Thank you very much
Yeah I think I found them when I was checking out some Black Metal blogs and, as always, the album art drew me in. I really wasn't expecting something that was so well produced. It was a very pleasant surprise! But yes, thanks again!
Trip Hop:
Arms & Sleepers - Metropolitan
Label: Positron! Records
Release: August 5th, 2005
Trip Hop. It's been a long time! The first time I'd ever heard it was when me and my sister were still investigatating Electronic music and found Lamb. It was pretty interesting and I hadn't been exposed to anything like it. I remember thinking "it's like New Age.. but with more happening!" Though the only real New Age I actually knew about was Enya, Cusco, and Sacred Spirit. I'd forgotten about it for awhile since I was infatuated with Trance and not much else until recently. As usual I was jumping from blog to blog in search of new Downtempo and I see "Trip Hop" and the album art was quite nice so I went with it.
Now I feel stupid for not listening to it more often. After listening to Arms & Sleepers so damn much over the winter knowing there was stuff like this makes me feel disappointed on my brain. It goes between more lounge/jazzy tunes like "Salt" to songs with a heavy amount of classical like "Larsen" (which has a really Jazzy bit as well). So it's really a summation of all these things and to top it off, Lauren Cheatham's beautiful voice. It balances out very well too. It's not heavy but not too light like some say about The Sight Below and the whole album seems to have a sense of darkness that I enjoy. Not the kind of dark you get from one of my favorite Black Metal albums but more of a mysterious, withdrawn kind of darkness. One of the best features is that I feel it's the sort of album you'd grab before heading out at night. It fits that scenario so damn well. All in all it's smooth, melodic, slightly dark and hard to turn off. Phaaantaaaastisch! 8/10
Fougère:
Narciso Rodriguez for Him
Perfumer: Francis Kurkdjian
Release: July 2007
Green, green, green. Very green. Have you ever smelled freshly cut grass, or the smell of wet moss? Imagine that, except highly concentrated, and you have the smell of violet leaf. Narciso Rodriguez must be a huge fan. It's an interesting take with a lot of different facets and bizarre quirks (wet cement?) so it keeps things fun. Imagine rain water filtered through moss, tree bark, and then cement and you get something vaguely like NR. Or in more literal terms: opens green, transitions to a light green musk and then afterwards gets all ambery and is grounded ever so slightly by patchouli with the musk hanging around for a hell of a long time.