watched// read// listened

So internet, we meet again!

One of the caveats of living in the way back of beyond is an at best unreliable connection to the old "world wide".

At first I was aghast at being so rudely cut off. Unable to instantly check on updates, emails, comments and new posts...the horror!

Until I realized I was just having to suspend all of the "important" things in my life that are really, actually not so important at all.

I am an internet junkie, that's not changing anytime soon, I'm not making any grand professions to swear off facebook for life here or anything but I have learned a happy lesson from this; it's definitely a healthy practise to switch off, log out, forget what's going on in the world wide web and who 'liked' what Johnny ate for breakfast and focus on what's going on in your own day, in your own house, in your own life for a second.

I've been spending my wifi-free time playing with the babies (buddy + jess), stepping up my daily exercise (yoga, walking + jillian michaels kicking my butt) and going to an Alabama 3 gig in Belfast. It's been a low-key, relaxing, just enjoying my own company kind of few weeks. 

I've also used my free time to catch up on some summer listening, watching and reading that has fallen by the wayside due to to much time glued to my laptop screen.

Here's a little round-up of what I've watched, read and listened to over the past 2 weeks:

//watched//

The Perks of Being a Wallflower// I really enjoyed this movie even though I wasn't really expecting to. It's not your typical High School drama, it has much darker themes, great characters and a cool early 90's soundtrack.

I don't care for Emma Watson at all but that didn't spoil the movie for me. Ezra Miller is a highlight, I loved him in We Need to Talk About Kevin too, I think he is definitely going to be a rising star. Also I'd love to meet him on the street one day so I can, you know, congratulate him on his face.

Jules et Jim// I'm in love with French cinema and I have a huge back-log of French film on my hard drive that I am slowly working my way through watching. I loved this François Truffaut movie about the relationship between three sexually free-spirited bourgeois characters in early-20th century France.

//read//

Just Kids by Patti Smith// I'm mid-way though this auto-biography and if it's possible, I love Patti Smith even more. She is an artist through and through, all the way down to her beautiful descriptive writing skills. Reading this makes me ache for that era of 1970's New York, for Beat poets and punk rockers and kindred spirits falling in love.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn// Five pages in I thought I would hate this book. Fifteen pages in and I couldn't put it down. This is a very current and clever crime/mystery novel which masterfully builds and builds the tension and sense of brooding with every turn of the page and has more twists than a plate of spaghetti. Great, great summer read.

//Listened//

The National 'Trouble Will Find Me'// Something about Matt Berninger's voice just sounds like home to me. I've loved everything The National have done so far. They also scored the infamous Red Wedding scene in Game of Thrones. Win.

The Knife 'Shaking the Habitual'// I've been a fan of The Knife since way back in the 'Deep Cuts' days (how is that ten years ago already??) and this new album has been very long awaited. Still absolutely digging their sound.


That's all folks!

☾☾ Beach House Concert ∆ Live in Seoul ☽☽

There's only a handful of concerts I have been to where I have walked out afterwards feeling like I just beheld some kind of magical occurrence.

Last night after seeing Beach House rock the Interpark Art Center in Hapjeong I had that telltale buzz in the pit of my stomach, pour me a bourbon neat, holy-mama what did I just witness? kind of a moment.

Last night was the band's first stint in South Korea and marked a smashing come-back for Korean indie- music scene promoters Super Color Super.

From the moment their incredible stage lighting transformed the sterile, wood paneled recording studio atmosphere of the Art Center's arena into a shimmering purple indoor aquarium the crowds shoulders unanimously loosened and an almost hypnotic en-mass body sway ensued for the duration of the set.

Victoria Legrand, half mermaid-siren, half glam-rock mama to Monster from the Muppets, owned the stage from the second she strode on to it wearing her trademark glitter-ball jacket.

Spending half the set hunching ominously over her organ like a B horror-movie organist, her long, skull ring encrusted fingers scuttled like spiders over the keys as she head banged and snake-hipped effortlessly along to her own singing.

She cut a mysterious figure up there on the stage, her bewitching voice soaring out from within a curtain of shadow and long red mermaid waves which frequently obscured her face. Her ethereal, siren-call voice, capable of impossible range, lended an exquisite baroque quality to their myriad of sing-a-longs from both Teen Dream and Bloom.

Alex Scally cut an impressive silhouette with his guitar and vocals backing up Victoria's mezmerising performance perfectly. 
They were a pair of snake-charmers bedazzling their pit.

The exceptional  fortune of having access to such amazing bands out here in South Korea is not lost on me and hats off to Super Color Super for their tireless efforts in the name of bringing the best indie holy rollers in to this tiny little peninsula. 

Encore.