On her upcoming full album Into The Waves the fragile-voiced Sophia Knapp takes us on voyage from the late night hours of a disco afterparty to a sunrising beachwalk somewhere in between the late 60s or mid 80s.
From marvelous melodic psych pop to tropicalia ballads... at night at its best!
Directed and Shot by Bek Andersen.
Edited by Bek Andersen and Olivia Wyatt.
Produced by Sophia Knapp.
Hiding his face behind ying/yang scarfs, this mysterious artist O F F love (London/Paris/Berlin/?) pierces right through your heart with his ice cold RnB. Slowmotion rhytms, tempered exploding beats and a piano...I wanna be around this music!
So very excited I took my first listening to the new and critically acclaimed full album that Active Child launched earlier last year.
-You are all I see- takes off with the title song and has -as the singles Hanging on and Playing House- some great hits/songs on it. But overall I was a bit under the impression that the whole feeling on the album was floating on the same level/voice/tones. It is a great album, but less diverse and surprising than the EP was.
I was a little bit -not-sure-what-to-expect- but still quite curious when the lights went out and Pat Grossi appeared on harp.
From the first song -You are all I see- you could taste the vibrance in the air. They could make it happen live! The vocals, the harp, the effects and my favorite Rotonde concert hall gave me several goosebump moments!
By combining the more spacey and sacral songs from the full album with the more up tempo hits from the EP you never got bored and felt always in the middle of the music!
Although you can wonder, is there a great voice behind the echoes and the high-pitched effects?
Well, in a few minor occasions I had the impression that Pat Grossi's voice wasn't strong enough to carry the songs on his own without the effects. But then, again, more with the older songs with less echo in them, it worked out very well!
I must say, the concert was over in no time...i was really absorbed, didn't get bored, got goos-bumped, had happy feelings, had a bit doubts about the echo, but loved it in the end!
(ALTHOUGH he didn't sing I'm in your church at night...but hey, it's just because it's my favorite Active Child song).
Although a first listen gave me an overall wintery and even Christmas-kinda feeling,
I really like this new song by Swedish band Korallreven. Its sounds almost expand in time and space,
like a dizzy-making experience inside your ears.
Sa Sa Samoa, by Korallreven // Directed by Filip Nilsson. Produced by Antoine Piechaud // Cinematography by Fredrik Backar Big Productions, Paris / Folke Film, Stockholm
taken from ACÉPHALE (already out in November 2011)
By the end of 2011 Jagwar Ma was tipped as one of the artists to watch out for in 2012.
So about time to take a listen to their -already- internet-wise released song Come Save Me and it's dark glowing b-side What Love? in a production by Ewan Pearson.
Australia born Jono Ma brings us almost catchy sing-a-long-songs with a big dose of vintage '60 handclap drumbeats and a pinch of swirling psychedelia in the background. But your hair up high and let your hips shake on the excellent Come Save Me.
But take -maybe for Valentine's Day sake- also a listen to the b-side What Love? While Come Save Me is best played during sunny daytimes, this What Love? becomes the soundtrack to a dark and tantric slow-dancing club-night. Catchy in a hypnotic way.
Jagwar Ma will be releasing these songs on 27th February on blue rider music...check them out and don't let them get out of your sight...they will be big!
Everytime Brussel based dj PLUM releases a compilation, it's time to stop what you're doing and take a listen to his music build up out of what seems an eclectic mix/collection of songs ranging from easy listening indiepop to wavy soundscapes and laptop-tronica.
His latest mixtape Twisted Squares takes you on a musical trip from smokey clubs to poorly lit backrooms driven by compressed sounds and synths...by the likes of Jay Haze, Toro y Moi, 1000names,...
listen to the mix here (or below) and admire the tantalizing artwork, also by the hand of PLUM.
While cleaning up I came across some old magazines and one flipped open almost directly to the page where I saw this amazing forest gazing back at me! It was the Forêt Noire wallpaper designed by French artist Nathalie Lete for Domestic.
In her own distinctive fairytale style she created a sober dark wallpaper inhabited by sometimes resting, sometimes startling looking wildlife. Say hay to Mister Deer, Mister Owl, Miss Bunny...
Available in limited edition at Domestic, where you can also find the more spring-y version called Forêt Verte, with the same imagery but in lighter, greener tones.
When I saw this picture I just awed and thought...this would so fit in the bedroom-scene in Kubrick's 2001 : A Space Odyssey!
Hamburg/Berlin based design company Lightboys created a set of ceiling lights to create design for a part of the room that is often forgotten.
Jirko Bannas and Oliver Seltmann, both creatively obsessed by the idea of the light-picture, they founded their light-design studio in order to create the ultimate flat and uniformly illuminated lightwall.
For their Rooftop Ceiling Lights they used some ultra-sharp en enlarged pictures of a variety of ceilings in different styles like a Renaissance-dome, a Baroque church, une verrière, a crystal chandelier, a mirror-ball,... all fixed in a light and almost invisible frame creating -as they say themselfs- a forth dimension!
Your eyes will be focusing on other heights now...
When it comes to design vs. animals I've got a soft spot for the ones that approach it in an abstract but funny way...
so when I met The Corkers I smiled!
Based on the idea of what to do at the end of a dinner party -no more wine but a lot of corks lying around- and no one wants to go home...?
Thanks to a collaboration between Israeli design studio Monkey Business and Reddish you now can have fun even when the bottle is empty!
The concept is quite simple : a little cardboard box you can hang around your wine/champagne bottle is filled with little"body" parts that allow you to make such cute animals/creatures as there are a buffalo, a DEER, a monkey, a bunny, a crow, ...
So if you collect them all you can even make non existent dream-creatures...
A stylish dream-pop song by the Swedish band YOUNGFUCK (very hard to google).
This beautiful but also nervously flashing video/song is about getting lost and then finding oneself among
buildings, disco lights, gadget tablets, girls/grandmothers partying, plants and
stars.
Welcome into the world of Gregory Crewdson...since I've seen his (to me) Ophelia-ispired picture I was strangely intruiged by his way of portraying the all American suburban town.
His cinematographic and detailed styled pictures can give you shivers, scare you but most of all make you think of the story behind it all...What happened here...? A bit Twin Peaks, a dash of Twilight Zone with even a pinch of Desperate Housewifes...arty-scary!
Maybe because nature drags us back into our warm homes cause of the icy wind and snow outside, but I just wanted to share this collection of nature/design inspired furniture.
Branche Bookshelf by French artisan designer Olivier Dollé.
Let this tree grow in your house and fill it up with books, objects or even stuffed birds and squirrels!
