"say my name, and every colour illuminates"

This is a bit of an all-in-one music post. Instead of creating two separate posts about Ed Sheeran and my most recently downloaded music, I have decided to just lump them all in together in one.
So back in August my lovely cousin Sara got tickets for Ed Sheeran in th Roisin Dubh. I'm not going to lie, I would not necessarily be a major Ed fan but I was kind of looking forward to going to the Roisin Dubh for a reason that wasn't self-inflicted-torture-through-testing-tolerance-to-open-mic-night- performers. (It's not that I entirely disapprove of the Open Mic Night at the Roisin Dubh. There are some insanely talented people there such as Sharpe in the Lab and Tara Stacey and her amazing ukelele and even the two guys who host it. Having said that though it is, to me anyway, just one more pretentious step up the ladder above from karaoke in Fibber McGee's which is coincidentally also held on a Tuesday night.)
(Then again I may just be jealous because I cannot play an instrument.)

Anywho, so unfortunately I did have a few more tipples than I should have had before attending the gig so I was a little worse for wear even before the supporting acts had finished. From what I can remember though, and from the numerous shaky videos that I took on my phone, Ed Sheeran is a fantastic live act and I would probably go and see him again. His supporting act, a lovely lady, named Kal Lavelle was also very good and she signed a little beer mat for me.

Below I have posted one of the several dodgy videos that I took of the wonderful Ed Sheeran. I know it is shockingly horrific but I am no Spielberg. So enjoy the 25 seconds of Ed and I hope it doesn't put you off him.

And so I'll move on to the important part: Ceremonials.

image via google.images.com

Florence and the Machine's fantabulous new album. To sum it up, Ceremonials makes Lungs look like a vocal warm-up. Florence Welch (above) is probably my ultimate girl-crush despite the fact that my mum asked me on Sunday - while the lovely Florence stooped to conquer the X Factor - if she was a transvestite because of her abnormally wide shoulders aka man shoulders. It's basically a more grown-up Florence sound, making you want to be her friend even more.
Skip to: the beginning and start from there.
Put on repeat: Spectrum - (from where the title of this post comes) extremely catchy and it has a disco kind of thing going on that sticks in your head all day; Only If For a Night - chorus has the same power as Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) that I could just never put my finger on, like it is almost bursting out of the song itself. Also the image of a ghost who "should be so practical" stays with you long after the 4 and 58 seconds. It's a long song but worth every second because there is a sort of La Roux In For The Kill vulnerability to her voice that it may break at any second. So beautiful.

By the way, if anybody is expecting real album reviews here, then they are definitely in the wrong place. I will only download entire albums if I like the entire album otherwise I will just download a couple of songs so I will probably not bother to write about them. Hence if I do bother to download an entire album and then write about it, I will only have nice things to say. Other entire albums that I have recently downloaded include the Antlers' Burst Apart and Edward Shape and the Magnetic Zeros' 2009 offering Up From Above.

P.S click HERE for the lyrics of Spectrum, it pretty much sums up how much Florence has upped her game. No Lady Gaga ambiguity, no sexual innuendos. Just really poetic, perfectly formed lyrics.

Cheers for reading,

Jane