Every year the 2nd weekend of July Rotterdam hosts the biggest indoor Jazz festival of the world, the fabulous North Sea Jazz Festival. And if i'm not mistaken this is gonna be my 6th year of being present for the whole 3 days. Just like with other music festivals the fun is not only in the 3 days of getting soaked with fantastic music, a great atmosphere and the occasional drink, but also in looking forward to these things. Usually i start a few weeks before the big weekend spending hours & hours listening to just about every artist that is visiting the festival. Due to the unforseen situation that has controlled my life over the past 2 weeks and is still very present, i haven't had any time for this, but i'm determined to prepare myself as good as i can. And so i set my alarmclock early this morning and i have spend the morning checking out the Friday Schedule, marking the things i just might find myself listening to this weekend. Check out my personal Friday tips right now, right here:
Mississippi - 19.45: Dulfer 7.0 Server incl. Rob Van De Wouw Last year this concert was cancelled after 20 minutes during the pouring rain, but it was 1 of the best shows i've ever seen @ North Sea Jazz. Hope this year will be as good and will make the full 75 minutes.
Finally something new from the most populair breakthrough band 2010 had: Mumford & Sons. They visited a Colorado radiostation recently and played this new track live and it's as good as you would expect from the band. Can't wait to hear the studio-version and more new material, but this is a great little teaser!
The 18 greatest songs i've discovered in the 2nd Quarter of 2011 almost completely combined on 1 great mixtape. Just 3 tracks are missing on this Mixtape, due to the fact that these are not free to share. Click the image to download the full file and listen to the 3 non-included tracks right below, which are among the best things i've heard this year!
It's only a few days 'till the best (jazz) festival in the world takes place: North Sea Jazz in Rotterdam. And aside from all the great jazz music i've discovered there, it's also the place i 1st heard about Fink. A great acoustic singer-songwriter with a raw voice. Over the years he has found his way to my record collection, but i must admit i don't listen to his records very often. The main reason for this is that not all his songs are equally great. His new record 'Perfect Darkness' which has just been released is not that different from the older material and with some ok-ish songs come the brilliant ones. Like the one up here, which is a song i can easily play over and over again, because it's intense, a little raw & extremely beautiful!
After a 10-day silence the situation has improved enough for me to spend some time on the internet again; there's some good tunes waiting for me and later today i will spend some time gathering the songs for the Plug in Baby! Best of 2011 - Part II mixtape. For now here's the latest collaboration by rappers Nas & Common, called Ghetto Dreams. It's a banger! Which is no real surprise with 2 rappers this great.
Just discovered this great EP an hour ago, but it's been on non-stop rotation since then. Which is not that hard, cuz these 5 songs take up a total of 12 minutes together. This just gets better every time i hear it and to make it even a great deal, Warm Weather is offering a download of this EP for free on their bandcamp-page. I suggest you give this a few spins, because this is one of the best EPs we're gonna hear this year!
Great new track by Memoryhouse to celebrate the physical release of their debut album with their new record label Sub Pop Records. Yet again a beautiful dreamy track, i feel a huge summervibe coming on..!
Chris Bathgate recorded a Daytrotter Session, which was released last weekend (click the image to visit the Daytrotter-site to listen/download). There's not much to say about this really, just that it is very beautiful. It's raining like crazy outside, but inside there's hot coffee, a semi-dark kitchen with just the light of the laptop and the sweet soft music of these 4 great songs. I could spent my entire day like this..
On several occasions it was pointed out to me that this is a potential Summersong for the year 2011. I have to admit that it has charm, but i don't really hear the potential. I gave it 6 chances while i was folding the laundry (so far the excitement for Monday night) and i decided it was worth putting up here & checking out the entire album (got this planned for tomorrow evening), which can be streamed on the Smith Westerns-website. I like this track, it's getting better every time i hear it, but will it go down in history of one of the defining tracks of this year's Summer? i doubt it..
Apparantly Bluebell is a friend of FOE, whose debut EP was on the blog last week. The music doesn't sound anything the same though, as Bluebell is much easier on the ears. The video however did really remind me of the things i've experienced on FOE's website, so there's somewhat of a link there. Doesn't really matter, cuz this is just a fine track. Which will even sound better on a hot summer night, too bad it's been raining all weekend..
