I’ve heard of Pendulum through a few friends of mine now, and came across “Midnight Runner” on my Last.Fm radio. I haven’t heard any of their other songs yet, but this one is absolutely wonderful (especially the part at 2:15). Keep in mind that a lot of drum ‘n bass and dubstep songs are intense and are defined by their fast pace as well as variation, which is something I really love about techno in general. Enjoy your Tuesday!
So I’m going to start posting short posts every Tuesdays and Thursdays. The weekend is still empty though. Anyway, enjoy this video clip. I really, really love it, mostly because when I was in guitar classes in high school, we really did use the same four chords for a lot of things. Or simple variations of the same thing over and over.
From left to right: Thomas Bangalter (in background), Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (foreground)
No, really. I do. The two robot dressed members of Daft Punk somehow have a song that fits most of my moods, or at least the moods I’m trying to create in my stories. “Voyager” from their album Discovery is my favorite, but “Derezzed” from the Tron: Legacy Soundtrack is definitely a close second.
Their style isn’t exactly consistent, and that’s partially what I love about them. That and they’ve had a cameo in an anime called Interstella 5555, which was basically a story wrapped around Daft Punk’s Discovery album. There’s no dialogue (or very little, anyway); the story’s mostly told through the music and the animation, which is brilliant. Isn’t it?
They also had a cameo in Tron: Legacy, which is one of my favorite movies because, well, I don’t know. It’s creative, I guess. And it has Jeff Bridges.
Come on, how cool is that? Once again, left to right: Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
Ultimately, all of their music tells a story (can you tell most of my favorite music tells stories? Haha), even the funky “Technologic” or, another one of my favorites, the seemingly repetitive but awesome “Around the World” (which has an… interesting music video, haha). They’re also good background music. They keep you in the mood, in the zone. They keep your fingers flying, the story moving, and so on.
Really, when I think about it, Daft Punk has influenced a lot of my work. I mean, a lot, a lot. The first novel I ever wrote (and will never, ever see the light of day because I wrote it when I was sixteen and full of ridiculous angst) had three major scenes written to the sound of “Voyager.” Recently, some of the more intense scenes in Dominant Race have been written to “The Game Has Changed,” which is part of the Tron: Legacy Soundtrack. I mean, you want to talk about an intense song, that one is fantastic. If only I could embed all of the songs mentioned in this post, but I can’t. I think WordPress might not like so many Youtube videos in one place, but all the songs are hyperlinked, except for “The Game Has Changed” because there seems to be no legitimately good copy on Youtube. Sadness. But have at.
Regardless, check out Daft Punk. Who knows, maybe you’ll fall in love with them, too.
I was introduced to Einaudi through a friend of mine on deviantART. She absolutely insisted I listen to “Nuvole Bianche.” Its passion and intensity struck me the hardest; there was a simple (and yet not) riff, and with that I was hooked. What I love about some of Einaudi’s pieces is the stories they tell. Somehow they all give me this very tangible and yet distant feeling. They help me think, oddly, and I love it.
The best example is my favorite piece, “Primavera.” For some reason I love the whimsical nature of the piece. It reminds me of someone, maybe a middle-aged woman, reminiscing about her old life, about the spring time (the primavera) of her youth or of her society or of her love. But it’s gone, and yet it still lives on in her. That’s what I feel, in my chest, as weird as that sounds, and I love it when music can evoke such a story. See for yourself, maybe check out his other pieces and tell me which ones you like best:
Update: Found another great song by Einaudi called “Reverie.” The title pretty much says it all, and the Youtube video fits it quite well. Check it out:
