Third part of my end-of-the-year best records list. You can read the second part here or jump to the top 10 here.
A solid, more than respectable record by a band that’s been around for more than 15 years and clearly hasn’t lost its charm.
Listen to: All the rage back home
Second part of my best records of 2014 list. You can read the first part here or go read the best 10 records.
Tv on the radio are back and give us exactly what we expect from them: nothing less and nothing more.
Also: best album cover of the year, hands down.
Listen to: Ride
A trip to Iceland is not a trip to Iceland without hours upon hours (upon hours) of driving.
Of course most of the time will be spent being amazed by the stunning scenery and wowing at phenomenal natural landscapes – duh!
But there will also be dull moments in which the sixth rainbow sighting in 30 minutes won’t look so magnificent.
The following game is exactly for those moments.
(click on the image to see a better resolution)
Contemporary music doesn’t seem to be very much about Beauty (capital letter intended). It’s about self-expression or differentiation or intellectualism or pain or flashiness or experimenting, but rarely about beauty plain and simple.
Czech artist Marketa Irglova, as a response to that, seems like one of those people who enter the recording studio with the main goal of doing something that is precisely beautiful. And that can be ok, too.
Listen to: The Leading Bird
Iceland is a weird, fascinating place that combines inexplicably well the rootless force of nature with the solitude of men and some intriguing popular folklore .
At the end of my trip I was expecting people to ask me about the ongoing eruption of the Bárðarbunga volcano; about elves, trolls, hidden people and whale sightings; about roads and distances and temperatures. But the most recurrent question was one and one only:
Have you met Bjork?
Day number four. The first thing I saw after opening my eyes was my jacket, hanging outside of the first floor window, reminding me how our small gas accident from the night before hadn’t been only a dream.
Ouch.
On that day we followed the north-eastern portion of road number one and went through a dry, grey part of the island.
You know, sometimes volcanoes decide to raise their voices, spit out their hot stuff and erase life all around.
That is pretty scary, if you think about it.
We decided to take a detour on a secondary road in order to explore a more internal part. I don’t remember why we we did it, but I remember the road being so bumpy and annoying that we almost gave up and reverted our route.
But we didn’t. And in the middle of all that uncoloured nobodyness we found a town evidence of human presence in the shape of a church… Read More
When I bought my first blender I was full of hopes and dreams about it.
I thought I’d become a new, healthier man who exercises regularly and asks his friends “Is this BIO? Oh, right, it’s not, you can really taste the difference”.
The truth turned out to be a little different than that. If you’re considering buying a blender you should be aware of the unexpected, comical, useless, disappointing consequences and this infographic is for you.
I made this with Easel.ly
If there is one lesson I’ve learned from tv series, it’s that a road trip is not a road trip if it doesn’t involve small unpredictable complications tragedies.
We were perfectly aware of the fact that when you’re on the road life has a funny way of sneaking up on you, so our third day in Iceland was just a little reminder of that.
That morning we left our hostel pretty early, partly ’cause everyone in the room was an early bird and partly ’cause we were starving and didn’t buy any breakfast ’cause we’re smart.
The sky was scary and silvery and the road empty as usual.
Kinda. Read More
I started this post more than one year ago. I started it and then realized how painful and traumatic would have been to relive the time of my kidnapping; those three endless hours in which I got psychologically tortured by a bunch of Indian folks.
I wished I could erase this from my mind and pretend it didn’t happen.
I wished I could forget everything and not having to talk about it again.
I wished a lot of things, but then some days ago I found this in my mailbox.
The movie theatre Babylon, in Berlin, is giving away free tickets for a couple of Indian movies and I can’t – I SWEAR TO GOD I CAN’T – let Bollywood make another victim. Read More
Gas stations are an essential part of every respectable road trip.
This is even more true in Iceland, where having three proper meals a day can easily bankrupt you and gas stations are a real life-saver.
We used to have breakfast at our hostel/hotel in the mornings and dinner in restaurants in the evenings. Everything in between was gas station food, which meant sandwiches, cookies, chips.
And flippers.
The Icelandic grandma I’ve never had always used to say: If you can’t eat real dolphins, eat sugary ones.
I don’t know if that’s an Icelandic thing, actually, ’cause they have a lot of imported stuff from the US and that weird mix of sugar and marshmallow may very well come from America.
It tastes awful, but still very helpful to test your gag reflex. Read More
