zilele de azbest se opresc

cuiele vorbesc ca lupii

fanioanele cer îngăduință

corpul alb vulpea lăuntrică

dorul formal

ceas de odihnă

Atari‘lerde aksiyon rüzgarı estiren Contra, Half Life 2 motoru ile tekrar hayat buldu.HL2 modunda dokulardan seslerine kadar Contra‘ya sadık kalınarak 3 boyutlu halini hazırlayanlar bölüm sonunda boss’u da unutmamışlar.

Vampire Weekend have a new video. This time for the second promotable track from their upcoming full-length Contra (due out Jan. 12). Watch it here:

Their first single was “Horchata,” and they once had a free mp3 download of the track on their website. Now the same video above dominates their site (a large file that may load slow on some computers, so the link above moves best). You can still download the “Horchata” mp3 at We All Want Someone to Shout For. Check it out, here, with lyrics included.

I’m still kicking myself for missing them at the Gleason Center in Miami Beach during their last tour. I had not given their debut album a proper chance at the time. All the critics couldn’t stop talking about their African roots music, which grated my sensibilities while listening to the album via Napster. The influence really is not as pronounced as most critics might have you think (although they sing “Peter Gabriel” in their track ”Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” that doesn’t mean it sounds like “Biko.”*). Needless to say, the album later grew on me and I picked up the vinyl at Sweat Records. Here’s to hoping they return to South Florida for their second album!

*By the way, you can hear Peter Gabriel’s version of the song here (thanks again, Will). It’s a collaboration with Hot Chip.

Went to see Vampire Weekend on Saturday at Art Factory. It was a super fun gig. Their play was very tight. Great to see them live. The new album Contra is set for release next January.

This cool video clip was filmed in a single shot. Love these types of videos. This example shows great styling, timing, choreography, lots of extras, nice details and quirks, subplots, distractions, slight of hand, travelators, etc. When all put together it appears to be quite a basic video but is actually an extremely complex technique. It would be nice to see what the storyboards looked like. And the thing that I probably love the most is the “Get Low” references in Oxford Comma.

New album Contra out Jan. 11

PREVIEW: WATCH Vampire Weekend’s “Cousins”

Unless you really have been under a rock for the past year or so, even if you don’t follow the indie music scene, chances are you have heard of Vampire Weekend. This extraordinary foursome released a self-titled  debut in early 2008 and immediately grabbed nationwide attention.

Finally, after what only seems like forever, they will be releasing their sophomore piece Contra. Due out in January the band has released a free download of the first track “Horchata” available on their official web page. Like the deal wasn’t sweet enough already, just a few days ago Vampire Weekend released the video for their first single “Cousins.” Full of bells, confetti and motion sickness, the video has Vampire Weekend written all over it. Don’t believe us? See for yourself.

– Irina Dvalidze, Multimedia Editor

The Vampire Weekend boys are back with their second studio album Contra, out on January 11. They are so energetic and they are taking it very seriously. You gotta love them.

Check out Vampire Weekend first single, “Cousins” off their 2nd album Contra.  I just like how the video is shot.  Very creative!  Look for their album to release in January 2010.

via Hypebeast

El 25 de noviembre fué declarado día Internacional contra la Violencia hacia la mujer en el Ier Encuentro Feminista de Latinoamérica y del Caribe celebrado en Bogotá (Colombia) en julio de 1981.

En este encuentro las mujeres denunciaron la violencia de género a nivel doméstico y la violación y el acoso sexual a nivel de estados incluyendo la tortura y los abusos sufridos por prisioneras políticas.

Se eligió el 25 de noviembre para conmemorar el violento asesinato de las hermanas Mirabal (Patria, Minerva y Maria Teresa), tres activistas políticas asesinadas el 25 de noviembre de 1960 en manos por la policía secreta del dictador Rafael Trujillo en la República Dominicana.

Sus cadáveres destrozados aparecieron en el fondo de un precipio. Para el movimiento popular y feminista de República Dominicana históricamente estas mujeres han simbolizado la lucha y la resistencia.

Fuente | educaciónenvalores.org

No más violencia de género.

So… third and last post for today and I’ve saved the best for last. Vampire Weekend have a new single from their new album Contra (coming in January next year). I havent got the mp3 for you yet but I’ll put it up as soon as I can. Here’s the video so you can listen anyways:

A veeery fun video and song and it makes me look forward to the release of the new album only more. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do

Kritik ist sinnvoll. Sie verliert allerdings an Wirkung, wenn sie permanent wiederholt wird, ohne die durch diese Kritik veranlaßten Veränderungen einzubeziehen. DIE LINKE in Brandenburg stellt sich nun den Konsequenzen aus einer Regierungsbeteiligung. Sie will ihren Stasi-IM Gerd-Rüdiger Hoffmann auffordern, die Fraktion zu verlassen oder – noch besser – sein Mandat niederzulegen.

Nun gehört Hoffmann ja schon seit 2004 dem Landtag an, und keiner hat seine einstige IM-Tätigkeit bemerkt. Und: Die Fraktionsvorsitzende Kaiser war selbst IM. Das ist alles verwirrend. Nichts Neues aus Brandenburg?

Ich meine: Doch. Von der IM-Tätigkeit Hoffmanns wußte vor der neuen Legislatur augenscheinlich auch nicht die Partei. Bei Kaiser war dieser schmuddelige Lebensabschnitt dank eigener Einlassungen längst bekannt. Kaiser verzichtete auf ein Regierungsamt, immerhin. Und fordert jetzt Kosequenzen in Sachen IM-Kollege. Es bewegt sich also etwas in dieser Partei, die sich noch immer schwer tut mit der geradlinigen Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Und ihre Kritiker täten gut daran, diesen Zug in die richtige Richtung konstruktiv zu begleiten, als durch undifferenziertes "Haltet den Dieb" die Kräfte von gestern zu stärken.

Aber auch die CDU bekommt allmählich ein echtes Problem. Während sie ehrenwert für die Aufdeckung und Entfernung ehemaliger IMs aus dem Landtag streitet, verteidigt nach wie vor ein  ehemaliger Innenminister dieser Partei vehement die alten Stasi-Seilschaften. Peter-Michael Diestel findet nach wie vor nichts dabei, seine Klientel in diesem Bereich zu finden und lauthals sein gesellschaftliches Contra zu formulieren. In anderen Landstrichen saßen oder sitzen belastete Kader der alten SED für die Christsozialen in Amtssesseln. Die CDU sollte sich auch hier endlich positionieren, sonst bekommt sie ein Glaubwürdigkeitsproblem. Auch wenn Diestel nicht mehr dieser Partei dient: Es diestelt nach wie vor – und die CDU schweigt.

24.11.2009

Fotos por: William Santos                                  Publicado por: Michel de León

F

Fotos por: Michel de León

Vampire Weekend have given us a second taste of their second album Contra, which will be released early in 2010.While the first preview track Horcheta showed us a more mature and laid-back side of the band, their latest single Cousins is the same bouncy and fun Vampire Weekend that fans know and love. It’s a bit like A-Punk’s little brother, complete with an awesome video.

While many people are skeptical about Contra, if the singles are anything to go by, even if it doesn’t live up to expectations,  it’ll at least be a fun little summer record.

or: I’ll trade you civil liberties circa 1980, for the right to beat your wife circa 1920

or: If Glenn Beck were a decade, which one would he be?

For almost a year now, and even further back possibly, I have been fascinated with politics and punditry. I have become a self-proclaimed politico and I follow politics and media pretty closely, as closely as my tenuous hold on sanity will allow. In following politics my liberal mind has always been perplexed by the conservative party line of ‘returning to traditional American values’ and trying to recapture the ‘lost spirit of what it is to be an American’. In recent months it as been the loud ram’s horn call of Glenn Beck, and his ever growing audacity matched only by his ever growing audience, that has caused me to pontificate further on this subject. For the past few weeks this idea of lost values and traditional American fundamentals has led me to research where we might have gone wrong. Is there a specific time and place, a particular era that the GOP and other right-leaning hard-liners would want us to return to? If I can put my finger on the ethos that these guiding principles existed in, can we get back there? I delve in to this quagmire of American history to try and find “Glenn’s America”, so that he and others can stop preaching in general broad strokes and say, “we need to get back to what we believed in 19XX (or 18XX as it may be).”

When examining the general party ideas of what I understand to be the GOP’s fundamental idealogical structure I take my understanding from some 25 years on this planet, though you can’t count the first 16. I think that until you turn 17 and start trying to find yourself and begin to shape your views and identity in preparation for voting and contributing to society you are more of a blank slate in terms of personal free thought; up until this point you do not question a source but only try to fit in to the general parameters of ‘normal’ life as to not rock the boat and interfere with the indoctrination that American public schools instill in our youth. My true views have been shaped in my most recent years and as such I have adopted a view of the world quite different from my parents’, a direct result of informing myself for the first time in my life. In my home growing up as a small boy liberal leaders and democratic ideals warranted venom and crass, lewd criticism. The views I set forth will be of my own creation, independent of those I was raised on, either despite or in spite of them, I cannot tell. A crazy person isn’t crazy if he knows he’s crazy. Indeed.

The GOP seems to feel that gays should not marry, and are sinful. This makes no sense to me as sinful is a religious idea, not a political one; though it seems one position is quite often the result of the other. Gun rights should be protected at all costs to personal safety and public responsibility. Abortion is a no-no, ‘nuff said. They want smaller government, tax cuts, reform to let states decide things, though not gay marriage rights or any of the other items I just mentioned. They are for fiscal responsibility. GOP feels that a free market should regulate itself, again smaller government. They claim to fight for the middle class but public programs and universal anything is bad, that’s more government. They hate the environment as far as I can tell. Campaign finance reform (yeah right), education in America (no child left behind has gone so well after all). Prayer in school is ok, capital punishment and the death penalty are pretty much thumbs up, and the Ten Commandments should be at the steps of a courthouse flying the confederate flag. I am pretty close on this, right? So, basically it is a small government that has an abridged copy of the constitution, a cliff’s notes of the Bill of Rights, and a bible as it’s guiding principles. Hmmm, ok.

So, in American history, where can we find this utopia we strive for every day? This shangri-la we lost so long ago would obviously be the one saving grace for this country of godless sodomites. If we could only return to this point in time then everything would be fine. As far as I can tell it is the GOP that can save us if you believe the rhetoric. The liberals and the liberal media have scattered us across the nation and we are divided along partisan lines and are all doomed unless we jump on the Republican band wagon like some lifeboat after the Titanic sank. This is what self proclaimed “libertarian” Glenn Beck would like you to believe. I will give him credit for criticizing the government as a whole, even in the Bush days, though not in such inflammatory terms, but in reality he is like a Liber-publican. So, let’s take a step, Glenn, in to the way back machine and start a search for the time in American history you would like us to return to, as well as all of the Republican nay-sayers.

I want to start by saying that I am skipping the nineties completely being that he wasn’t happy with Clinton either, and it is far too close to the 21st century and the liberal progress this country has made; there is no way anyone wants to get back to how we were in the nineties, not even me and I loved my teen years in the nineties. And I am going to come back to the eighties later, they were too soon as well, but I will look at them briefly. We are sending our way back machine to a time when I think this country went bat-shit crazy and we were in maybe the most turmoil as a nation than anyone today can recall. I want to start out in the era that good old Glenn was born in, and that many of our current figure heads today, that make our decisions, can remember very ‘fondly’…the sixties.

Well I start here, in this decade of utter unrest by trying to illustrate that this can’t possibly be the America Glenn wants back. This cannot be the period in American history we want to recapture. This was a time that the late Strom Thurman must have hated with more zeal than any other period in history. It is hard to decide where to start. The sixties started out innocent enough, Kennedy beat Nixon and became the President, what followed was the Bay of Pigs incident, rumors about Marilyn, the meager beginning of Vietnam, the cuban missile crisis, then the man is assassinated. Further Vietnam BS, Malcolm X is killed, the Compton Cafeteria Riots in San Fran, then Nixon and all his Vietnam BS and his ‘secret plan to end the war’, the massive inflation crisis, MLK Jr. is killed, Bobby Kennedy is killed, the Stonewall riots of ’69, oh and a little thing who was named Manson did some killing. Great decade.

The sixties were a time of massive riots in the black and gay communities. Civil rights on all fronts tore the fabric of this country apart from women liberation, blacks, gays, even the Chicano revolution in this country. Outside of that was the acid wave of the sixties, a complete change in television, film, art, and especially music. The counterculture as it came to be known galvanized this country after the death of JFK, I think. The nice, homely manners of the 50’s were gone in a big way and now came very free thinkers, revolutionaries, protests exploded, demonstrations, inflation choked the middle class as they tried to compete with the changes in the landscape. The sixties were an ugly, hate-filled time, the emerging civil rights movement after the death of JFK was really the catalyst for it all. There is no way we want to return to the sixties as a country. America was in a violent turmoil and unsure of it’s identity and where the road we were on was going to lead us and people were strung out or scared for their lives, or both. I don’t think Glenn wants that back, so let’s move on.

How about we take a step forward and find Glenn in the seventies as a small boy, maybe these are the innocent and moral times he wants back…but I doubt it. Well in the seventies music really got good including the first ‘rap’ song, movies got weird, TV got lewd, and the country just got fucked up worse. This country started watching shows like All In The Family and the Brady bunch, dealing with some of the issues of the day. Vietnam choked the first few years while a little thing called Watergate slipped by the news press during Nixon’s re-election campaign and then killed him by ’74. It was the most embarrassing and shocking scandal in American political history, which in my opinion was the death of politics. I think that Nixon and his escalation of the doomed Vietnam war and his scandal killed the American political system. Outside of the US revolution was abundant across the world. Woodstock was a shining beacon of what drugs and music and mud can do for young people, a complete change from how we started the decade on the campus of Kent State where the National Guard gunned down peaceful protestors of the war on a college campus; unthinkable today, one would hope. The draft was the height of outrage, an unbelievable moment when Ali fought the draft and Elvis went in. Protest and anti-war sentiment was as widespread in this country as pant legs were flared. The Cold War ramped up a bit and this country got really scared, really fast. Our involvement in a few revolutions and military coupes as well as an assassination or two was a continuation of poor foreign affairs decisions. The middle east started down the road to where we are today with Israel, Egypt, Syria, the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan, all starting to kick each others asses.

The seventies brought women’s rights to the forefront as the sixties had civil rights for minorities eclipsing women’s rights to some extent. Vietnam ended finally, well our involvement, leaving the North to just wait for us to leave and drop Saigon to it’s knees and claim the country unified again. A sad end to a war we should have not been in and an end that was mostly our fault. Oh and lest I forget the massive recession we were in mixed with oil crises a couple of times resulting in rationing and further middle class stresses that included a very high unemployment rate. Then of course there was Jonestown, about 900 dead there. Idi Amin started his tyrannical, violent rule of Uganda as well. Is this the era we should return to? Hatred, war, violence, and tragedy pock marked this era. The seventies hold within their years scandal, racism, and fear-mongering, of the most epic scale one can imagine. There is no way we want to return to the moral or political views of this era. The seventies were the time for change for sure, but it came at great expense on the heels of a decade of radical change and upheaval. The 70’s continued the massive crime rate spikes that the sixties brought and the country still sat on the edge of it’s seat every day as nothing seemed to get better. Surely we don’t want the seventies back.

Ok, the eighties might be better, the days of Reagan and Bush, this might be the most likely time we want to return to. The eighties would be the most formidable years of Beck’s life; the decade of excess. The eighties brought the yuppie, and with it, all the coke, parties, and BMW’s we could handle. We saw great multinational growth and wall street was glamorous, they were kings then, still total scum, but they had better PR people then. Of course Reagan declared a War on Drugs, the Cold War raged to a massive scale. Sure, communism fell apart as did the Berlin Wall, but we saw the further mishandling of the middle east that is the source of our problems and involvement there today, can’t argue with that. Reagan put a major black eye on his presidency with the discovery of the Iran-Contra debacle that Oliver North was the mastermind behind. This country saw massive economic growth against the backdrop of very complicated and protracted battles all over the world including Asia, the middle east, central and south america, and ever Ireland with ‘the troubles’ brewing. (Only badass Irish would call a modern, religious civil war ‘the troubles’, an understatement to say the least)

The eighties, I think were a time of thinking that we could not be beaten, being the short attention span of Americans forgetting the seventies. We were coked out of our minds, living beyond our means, and we were kicking Commie ass. But the eighties, world wide, were complicated, painful growth, some democratic, but on the whole we saw massive famine and destruction abroad as the industrialized countries were making head way. The middle class of nations was being evaporated as the gap between rich and poor nations grew drastically. Domestic issues were tough though, as it seemed we were trying to use our power for good as a people with things like LiveAid and becoming more aware of issues in Africa and other countries, the eighties saw the rise of the religious right. They really got fired up on the gay issue and the discovery of AIDS, ‘the gay plague’. This country grew in many way, a decent decade I guess, I don’t really remember much of it but it seemed like a lot of people were having a lot of fun, safer fun.

Glenn probably liked the eighties, he used to be a liberal and an alcoholic, he draws a fine parallel between the two in a Katie Couric interview you should look up on YouTube, and this might have been his favorite time. Old enough to enjoy and understand it, he probably had a great time. Conservatives in power, strides made internationally, excess and money everywhere. The eighties were a wild party time, a decade that seemed to be a release of the past twenty years of hard work, growing pains, and controversial conflict. The 60’s and 70’s were going to lead inevitably to a time when we finally just cut loose and took a deep breath after so much bloodshed, upheaval, and serious talk. It was the decade we all remembered fondly on VH1. Music was weird, movies were great, TV was filled with classics we all watched, and standup comedians were making it big; the country was having a good laugh, a bump, and some beer. Not too bad.

I discount the nineties entirely so let’s jump back to a more general era I don’t think we can reasonably go back to, the 50’s to the 30’s. This was another era of massive wars, depression, civil rights injustice, bigotry, no women’s liberation, industrialization, organized crime, et al. These were times when blacks were openly hung from gallows, women were expected to be barefoot and pregnant in front of the stove, except when they were making tanks for the troops overseas for next to nothing wages. A time where minorities were rightfully scared at night of police or white boys out for a joyride. The prohibition, crime in the streets, Bonnie and Clyde, the Tommy gun, the B.A.R., saloons, speakeasy’s, and rampant bank robberies and crooked cops on the beat. This was a different time for this country and I don’t think we can agree with many of the ideals that were held to in this time and apply it today, the role of women alone is too much inequality to bare, let alone the rest.

OK, let’s take a big jump to my favorite era, the old west. You know the times, I’m talking post manifest destiny, pre-FBI. A time of no gun laws, showdowns in the streets, legal prostitutes, and riding in to town on a horse. Tombstone, San Francisco, Indian and cowboys. A time where gold was rushing and crazy white drunks ran amok and contracted TB and polio. Yes, when there were still a few Indians around, you had ranchers with thousands of acres, cattle drives, train robberies, and the men of storied legend lived and died by Winchester, Colt, and Smith&Wesson. I like to think I lived in the times with a town sheriff, shitty beer, floozies, and general martial law over most of the country. A time where you could shoot a man in the street in broad daylight in front of 50 people, and they might actually clap and then go about their day. The good times.

I think this might not be far enough back though. When I hear Glenn speak, he talks about the founding father’s principles. The true foundation of the country as he sees it with the men who earned America through blood, sweat, and tears. Jefferson’s America. OK, well let’s first examine the fact that we are talking late 1700’s and early 1800’s. These are pre-electric, pre-phone times. We are talking Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, plantations, etc. If this is the time Glenn thinks we need to get back to I want to highlight a couple of things. First off, slavery was alive and well…need I say more? Secondly, this country treated women like shit, there were no civil rights, and it was unindustrialized. This country was populated and run by rich, white land owners, and then there was everybody else. I don’t want anyone to romanticize this era. This country was created, founded, and declared on the bodies of millions of natives and the death and suffering of minority races of people removed from their homes and treated worse than dogs in the time period.

America has never been truly righteous. We revolted for selfish reasons, nothing simpler than that. We turned against the imperialism of the Queen and her rule and declared our independence; the worst “dear John” letter ever. Up to that point we had slaughtered, tricked, infected, raped, and pillaged our way to the Mississippi and thought very highly of white skin and could kill a black man for any reason at any time, or sell them, whatever struck our fancy. What I am about to say is going to piss off the right, but if I could meet George Washington I think I would take the opportunity to shake his hand and then slap the wooden teeth out of his head. These were racist white bigots with an knack for the written word and hard on for ‘freedom’ by their definition as it applied to them as an emerging nation of first class citizens at the top of the shit pile. All due respect, but their ideas and principles were fundamentally offensive and their beliefs of equality were for themselves and those they agreed with. How many minorities or women were running around enjoying their freedom of speech or right to bare arms…or even read? I rest my case.

So maybe Glenn does have a time in mind. Maybe he wants the scandalous, violent 70’s, or the civil unrest and inequality of the 60’s. The old west certainly had smaller/non-existent national government, and the 40’s sure were good times to be a gangster, Nixon would have done well, that’s for sure. The eighties surely had the best coke, and some unprecedented growth, outside of post-industrialized America (without all of these pesky labor laws we got). Maybe he wants the great depression era, maybe to live amongst the greatest generation, or rub elbows with white men who raped their slaves on their plantation as a matter of principle and patriotism. The history of America is short, embarrassing, and seemingly without a lesson learned throughout. Glenn, I dare you and your constituents to point out that shining beacon in American history that is so much better than now, ‘cause I must have missed it. All those moments have led up to now, and I’ll be damned if where we are isn’t a hell of a lot better than where we were; you can pry this progress from my cold dead hands, pal.

The good and bad things connected through a pharmacist, both work with people, because despite some wonderful relationships, many people have to be developed here because they are sick and not happy. Learn to expect some of the good and bad things as a pharmacist with tips from an experienced pharmacist in this free video. Expert: Kate James Bio: Kate James is the main pharmacy on Broadway pharmacist. She studied at Oregon State College of Pharmacy to grant universities. Filmmaker: max koetter …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4eS2jw8DA8&hl=en

This video makes me want to laugh/cry/drink martinis/call my cousins/attend a fair/puke from motion sickness/and interject confetti into my everyday life.

Vampire Weekend – Cousins

Austauschjahr als Abschluss des Englischunterrichts: Ja oder Nein? Die Meinungen gehen auseinander, AndKai ist für ein ganzes Jahr, VincNW dagegen.

AndKai

Ich denke, ein Austauschjahr gekoppelt mit einer Verkürzung des Schulenglischunterrichts wäre das einzig Sinnvolle für eine gute Ausbildung in dieser Sprache, denn man lernt so erst richtig Englisch. Ich weiß aus einigen Erfahrungsberichten/aus eigener Erfahrung, dass das Schulenglisch nicht vergleichbar ist mit dem Englisch, das im englischsprachigen Raum gesprochen wird, da dort mit einem gewissen Dialekt gesprochen wird, den die meisten Lehrer einfach nicht besitzen, denn die Lehrer reden meistens auch nur in “deutschem Englisch”.

Nun finde ich es ärgerlich, dass man ca. 8 Jahre Englischunterricht hat, um immer noch nicht wirklich Englisch zu sprechen und verstehen zu können, was sich dann bei einem Auslandsbesuch zeigt.

Richtig Englisch lernt man eigentlich nur durch direkte Konfrontation mit der Sprache, also durch Aufenthalt im englischsprachigen Raum. Durch ein Austauschjahr erhält man genau diese Erfahrung, womit der Zweck von Schulenglisch nicht nur erfüllt, sondern übertroffen wird: Man kann danach wirklich Englisch sprechen, und zwar wesentlich besser und mit einem ausgeprägteren Wortschatz als nach 8 Jahren Schulenglisch. Dies ist vor allem so, da man einen kulturellen Einblick und meistens auch eine emotionale Bindung mit dieser Sprache erhält.

In der Schule übersetzt man sich meistens direkt die englischen Wörter ins Deutsche. Wenn man ein Jahr direkt mit dieser Sprache konfrontiert ist, muss man dies nicht mehr, da man sogar annähernd Muttersprachniveau erreicht hat. Dies wurde in diversen Studien bewiesen. Man kann wahrscheinlich sogar auf Englisch denken. Und man beherrscht die richtige englische Aussprache.

Kurztrips oder ähnliches sind dagegen unnütz und wesentlich teuerer, da man immer nur kurzzeitig mit der Sprache konfrontiert wird.

vincNW

Ich halte  ein Austauschjahr zum Abschluss des Englischunterrichtes für unnütz. Vielmehr sollte es während des kompletten Lernzeitraums, in kleinen Gruppen Kurztrips geben. So kann man im Unterricht schon auf die Praxiserfahrungen aufbauen und muss nicht einen enorm langen Zeitraum nur mit Theorie verbringen.

Vorallem kann man so viel mehr Schüler erreichen, denn nicht wenige haben Scheu davor ein ganzes Jahr auf sich gestellt im Ausland zu verbringen – zu Recht.

Stimmt ab!

I’m going to pretend that the last few months haven’t happened – just assume that the extended hiatus of this blog is a figment of your imagination. Yes, I’m a slacker. I’m also a stupidly busy student/journalist/trouble-maker.

OK, poor excuses over, let’s crack on with the music. One of my favourite albums of last year was Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut – not only because it was a smart, concise album of intelligent and fun pop music, but also because it was pretty much the soundtrack to my first year at university. Having seen them open for Blur at the Hyde Park gig, during which they treated anyone who could muster a smile to a selection of new tracks, it was evident to me that their follow-up might be riskier and bit more grown-up, but would still provide maximum enjoyment.

On the evidence of the new single, “Cousins”, taken from the album Contra, fans of the band will have very little to be disappointed about. The song is snappy and catchy; it has frequent frenetic breakdowns; Ezra Koenig’s famous wit and skills of observation are still very much intact. More intriguingly, the song reminds me of early Police – there’s something about the punky tone of the guitar and the fluid bassline that had me hearkening back to the delights of “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “Message In A Bottle”.

“Cousins” displays a fondness for experimentation, too: the bells at the end certainly do little to link the band with the Afro-pop of their first record. It would appear that the band’s searching for innovative and fun sounds have taken them further afield than Africa, this time round, and this was probably crucial, lest they continue to be considered in thrall to a singular sound. Furthermore, the frantic twin-guitar interplay that fills every chunk of air in the song shows off some fascinating echoes of Arabic music.

The evidence so far suggests that Contra is going to be a bit of everything, musically: the opener, “Horchata”, is heavy on twinkly keys, tribal percussion and programmed beats; live favourite “White Sky” is like a supercharged Afro-pop hit of yesteryear, with call-and-response backing vocals recalling tropical adventures. Now, we have “Cousins” – a brave stab at poppy punk that sees the band unafraid to fill the space that so characterised their debut effort, with chaotic percussion and delightful fretwork. Hopefully, the album’s release will excite and amaze existing fans, while drawing in a new batch of pop music lovers. Because when you cut through all the global/world-music hype, Vampire Weekend excel at making truly special popular music.

Here’s the video for Vampire Weekend’s new track entitled “Cousins.”  The jittery guitar riffs and bouncing Chris Baio bring me great joy.  I’m definitely looking forward to the release of Contra on January 12, 2010.  Okay, I’ll stop the pimpage.

Be sure to check out the Contra website for bonus material.  The Roll Call video is hilarious.

For more:
I Think Ur A Contra
Vampire Weekend Online

by Katie

Yussssssss. I am having a little party here in my office to this song.

Vampire Weekend have released the video for the second single from their upcoming album, Contra.

The song is called “Cousins”. The video is amazing. From a filmmaker’s perspective, which I am lucky enough to have, it is a creative production that I wish that I had been a part of.


It’s on the front page of their website. Click the image above to go there.

MySpace
Purchase “Cousins” on iTunes