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Tabletop Transitional – David Byrne and St. Vincent collaborate on some truly catchy indie-funk-pop

It’s no secret that I’m a massive fan of Annie Clark, aka. St. Vincent, premiere indie songwriting darling, monstrous guitarist and general badass. So any news that she’s releasing new music is… er, something to my ears. Not going to say music. Was not going to say music.

Anyway, she’s collaborated with New Wave legend David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) on an album due out in September called Love This Giant, and if the first two tracks – the impossibly catchy “Who” [...]

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Tabletop Transitional – My top 10 favourite albums of all time

Just for a bit of fun/semi-productive time usage, I thought I’d set down a somewhat definitive, unranked list of my favourite ever albums. Defining it was a lot harder than I thought, although I did make it slightly easier by forcing myself to only choose one album per artist – otherwise this list would be 50% Björk, and no-one wants that (except perhaps me, deep down). I’ve included a link to my favourite song off each album too, so you can get a taste of what I [...]

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Tabletop Transitional – Caravan Palace is my exam period soundtrack

It’s the middle of my Semester 1 exam period at the moment (two down, two to go – I finish on the 20th of June), so I haven’t had much time to write anything in-depth. However, I do have a few potential longer-form posts coming: one looking at the new Ridley Scott film Prometheus from an intelligent design (ID) perspective; one analysing Jonathan McLatchie’s recent ENV post on convergent evolution; and probably another on the distinctions between secular ID, ID creationism and traditional creationism, in the context [...]

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Tabletop Transitional – An introduction to Björk

Since I’m floundering about what I should write about next in terms of science or philosophy (I was tossing up about the definition of “function” in biology, but the literature is far too dense for me to get through), I thought I would share another insight into the world of my favourite music. Last time it was the violin-plucking indie rocker Andrew Bird, and this time it’s Björk, everyone’s favourite Icelandic icon.

Now I fully admit that Björk can be hard to get into. Friends [...]

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Tabletop Transitional – New Dirty Projectors single, “Gun Has No Trigger”

Ever since 2009, I’ve been waiting for the indie/art/experimental/genre-bending pop/rock group Dirty Projectors to release another full-length album: the next chapter after their terrific Bitte Orca. Sure, they released an EP with Björk that was pretty cool, but at only 22 minutes, it didn’t fully satisfy my deep need for Dave Longstreth’s songwriting and arrangement skills.

But apparently I need not wait much longer! The first single/track/thing from their new record (whose name has yet to be revealed) has dropped, which means the full [...]

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Tabletop Transitional – An introduction to Andrew Bird

When I post about a musician or band on here under the guise of a Tabletop Transitional, often I’ll only embed one video of their music. But surely that’s a bad way to really get to know their musical style, right? After all, a sample size of 1 is negligible, statistically speaking.

So, yes, in this short introduction to Andrew Bird, singer-songwriter and violin virtuoso, there will be three songs to listen to: each from a different album of his. Ooh, variety! Variety indeed.

Andrew Bird is a [...]

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Tabletop Transitional – Dirty Projectors and Björk team up for “All We Are”

In 2010, Dirty Projectors and Björk, two of my favourite musical artists/bands, teamed up to record an EP called Mount Wittenberg Orca, a group of songs inspired by Amber Coffman, one of the vocalists in Dirty Projectors, seeing a pod of whales off the coast whilst hiking. See, it’s tangentially related to biology! Anyway, the EP is great, and one of the best songs on it is “All We Are”.

Just listen to the beautiful vocal duet with Dave Longstreth and Björk at the end. Chilling.

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Tabletop Transitional – St. Vincent’s “Cheerleader” video is a work of art, in more ways than one

St. Vincent is touring Australia in March, playing at the HiFi Bar in Melbourne on the 14th, and I’m considering it as a slightly late, but ultimately amazing, birthday present from the universe. It’s not often that North American artists come to Australia to perform, you see, so to have the opportunity to see the glorious solo musical project of Annie Clark in my hometown is something I’m incredibly grateful for. I’m not quite sure who I’m grateful to, since none of the organisers had me in mind [...]

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Tabletop Transitional – Shit Skeptics Say

This video has been making the rounds in the skeptical blogosphere, and for good reason: it’s a goodnatured jab at the skeptical community from the inside. Everyone loves making fun of themselves. Well, almost everyone. There’s nothing wrong with analysing your own movement every now and again!

I’m sure we all have our favourite lines, but mine is “We should totally start our own podcast!” Ahh, so true, so true…

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Tabletop Transitional – An irreducibly complex pile of monkeys

There are so many great webcomics out there that every time I mention another I feel as though I should have already brought your attention to it. Scenes From A Multiverse is no exception. It’s clever, funny, and due to its sci-fi nature, often touches on areas in science and related topics.

Of course, this means that intelligent design was bound to come up sooner or later.

Click on the image to see the full comic!

Hat-tip to my good friend [...]

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