counteracting
the disorder
of daily life
Daft Punk photographed by Sharif Hamza for Dazed and Confused, December 2010
Love the info and that you responded! And yes, Manners live was really incredible. Thanks!
Feedback, suggestions, and critique encouraged from everyone!
Icona Pop, Caroline Hjelt (L) and Aino Jawo (R)
Icona Pop - Good for You
Last night I heard the Swedish duo Icona Pop was going to be in town. It was a must-go. Over the past year, I have developed an affinity for poppy, European, electronic music, sometimes even the real trash- Velvet, Heaven, Inna, etc. So when these two popped up on the show ‘Girls’ and subsequently everywhere, including the top ten of iTunes, I was all over it.
Poo poo all you want, but these chicks are dynamite live and to me, that’s the real test of artists, especially ones who could easily hide behind a slew of electronic generated sounds. Aino Jawo has a beautiful voice, paired with her onstage mixing skills is fabulous. Caroline Hjelt brings the stage presence that top-chart songs and tweens crave, adding her decently voice to create the kind of music “which you can both laugh and cry with at the same time.”[2]
Their EP, Iconic, includes ‘I Love It,’ featuring the Brit Charli XCX, ‘Ready for the Weekend’ which has characteristics of Skrillex’s ‘Rock That Body’ and ‘Weekends’ making it a great song live to up the dub-wub but avoids the real heavy dubstep and heads to pop-house-dance instead.
‘Manners’ the weakest song on the EP; however, live they kill it with the vocals and up the bass to become a great song. ‘Top Rated’ and ‘Sun Goes Down’ featuring The Knocks and St. Lucia. Give ‘Good for You’ a listen and decide what you think. Maybe you’ll just decide to keep it on repeat.
King Charles - Love Lust
With this catchy, toe-tapping beat this West London born musician falls into the category of childhood musician, classically trained, turned “indie mainstream.”
I define “indie” as non-mainstream music from talented musicians, where vocals are combined with guitar, and each artist uses further accompaniment from other instruments, usually ones absent from the mainstream scene. This quickly developing genre can be hard to define; it is easily pegged as “the hipster” genre, aka people who like things that aren’t popular or not yet discovered. The areas this “genre” encompasses is vast and the boundaries, as with many genres, are quite fluid and self-determined.
“Sounds of Spring Playlist” from the people at Kinfolk Magazine
Metric - Help I’m Alive
One of my all-time favorites.
Political Beliefs of Composers
Just finished recording vocals and my new awesome paper drumset for Faux Fix’s new Little Smokestacks collaboration. You can listen here- http://www.hitrecord.org/records/1228622
Amazing new addition of paper(!) drums from Colin Meyer of The Soldier Story!
By James Gavin
A few years back, I visited a jazz pianist who had made his mark in the ’70s with a reflective series of albums on the ECM label. This was one of my first interviews for a now-finished biography of his former employer, Chet Baker [out in April 2002 from Knopf]. As the recorder ran, my host—known for his fierce intelligence and for the refinement of his playing—kept referring to “that faggot” who had produced a somewhat homoerotic documentary of the once-beautiful trumpeter and singer. After gorging himself, grunting and burping, on Chinese food, he listened with me to a vocal recording that Baker had made in 1955, when his singing suggested a shy little fawn. The pianist spat out in disgust: “He sounds like a girl!” Read Full Article Here
