Mellifluous Music

Here is my current favourite new old music! I actually compiled this list of songs about two weeks ago, but only now have I had the time to edit it all into a post, so that's why they aren't really very new. Oh well.

Anyhoo, back to the music, today's selection is not that eclectic nor revolutionary, but just some good songs. I haven't really been listening to too much music lately, but this is what I have been enjoying.

N.B. When listening to these songs, put the quality on 480p+ as it makes a world of difference.

Florence + The Machine: Breath of Life, Josh Osho: Redemption Days

Florence + The Machine: Breath of Life

I first heard this song over a month ago now on Spotify and I was immediately really addicted to it. I was honestly slightly disappointed with her second album "Ceremonials" as I personally prefer the more ethereal sound of "Lungs" compared to "Ceremonials" which is rightly described by BBC Music as it "offers the pomp, but somehow not quite the power" - I almost find "Ceremonials" to be quite repetitive. However, I think this single combines the best aspects of both albums as it does include the massive choral sounds of "Ceremonials", but with the power of "Lungs". I love the orchestral accompaniment with the big tribal drum sounds, especially when it builds up in the major section with the string accompaniment. However, once that build up has finished, I think the song just goes downhill from there on. If they just got rid of the entire second section of song, it would be perfect!

 A quick side note here, this single is for the movie: Snow White and the Huntsman. I was actually quite excited for this movie as it has Chris Hemsworth and the clips shown in the music video actually look really good. But then I realise Kristen Stewart had the lead in it and since I think that she's a terrible actress, it put me off seeing the movie entirely. 

Josh Osho: Redemption Days

I first heard this song from his performance of it on Later Live with Jools Holland and I immediately wanted to search it up, not because I thought his performance was great (he seemed quite nervous, but I did enjoy the disc scratches, no one ever uses them anymore!), but because it is such a feel good song. It's definitely one of those songs that make you happy when you listen to it since it is so summery and has a great message to it. I can imagine this being really good for something like house music! I just wish they didn't stick the rap in the middle of it.

Maximo Park: Hips and Lips, Deliah: RIP by Rita Ora 

Maximo Park: Hips and Lips

First and foremost can I just say that the video for this song is bloody hilarious. Anyway, I'm relatively new to Maximo Park but this single is a cracker and I've had it stuck in my head all week.

Delilah: RIP by Rita Ora:

Okay, I try not to repeat songs I've already mentioned on this song, as I have already posted about Delilah and RIP on this blog before, but this cover is just so much better than the original. I love the almost reggae feel to the groove at the end of the song as it reminds of the background music to the pizza place in Club Penguin (wow did I really just say that?). I just wish she would finish off more of notes properly and hold them on a bit longer.

Aiden Grimshaw: Is this love?, Randy Newman: Short People

Aiden Grimshaw: Is This Love? 

I was not expecting this from Aiden Grimshaw, but it has been a very pleasant surprise. I'm so glad that Simco hasn't messed up his career like most ex-X Factor contestants. He's almost gone down a Alex Clare route with the huge drum track accompaniment, but I reckon this is better than Alex Clare. Something I have noticed is that the music video is almost visually identical to Delilah's Breathe music video, except with a male lead. (click here for my music post about that song)

Randy Newman: Short People

This is not a new song, but I really felt like including it. I sung this in choir one time and it was epic. Good ol' Randy.

AlunaGeorge: You Know You Like It, Bobby Womack: Dayglo Reflection (ft. Lana Del Rey)

AlunaGeorge: You Know You Like It,
Okay, I've literally sat here for about 5 minutes trying to think of how to describe this song, but I have come up with no words. Instead, imagine you put the musical stylings of Jamie Woon, James Blake and Grimes into magical blender, you would have delicious smoothie that would sound like AlunaGeorge, a duo from good old St Albans. Yippee.

Bobby Womack: Dayglo Reflection (ft. Lana Del Rey)
This song is smoother than a baby's behind and  Lana Del Rey's sultry vocals definitely suit it very well.

That's all for today - but I might finish over another post tonight if I'm in the mood...

PEACE!


Rebecca x

P.S. Do any HTML/CSS whizzes know how to get rid of the gap above my header?
P.P.S Sorry if I have made any blindingly obvious grammatical errors, or missed out words as usual, I have not written a post in so long, I'm a bit out of the loop
P.P.P.S. I would like to quickly apologise to everyone who follows my blog for not posting over one week! I think that is probably the longest I've gone this year without posting and I'm sorry! All my time and effort has been sucked into the 9 exams that I have had in the last 3 is weeks. Luckily it's almost half term, so hopefully I will be able to post more frequently. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post everyday during it, but I am planning on some sort of "blog every day of the summer holidays" type shindig as I am really missing just doing writing posts as well as outfits.
P.P.P.P.S In case any of you guys were wondering about the title of this post "Mellifluous" means smooth and sweet sounding.

Amateur

Waistcoat - charity shop, top - DIY, necklace - China, socks - Primark (most likely), sandals - M&S, shorts- Cba to say; you can't see them anyway...

Firstly, can I just put it out there that this waistcoat is the most amazing thing ever? It encompasses all my favourite patterns: zebra print, paisley, flowers - it's so awesome. What makes it better is that it only cost me £1.50 from a charity shop! Yes, when I bought it smelt a bit like musky grandmas, but a quick spin in the washing machine soon sorted that out.

Today is the last day I will ever have to think about English, as I had my last ever English literature exam! No more English - I did my language exam last year. I got out of the exam room feeling super happy because of that fact and also because the sun was beaming and I felt like skipping.

What made the day even better was that I got home before 11am, so I spent an hour outside reading in the midday sun. This is my perfect weather - sunny yet with a cool breeze. Today's outfit is both summery (sandals and shorts) and wintery (thick socks, velvet and woollen waistcoat). The weather here in the UK is always temperamental and bipolar, so I thought it was apt. However, things did not remain positive for long...

Firstly I could not find these sandals, so I had to delve into the shoe cupboard on a mission for find them! Luckily I did in the end - they were in a shoe box right at the bottom of the pile, reflecting how little I get to wear them, due to the rubbish climate. Once I found them and took some decent pictures, disaster struck. The entire SD became corrupt and deleted everything on it. Luckily my dad had a program that managed to retrieve everything that had ever been on the card, but since this was a 16GB SD card, this took a VERY long time.

Once we managed to savour the images, it turned out half of them were still corrupt, so I only had a few to pick from. Then I realised that they were slightly over exposed as it was too sunny for once (I even took these pictures in the shade!), and that they don't join together seamlessly since I did move the tripod around a little bit whilst taking the images. However, by this stage, I just thought to myself, ah f**k it and I decided to include them into this post. I love this outfit too much to waste the images.

So that was my good day turned bad and I have just realised I've wasted about 3 hours on this post, when I could have used them to do some revision. Oh well. 

How was your day?


Rebecca x
P.S. I've started editing the HTML of my posts, instead of simply composing them using the Blogger interface, which means I can finally get some decent sized images, but it also means that for some reason, you cannot view them on mobile devices, which sucks. I'm sorry guys, looks like you will have to just view my mug super sized on the computer.
P.P.S. I honesly have so many posts that I want to do - I've even started drafting them - but I'm afraid I've still got 9 more exams to go!

Supernatural

Argh, so many of me!

Headband - Topshop, t-shirt - Topshop, satin leggings - Cheap Monday, skanky shoes - New look, necklace - Topshop

Here are two items that I bought during "studying" (I'll get back to this later). I was going to write a haul post, but I find them pointless, so I thought I might as well incorporate it into an outfit, even though it's not that interesting.

Basically, yesterday I was dropped into town to do some revision in the library, but it turned out that it was closed! Therefore, I found a park bench and did some revision for about an hour. Then it started raining...

Since our library is right in our town centre, I decided to have a quick pop into some shops - i.e. Topshop. I found this t-shirt for only £7 in the sale section. I think it was mainly because it is really creased, and I'm sorry that I didn't iron it before taking these pictures. I realise so many bloggers have this top and it kind of looks like a pyjama top, but it was too good of a deal to pass off. I also bought this spiked headband as I like spikey head gear, as well as a burnt orange beanie that I forgot to photograph, for one squid.

I will try to be better at sticking to my revision, instead of spending my time shopping and writing pointless, trivial and superficial blog posts!

Oh, and if anyone is wondering how I got my hair wavy like this, I used this ClothesEncounters video tutorial. Enjoy!

See you later!

Rebecca x

P.S. I need to stop buying shirts with stupid phrases on them. This top has "SUPERNATURAL" written across it, hence why I called this post this. Something supernatural  means something that is departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature. Anyone with a brain would realise there is nothing supernatural with skulls; in fact they are probably the most organic and natural part of nature. Triangles are slightly less common but they can be found on tetrahedron shaped crystals, the geometry of spider's webs, carnivorous incisor, star-fruit and the arms of starfish - i.e. they are completely natural. Take that Topshop.
P.P.S. I also need to stop buying tops that have skulls on them and are neon coloured, like this one featured in this outfit post.

Cosmic generation

T-shirt - DIY River Island, shorts - local shop, maxi skirt - mother's, shoes - Vans

Today I had my French and music GCSE exam. Luckily music wasn't too bad, but French, on the other hand, was pretty disastrous. The exam paper was so tricky in the sense that in a multiple choice question, every single option was pretty much mentioned, with only small prepositions and connectives used to flip the meaning of it, so you would have to really listen seriously closely. I just hope that since everyone found it hard, the grade boundaries will be low, as otherwise I am screwed.

On the flip side, since I am now on study leave, I went home an hour early and instead of studying, I used this time to photograph my outfit. I got this t-shirt originally from the men's section of River Island in a size XS, but it ended up too small as I wanted it baggy. Thus, I decided to DIY-it, and made it cropped. However, you can probably tell that I accidental cut it wonky after being so self-confident and adamant that I would be able to cut it straight. I don't want to cut it even more though, as I realise I will probably cut it too much and make it far too short. 

Anyway, back to the outfit, I decided to style it with both a maxi skirt and these shorts. I'm wearing my most worn shoes - they have gone round the globe with me. I have worn these pink kangaroo Vans so much that there are two huge holes where my big toe has poked through the shoes, but I love them too much to throw them away. They are also the type of shoe that looks better with age.

On the radio they were playing House of Pain's Jump Around, and I was inspired to take some jumping picture  No ScatterrBrained post would be complete without some silly pictures!

Excuse the midriff.

Cheers big ears!

Rebecca x 

P.S. This post's title is "Cosmic generation" as this was the lame slogan on my t-shirt before I cut it. 

P.P.S. I have made the picture gigantic today, yay. 

P.P.P.S Bonus GIF for you guys, yay.

Minimalism

Last week I took this outfit post inside as it was raining really heavily as usual. I stupidly started taking these images at 8 o'clock at night, so by the time I had finished, like sun had pretty much set, thus the lighting is completely messed up all these images. However, I went with my usual motto of waste not, want not, and thus tried to make something out of it by editing the pictures as I liked the colour palette of the shoddy images.

Last night, as my GCSE music exam is only 2 days away (eeek!), I was revising minimalism in music and it inspired me to apply some of the characteristics of minimalistic music to my editing. I found it really interesting how you can just slightly alter a simple idea with a systematic, mathematical process to create something new with an almost hypnotic and entrancing feel to it, as it is with minimalistic music. Also, made me kid myself that I was actually doing revision when I was wasting time on this blog.

• Repeating ostinati/cell
• I have expressed this by using the same photograph over and over again.
• Layered textures
• I put layers of the same image on top of each other to create a new texture.
• Metric displacement 
• This is basically you start the same idea, but slightly after the first occurrence, so you achieve a canon effect.
• Static harmony
• Since I have used the same colour palette in all my piece, so the harmonic feel of the images are all constant.
• Retrograde
• Okay, this isn't a feature of minimalism, but I have inverted the images by turning them upside down to form mirror images.

Top - Primark, fishy looking leggings - Primark, boots- Doc Martens

I edited these images in probably with the dumbest method there is. The first image was easy enough - I simply pasted the picture into Microsoft PowerPoint, duplicated then flipped the images. However, the ones that are layered were done using a very idiotic method. When you click and drag an image, a preview of what the image is going to look like appears, but it is translucent. Thus, what I would do is click and drag the image on top of itself, and then press print screen to capture what it looked like. I think this is hinting to me that I should really download some actual photo editing software and learn how to use it. Anyone have any suggestions?

Some other minimalistic methods I would really like to try out if I actually learnt how to edit properly:

• Phase shifting
• This is basically when something starts together, but becomes increasingly out of sync, before going back into sync again. To work out when something will synchronise you use lowest common multiple - I find it quite interesting applying mathematics to physical situations.
• Metamorphosis
• This is when something gradually changes into something else, one step at a time. 
• Note addition/subtraction
•  Adding or taking away one note at a time so a melodic part fades in/out.
• Note augmentation/diminution
• Slowly getting longer/shorter in note value.

My smiley face necklace is actually a trolley token.

My violin music teacher was telling me about how I should think about what colours I am trying to produce with my violin in the pieces that I play, and I think I finally understand what she means. It's really quite interesting how different mediums of art are all pretty much linked and can be intertwined.

Wow, this has been quite an abstract post, but oh well. I hope you guys understand my logic behind what I'm saying. If you don't I hope you enjoy the images.

Rebecca x

P.S. Thank you to the lovely Maria for putting my blog on this UK blogger map, which I think is a great idea.
P.P.S. Argh, study leave has started but it means endless exams are looming - PANIC.
P.P.P.S If I had to chose a song that reflected on the overal aura I'm trying to convey with these images, I would chose Oblivion by Grimes.

Silky silky

*SKIP TO THE END TO SEE A SEXY SPANISH DANCER*

Ah the return of crappy editing! Since the weather has been below double digits today, I was not in the mood to freeze my arse off outside so I decided to take some pictures inside where the lighting is not great at all, hence the crappy editing and messy bedroom. Cold weather does mean that I can finally wear a hat without getting a headache from my head getting too hot. Also, I had my awesome friend MP today to help with the photograph taking, hence the cheesy smile.

Bowler hat - River Island, Silk shirt - mother's, trousers - not sure, brogues - M&S

Chain/fringe necklace - Accessorise, plain choker - H&M, yak necklace - from when I went on holiday to the Sichuan/Tibet border

I decided to pile another necklace again for these close ups, yet I forgot to retake the entire outfit pictures. I love the yak necklace so much as it reminds me of such a good holiday, but I never know what to wear it with. I love how it has Tibetan scripture on it and how ginormous and lethal it looks.

I also love this shirt and it's another one of my mum's old tops but this one is pretty much brand new. It's made out of this luxurious silk fabric that is so lightweight and soft on your skin. I love wearing it so much as the slightly over sized fit is great, but I hardly ever wear it out in case I ruin it. 

Also, just like to mention that my hair is NOT wonky, regardless of what it looks like in these images. My hair looks like it is much shorter on one side simply because I had started my french plait much higher up on one side, thus pulling up all the layers in my hair, making the resultant normal plait at the end shorter in length than on the other side, honest! I hate how thin my hair has gotten at the ends though -it's because I'm constantly cutting off the split ends.

I am literally so proud of this - wow, I waste so much time in my life.

With yesterday's outfit, I felt like I looked like a farmer, and today I think I am definitely conveying the Spanish flamenco dancer look. Hell yeah. I forgot how much I loved drawing on MS Paint. (click here for a drawing of a naked man)

Stay awesome,


Rebecca x
P.S. I hope everyone is having a fab bank holiday weekend. I have done little to zero revision, even though the most important exams of my life so far are less than a week away.
P.P.S. A bank holiday means possibly three outfit posts in three days? Stay tuned to find out if this happens!

Farmer in the yard

ZOMG! Yes, that's right, your eyes are not deceiving you - I have finally managed to take some pictures that are both in focus and have required no editing except from some cropping! Booyah.

Earrings and necklace - Topshop, denim shirt - mum's old shirt, aran jumper - hand knitted, waistcoat - mum's old, leggings - Mango, brogues - M&S

A sticky stick

Please excuse my appearance! I'm a pretty low maintenance person as it is and since I took these photos in the morning, my face is still really puffy. I am also not wearing any make up as I am lazy. My right eye was also super blood-shot when I woke up and is still really dry so I was not in the mood to be messing around with them anymore.

I love how almost ever single item featured in this outfit has some sort of history. The lovely creamy aran jumper was hand knitted by either my great-grandma or someone else of that era, thus it is definitely one of a kind. My denim shirt worn just so the collar is peeking out (it's also featured in this post) was my mum's and she told me it was one of the only tops she wore when she was pregnant with me! And as for those amazing tortoise shell sunglasses, I have no idea where they are from, but they are very, very old and very, very fragile. They have been cut out of genuine tortoise shell and I am always scared that I will break them whenever I try them on, but they just looked so cool that I had to feature them in this post!

I realise this isn't the most flattering outfit, but who doesn't love dressing up like a farmer?

A pitch fork and I, as I felt like I looked a bit like a farmer - my head looks disjointed in this image.

Ahaha! I just had to include this.

That is all! See you tomorrow.


Rebecca x

April round-up, the future of this blog and Grimes

*Feel free to skip to the end if you aren't bothered about me rambling on*

A little long side note to start...I have been writing on this blog for 4 months now (a third of a year, gasp!) and I feel like now is a turning point in my blogging life. From the outset, I did have in mind of making it slightly more fashion based, but it had been something that I logistically couldn't do, but now I can. I love doing the fashion posts, but I feel like that outfit posts don't really reflect the person behind the lens. You don't get to know their personality, what tickles their fancy or what floats their boat - in my case it is cheesy idioms - hence why I am doing these types of posts too.

I know I have a lot of new followers to my blog, so I am a bit apprehensive if I should publicise my personal life to stranger, simply because I doubt many people who don't know me personally would be interested in my measly life. The last thing I wish to do is to discourage people from following my blog! However, this blog is for own personal space where I can write whatever I want, and I am going to write whatever I want, regardless of what the expectations are for a "fashion" based blog. In the end, I am blogging for my personal enjoyment, rather than to see if I can get the most views/followers (even though of course that is fantastic too). This blog is going to be for my satisfaction rather than to please others - yes, I am selfish.

Cut things short as I have been rambling for sometime and I bet I'm boring you to death, I was going to start another blog solely for fashion related posts, but then I realised that I have barely anytime to tenderly care for one blog, let alone two. Therefore, I'm going to keep all my posts on this blog. If you are only here for outfits, you can press the little x in the corner, read no further and I am truly sorry for wasting space on your dashboard. But if you want to carry on reading, please do so!

Anyway, back to the actual post...
I'm sorry guys! I am a total of 4 days late for my monthly summary, simply because I have been so busy with work towards/revision for my GCSEs. Better late than never eh?
Click here for my March round-up.

In April I have:

• Had an awesome trip to Paris with my parents. Click here for my Parisian daily diary. Oh how I wish was I was still chilling in the streets of Paris, rather than drowning under the vast amount of revision I need to do.
• Went to London for MK's birthday for ice skating and a Vietnamese dinner :).
• Started fashion blogging and have finally got more followers than my age! Yipee.
• Finished my resistant materials GCSE. Yipee. 

Okay, it seems like I haven't much this month, but I spent half of it in France and half of it working my behind off.

Goals for May:

• Get some darn good GCSEs. Okay, now that we are pretty much on the home stretch, the last push will really make the difference between As and A*s so it's time to knuckle down and stop writing pointless blogposts like this and start to do some intense revision. 
• Revise
• Revise some more
• Revise even more
• Succeed in my exams - I have a total of 14 of them. 
• Get some decent quality outfit posts up. 

Carrying on from my last goal, I have finally sorted out my camera issues. My genius father made this really, really long extension chord with some wire, attached a switch and thus made  a remote for his Nikon camera, so I can actually be in focus in my images!  I have also digged out a tripod, so fingers crossed, the quality of my blog posts will improve drastically. Exams also mean study leave, which means that I will not be going into school everyday, which means, I will not have to wear uniform everyday, which means MORE OUTFIT POSTS OF BETTER QUALITY.

Current obsession: Grimes
Okay, I realise this doesn't quite fit in with this post, but since it is pretty much all higglety pigglety already, I thought I may as well add in someone that I have really been getting into after an spellbinding performance on Later.. Live with Jools Holland, one of my favourite television shows. She's called Grimes and I saw her mentioned in the ASOS magazine being described as "two-parts forest pixie, one-part Lykke Li". If you didn't know, I absolutely love Lykke Li, so I was keen to search her up. The fact that she had green hair with a totoro on her shoulder also drew me in to find out more about her.

It turns out Grimes is nothing like Lykke Li - the only similarity I can find is the fact that they both have high pitched voices and are really hot. The closest comparison I can make is to Blood Orange, but less R&B influenced and almost Oriental sounding with her use of the pentatonic scale on the synths, and obviously with a girl on the vocals. She creates a electro, atmospheric, entrancing sound that is topped off with her baby-sounding vocals. I'm not sure why, but I reckon a really low female voice would also go well juxtaposed with her synth-ey sound, but her high pitched wails do the trick. Her image is just weird enough to be alternative and edgy without being weird freaky - I love it.

 If you have made it through this marathon of a post, I congratulate you.

Rebecca x


P.S. I decided to change up the tabs under my header and also added a "FAQ" and "About" page. The fact there is one pixel between the header and tabs randomly is really pissing me off! Any wizzes at HTML know how to get rid of it?
P.P.S Outfit post tomorrow!