Fire and the Scottish Winds

Tanisha's Pick

Natasha North's 'Fire' has similar eeriness to the music of London Grammar, but with a lighter gentler tone, with each note overlapping into the next. The high reverb is paralleled to the acoustics of a high vaulted church or a cave. 

The first song I heard of hers was a cover of The Cinematic Orchestra's To Build A Home- quite a sublime rendition. Her genre's vary with each of her songs, from country to folk to alternative pop imbibing styles of Bon Iver, Ingrid Michealson, Damien Rice and the likes. 

Sudhir's Pick

Scottish band Frightened Rabbit seem like a bunch of ordinary guys but there music is nothing but ordinary. Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of music where the lyrics cannot be easily heard but somehow I forgive it when it comes to these guys. They have a very special way of blending instruments and genres into their songs which you possibly couldn't conceive. In one stretch, you feel like you are listening to Mumford and Sons, Indgrid Michaelson and Keith Urban. There is a certain something comfortable about these guys. Even though I like songs of theirs such as 'Swim till you can't see land' and 'The Twist' (in my top 10 of all time), I wanted to highlight this beauty today.

Musical Interlude: March Edition

Happy Monday!
This weeks post is the first of a series of guest contributors to the blog. Our first contributor is the awesome Manek D'Silva. Apart from being an artist and graphic designer, he is musician who writes and plays the guitar for the band Slain. Hope you enjoy his selections for this week. 

Poom : Les Voiles

Poom seems to have more in common with Daft Punk than just being from Paris: an infectious dance groove running from start to finish, a thick layer of nursery-rhymey unison voices, 'Les Voiles' somehow manages to be both smooth and rude in equal measure. The words being sung in French, rather than English, makes them simultaneously more comforting, and more haunting. I don't get most of the lyrics, but the line 'ce soir on va danser' means 'we're going dancing this evening', and that's all the French you really need. 

Celeste : Ezra Vines

Don't let the minimal start fool you, from clapping to nylon strings, to angelic choruses, to deep warm piano tones, Ezra Vine's 'Celeste' pours increasingly lush beautiful sounds into your happily welcoming soul. It's the sort of musical honesty that reminds you of Florence + the Machine. The video reflects the music's finest qualities: very simple, very organic, very pretty, and very stuck in your head for the rest of your life. 

We will be featuring guest contributors every month. 
Please write to us at mondaymephobics@gmail.com if you have great music to share.

Summer Is Here

Tanisha's Pick

I discovered Milky Chance only a few months ago. So in love with the beats, the vibe and his hair. I think that Flashed Junk Mind has such a summer groove to it. It makes an excellent soundtrack to the Sunday afternoon I spent slacklining with a bunch of friends. Although I think the music video may have slightly influenced this opinion. :)

Sudhir's Pick

While songs like Yesterday, Help and Hey, Jude! continue to be sung (and resung) and have found a place in our collective memory as 'classic Beatles', today I wanted to highlight a lesser known tune. I discovered this one last week. I hate to disagree with the songwriter, the great John Lennon himself who said he was ashamed by the song's "abominable lyrics". The song's appeal lies in it's rawness. Lennon fully captures a feeling claimed to be felt by most of humanity, but giving it a twist you would not expect. More about this song can be found here.  And of course, below is It's Only Love.

The Ocean of Alternative Folk

Tanisha's Pick

Learnt of a new genre of music last week- Alternative Folk. allmusic.com  describes it as folk that combines acoustic sounds and a strong singer-songwriter bent with a more energetic, aggressive sound and often with intense emotional themes.

Ali Lacey's music is just that. Such short lyrics, but deep. It's hard to really concentrate on the music and I kept drifting off when I was trying to. But that's the beauty of music like this. 

I'll hold, so near and cold. You've exhumed my love.I'm sold and our story will grow old.

But you'll make dust from gold. And I'll know that your heart was once like mine,

Watch the flaws unwind. And I'll throw my love to the ground and I'll tear you out.

Sudhir's Pick

A great way to discover new music is by watching your favourite TV shows. I can't believe that it is a actually someone's job to soundtrack pivotal moments in a TV show. Obviously, some shows do this better than others. The ones I have noticed who do it incredibly well are Chuck, the Good Wife, the OC and of course, the show which is probably the best at doing it is Grey's Anatomy. This week's pick comes from Grey's Anatomy. Nope, it is not a Snow Patrol song. Someone with a spectacular taste in music recommended this song to me and also gave me the show's soundtrack for the first few season's. Guess I know what I will be listening to for the next few weeks.

So Much Soul

Happy Monday!

Tanisha's Pick

Marvin Gaye left his voice behind. Jacob Banks found it, added some techno, hiphop, reggae, soul and a little rock and compiled his first EP, The Monologue. Such a work of art! 

I listened to his most recent piece, Move With You nonstop the whole of Friday and it is so so catchy. If you are in need for a peppy tune to get yourself awake and on your feet this Monday morning, this one won't let you down. I'm surprised this one hasn't reached the radio yet. Somebody make this guy famous soon!

But my choice for today is his track Worthy. So much soul! I can't even count how many genres he has tried to merge into one track. Along with the powerful lyrics, the song is hard to fault.

Sudhir's Pick

Much like a lot of music, I was introduced to this song through a friend. While I have never hear either Gregory Porter or Laura Mvula before, I am now a confirmed fan. As always the soulful lyrics being belted out in the form of Porter's raspy voice is pure gold and lingers long after the song has been on repeat several times. 

And the Oscar goes to...

It's that time of the year again; the glitz and glamour on the red carpet, those 45 second speeches, the long list of nominees hoping for that golden statue and of course, Neil Patrick Harris! :D We love everything about the Oscars.

Tanisha's Pick
I didn't come close to finishing the long list of movies to watch this year in time for the ceremony. I did, however watch the movie Begin Again that has an Oscar nomination for 'Best Original Song' for the track Lost Stars sung by Adam Levine.

I totally loved the movie. I've already watched it twice and listened to the soundtrack on repeat the whole week I worked on my portfolio. My favourite song from the movie is definitely A Step You Can't Take Back. 

Ignore the average vocals of Keira Knightly and focus on the production of the song that Mark Ruffalo's character puts together in his drunkenness and depression. Pretty brilliant I think.

Sudhir's Pick
While we both love the Oscars equally, Tanisha and I differ in approaches. I stay as far away from all the Oscar-nominated movies until the winners are announced. I do this mainly to prove the political scientist in me correct by predicting the winners based on what is in the press. I do pretty well most years guessing more than 85% correctly each year.

My favourite song of the Oscar season wasn't nominated, unfortunately. Hero by Family of the Year from Boyhood perfectly defines what it means to be in your early 20s. The lyrics while being incredibly simple bleed with raw emotions. 

"And we can whisper things
Secrets from my American dreams
Baby needs some protection
But I'm a kid like everyone else"

The country- feel for the song, aided by a strong video makes this one of my top finds from last year. 



But this is a competition, after all so I am throwing my support behind 'Glory' from Selma to win the award. Let's see how it goes.

An Evening with PK

We are well-aware that we will not be able to see most of our new finds live. We were however, lucky enough to see Prateek Kuhad in Bangalore last week when he performed in the city as part of his Tokens and Charms tour. In honour of a wonderful night of live soulful music, we are both picking PK songs to introduce to you.

Sudhir's Pick

The first song of his I ever heard of his was 'Oh Love'. The tempo and beat stays with you and is accompanied by memorable lyrics. For example, "Don't worry about me/ I've got a million fix up my sleeve". 

Seeing PK and Nikhil perform reminded me of John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Bruno Mars and Dave Matthews all at once. A versatile musician, with an extraordinary ability to mix Hindi and English lyrics, this guy represents a musical side of India that is so desperately needed, but not often heard.

(side note- the songs we upload are part of a playlist. So that you can keep listening to all our recommends if you've missed out on any.)


Tanisha's Pick
A few months ago I was listening to a playlist of new Indie artists and was pleasantly surprised to find out that one of the artists featured was Delhi-based singer/songwriter Prateek Kuhad. 

Loved the feel of the concert; an amphitheatre setting as apposed to a gig in a restaurant/bar. It made it so easy to get right into each detail of the music- the variety of percussion instruments that drummer Nikhil Vasudevan included and Dhruv Bhola who played the keys, bass and sang at the same time (see above picture)

In terms of the music composition, my favourite from the concert was Into the Night. 
The tambourine adds such a happy feel. Somehow their harmonies remind me of Simon and Garfunkel. Notice the perfect timing of the three instruments 1:58 minutes onward.

To top off the show, we got to meet the band at the end of the concert (even recommended Sudhir's garden as a great gig venue) and got a picture with them. Yay!

(Thanks Asma Tajuddin for all the pictures)