Life has not finished with me yet or what's going on in 2012 music.

Everytime I make myself a list of my most favourite albums of the year, I have to change it after a while, mess around, turn the other way round. Therefore I won't do that this time. There is a tendency, quite general one, that the sounds you are overwhelmed at once, you explore like mad, as if the world comes to an end tomorrow, become so obvious, that the next session seems to be a background for other things you find more important to do. What becomes a love from the first sight, very quickly turns into burnt, distant memories. Like the debut album by Alt-J. Great tunes, interesting lyrics, and after few months I don't come back to An Awesome Wave anymore. Was it then like a tsunami...? 

Alt-J on Bestival 2012, photo by megisz

 

It is not easy to hide little treasures in-between so that you find them after 100^th listening, is it? Like mini-album Kindred by Burial, where 3 long pieces of the best of Burial are like Secret Garden where weeds suddenly become amazing flowers. The same with Anastasis by Dead Can Dance. Familiar melodies are mixed with some new elements, sending us to the ancient Greece. And still you feel that this is not an ordinary folk music from there. You know that it is this great band.

I Love Bear In Heaven It's Cool and after three albums I must say the musicians make incredible thing which is bringing out all the best from indie, post-punk, psychedelic and shoegaze. Three different and at the same time so connected between one another. 

Miike Snow just takes me with his electro-pop-piano and his Peter Gabriel-like singing. We are all like animals. (photo: Miike Snow on Bestival 2012, by megisz)

Flying Lotus is such a fucking amazing mess that I still don't know what's going on there and I am happy to listen again and again to bounce in-between those tunes and find some sudden revelations.

Tame Impala and there second album, Lonerism, and I don't expect any changes from them. Any!!! I want them still to make those shameless melodies covered with dust of Australian psychedelic desert, full of happy-sadness. I still want them to be my lost Cream albums which where never recorded. 

(video of Tame Impala's single 'Elephant') 

I must be bewitched by witch house where everything is simple, slow and deep. Emotional. All those musicians, like Holy Other, shamelessly use my need of floating in the ocean of my own emotions. And I forgive them. Their music must be bewitched as I still don't know if in the song Strangers by White Lies, covered by Holy Other, the voice sings about my hometown. It's crazy, but I really hear it. 

In a matter of emotions, Canadian musicians from Elsiane still know how to make me melt. Their neoclassical music sounds maybe a little less mysterious than on their debut, I would say: more classical than neo. But still, it keeps me trembling and yet warm. The same result after listening to Spadochron by Mela Koteluk. Very suggestive. 

 

And very subjective this review it is as I am not going to divide music into form and substance. If I don't talk about the form it means it's so good that I don't notice it. And thanks to that I can enjoy the substance (music philosophy? whatever...)

In this top 10 of the year 2012 there are not the best albums. There are albums which I still get into. I should mention the latest Archive and Piano Magic which music stayed with me for a while but I know I will come back to that. Come back happily to discover something what was hidden before. Musicians from Chairlift make such a light and unpretentious music which I cannot resist whenever I feel like a pinch of pop. 'Coexist' by The XX sadly didn't impress me. I say sadly because I really wanted to get more of the same intimate, quiet, yet so powerful confession, undressed into single, genius notes. However the fall is coming and with it another chance to get into xx-mood once again. More danceable Yeasayer? Oh great but...I love their more severe debut the most. It was ritual, experimental, kind of cheerfully chaotic but yet everything in there had sense and interconnection. I know I know, logical development and so, but unfortunately, less surprising.

 

What could I say about the trends in 2012 music? I cannot say anything as I haven't followed 'the top of the pops' and hip-hops and r'n'bs. However you can notice a few common ways of approaching to music. Everyone these days likes to mix together different genres into new combinations, which is notable. Not mentioning comebacks of 60s, 80s and any other retro. The tendency nowadays is lack of a particular, main tendency at all. Is it like before the storm? Are we all tired so much that someone has to blow our minds away and back with something not from this planet? Music inspired by true, native-alien music? Or maybe it's just me, a little bit bored with the amount of new music, which I cannot follow, where I can only drown in. Ok then, let's drown in what I already know or have to rediscover and let's cover ourselves with 2013 autumn leaves. Waiting for a new sounds anyway.

 

Zagubieni w niebie

Świeżo po spędzeniu ubiegłego tygodnia na kolejnym muzycznym maratonie, Off Festival w Katowicach, niepodobna powrócić w pełni do codzienności. Praca, dom, znajomi, życie się kręci. Ale nic nie będzie już takie samo. Pamięć bywa przekleństwem, pamięć jest cudowną szafą, którą otwierasz, żeby ponownie przeżyć coś wspaniałego. Moja szafa z napisem Off Festival jeszcze się ani razu nie zamknęła. A szuflada z napisem Bear In Heaven już zaczyna się chybotać od częstego otwierania. Bo i też za każdym razem wyskakuje z niej coś nowego. Niby już było setki razy, ale jednak jakby jeszcze nie było. Z każdego utworu z obu płyt zespołu wylewa się zawartość, bo jak tu pomieścić chlubne nawiązania plus własne pomysły i jakieś intrygujące dodatki zebrane po drodze. Offensywny namiot ze średniej jakości nagłośnieniem nie pomógł ukazać połowy dokonań Bear In Heaven. Sprawił jednak, że ziarno fascynacji zostało zasiane. Słuchając wciąż pierwszego albumu, Red Bloom of the Boom z 2007 roku, marzę o ich koncercie w klubie. W tej Floydowej i shoegazingowej przestrzeni mieszczą się Radioheadowe rozterki, mroczna przebojowość Depeche Mode, romantyzm Duran Duran, gotycki chłód Joy Division. I pewnie jeszcze drugie tyle nieznanych mi (jeszcze) zespołów. Świetnie odrobiona lekcja muzycznej historii, która zaowocowała nową jakością. Rewolucji nie ma (i pewnie już nigdy nie będzie), jest za to nowa porcja tego rodzaju muzyki, która wywołuje całą paletę uczuć i emocji, smaków i kolorów.

Skandynawski uśmiech

Dungen. Muzyka mieniąca się wieloma odcieniami spokojnych uczuć. Pozornie spokojnych i, tym bardziej, pozornie nudnych. Za tajemniczą nazwą kryje się ciepłe słońce i przenikliwy wiatr znad gór. Płyta „4” szwedzkiego zespołu przesiąknięta jest dużą dawką melancholii, tęsknoty i takiej dawki smutku, która jest zaprawdę nieodzowna. Przywodzi na myśl obraz starej kamienicy rozświetlonej słońcem w chłodny dzień. Lub wyblakłej fotografii, z której emanuje nieokreślona tęsknota. Lub starej, odrapanej ławki na skraju parku, którą się najbardziej lubi.

Czemu akurat wizualne skojarzenia, a nie muzyczne? No dobrze, jeśli nie można tańczyć o architekturze, to wróćmy do muzyki. Dungen brzmi, jakby Sigur Ros z płyty Takk zrobił sobie wycieczkę w lata sześćdziesiąte i spotkał muzyków z Cream, użyczających swoich solówek folkowcom.

Jedni powiedzą, to już było, a inni, do których zalicza się pisząca te słowa, że co prawda rewolucji nie ma, ale jest drobny powiew świeżego powietrza i uśmiech przechodnia. Takie nic, a ile znaczy.