For quiet, snow covered days

it's winter. the northwest is engulfed by storms. so curl up, take a listen and watch the dripping icicles melt...

HANNE HUKKELBERG 

A singer from Norway who has me addicted and daydreaming listening to what she classifies as "windswept eccentric pop meets dusty jazz." Her first album "Little Things" was released in Norway in '04 and internationally in '05; Rykestrasse 68 has yet to be released internationally, but you can get the import online. I think it's the better of the two. Love her use of found sounds, like the typewriter in the song "the northwind."

Little Things (2004)
Rykestrasse 68 (2007)

songs: cheater's armoury, ticking bomb, pynt, little girl, cast anchor

MÚM

I only have one mum album, the first one, released in 2002 (and a few scattered songs). I used to listen to the song "Green Grass of Tunnel" over and over again. I just recently decided to play the album the whole way through and love the calm strangeness of it- beautiful in an almost creepy sort of way. If you like Sigur Ros, you'll probably like Mum, though it's more spacey, more electronica. That aside, both are from Iceland and have the ability to take you to faraway lands where reality is no longer on your doorstep.

get it...

Finally we are no one 

songs: green grass tunnel, we have a map of the plane

BEACH HOUSE

Even though their name suggests white sands, crashing waves, and broken seashells, you fall in just as deep while snowed-in by a fire holding a cup of cocoa. Maybe it's because you're lulled off to sleep envisioning swaying in a hammock between palms, your hair tangled and salty from the ocean spray, the breeze just enough to make the heat bearable. This Baltimore duo has me in love. (And if you think it's drab at first, give it time and let it sink in, i promise you will fall for them too.)

Devotion (2008)

Beach House (2006)

songs: all the years, master of none, wedding bell, heart and lungs

GREGORY COLBERT

I can't describe his work other than say it's nothing short of amazing. Just watch....

For more on Gregory Colbert:

http://www.ashesandsnow.org/

OLAFUR ELIASSON

This past May I visited PS1 in Queens with some friends. First of all, if you live in the NYC area and haven't been, you should go. It was founded in 1971 and became affiliated with MOMA in 2000. The exhibition space is an old, abandoned school building which, in my opinion, is just as awesome as the artwork itself. 

Anyways, Olafur Eliasson's show "Take your Time" was up when I was there and he has since easily become one of my favorite artists. Though I don't think 'take your time' is his best work, it's still worth seeing. His "New York City Waterfalls" went up in June and ends this weekend. I had totally forgotten about this project until I went to Brooklyn to visit my sister at nighttime and drove right past one of them. I wish I'd had my camera out because happening upon the lit up waterfall was unexpected and beautiful. I think I actually gasped. Surprising, because you wouldn't think something as simple as a man-made waterfall would have such an impact, but the sight of "nature" in a completely urban area definitely managed to draw me in. Probably not the best thing for drivers at night...

Links:

http://www.ps1.org/

http://www.olafureliasson.net/