The Morning Paper + Moscow Olympics

The Morning Paper is the amazing one-man shoegaze project of Swede David Khylberg. He's been putting music out since 2004, but his work's actually somewhat hard to track down, as it's been distributed on a number of labels, most notably, Skipping Stones Records (which released the album It's Getting Better) and the Japanese label Xtal Records (which released his other album What We Wish). Curiously, What We Wish was (apparently) re-released earlier this year by Universal Records in the Philippines, a label which is, um, not exactly known for its discriminating taste.

I don't know and can't really figure out what Khylberg's connection is to the Philippines, although it is worth noting that his most recent release is the split single "Always Real," with the equally amazing Philippine band Moscow Olympics. Ironically enough, that single, like Moscow Olympics' great album Cut the World, has not been released in the Philippines. (Actually, as far as I can tell, Moscow Olympics is better known in the blogosphere than they are in Manila.)

I guess none of this label stuff really matters as long as we're able to track down the music. I've put down a track each from The Morning Project and Moscow Olympics here, but it's definitely worth buying the rest of both bands' stuff if you're a fan of shoegaze.

On a related note, I'll be flying to Manila for the holidays and thought it would be nice to put up a series of posts on local bands here to coincide with my trip. I'll probably start that series next week.

The Morning Paper - Always Real


Moscow Olympics - Still

Manila + Melbourne / My Cities Meet (via SM)

(via Coolhunter/twitter friends)

Coolhunter 'found' the bowling alley at SM Mall of Asia in Manila. Yep, SM is 'officially' cool. For those who don't know, SM is the largest chain of malls in the Philippines. It used to be where everyone went to go shopping, back in the 80s and early 90s, before Ayala Malls realized there was money to be made by rebuilding the 'first world in the third world'. Well, it looks like SM's really onto that game now. This bowling alley is by Melbourne's Architects EAT, which is apparently also redoing the annex of SM North EDSA. Or have they done that already? I've got an image of the scheme below, but I'm not sure if that's already been constructed or is in the process of being constructed.


Normally, I'm really against major renovations, at least in Manila, where there's a bad habit of tearing down perfectly nice buildings to build monstrosities. Just look at what they did to the amazing Greenhills buildings. Now Vira Mall looks like any other crappy mall.

Actually, now that I think about it, I dunno how this new SM North makes me feel. It's kinda stepping on my childhood memories. I got lost in that annex when I was 4 or 5 'coz I was staring too long at some window display and the maid didn't notice that I stopped trailing her. I was probably checking out shoes. And my mom probably fired that maid, 'coz you know, in the third world, maids, not parents, are responsible for kids. I've got loads of other amazing memories set in that mall. When I was a bit older, I used to get a Frosty from the Wendy's across Yamaha every Sunday while waiting for my bro and sis to get back from their voice lessons. The woman who taught them also trained Banig (Check it, her eighties moves and outfit are awesome!). And in high school, my 'straight' friends and I actually went there looking for fabric so we could make a cape for this presentation we were doing. And no, we didn't think we were being 'faggy', just 'artistic'.