A lighter post. Two things that have made me happy in the last few weeks. First: the band Midlake and their incredible album ‘The Trials of Van Occupanther’. I only heard about the group when an American friend, Staton, added a video of their song Roscoe to his facebook profile. Such melodic songwriting and beautifully wrought harmonies. And when I started listening to their other songs, it was amazing because whereas usually you only really like one or two songs on an album, every single track I heard was immediately lovable. Thus I took the unprecedented step of paying to download the whole album from iTunes after Play.com told me I’d have to wait 5 weeks for them to get one in stock. It’s been totally worth it so here’s the video of one particularly lovely song.
The second happy-making thing is a New Zealand-sourced phenomenon called Flight of the Conchords. I saw the comedy duo a few years ago doing their live act at a university ball and they were hilarious; last year HBO talent-spotted them and commissioned a whole series, which has attracted a cult following in the States and is now being broadcast on BBC4. FOTC have a brilliant website: http://www.conchords.co.nz/
although if you want to get a taster, you’re better off searching youtube and watching one of their many clips from the HBO series. Especially recommended are “Business Time”, “Bret you’ve got it going on” and “Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenocerous”.
