Quiet Is The New Loud

 

20 years ago when bands like The White Stripes with their reduced to basics sound were popular two guys from Norway brought us a different kind of music. Also reduced to simple acoustic guitars Erlend Øye and Eirik Bøe made the sound of that summer for me. I remember that I really liked their acoustic excursions into their kind of songwriting and I have to admit that it took me a long time to get back to Kings Of Convenience. After all these years the songs have still a relaxed mood and fits perfect to watch the sundown somewhere in summer. 

Kings of Convenience - Failure

Kings of Convenience - Toxic Girl

Øye later left the singer/songwriter island and moved toward the clubs and dancefloor with his German/Norway electronic dance music project The Whitest Boy Alive. A few years later Øye released a remix-album from Quiet Is The New Loud and some remixes like this one by Four Tet are also worth to give them a listen.

Kings of Convenience - The Weight of my Words (Four Tet Remix)

New Hype On Tuesday

 

Like most of you I can remember the days when we went out to see a band playing live. I can remember many gigs watching a young band playing empathetic set. When I was searching for Manchester's Blanketman in the internet it seems as they were famous for their live shows. And listening to their debut EP National Trust I can believe this. Seven songs in less than 20 minutes shows where they come from. A band that holds the flag of post-punk very high but with a massive pop-appeal. Most songs base on a jangly guitar and a forward drifting bass and with best ingredients of what made Manchester indie-rock made famous.

Blanketman · National Trust

Monday's Long Song

 

Last week a got the news that Norwegian duo Lost Girls released their first album called Menneskekolletivet, what means the human collective in their native language. It is the result of a long time collaboration between singer/songwriter, producer and composer Jenny Hval and mulit-instrumentalist Harvard Volden and I only knew her for some songs she released during the last years. I had no idea what I have to expect but the result is stunning and one of the best new sounds I listened this year so far. The album contains six long songs, two of them more than ten minutes and every song is different to the others. What combines them is that they try new structures in songwriting and arranging them. Like Lost Girls explains the music flickers between club beats and improvised guitar textures; between spoken word and melodic vocalt textures; between abstract and harmonic synth lines. If you find some time to listen to this you will get requited with a trip from spoken word over warm padded synths not knowing in which direction the song will develop.

Visions Of You

 

30 years ago now Jah Wobble released Rising Above Bedlam, an album where he combined influences of world music with his experiences of post-punk and the collaboration with Holger Czukay. On this album he made a great step forward away from his former roots but still with a deep tempered bass and melody figures I seldom heard before. He also collaborated on this album with Brian Eno and for some songs with Sinéad O'Conner, a voice I always liked to listen to. Visions Of You was probably his biggest chart success but I almost forgot how great this song and his bass lines were. One of my finest founds in my collection during the last days.

Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart - Visions Of You

New Hype On Tuesday

 

A few days ago various medias featured the first album by Louisa Pillot as one of the hottest acts around. She's a techno DJane and brings back the cold but pulsing industrial sound to now. I know that this is not everybody's cup of tea but I like the way she interprets techno and her roots in industrial music. Sometimes I remember Anne Clark from the early 80's who made a similar sound almost 40 years ago. Pillot raised in NYC and is now located in France and it seems the times are right for a renaissance of cold industrial beats and post-EBM beats. On her debut, she performs her vocals, which are spoken word rather than vocals, confidently and strongly, even when she talks about topics such as love, loss, death and eroticism. This debut album with it's stomping beats is a demanding but absolutely worthwhile trip to the darkest corners of electronic music. An album I really like to listen to. I am not sure if this is the start of a new series so make your own meaning about it.

Monday's Long Song

 

There are already some days gone since I published something on this pages. But to be honest I wasn't in the mood for this since they found blood in my motion at my latest preventive medical checkup. Crazy thought were running through my brain like how to live with cancer and so on and I didn't found the muse for posting something on the blog. Last Friday I had my final colonoscopy and I am so happy that the result is negative and I can keep on living the way I used to do. One of the first records I played after this result was the fantastic live album by Donny Hathaway from 1972. Still one of the best live soul albums ever.

Donny Hathaway - The Ghetto

 

Two days ago Serge Gainsbourg died and I think it is time to remember one of the greatest singer/songwriter from France ever. Not only because of his duets with Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin or his songs for France Gall he was a leading figure of the  Yé-Yé movement which could be described as the French pendent to beat music. I have to admit that I always had a fondness for chansonniers because they had mostly something to say. 50 years ago Gainsbourg released his masterpiece with a concept album telling the story of 15-year-old Melody, played and sung by Jane Birkin, who is approached by a man, Serge Gainsbourg, at Rolls-Royce. He falls in love with the young girl, spends his most beautiful time with her and finally loses her in a plane crash. He was always radical in any way he made songs and telling stories and never mind what people thinking about his art. A hero of my very younger days and still one you can listen to in present times.

Serge Gainsbourg - Melody

Compersion

 

Spring is ahead and it seems that many bands finished their work on new records during the pandemic days. The greatest surprise was that Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton aka Arab Strap will release a new album during the next weeks. I don't know much about the album as you can hear on bandstand but what I heard was good enough for me to pre-order the album. The song and instrumentation is dark and Aidan's voice fits well to this song.

Nike Soldier

Last week I got a promotion information by Sacred Bones Records that they are going to release next month of a new album by Alan Vega. Of course it is not a new album - it the release of his lost album which was recorded in a collaboration with his wife Liz Lamer and Jared Artaud in NYC between 1995 and 1996. The first appetizer Nike Soldier shows that he was still on a high level recording dark industrial motorik sounds and there was still a fire burning inside him. A song that is out of time of course but shows again why many bands name him and Suicide as a massive influence.  

 

Monday's Long Song

 

The latest release by Rude Audio is a collaboration by Marc Ratcliff and Dan Wainwright who gave us a few of the best songs/remixes during the last year. I heard this song the first time last Friday when Spotifiy released new songs according my usual listen. It is a song that I can't get out of my head and I had to listen to it several times during the last weekend. It is a song that could appear on his missed monthly shows by Andrew Weatherall on NTS. A gritty dub inspired song starting slow and develops a spaced atmosphere the longer it goes on.