One of the delightful traditions in musicland are the Kitsuné Maison Compilations. The important French Kitsuné label uses to make a compilation every half year,...less or more. So the 9th version, Kitsuné Maison 9, will be released on April 26th, 2010. It's also called the "Petit Bateau edition or The Cotton Issue".
The Kitsuné Maison compilations are generally seen as a good indication of the musicians and bands who'll going to make it in the near feature. That's why it's quite important four young musicians to be included in the selective Kitsuné list. Many musiclovers will check them out if they're on one of Kitsuné's compilations. Not all the bands are new or still need to make it, like Crookers.
So what has Kitsuné Maison 9 to offer? I'll give some highlights:
For the rest there are some great artists like Fenech-Soler, Penguin Prison, Two Door Cinema Club (& Lifelike), Yelle, The Twelves, Yuksek, Jamaica, Washed Out and others. To summarize the compilation you can listen to de minimix by JBAG:
Tracklist:
01 Washed Out - Belong 02 Gambble & Burke - Let’s Go Together 03 Penguin Prison - Animal Animal 04 Jamaica - Short And Entertaining 05 Crookers Feat Yelle - Cooler Couleur 06 Jupiter - Vox Populi (Lifelike Treatment) 07 Yuksek - Supermenz (We’re Not) 08 Fenech-Soler - Stop And Stare 09 Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work (The Twelves Remix) 10 Logo - La Vie Moderne 11 Silver Columns - Brow Beaten 12 Holy Ghost! - Say My Name 13 Hurts - Wonderful Life (Arthur Baker Remix Kitsuné Edit) 14 Gypsy & The Cat - Time To Wander (Joan Of Arc Remix) 15 Feldberg - Dreamin 16 Your Nature - Forward Motion 17 The Good Natured - Your Body Is A Machine (Zebra + Snake Remix) 18 Monarchy - The Phoenix Alive (The Octans Edit)
Bunny Lake is a electro-pop trio from Vienna, Austria, the members are Suzy On The Rocks, Christian Fuchs and Dr. Nachtstrom. They remind me a bit of the the Belgian electro gods Nid & Sancy but also Terry Poison or Soldout are comparable.
Their new album, The Beautiful Fall is released on March 19. If you like electro and disco this is something for you! The LP sounds very funky, it's the sort of energetic hyper disco music that succeeds to send our bums to the dance floor.
The rythms almost never slow down and the beats are awesome. I'm a bit lazy today, so I'll only focus on one song, Ganz Wien first of all it's sung in German and secondly it's about drugs, quite a nice ode to their home-city.
Tracklist:
01 - Swallow the Darkness 02 - Into the Future 03 - Army of Lovers 04 - 1994 05 - Charlotte Goodbye 06 - The Last Days of Disco 07 - Hello Anita 08 - Hit the Ground With Me 09 - Resurrection Girls 10 - Ganz Wien 11 - When the Night Begins
I'm a huge fan of shoegaze, but not that much of progressive rock. However the French band, Les Discrets (originally called Enfance) managed to create a fusion between shoegaze and metal, and this combination is awesome! However it's really more shoegaze than metal. Les Discrets will release their début album, Les Dernières Pensées De Septembre, on 29 March.
Their shoegaze is aboslutely fantastic, it contains very strong walls of sound and the explosive power of their guitars just amazes me. Moreover, this brilliant band sings also in French. I've never heard shoegaze in French and I must say that I really like it!
Their style is really unique and I like every song of their wonderful album. Of course it's created in a very tense and dark atmosphere. The guitars deliver a battle of music and ambient waves.
However some songs are quite different. Like Sur Le Quais, it's almost acoustic and way calmer than the rest, it's almost folk! And also the title track, Les Dernières Pensées De Septembre, is calmer, you can hear a beautiful singing together with some soft rock drums and guitars. Also the last song, Une Matinée d'Hiver, starts quite slow but in the middle it transforms into a true shoegaze masterpiece.
I'm in love with this band, they've created something that goes beyond my imagination. If you're a shoegazer like me, you should definitely get the album!
Tracklist:
01 - L’ Envol des Corbeaux 02 - L’ Échappée 03 - Les feuilles de l’ olivier 04 - Song for Mountains 05 - Sur les Quais 06 - Effet de Nuit (Song composed for Phest) 07 - Septembre et ses dernières Pensées 08 - Chanson d’Automne 09 - Svipdagr & Freyja 10 - Une Matinée d’ Hiver
Lissie (Maurus) is a young indie-folk singer/song-writer from Illinois. She's very able to make it this year, Lissie just released her début EP, Why You Runnin' in the end of 2009 and her single Everywhere I Go is hyped by RCRD.LBL. She's now touring in the US and UK, her first album will appear in the summer. As you can hear, she has an amazing voice, and a creative mind to generate beautiful songs.
Besides the evil removal of my blog I also experienced something wonderful yesterday. I had the honour to see the a concert of the Canadian genius Owen Pallett. You might know Owen Pallett as Final Fantasy. And If you don't know him from FF you may know him as the guy who arranged the magnificent strings of Arcade Fire. If you don't know Arcade Fire, please leave my blog,...no please stay and read on I mean.
Anyhow Since he transformed in Owen Pallett, he released his masterpiece/album Heartland in January 2010. So this concert was part of his Heartland-tour.
But as the tradition wants, there was a warm-up act. And as the tradition requests, the warm-up act sucked BIG TIME. (However, when I went to Beach House, the warm-up was Lawrence Arabia, a great musician!) Anyhow this time it was a Norwegian "progressive and super-violent" heavy-electronic/metal band called Next Life. It was certainly one of the worst performances I've ever seen. Thank God I had those ear protectors with me! The keyboard-player had very long hair, which were hanging before his eyes while he was freaking out and the guitarist was a kind of Azian kid. He looked a bit like the freak who shot all those students at Virginia Tech some years ago. Anyhow, this was probably the worst combination of all times, cause Owen's music is not violent at all!
So when that horrible noise (calling it music would be an insult) was over, it was Fantasy-time!
He came on the stage before his gig started, to make sure his violin and keyboard were ready, but strangely, nobody clapped their hands or freaked out. It was as if no one knew how Owen really looked like.
Anyhow when everything was ready, the lights went down and he went on the stage encouraged by the enthusiastic public. Unlike most of the concert's I've seen this year he went solo (in the beginning). He, his violin, a keyboard and a sampler. And my dear readers, it is absolutely unbelievable how Owen handles his sampler. If you're not familiar with it => wikipedia definition He didn't need the National Czech Orchestra to support him on stage (they delivered the music on Heartland) but we can crown Owen as the king of sampling!
Besides the sampling there are two things he can do even better: playing his violin, not only with his bow, but also with his hands, pulling and bouncing on the snares and also on the wood of his violin. And of course singing! A true virtuoso.
So he played a few of his songs of Heartland and his last (and best) album as Final Fantasy, He Poos Clouds. I really must apologize, cause I love all the songs on Heartland and the other albums but I just can't remember the name of the songs. They confuse me! I taught I heard like ten times Keep the Dog Quiet, but it was always a different song!
Anyhow after some songs his companion Thomas came on stage, a cool guy who played the bass guitar, sang a little bit and played the drums. He and Owen formed a nice duo. The funny dancing of Thomas was also quite amusing, but couldn't really distract me of Owen's amazing voice and violin.
One of my friends went to see him, Sunday in Lille, a city in the north of France, close to Belgium. He told me that the public there was quite rude and someone even threw a piece of paper against Owen's head. So he was very happy with an enthusiastic public as we were. He even told us we were 'so sweet!' and that it has been way too long since he was in Belgium last time. The public rewarded him with even more applause. He also wasn't afraid to make some little jokes on the stage, I can only remember one, he was comparing the start of a song with the start of water skiing (ok, it was funny when he told it...).
Then it was time to create some intimacy, as mister Pallet said himself. So Thomas left the stage and our hero gave us some beautiful and out-of-the-world versions of some sings with extraordinary violin solos.
And the show wasn't yet at it's climax! It had to wait till Thomas came back. They played a magnificent version of Many Lives -> 49 MP. To generate the weird sound of him screaming from far, he jelled in the micro on his violin, it looked as if he was screaming through his instrument, nice! The song led us to an orgasm of sound, which gave about everyone goosebumps.
They ended the concert with my favourite song, Lewis takes off his shirt, also a brilliant performance.
The public went mad so Owen and Thomas, sweet as they are, came back for two more songs! The last one was a cover but I didn't recognize it. After a deep bow and a long applause, their amazing gig finished.
I was totally overwhelmed by his talent and music-power and I returned home with a gigantic smile. Which was destroyed by Blogger an hour later...(When I discovered Blogger deleted by blog).
The indie folk band Mumford & Sons became very popular in Belgium since I posted about their album some months ago. However, I dare to question if it's cause of my blog...
Now another folk band is going to send their new album to the record stores. Murder By Death, a foursome from Indiana, will release their fifth album, Good Morning Magpie, on April 4.
Many of the bands I'm listening to these last times, are very into cello and strings: Owen Pallet (which I'm going to see tonight! So you can expect a revue this week), Joanna Newsom, Geographer, not to forget Johannes Brahms! And also Murder By Death uses the warm power of the magnificent cello. (Although it's said that it's an electronic cello).
They sound as I said a bit like Mumford and Sons but the vocals of singer Adam Turla remind me of Elbow! And also their rock songs are a bit Elbow-ish, certainly with those strings. They're not afraid to use some influences of rock, blues and country. So we don't have to be afraid to compare them with monseigneur Johnny Cash.
The new album is excellent folk-rock. Adam Turla tells us some stories with his narrative voice.
The second song is one of the best on the album: As long As There Is Whiskey In The World. It's quite country-like and it does remind me of Little Lion Man(Mumford And Sons). The Dark Streets Below is more a blues-folk song, with the trumpets and wild jazzy drums. In the middle of the album they take a turn into the direction of rock, supported by the cello. Piece By Piece is definitely a firm rock song. Foxglove crowns the cello as main instrument, which is very nice as it's played very tense. One of my favourite tracks! After this highlight the earth turns dark for the very heavy White Noise, an amazing mysterious track, it reminds me of dEUS and Jeffrey Lee Pierce. To end all this darkness the album concludes with a wild rock song, The Day, not that great, but still ok.
Good Morning Magpie is a decent and even admirable album, unfortunately some songs sound a bit less intense.
Tracklist:
1. Kentucky Burbon 2. As Long As There Is Whiskey In The World 3. On The Dark Streets Below 4. King Of The Gutters, Prince Of The Dogs 5. Piece By Piece 6. Good Morning, Magpie 7. You Don't Miss Twice 8. Yes 9. Foxglove 10. White Noise 11. The Day
Since Blogger deleted my old "Hadrian est où?" blog yesterday (23/03/2010), I've decided to make a new one. So I can proudly present you "Hadrian est où? (II)"! I'Il start writing more stuff about good music, just like on the last blog.
Who’s In???
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One night I was thinking…thinking about how awesome our family is. I’m
sure many other people feel the same way about theirs and maybe I’m a
little partia...
korallreven - as young as yesterday
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new dream pop sounds from sweden's korallreven in the form of 'as young as
yesterday'. taken from their debut album 'an album' which was released
earlier ...
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