New music: Little Fish

Sometimes music really can grab you, and I have always loved music that sounds like it is played by people who play like their life depend upon it. Little Fish is like that. I was touched from the first moment as the song came through on Last.fm. It made me go, what's this? And that doesn't happen to often. I really liked her voice, but at the same time for some reason felt a bit sceptical. But then I found a link to their YouTube page, and OH MY what a front woman Julia Sophie Heslop is. She has fusioned PJ Harvey, Nina Person and Skin into one. This is music that is dead or alive, that make you run around just scream along with the lyrics because http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifof her intensity comes through so strongly. So.. Enjoy! And oh! Who doesn't like a girl that can play guitar well too? Ha?

Official Homepage

New music and new album: The Duke Spirit - Bruiser

Since I first heard The Duke Spirit, I have been hooked. For me it was such a fresh breath of air to hear someone who still makes good arrangements, have great guitar riffs, and last, but not least, the voice of Liela Moss. She also is one of the greatest front woman I have seen in a long, long time. She in some ways remind me (and others) of Debbie Harris in Blondie. Thought they are very different, she certainly have the same edge and is able to hold you under her spell.
It makes me believe in contemporary music. It's been a long time since I have seen this kind of soul, heart and drive.

On their latest album Bruiser, they have done it again. This is classic great rock'n'roll that makes you want to party and run around the room, but thankfully there are more depth to it as well. Lielas voice is the core of it all, she takes you by the hand and takes you through tough screaming hard core rock tunes, but also more tender moments with an intensity that reminds me of PJ Harvey at times, for instance in the beginning of the song "Sweet Bitter Sweet". The guitar riffs are always edgy and if they had just gone totally through every song, it would have been very boring, though quite powerful. Thankfully The Duke Spirit are also masters of building up to climaxes and arrangements of instruments and when to take one or all away to give the music air and excitement. Brick walls of guitars works extremely well in small portions and I think they know :)

In addition to all of this the intensity is always present. I feel like shaking my head constantly to the beat. I always like artists that play and sing like they would die if they weren't allowed to do it, and I get that feeling from The Duke Spirit. I also tend to love music that I would love to play myself, because it sounds like they are having so darn much fun. This is no exception.

My favourites so far are "Everybody's Under Your Spell", "Villain" and "Surrender". They all have some kind of "perfect hit" sense about them. They are just darn good songs and good . But I am starting to love the others more and more. They are growing on me for every play. I love how "Everybody's Under Your Spell" has an amazing beginning of rhythms. You think you finally got the rhythm, but then it changes, before it plummets into the deep and drags you with it, and reaches a climatic refrain. So sexy, so raw, so cool. "Villain" is just deep haunting and grand.

To fully appreciate The Duke Spirit, you need to see them live though. I can see them live in my head when I listen, and to me that adds an extra dimension to the music. So here are my favourite live clips and other useful links:

Bruiser on Spotify
Home page

New music: Graham Coxon, Bill Ryder-Jones, Paloma Faith - Desire

Thanks to a great little ad-on thing for Last.fm that plays videos from YouTube, I just found a new song with one of the greatest guitarmen in the world, mr. Graham Coxon. He has lately become very active on both Facebook and Twitter and posts a life changeing song every day. Absolutely worth following! Anywaays..This new song is apparently a commercial for converse and it totally rocks!! (To say it very Americana). It's been a long time since I have thought that about something new, but I guess it's now wonder as things always rock when Graham is playing. The vido in itself is also extremely cool and nice 30's- 40's style :)

But... Excuse my ignorance who are the two others, I had to look it up... Let's see...
You can read more about Paloma Faith here! What an amazing voice!! I need to check out more of what she has done! And Bill Ryder-Jones is apparently from The Coral... Hm, they are ok. But a little bit of another league than Coxon at least. But now! Enjoy! :D



Behind the scenes:

New music: Radiohead - Staircase

Nothing can make you happier than when your heroes step back into the role of heroes again. The last 3 hours I have constantly been watching and listening to this video. I am hooked. I am stupefied. I am dumbfounded. I stare. I stare. I listen. I listen. And occasionally I am trying to get some work done. I can't wait to see the rest of the live concert. Something tells me it's going to make me love The King of Limbs as well. Possibly. It's good to see more people than Mr.Yorke.

New music and New Album: Veronica Maggio - Satan i Gatan

It's not often that the first round I listen to a album I find myself really enjoying and listening to the lyrics. Whenever that happens, it's quite a miracle and deserves a blog post just for that. I just put on the new album to the Swedish artist Veronica Maggio, just for fun and was totally blown away. Beautiful pop song with so much soul and honesty and power, lovely stuff! I am looking forward to checking out every little detail of the album as I go along. And her voice is amazing, it captures you and draws you in. It's sharp, demanding and clear, but in a very very good way. Great music for a Saturday morning, though not always so happy lyrics. If she continues in the tracks of the last album, very likely from what I have heard, she is highly self ironic and talks about her own little party life a lot, and I just like it. I wasn't sure when I heard her old album, it just sounded winy, but for some reason it now works! It's almost as catchy as Kent at times. And she's amazingly good at build ups to. Guitar riffs are almost as catchy as Håkan Hellstrøm. I guess this is Swedish delight. Makes me shake around the room. :) Enjoy!

Spotify link

And Jag kommer - I am coming.
This may easily be the one that ends up as my first favourite. Here is the video.

New music and new album: Gorillaz - The Fall

Well, as I have stated in this blog before, I pretty much like any music as long as Damon Albarn sings. And when it comes to the new Gorillaz album it's no exception. From the moment I put this record on it was just clear to me that this is a darn good record! It's something with the flow of the whole thing. It's just beautiful! Hurrah! Great new music, there is almost nothing like it.

Yesterday I read up a bit on the story of the Gorillaz as well and how that whole thing started. I love it:

"Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett created Gorillaz in 1998 when they were living together in a flat on Westbourne Grove.[10] The idea to create the band came about when the two were watching MTV, "if you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell – there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that," Hewlett said".(quote from Wikipedia).

I also read somewhere else that from the beginning the idea behind the band was to mix all kinds of genres and just see what happened. To me that must be the greatest idea for a band I have ever heard of. It made me respect and love them even more.

The new album The Fall was also recorded and made in a very interesting way.

"The entire album was recorded on group founder Damon Albarn's Apple iPad, during the American leg of the Escape to Plastic Beach World Tour in October 2010, and mixed in England by Stephen Sedgwick"(Wikipedia)

. If you look at the albums track listing it's very clear that this songs were made in different places in America. Most of the songs titles have some reference to the place where they were made. And to make it all in a quite new media and within the boundaries of that seams like a brilliant idea. To me that means you have to be creative in a whole other way than if everything is available to you. It seams like it can be both a comfort for the "musicmaker" and a horror. The Gorillaz succeeded, that's for sure. I want to make my own sounds too.

In some ways, the new Gorillaz album is what I hoped that the new Radiohead album would be.. It just sound fresh and exciting and new, but of course very much like Damon made it :) It will be exciting to see what Mr. Coxon will release upon the world soon. Oh how I wish someone could make these too make music together again. That would result in something truly new and exciting, I think.

Spotify
There is also supposed to be a new video on YouTube for Amarillo, but I can't find it. Feel free to look :)

New music (for some of you): BigBang

Sometime one comes across personal favourites that one doesn't understand why other people don't like. You try to get your friends into it, but nah.. On a larger scale, what about those bands that are great heroes in a country, but for some strange reason haven't made it out there for real. BigBang is one of those bands I think. I am not sure really to what degree they have sold records outside of Norway, but they haven't got the huge appreciation that I think they deserves. This is a band who has been around since 1992 and that I think all Norwegians have in their hearts to some degree. A couple of weeks ago they released a brilliant new album. I should probably write more about it, but the truth is that I haven't really listened enough to it yet, only enough to know that it is over all very very good.

So what can I say? BigBang to me has the same kind of solidness as you find when you are listen to R.E.M. Everything they do is just quality. It's just rock bottom steady and nice and just darn good! They are such great talented musicans. They are a great guitarist, bassist, drummer and singer. And when they make music together they just float. More then ever live. You just find yourself nodding you head along and thinking, "Oh, yeah! This is groovy!". As any good music the music speaks best for itself, so if you haven't heard about them or haven't heard enough, or want to hear it again, here are some links:
And remember to tell your friends..

Spotify
Home page
Live clips:
http://www.nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.7589062

New music: Arctic Monkeys and Foo Fighters

It feels like the whole of 2010 went past with any quality rock music. All my favourite rock band seamed to want to start playing some weird kind of 80's rock hard synth pop style and throw the guitars out the windows. Well, I like guitars, so shoot me. I like them a lot together with tons of interesting electronica effects too. But not rock bands who just removed all trace of the guitar band they once was. Some examples are the latest album from The Strokes', The Editors' and Kent's latest albums. And it seams like Radiohead has stopped doing rock and guitars too.

In all of this, I am extremely happy with the latest album of Foo Fighters and what I have heard so far from the latest Arctic Monkeys album. The Foo fighters are still masters at both amazing use of rhythms and the skills of hit writing that is almost at Bon Jovi and U2 level. The songs that stick around in your mind and you just love. I need to listen more to the new album, but so far it's just great and makes me go "oh, cool! " That is not often in my musical world. Arctic Monkeys released another single from their upcoming album on their web page to, and it just sounds as great quality as always. They just have their own significant and quite brilliant signature that stays with them even if they expand and grow. Let's hope the future will see more of this at other people too. There must be time for some rock'n'roll soon now. The last years have been either metal or pop.

Foo fighters new album on Spotify
Arctic Monkeys new single

New music: Justice - Civilization

Darn it, there is not much to say except, "Oh, how I LOVE French electronica". It's so elegant, so cool effects, so tight, so pretty, so well arranged, so just plain great. Justice is back and they have been listening to to their for-fathers. Makes me groove around the room.

Here, enjoy!

New Music: The King of Limbs - Radiohead

Every time there is a new Radiohead album this happens to me, I know that it's coming and I am not looking forward to it.

It's been like this since Kid A, I think. The first 4-15 times I listen to the album I don't really like it. I kind of hate it to be honest.

And this comes from a woman who has Radiohead's music in her heart-blood and brain core.

And I know that after a while the pieces of the puzzles will fall into their place and I will start to love them all like little babies, one after the other. I love the fact that it's music that I can dig into for years and still find new stuff, but at the same time it's a horrible process to get that far. This time I am also more scared that I have been in years.

To be very honest, I wonder what Ed O'Brien has been doing through most of the recording of this album. As a first listen a lot of the songs sounded like they could come from a Thom Yorke solo album.
I miss the layers upon layers of guitars, guitars in general and Mr. J. Greenwood's influence of the music. And I missed the brilliant arrangements and the excitement of different parts (On songs like Arpeggi, 2+2=5, All I need etc ). It all turned me quite sad.

Thankfully it is now slowly getting better. I am starting to see snippets of things I love here and there... Hear details that I know comes from them all, or I at least believe so.
I am starting to get used to the idea of an Radiohead album that is this stripped down. It took me some time. It also helped a lot to imagine the songs being played live in my head. That adds a energy that I think is somewhat lacking.

Pieces of brilliance that I have found so far includes: Codex in general, except a bit of a boring piano riff, the amazing first long tone that Thom sings, it's almost like Liam Gallagher on his best, there is some kind of double depth to the voice. Last night that song made me get chills for the first time, that must be a good sign.

I love that there are guitars coming in on Separator just when the song is starting to become so boring that I almost want to turn it off. That's a tiny piece heaven right there.

I love the middle section of Bloom in opposition to the rest of the song. I can hear a lot of Greenwood solo stuff there somehow. And I love Thom Yorke, but I want them both.
In general there is a lot of lovely groovy drums and bass playing, but it could have been even more exciting and in different time figures and stuff. Hm. But I am getting there.

Starting to love the guitars and rhythms on MorningMrMagpie also now. hm...
And I have loved LittleByLittle since the start.


Darn it. I am loving more and more of this. I think I am getting there again. It seamed impossible 24 hours ago. Sigh :)

And I really want to hear an interview with them now.

Are you now thinking. Radiohead? New album? where and what? You can click here

New Music: Matthew Kilford

Putting on Matthew Kilford's song "Zurich" feels like a movie starts in your head. In my head I walk through the door on the front of his album cover and into a room where the light falls in from the side and the window is open to a late summer evening. It's something very comforting, beautiful and peaceful about it. At the same time your heart and head catches that there is a little undertone of something a bit more sad underneath it all.

Kilford's guitar playing is just wonderful and spins around like some kind of nice little machine in the background, and I mean machine in a nice way. I am not sure exactly what kind of machine it is, but I think it is made of silver and is quite elegant and pleasant. In short, great guitar playing.

But most of all, what caught my ear, was this brilliant voice. It has it's own very clear beautiful, emotional and sweet tone, but also remind me of such great men as Simon and Garfunkel, Jeff Buckley (when he's calm, Jeff that is) and last, but not least Andy Yorke, brother of the more famous Thom. And when I tell you that Matthew also is from Oxford,it shouldn't be surprising as all good things to seam to come from there these days, at least Oxfordshire. Sorry, I apparently don't know my English shires :)There is someone else he also very much remind me of in the singing department, but I am totally unable to pin point it right now. But it's someone I really like, so a compliment.

Don't let this chance pass you, good people. Let's make this man get the fame he deserves. Why don't you start with the one on the bottom of this post. It has an truly great contrast between the verses and the refrain. I think we need to see this man live in Norway soon too.

And I haven't even gotten far enough to listen to the lyrics for real yet, but enough to know that it's beautiful. For me that is a bit like unwrapping a gift slowly.

My Space
Spotify
Youtube
Twitter

New Music: Spring Offensive

As I said last week, all good things seam to come from Oxford these days, and here is another example. If my Last.fm related artists radios keeps giving me such great stuff again and again, I think I might be addicted to "the Oxford-sound".

Spring Offensive is one of those bands who just made me go "Wow, this is great stuff" over and over again to my poor boyfriend. I just had to tell someone. The vocals are great, the way the guitars lines line up with each other is just beautiful. The bass and drums makes me want to get on my feet and groove to the beat in songs like "A Let Down". Over all there is just a great intensity in everything they do, that make me sit up in my chair and listen every time they randomly comes over my stereo. That intensity also comes through in the videos and seeing the videos for "Every coin" and "A Let Down" really did it for me. I want to see these guys live now! Apparently they are famous for one of the most touring bands in Britain, maybe they will jump on a ferry and go to Norway one of these days! If you look at the last clip of this blog post, you understand why. Great stuff.

Spotify link to Spring Offensive
Spring Offensive's Home page

Youtube videos:

New Music: The Winchell Riots

Sometimes it seams like all the good music in the world comes from one great place. And the last few days it's been all Oxford for me. First of all with the great Radiohead of course, but then I also remembered that other favourites of mine Youthmovies are also from Oxford. I was sad to read that Youthmovies have decided to split up, but at the same time I found a remix they had done and of course had to listen to the band that they had remixed. And oh hey ho and hallo!! hehe. I am in love with The Winchell Riots, maybe I won't be in a few days or tomorrow, but the first impression is just over the moon, and that is very seldom that I will say that! It in many ways remind me of some kind of Radiohead light, it has that great vocal and the great guitars and the fantastic rhythm and vibe. Oh yes, I love this.

I will come back with more detailed descriptions later, if I keep loving them as much as this and that is very likely :) But for now, I give you these links:
Spotify

And here are tons of clips from YouTube, I am still exploring myself. But so far I have loved every note. So let's enjoy!

The music of 2010 and Ôlafur Arnalds

(No, I have not stopped writing a blog, I will try to write a bit more often in 2011, and hope it is not as stressful as last year was, I truly enjoy sharing music with you all.)

As many of you know by now, the year 2010 was in many ways a very very sad one for me, when it comes to music. I thought most of the new music that was released was extremely boring. Every time I tired to listen to something new it either felt cold and unconnected and unemotional or like something that I had heard A MILLION times before. But I also find myself often liking things in retrospect rather than when it's just released, and you can kind of say it has already started, though I did listen to and liked this album in 2010, it's now that I have realized how brilliant this is.
So ladies and gentlemen, I give you the brilliant Ôlafur Arnalds. Even though one can argue that the melodies of this album is not the most exciting that you have ever heard, there is something extremely fragile and beautiful about it. You can hear the man that made the music through the music, and he most truly be a soul of beauty. And I also, not surprisingly, really love his arrangements. He takes his time when he's supposed to and build huge webs of melodies when he wants to.

You can listen to his album on Spotify here. It even has a wonderful title:
...and they have escaped the weight of darkness.
Here is also a link to his YouTube Page.

New Music: Sean Lennon

I can't believe I haven't written anything about the magnificent Sean Lennon here yet! I discovered him for real in around 2006, but I post it now as new music, because I believe too few people have heard this.

I have always thought that Mr.Lennon was the exciting Beatle, so I thought to myself... "Wait a minute, that Sean Lennon, he must be one talented guy with those parents, what kind of things have he done." So I searched him up on the internet, and there it was: Such great music. The scariest thing, that should not scare me, but still did, was the fact that his voice and way of writing music sounds so so much like his father. The melodies are just delightful, springy and catchy and the voice, yes, we have heard that voice before. I was awestruck and still is.

Young Mr. Lennon is not surprisingly involved in all kinds of musical and artistic past-times in New York, and I must take my time some day to sit down and read up on it all, and I will tell you more then. For now, let the great music speak.

Ah! And I of course was reminded that his whole name is of course Sean Ono Lennon, thanks to his brilliant website..

Sean Lennon on Spotify.

And here are some videos:


This one can't be built in, but is equally great:
Parachutes

Fran Healys first singel from his solo album

I have for months been awaiting Fran Healy of the band Travis' new solo album. As followers of this blog will have noticed, I am huge fan of Travis. I think I might be just as big fan of Andy Dunlop's guitarsolos as Fran's writing skills though. They have been a little up and down the last years too, I think, though I really liked their last album where they went a little back to their rock'n'roll roots. Anyhow I was eager to hear Fran's new song, but at the same a little prepared that it would be a bit boring maybe. And yepp, I am sad to say, but I was right. It's a very cute little pop song, but not particularly catchy, the lyrics seam quite random and a bit boring, and yepp I really miss the sound of the rest of the band. It's just quite frankly a little blend. I don't hate it, but it doesn't give me a little kick like a lot of Travis songs do. Let's hope there are other stuff to come from the album that I will like better or/and that Travis will come back soon. I am sure they will and sometimes you have to try something else to see what you are missing ;)

Here you can judge for yourself:
http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-song-travis-fran-healy-goes-solo

Fran is also writing a quite amusing little blog and he wrote about trying to fill inn for Tom Cheplin of Keane the other day. Very well written. Here.

New music: End of Fashion

Some of the best finds in music is find when you just jumble and stumble around on the net for instance on Spotify. I started to listening to an album called Essential Bands in there, cause I saw it had a lot of my favorite bands, and among the ones I hadn't heard before "End of Fashion" turned up. The song on the CD was OK and excited me enough to go and listen to a whole album of them and see if I like the rest. In most cases one is let down in those cases, but as I rolled into the second song on the album "O Yeah" I was still bobbing along, though it sounds an awful lot as the classic "Where is my mind?" by The Pixies. The third song on the slef titled album "End of fashion" is the amazing rock song "The game" and suddenly I was no longer in classic newer American alternative rock but in British rock in the style of one of my other bands Maximo Park. Hard, tight to the point and almost punky. The forth song really opened my eyes... And made me really stop what I was doing and listen. I suddenly heard Jeff Buckley singing without Jeff Buckley. "Anymore" is a quite standard pop/rock ballad, but wow! Singer Justin Burford sounds like Jeff Buckley and Kelly Jones of Stereophonics all in the span of a few lines. That to me, is one amazing voice. I still have to listen to everything in the rest of the album and will try to come back with more later. Now, the rest of my room needs to be moved.. And oh yeah, it's Australian, btw.. That's why I got confused about weather it sounded English or American. Apparently they have released a second album too.. hm.. I get confused when things are not on Spotify, need to find it somewhere else then :)

(Link to the album on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/2AUu4arz88yY0bGU84KjfD )

Here is my absolute favourite so far:
The game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOIEcNouQOo


Unfortunately this is the only recording of Anymore I could find: and the quality is really very bad, but you can give it a try if you want to:




But here is "Oh Yeah" that also give you a little idea about the great voice and also how to rip off a Pixies song.. hehe
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/klneeqK8O1QPHqlYSU

End Of Fashion - O Yeah
Uploaded by JUAN-PABLO-LOVE-MEXICO. - Explore more music videos.

New music: White Lies - To Lose My Life

Why oh why haven't I checked out White Lies until now. It's a pure mystery too me. I think you will see more of them around me in the future! Surprised that I like this music? Probably not ;) Time to sleep now, but it was good to devote the soul to some good music in the night and knowing that I have the day off tomorrow:)

New music: Youthmovies

I have always liked the rhythms of prog-rock but it's been something about the sound of the whole thing that has killed it for me so far. Maybe it's just me that has been a bit ignorant, but it has often sounded so so very 70's and 80's rock in the way the instruments sound, the horrible keyboards and rock-80's-vocals.

Last night on Last.fm a miracle happened. I found the amazing band Youthmovies! They play crazy prog-rock-jazz music with a British rock of the 90's sound. At least I think so. Very exciting and surprising, because for the first 2 minutes or so it sounds quite ordinary and then suddenly very strange things start to happen and it takes you away and sends you for a strange and long trip and at the end you end up where you started. Definitively my kind of music!!! Love how they use a trumpet and love the vocals. Enjoy!

This is my favorite songs so far: If You'd Seen A Battlefield and on their homepage you can see a lot more fun stuff and a great interview very strange and very funny people. Makes you wonder if they are really high.

Apparently this is also Mathrock? I think that might be a really good genre for me, so more about that later :)



This is the video for "The Naughtiest girl is a monitor" (remember high quality) Not that exciting song, but thought it was time for you to see what they look like.

New music: Australian awakening - Spiderbait

Sometimes one is just very lucky when it comes to finding new music and this has happily happened to me again. A few days back "inuitwomb" on Last.fm (great nick by the way ;), or Benn as he is really called, posted me a shout. He had found at that we had a quite similar taste in music and it's always good to meet people like that, that like a lot of the same thing as you and also a whole lot of other great things that you have never heard.

For a long time I have had this thought in the back of my head that it has to be a lot of great Australian music out there that I have never heard. The only thing I know that is Australian is Kylie Minouge and AC/DC... There had to be more than that coming from down under. So as Benn is Australian I asked him for some new cool Australian music and my oh my! I am glad I did. He on the spot gave me about 15 bands I have never heard of. I am now on my third band and I have LOVED everything so far, and that is very rare...

So people.. brace yourself for a lot of Australian coming from me to you in the time ahead!

First up is "Spiderbait" an amazing rock band.. One of the coolest things is that the drummer is actually also the bands singer and they have a guitarist and a female bass player. I must have heard them before, at least their single "Black Betty" was very familiar to me. It's very typichal down to earth bad ass rock, and I think they have music that are not just like that, but I haven't heard anything yet. They kind of remind me of a mix between The Pixies and Foo Fighters and PJ Harvey, Audioslave and Ida Maria right now... And there is some old school rock ala Ac/dc in there too. Great stuff. I give you Black Betty...

Ah.... and I of course now realized that Black Betty is really a classic song covered by tons of people.. that's why I knew it... Stupid me (Slap of hand to the head). But anyways Spiderbait's version is definitively the best one I have heard (and I have now heard quite a few as I have been looking for their version .. hehe) (You can see the video in HQ if you have Last.fm on the Last.fm page)