. Everything is going by so quickly & I've learnt that time doesn't stop for anyone, so for now I'm treasuring the little time I have left here & soaking it all in while I still can. Till next time!

Everything in Transit

Songs for Long Train Rides

& places in between

Tiderays - Volcano Choir

Sarah - The New Limb

Everything Is Gonna Be Undone - Band of Horses

She Paints Me Blue - Something Corporate

Seeds - Brooke Fraser

The Midnight Sun Never Sets - Quincy Jones

For Emma - Bon Iver

Byegone - Volcano Choir

Give Me Jesus - Matt Stinton 

Coming Train - The Sam Willows

Big Wave Goodbye - Said The Whale

Grow Till Tall - Jonsi

Sophia - Laura Marling

The Girl - City & Colour

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I just came back from a weekend spent in Stockholm a couple of days ago. I went with a dear friend, Jennifer, & we did a multitude of things: visited the amazing open-air museum Skansen, went to the bohemian Sodermalm district to buy new records & tea, & even took a bus up to Uppsala for fika & long walks by the city's river. It was absolutely lovely.

On Monday evening though, we finally had to say goodbye & go our separate ways, her to Singapore & myself back to Linkoping. I honestly loved that entire weekend & all the things we did but as I sat there in the bus, plugged into new music & with a cappuccino in hand, I felt such a strange & undefinable peace. People get restless or bored on long train or bus rides, but I somehow don't. I like how there's a certain kind of music to listen to on occasions like these. I like watching the sun dip across the Swedish horizon, gazing into space as the sky changes from hues of bright orange to pink to dark purple. Travelling, in the verb sense of the word, offers a state of transition, a certain sort of limbo where you're not really in one place or another but somewhere in between, & I love that feeling. It's something very precious, these few hours of solitude for nobody but yourself. People always say that it's not the destination that's important, but the journey & it may seem like a cliché but I agree all the same :)

More on Stockholm & school & a new home & other things soon.

How fickle my heart

Awake My Soul - Mumford & Sons

Who Knows Who Cares - Local Natives

Lover's Rock - The Clash

Ought to Be - Audrey Assad

Martha My Dear - The Beatles

Amsterdam - Imagine Dragons

Waves - Yeasayer

Glasshouse - The Sam Willows

Bones - Hillsong United

No Other Plans - Sunny Levine feat. Young Dad

Troubleman - Electric Guest

You Bled - Rend Collective Experiment

Rescue Song - Mr Little Jeans

Love Is Waiting - Brooke Fraser

_________________________________________________

Songs I've been listening to of late for the good times, the long nights & plainly, for comfort. It's been nearly three weeks since I left Singapore for Sweden & a multitude of things has happened & I promise I will write all of them down soon when time slows down long enough but for now we're all living it, living the moment. I miss home, but am grateful to be here all the same :)

More soon.

Out of bed, out of comfort

Antlers - We Were Evergreen

Tell Us Your Name - The New Limb

Drifting In & Out - Porcelain Raft

Overjoyed - Bastille

Build Your Kingdom Here - Rend Collective Experiment

Collective Mon Amour - Éléphant

Entertainment - Phoenix

Pompeii - Bastille

Everything's Gonna Be Undone - Band of Horses

No Other Plans - Sunny Levine feat. Young Dad

Big Parade - The Lumineers

Towers - Bon Iver

Charleston - Set Sail

Son My Son - Milo Greene

Wild Things - San Cisco

Cousins - Vampire Weekend

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Here's what I've been listening to lately, songs plucked out from youtube obscurity & also my Facebook timeline (!): The latest from WWE, tracks from the Celeste & Jesse Forever OST & the lesser-known from Coachella. These are the songs I could spend entire rainy days listening to, days like the ones we've been having, falling asleep beside melody & lavender tea.

I also received my We Were Evergreen package I blogged about earlier this year (x), all the way from London! I had to stifle screams of excitement as I ripped apart postage paper & airmail bubblewrap to get to its contents: a signed poster, handwritten lyric sheets for Penguins & Moonboots by Fabienne & best of all, their first album from 2010! Every track is different, slightly incomplete, but beautiful. There's a fifty-second demo at the end of the record entitled Verano ('summer', in Spanish), a mere fragment of a song which begins with nothing but whistles & a plucking guitar & repeats the lines 'Hang on to summer / Don't let go / Don't let go' over & over. It's perfect in its simplicity. I love how much you can fall in love with a song & how much comfort it can give & how it never asks for anything in return.


I don't know... I'm feeling strangely content right now, just listening to fresh music in my room. Haven't felt like this in a while & it's nice.

Music for rain

Postcards from Far Away - Coldplay

Holocene - Bon Iver

The Giant of Illinois - Andrew Bird

That was Your Mother - Paul Simon

Your Bones - Of Monsters & Men

Go Out All Night - Givers

Blackbird - The Beatles

English House - Fleet Foxes

Winter '05 - Ra Ra Riot

Come On - Rend Collective Experiment

What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood - The Mynabirds

Birds of a Feather - The Civil Wars

In The Sea - Ingrid Michaelson

Lost Cause - Priscilla Ahn

Passenger - Lisa Hannigan

Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground - Coldplay

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It's been raining a lot lately. This weather is far from what most call winter, but it's good enough for me.

Cicada summers

Tomorrow will be the end of summer as I know it. Holidays are coming to an end! It's crazy. It feels as if the last exam of Y1S2 ended yesterday and I was just getting ready to relax with friends & a stack of good books. The thought of fourteen more weeks of assignments & stress... geez. Apologies, it's just the regular school blues. It's been a good summer though.

Every since seeing the scene in the movie Bridesmaids where Annie is handed a tall glass of pink lemonade by the classy waiter (so good that she had to stop & say, 'God, that's delicious.'), I've been trying to fabricate the summery beverage. God knows we need a drink for weather like this. The base recipe for lemonade is dead simple right? A mixture of water, lemons & sugar that you bung into the fridge to chill & twenty minutes later, voila! Lemonade. It's a bit harder than it looks though: the key to getting the perfect lemonade is to get the right ratio of ingredients to suit your taste. In my case, I like my drink more tart than sweet, the light pink shade that cranberry juice gives, & I love the extra fizz that soda water gives, unnecessary as it might be. Most of the time, the best things in life are the non-essentials.

I've been making this since summer last year, huge quantities at a time to last for as long as a week. It can easily be turned into an alcoholic party drink as well, just add a splash of schnapps or light rum, whatever you have in your fridge really. Garnish with lemon & orange slices, turn on a Beach Boys / Gold Motel album (or anything from this summer playlist), & sink back into relaxation.

Pink Fizzy Lemonade

You can halve, double or triple the recipe as long as you remember the base ratio (mine is 1:1:4). Remember that not everyone likes it as tart; you may have to add more sugar to make it sweeter, or more water to make a less-concentrated drink. Also, if you are serving this quite some time later, add the soda water to the mixture just before serving or all the fizz will be gone by then.

Ingredients

12 medium lemons (enough to make 2 cups of lemon juice)

2 cups of white sugar

8-9 cups of club soda

Cranberry / Raspberry Juice

Orange slices

Ice cubes to serve

1. Squeeze most of the lemons, leaving at least one to be sliced for garnish. Put lemon juice aside.

2. In a large pot, heat up 2 cups of club soda under medium-low heat, adding in the 2 cups of sugar slowly till it has dissolved into a thick sugar mixture.

3. Add the lemon juice, stirring constantly for about 3 - 4 minutes till everything has melded together. Allow to cool for a while

4. Pour the warm mixture into two large pitchers, and add the soda water. Add the appropriate amount of cranberry or raspberry juice to colour the liquid a light pink shade, while constantly stirring with a wooden spoon.

5. Put in the fridge to chill for about an hour. Add ice cubes, and garnish with lemon & orange slices.

Makes approx. two 1.5l pitchers 

A backseat kiss

A Summer Playlist

All of the noise, all of the heat.

Cold Shoulders - Gold Motel

Violet - Thao With The Get Down Stay Down

Let The Record Go - The Mynabirds

Movements - Rend Collective Experiment

She Moves In Her Own Way - The Kooks

Saw You First - Givers 

We Bought A Zoo - Jonsi

When I'm Sixty-Four - The Beatles

Cape Town - The Young Veins

Blow Away - A Fine Frenzy

In The Sun - She & Him

Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys

Tongue Tied - Grouplove

MFEO Part 1: Made For Each Other - Jack's Mannequin

Daylight - Matt & Kim

We're On The Run - Gold Motel

In the mood for Bizarre.

Houdini - Foster the People

Goodnight Goodnight - Hot Hot Heat 

Waves - Yeasayer

Oh La - Ra Ra Riot

40 Day Dream - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

The Soldiering Life - The Decemberists

The Wake Up Song - The Submarines

Honeybear - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Gold Gun Girls - Metric

The World at Large - Modest Mouse

Dance, dance, dance - Lykke Li

Underground - The Sounds

 California English - Vampire Weekend

And as always... Electric Feel by MGMT.

Some days you feel like jazz.

Stitched Up - Herbie Hancock & John Mayer
Beyond the Sea - Bobby Darin
Dream A Little Dream - Laura Fygi
Hell No - Sondre Lerche & Regina Spektor
Cheek to Cheek - Fred Astaire
Why I Am - Dave Matthews Band
The Very Thought of You - Ella Fitzgerald
Tout Deucement - Feist
Spain - Chick Corea
Crazy Little Thing Called Love - The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Pointless Nostalgic - Jamie Cullum
The Summer Wind - Frank Sinatra
Fly Me to the Moon - Julie London

______________________________________________

Coming home to an armful of university letters, tuition problems and a thousand responsibilities wasn't the greatest feeling. But well, sometimes, all you need are friends, a couple of movies and great music to make you feel better.

Watermelon man, anyone?

On Folk & Indie

Sigh No More - Mumford & Sons
Sea Lion Woman - Feist
Blow Away - A Fine Frenzy
Rambling Man - Laura Marling
Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel
Cold Shoulders - Gold Motel
Sun Giant - Fleet Foxes
The Girl - City & Colour
Paper Aeroplane - Angus & Julia Stone
I Found A Reason - Cat Power

I love it when things are simple. Like how they should be.

1 2 3 4

A PLAYLIST
(For when you're stoked about your worst nightmare
called A levels ending in a little over 12 hours)

Phantom Punch - Sondre Lerche
Music when the Lights go out - The Libertines
You only live once - The Strokes
I Feel it All - Feist
The Bomb - New Young Pony Club
Blender - The Pretty Reckless
Hysteric - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The Rollercoaster Ride - Belle & Sebastian
Rock and Roll Party - Iggy Pop
We're on the Run - Gold Motel
Dance into the Night - the View
Animal - Neon Trees

The English Way

1. My Yard - Jamie Cullum
2. Help! - the Beatles
3. You Made your Bed - You Me at Six
4. Lost in the Supermarket - The Clash
5.Tired of England - Dirty Pretty Things
5. Orange - the Filthy Youth
6. Alice Quays - Jamie T
7. A Well Respected Man - the Kinks
8. Great DJ - the Ting Tings
9. I Found Out - the Pigeon Detectives
10. Little Miss Pipedream - the Wombats
11. Moth Wings - Passion Pit
12. Bomb - New Young Pony Club
13. Girlfriend in a Coma - the Smiths
14. Don't Upset the Rhythm - the Noisettes
15. The Boy with the Arab Strap - Belle and Sebastian
16. Five Years Time - Noah & the Whale
17. Crying Lightning - Arctic Monkeys
18. What became of the Likely Lads - the Libertines

This is why UK > USA.

All of the noise, all of the heat

'GOLD MOTEL doesn’t exist, but if it did, you’d find it on a winding road somewhere in the sun-drenched hills of Southern California'

Lauren Henry

The slow decline of The Hush Sound under the pretense of a 'hiatus' was devastating to watch; no one could be more gutted than I. For someone who has followed the band through the makings of their debut album So Sudden (Dorian Gray, anyone?), to Like Vines and finally, to the brilliantly-decadent Goodbye Blues, it was unlikely anything better could exist.

And then Greta Salpeter made Gold Motel.

It started from one of their first singles that appeared on a five-song EP, back when Greta was believed to be pursuing a solo project. 'We're on the Run' was featured on the Indie Rock Playlist, which is, by the way, an invaluable site for lesser-known genius. Greta's amazing vocals and inspiring lyrics caught me immediately. Hook, line and sinker. The amazing thing was that the rest of the band was made out of a mish-mash of musicians from This Is Me Smiling and The Yearbooks, particularly the notable guitarist of the former, Dan Duszynski. The chemistry of the five musicians was obviously too hard to resist, and thus, Gold Motel was born.

First things first, Gold Motel sounds near nothing like the Hush Sound. Granted, the Hush Sound may have been magnificent in its own right, but Summer House creates a whole new sound altogether. Greta's California-inspired summer lyrics filled with heartwrenching nostalgia will surprise a THS listener, but pleasantly. The ten-track playlist features simple and clean (but lovely, none the less) guitar riffs as compared to the signature distorted jarrs of Bob Morris, an absence in morbid lyrics and noticeably less keys by Salpeter. All in all, a light-hearted album dedicated to living life at it's fullest.

More than an album, it is a story. A story of road trips, love, and finding solace in summer houses. Something, pretty much incredible :)

So here's to you, Greta!


Side note: It will still be extremely sad if The Hush Sound never writes and plays together again. Bob Morris is still a guitar king. The Days of Chris Faller may be over, but hopefully, that will change! The Hush Sound <3

You are of 5-cent lemonade stands

Two kids in Love (in a lake of ice-cream)

Sunny days don't get any better
We'll lie in the backyard and drink lemonade from the jug,
five-cent lemonade from the jug
Reveling in unsophisticated
behaviour
Oh, so lovely

These days don't get any better
You painted my front lawn with the colours of your eyes,
too many colours in your eyes
Well, like it matters
I've always liked the mess
we made of things

I think it's safe to say,
We're safe from boredom forever
I know it's unconventional
But this labyrinth it's too lovely
to throw away
What a waste it would have been
to throw it away

Sunny days don't get any better,
If the heat gets up, honey,
let's have a dip
in that lake of ice-cream
Reveling in a lake of ice-cream
Dream,
You and I.

21st July

_______________________________________

Cheers to lemon slice eyes, scribbling in leather bound notebooks and of course, reveling in unsophisticated behaviour :)

A PLAYLIST
for the days you're late for school and don't feel like sleeping on the bus

1. Kisses over Babylon - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
2. General Specific - Band of Horses
3. Lisztomania - Phoenix
4. Bees - Animal Collective
5. Sea of Love - Cat Power
6. Weekend Wars - MGMT
7. Your heart is as black as night - Melody Gardot
8. Stars and Sons - Broken Social Scene
9. We Go Together - Grease Soundtrack
10. Something more (Augustine's confession) - Switchfoot
11. Beat (Health, Life & Fire) - Thao with the Get Down Stay Down
12. Moon River - Audrey Hepburn

I've been watching too many Audrey Hepburn movies these days, and am halfway through My Fair Lady (linguistics research, is my excuse!) There's something magical about Audrey's acting that can make a bad day turn marvelous, in a couple of hours.

Have yet to start revision for prelims! So I suppose watching movies or reading Margaret Atwood novels can wait for a couple of months. Or can they?

Goodnight everyone :)

Pretty. Reckless.

Andrew de Torres of The Scene Aesthetic :)

2nd last week before promos has been absolute pig swill. Project work worries, unbearable teammates and a ear-infection that simply won't go away (yuck, i know.)

Jen was a real peach and loaned me her Ipod for the week, which has been the ONLY saving grace. So muchos thanks to her :) I have been going through piles and piles of my old CDs, and my room looked a bit like a war zone the past few days, but its been great. Three days without a plug-in, it's like real death (BIRKIN REFERENCE! BIRKIN!)

On the playlist this week is TSA (cal's unwanted E.P. turned out to be tops for me), lots of the Beatles and old Cobra Starship songs, which are still the best :)

A string of conversations with Ken and Kai about the fabfour revealed something rather shocking about 'The Genius', who said that Paul M looked like Joe Jonas. Needless to say, I was aghast. Paulie, is legendary! Si?

The new Beatles mania is wonderful but disheartening at the same time! D:

Also, saw a recent clip wherein Vicky-T was singing Leighton Meester's part in GGGB live, for obvious reasons. And some dork said 'Who is that random girl?! Leighton's so much better!'

Oh giddy aunt. Awesome keytarist of the band itself, need I saw more.

I miss this like HELL (where's sid?! Wait, I don't care.) but the 4th season is coming out soon, joy for all! Wicked clothes, too.

Midnight. I should be exhausted from staying at the airport for 486284 hours with Tiara AGAIN (Met XQ too, loud much?). Tomorrow's the end of the week and one more day closer to promotionals good grief.

On a brighter note, 3 MORE MONTHS TO CHRISTMAS! let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

my thoughts, you can't decode.

Firstly.

HAPPY EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY JEN!

i hope you enjoyed your 'surprise'[marred by the fact that i had to nearly stick my whole head into your bedroom with ten people hovering behind me waiting with bited(batted?!) till you noticed! and also because we were made to sit around the table and spew nice things about jennifer, but we kept digressing to a myraid of other topics like uki being an indonesian maid or testing the keen sharpness of a porcelain knife.

I guess we were all too shy to say stuff, and interrupted too many times by the very mad hyperactive and amiable Rusty and Lucy's piercing shrieks. Haaa. Just want to say you're a really cool friend with an aussome personality, whose cheerfulness and AWARD-WINNING SMILE[yelch!] never fails to cheer us all up. Man i sound like im writing a phoney testimonial. But anyway. You're a really really good friend i can count on. As i said, here's to years of nose-flaring and bra-snapping!

i wont say this to you in the face but you rock and love you lots. grow up faster!





Right so lotsa things have happened, besides jennifer's birthday thingy. Went over to claudia's with patrick so that we could study together and learn chemistry from the very maestro himself. Emilia's come over to sleepover and study[PRODUCTIVE. surprisingly.] and ACJC's open house[ssssh.]

Amanda wants to write a book called How to Crap 101. with pretty useful anecdotes from Clare Big Gob of course. CLARE YOU BETTER STOP BEING TO PESSIMISTIC and get your ass down to start studying. i should be one to talk. crud.

Lizzie's letter arrived in the mail together with all the frilly curly dark writing that, if not from having read stuff from here before, would have been illegable to anyone else. It made me smile like an idiot. Very nicely illustrations, and apt ones too! Say hello back to gregory ze flying unicorn to me liz! Ya da man. i upload pictures soon yo.

Awright 11 more days to O levels. It is a rather good thing that the drumset it coming later, or i would not be able to concentrate and bang away for hours on end.

Anyone who wants to preorder the twilight soundtrack?
No im not a twilight fanatic, just a paramore one. TWO SONGS. and some other crappy ones, i do hope the rob pattison singing on the track isn't the actor. Is his crappy acting not bad enough? ANd now he wants to inflict more damage to our eardrums, go figure. This is the complete tracklist, tell me if you're interested!

Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Paramore - Decode [BRILLS.]
The Black Ghosts - Full Moon
Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest
MuteMath - Spotlight (Twilight Mix)
Perry Farrell - Going All The Way (Into The Twilight)
Collective Soul - Tremble For My Beloved
Paramore - I Caught Myself
Blue Foundation - Eyes On Fire
Rob Pattinson - Never Think
Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth
Carter Burwell - Bella's lullaby

Goodnight all, its back to the torture house tomorrow.
P.S I'VE GOT MORE POST ITS. YAY. super sticky ones!

i've run out of all the good titles.

QUOTE.

Scene at crowded hawker centre. Kelvin and Mark situated somewhere in the masses of sweating people and food scents.

Kelvin: Oi... so what do you want to drink?
*Mark ponders and spots sugarcane store. Without thinking...
Mark: I want bamboo juice.
Kelvin: O_0

Scene at quite deserted KFC, with a very noisy youth group and counter-lady with a friggin bad attitude.

Jennifer: Can i have a.. etc etc.
*Rude counter-lady glares and punches in the keys.
Counter lady: Next. hurry up. whaddaya want?

Mel: God that woman's so damn rude. what's her problem.
Stacy: Yeah tell me about it.
*Everyone starts to get really annoyed with rude counter-lady. Finally mark reaches front of the queue and decides to have a little fun.

RCL:What you want.
Mark: I want a two-piece set.
RCL: what kind of chicken lah.
Mark[kinda shouts pretty loud]: BREAST.







Hmmm a very bizzare friend says i need to expand/diversify my listening range. So while i await the opportunity for another stupendous sleepover[and my pencil case back please.], i will do a little homework. Some of The Almost and Automatic Loveletter will be on my playlists for the next few days.

And not forgetting, the rocket summer XD

Nicole's Rockband game is simply awesome. Love how the microphone can sense your pitch and voice range. I think we should form a band because we are already so great on RB, and have so far earned like a GAZILLION fans, a tourbus and tours all over Boston/san fran/NYC. SI?