overseas life

the 4 alternative album (2)

Sparklehorse
Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain

'Beautiful with a broken heart'

Sparklehorse is basically Mark Linkous who lives on a farm in Bremo Bluff, Virginia, with his wife Teresa, a herpetologist. They have several pets, including the dogs Hank (an old hound dog), Barko (who has mental problems), and Otis (the dalmation who stars in the 'Hammering the Cramps' video), a couple of horses, turtles, two axolotls, and the cat. He records in a Richmond studio, as well as in his farmhouse, where cow noise is often a problem.

This is Sparklehorse's 5th studio album. Much of Sparklehorse's music has an introspective, the lyrics contain much unusual imagery. Musically, Sparklehorse应该属于alt country music, 配上电音还有一些rock成分，扭曲的歌声中体现出来一丝悲伤。还记得在国内曾为错过他们的first album Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot 而心有不甘呢! 呵呵!

Beck-The Information

打從1994年發表了首張official album Mellow Gold起，一直到今年的第七张专辑The Information , 十二年里Beck 始终保持一至两年里出版一張全新專輯的流程，这种效率与其他艺人相比, 应该算是很快了, 毕竟上一张专辑Guero才是去年刚刚发行不久, 今年的The Information真有些出乎预料，但並不代表今次The Information是什么粗製監造之作. 多年來Beck的每張出品都能維持相當水準、甚至各具獨特性. 今次的The Information也是好评如潮, 甚至被人形容成Beck 最棒的专辑. Beck自成名以來，在過去十二年他都是梅花間竹地出版其兩種不同音樂風格的專輯：扑朔迷离奇趣混種的折衷性（Eclectic）音樂，與回歸根本感人神伤的Acoustic-Folk歌曲。兩者总是互相交替地出現在Beck的音樂版圖上。但无论是哪种风格, 我都会照单全收。这次的The Information又是跟Nigel Godrich合作(其前兩張彰顯著民歌底蘊的專輯Mutations（1998年）和Sea Change（2002年）便是由此人操刀制作), 然而今次的The Information却大相逕庭, 並不是另一張傷春悲秋的Folk-Based專輯，反之卻是風格盎然與Hip Hop Based基因的混種音樂作品。那種游離于太空的Synth氛圍, 彷彿是雙方合作得最去蕪存菁的一次。