New music excitement

Nothing make me more excited than the prospect of new music from some of my favorite bands and artists.

I thought that the unveiling of M.I.A's new video, and the preview of the latest from The New Pornographers would be the highlight of my week but leave it to Interpol to steal that honor. A few days ago Interpol finally removed the "Interpol 2010" tag on their official website and replaced it with a dramatic unveiling of their new song "Lights".

Their new record has no name or release date but with the free download of "Lights" making its way onto the internet one can assume a new effort from them will be released in the near future.

Anyone who knows me will know that I have been an enthusiastic Interpol fan from the very beginning, even standing by the band when they released Our Love to Admire, which was not necessarily a critical success. "Lights" is a moody track, in some ways it hearkens back to the Interpol of the past with Paul Bank's monotone vocals and punchy guitars but it serves as more of an extension to Our Love to Admire. The song has a definite "Pioneer To The Falls" feel, a more ambient sound as the song builds, the last minute of the song is what makes it great. To make the new record truly great they need to lose the sweetness of Our Love to Admire ( see "No I in Threesome" a song I HATED) and focus on creating songs full of vigor and intensity (more along the lines of "Obstacle 1", "Evil" and "The Heinrich Maneuver").

Though "Lights" sets the stage for a "newer" Interpol sound I am hoping the record can showcase all they do well, including the punchy pulsating sounds of their past.

Download the song for free www.interpolnyc.com

Art in motion

In the world of music videos art is often forsaken for cheesy performance pieces and half-naked women. Some musicians, very few unfortunately, can make their music even more meaningful and relevant with a well thought out, well produced music video. Case in point M.I.A.

Monday M.I.A released the video for the first single off her third record "Born Free". The Romain Gavras directed clip is violent, and hard to watch but shows the true arbitrary nature of racism and persecution. In the video U.S. SWAT team agents (or some government entity) plow through an apartment complex, beating people who get in their way until they find the red-haird man they are looking for. They take the man and put him on a bus with other red-haired men when it becomes clear the police/military force are singling out and capturing red-heads. The caravan passes red-haired "rebels" as they throw rocks . The caravan ends in a wasteland where the men are released and shot at while they run away.

The video captures the true pointlessness, and arbitrary nature of racism. Why would they be targeting men with red hair? Why then is any particular group targeted with violence and oppression? Using people with red hair rather than brown skin makes the point even clearer to the viewer because one would never think someone could be judged by the color of their hair. If people can be oppressed and killed because of the color of their skin then why not their hair? It is all random.

As someone from Sri Lanka, M.I.A. has seen meaningless oppression of the Tamil people for years and reflects on what she sees with this video. Racism has no deeper meaning, hate is right on the surface, people can hate based on the color of someone's skin, hair, anything that sets them apart.

This is a fashion post

Music has always been my greatest interest but fashion comes in a close second.

Alexander McQueen's Fall 2010 RTW line was set to debut only days after Lee McQueen's suicide. The looks, instead of shown on runway, were shown in a private viewing. Below are some of my favorites from the inspired collection; truly exquisite.

the details...

my definite favorite, the neckpiece is amazing.

LOVING the boots.

booties are fantastic, as are the mixed patterns, one of his trademarks.

Some other Fall collections I am crazy for are Balmain, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Siriano (though I hate how his models were styled), Rodarte, Viktor & Rolf (who dressed and styled models on the runway), and Miu Miu. I was definitely disappointed in a few of my favorite fashion houses like Balenciaga and Fendi, I just wasn't impressed with their point of view.

Some favorites...

Balmain, gold is very on trend for fall. Great use of gold as a base hue as well as gold in detail.

Rodarte. Knits are always seen in abundance in fall but they used the style in a unique way.

Christian Siriano. Definitely one to look out for, a budding talent for sure.

YSL. Love the blue shoes with the black, a lot of metallics in this collection with a lot of basic silhouettes.

I really need to write more

Because I really don't have time to review MGMT's Congratulations here is a link to Rolling Stone's review of the record. I can pretty much agree with their opinion, it is a pretty good effort, what I expected essentially. I think it is hard for a band that had a stellar debut to follow up without disappointing people. While there are few possible singles, the songs are very engrossing and interesting. Standouts include "It's Working", "Siberian Breaks", and "Congratulations".

Ch-ch-check it out.