Renaud Garcia-Fons usually shares the stage with several others, but this Spring he released a solo album called Solo -- the Marcevol Concert. Kalimbass is one of the songs on this album and it's not only a great track, but also pretty incredible to see what one man with one instrument can create. It's not easy to find more music from this solo album, but you can hear some more excerpts from the album on his website www.renaudgarciafons.com.
This is just a rough demo of a new song Scott Orr is working on, but it's already beautiful. I'm curious about the final result, but I hope it doesn't get too smooth, it's fine as it is!
So this album had me in doubt. As I discover great music and share this with you, I usually skip the big releases that you will most likely read about of hear from without me writing about it. This is why I haven't written anything on that beautiful album by Michael Kiwanuka or that amazing debut album by my 2011-sweethearts Dry The River. They were both in my newspaper at some point over the last few months, so despite having listened to both albums A LOT, I haven't written a single word on it, and probably never will.
With that out of the way, let's look at Beach House, a Baltimore trio that has released their new album Bloom a few weeks ago. And I'll just tell it right now, it's perfection on a disc. It's a trippy Summer-record that'll make me want to walk around with sunglasses on all the time, nevermind the rain, thunder or snow. For the last week I've woken up everyday with this on my mind. I took showers with the door open, so I could hear the music, I went to work with it on my headphones and I ignored stopsigns because I was too far into the music to notice the rest of the world. Especially final track "Irene" is hypnotizing.
As I said this album had me in doubt, because Beach House has 260.000 fans on facebook, a decent record label behind them and I can buy the vinyl in my local online record store. There's a reasonable chance you've heard of them before. But some things are too good to ignore, too beautiful not to share and it would be such a waste if you'd miss out on this great record.
"This is the first single from Lemolo's debut full length album, The Kaleidoscope. The album will be released on July 3, 2012."
And what a fine 1st single this is. Very relaxing, dreamy soundscapes with a certain tension underneath. Perfect for dark Wednesday nights and rainy Thursday mornings. But probably just perfect any moment of the week.
There's a reasonably long list of albums, EPs en songs that I want to spend some time on writing about. Telling the webs how good that album, EP or song is. These albums etc have spend a decent amount of time playing on my stereo, laptop and/or mp3-player. And then there's Luchi and their brand new released Luchi EP.
Just started listening to this 5-track EP 3 days ago (thx to Bandcamp Hunter), but I'm hooked! "Falcor" is mesmerizing as hell, making it completely impossible not to move. The great thing is, it's not just 1 great, mesmerizing and beautiful song. There's 5 of 'em! With "Falcor" as my personal favourite, but "Clockwork" is just as great. and so are the other 3 songs on this fine EP. Which is rapidly on its way of becoming my first Australian import. I don't believe in rating albums, as it's all a matter of taste, but this gets 6 out of 5.
So I've been loving the shit out of The Rest's upcoming release SEESAW, but I'm holding back writing something about it untill it's officially here (mainly cuz I'll have the option of including whichever song I want using their Bandcamp-page). To support them and their great album I don't mind sharing some great live sessions they've done in the past. A few weeks ago there was a very special live version of Always On My Mind, today I suggest you give this live version of "John Huston" a few spins. It's not as warm as the album version, but there's nothing really wrong with that. It just proves (again) how great the songs are this band writes. Two more weeks untill the album is released, but there's a new FREE track to download, go here and get it while it's hot!
j. viewz has a new album out and this beautiful video belongs a fantastic track. I think I can listen to this all night long while I'm installing everything on my brand new laptop (I just hád to mention this, I'm sorry). Go to his website to hear more and order yourself a copy.
Last September I fell a little in love with Air Review's American's Son EP. After that I kinda lost track of them, something that can happen when there's this much great music being released almost daily. Last week I found out they did a live acoustic session in the Church of the Incarnation in Dallas.
This acoustic live session gives their songs some more warmth than the album versions and the harmonies are just beautiful. The videos give a nice impression of the atmosphere that was created. Watch all 4 songs at http://incarnation.airreview.net/.
More and more bands, songwriters and PR-managers are sending me music and besides that being extremely cool, it’s also becoming more and more of a hassle to combine with my ususal rounds around the webs. Resulting in tons of albums and songs floating around on my laptop for me to hear. No matter how much the inbox and my laptop fill up with music though, the really good music has its own way of making itself heard it seems. There’s a few folders almost unopened and there’s inzipped packages all over the desktop and there’s Mattew De Zoete’s 3rd album Colour Film (among other great releases, but we’ll just take the slow ‘one-at-a-time’ route this coming period).
Matthew sent me his album a few weeks ago and over that period of time I found myself slowly fallin’ in love. Like those perfect romances that start with a couple of nice, friendly dates. Where you just talk for ages untill it’s deep in the night and you say goodbye, spending the next couple of days wondering if that other person was as much entertained as you were. And when you’ve had the 3rd date and you shared that amazing 1st kiss, making you walk around with a huge smile on your face for days, being a total grinnin’ fool, you eventually realize it. You’re in Love.
My least favourite track on the album is the loudest song on the album. It doesn’t really fit in with the rest and I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t there. I prefer the more dreamy folkpop. The only really good thing about it, is when it’s over we set off to the final 2 songs on the album; first the extremely beautiful lovesong “We’re Dying”, and after that the album finishes perfect with “Hunter’s Moon”. A song that was made to finish off the album, making the order of the tracks of Colour Film a job well done.
As long as I receive albums like this in the mail I am very happy being a blogger and being contacted by people who put their heart and soul in their music. Colour Film is an easy-going relaxing album that I enjoy listening to at least twice a day. Great songs, great lyrics, Great album.
2021 update; the original track is no longer available, so it's replaced by this liveversion. The writings underneath no longer relate to it, but remain unedited.
Port of Call is Dutch singer-songwriter Pieter van Vliet. After releasing a very nice EP almost 2 years ago, he has now released his debut album Ten Feet of Wind. So far I've only heard this one song, but it's an extremely fine piece of music. It's less noisy than the songs I know from the EP, but the groove and his somewhat unusual voice (that works very well) combined with a selection of horns in the background makes this a very special and playfull song that I enjoy a lot and is with only 2.32 minutes way too short!
Not the 1st time Cub Scouts is on the blog and there's a very simple reason for that: They write great songs. To be completely honest, the video ain't that special. So if I can make a suggestion, try doing something else when you play this song. The song is catchy as hell and makes you want to party your arse off this Tuesday morning (which is a good thing, cuz usually Tuesday mornings suck ass). So focus on the tunes & your annoying day at work is done before you know it. Do you hear?
