Beach House - Wild
What better treat then a luscious new radio single by Beach House? 'Wild' hits all the right spots, a little summer feel to forget the dreary Belgian fall weather. You simply won't/can't hear anything quite as good as this on the radiowaves at the moment. I'm a little angry with myself for not getting tickets for their upcoming AB show, I'll have to make do with the good memories of their performance at De Kreun in May 2012.
SX - Gold
This three-piece from Kortrijk has a slight Beach House-feel, albeit with less guitar and more electronics. Apart from the title track and previous single 'Black Video', their new album 'Gold' contains some other gems.
Willow - Two Children
The 3D music video for their previous track 'Sweater' garnered some international attention and a couple of 100000 views on youtube, and Willow are now back with another single. Crossing the border into some classic The Edge riff-territories in the last riff right there.
Hooverphonic - Renaissance fair
Hooverphonic goes classic. Which isn't a big step away from what they've always done, let's not kid ourselves here. A track ideally suited towards Noemie's voice, so well done there, Alex.
Balthazar - Sinking ship
Strong candidate for next single from the 'Rats' album. Listened to the new Balthazar album, and it does not disappoint. Less bass, more violin, more Maarten Devoldere (and his typical vocal delivery). Recommended.
Montevideo ft Lara Chedraoui - Fate & Glory
Lara sailing away from the standard Intergalactic Lovers waters, and sounding quite groovy here. Excellent move by this Brussels band.
Blaudzun - Elephants
Another good single by one of the musical revelations among our neighbours in the north.
Bat For Lashes - Marilyn
This track was co-produced by Beck. Among the better tracks on the slightly disappointing new 'The Haunted Man' album. Still looking forward to her show at the AB at the end of the month though.
Lana Del Rey - Ride
Striking whiling the iron is hot, Del Rey (or more likely, her record company) is already re-releasing her debut album with some extra tracks. Ride is one of them. Even though I can't fully support 10 minute music videos for a track that's only standard length, I'm still on board of the Lana boat. What about you?
Jake Bugg - Two Fingers
Nice little track; the music press across the canal already branding Mr. Bugg 'the new Dylan' might be a little ambitious, however.
Ellie Goulding - Lights
In my last post, I proclaimed that Gouldings relationship with Skrillex is trumping whatever career she has at the moment, but seeing as this relationship appears to be defunct now, here's her new single! Standing up playing drums while simultaneously singing is always a little silly in my book.
Clock Opera - Into the mountains
Constructing a track around an arhythmic piano track is a formula Bombay Bicycle Club already mastered with their 'Shuffle' track, but still a nice introduction to this new band.
Disclosure - Latch
We know this guy from his Jessie Ware remix, and he's back with another excellent dubstep-light track with great vocals. The video is simple and effective, and slightly sticky. (Soulwax already had a similar concept for their 'When logics die' video years ago)
Breakbot - Baby, I'm yours
The Ed Banger music label used to be a big deal in the dance genre, Justice had their day and age but seems long forgotten in the dubstep era, so Busy P is turning towards more funky stuff, it seems.
Blende - Fake Love
I wish I could tell more about this, other than this track is released on Eskimo records, from Ghent nightlife fame. "Don't go messing with my heart/'cause it's gonna come back to you". Karma in a nutshell.
Candy Staton - Hallelujah anyway
You know Candy Staton from the original version of 'You got the love' (by The Source). The religious lyrics are almost gospel-like, but that voice is still something special.
The Rolling Stone - Doom and gloom
Even these rock dinosaurs got back together in the studio. Being more of a Beatles man myself, I have to admit this new single packs some punch and isn't half bad.
Band Of Horses - Knock knock
After the more fragile "Everything all the time" and "Cease to begin" albums, Ben Bridwell and his fellows decided to follow a more FM-rock route. But they can still whip out a good radio single every once in a while.
Carly Rae Jepsen - This kiss
I already featured the track in my previous post, but now, the music video is finally here. Disappointment reigns supreme however, the video can't hold my attention like the 'Call me maybe' one, maybe Ms. Jepsen is just lacking the stage presence that's necessary to pull off a (semi-)performance video. Disappointment too regarding the final mix of the track you hear in the official video. I've posted two videos below so you can compare yourself: the mix of the music video toned down the snare drum and synths, and mixed in more vocals and bass, instantly rendering the track less exciting and appealing, don't you think? My love for the thunderingly loud eighties snare drum might be making me slightly subjective here.
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj is a phenomenon that's hard to ignore. Here in Europe, she had to wait for the commercial single 'Starship' to reach the charts, but in America, she's already a big star. She shares the eccentric wardrobe with Lady Gaga (but less fashionably correct and more cartoon-esque with flashy colours) and an exotic heritage with Rihanna (Riri is from Barbados, and Minaj has some Trinidadian roots). She's also a self-proclaimed schizophrenic, having several alter egos, of which Roman Zolanski is most frequently present on her latest albums.
I think my first real encounter with Nicki was at Dominos Pizza Gent. There I sat, reading some book or magazine, patiently awaiting my fastfood fix, when Big Sean's video suddenly popped up on the in-store tv screen. Needless to say, the video caught my attention and led me to stumble upon her 'Super Bass' video (which is really the only single from her musical output I could fully appreciate at the time).
Fast forward a year, and Nicki released a new album, and the new commercial direction was a letdown, with singles 'Starship' and 'Pound the alarm' even taking refuge in oh so contemporary dubstep breakdowns. Luckily, Nicki returns with the new single 'The Boys'.
The story goes like this: Cassie (you might remember her from the excellent 'Me & u' track a couple of years ago) was supposed to have a single out "Money on love", but due to some issues that never happened and the song stayed locked up in some record company vault somewhere, until someone tipped it off to Nicki, who wrote her own verses for the song but kept Cassies chorus parts. And did an excellent job at that. The video is almost NSFW material, but if these 2 artists feature in it of their own volition, I feel I should be able feature it on my blog as well. Let me stress again that I like the track for it's musical merits (the juxtaposition of Nickis sped up rap bits with the fragile chorus! the amazing Cassie break! the Daft Punk reference!...), although I'm also slightly powerless to the eye candy presented in the video. I'm still not really sure why the hair salon has to be burnt down exactly, but I can now pinpoint three distinct tattoo locations on Cassies body...
Nicki Minaj ft. Cassie - The boys
Big Sean ft Nicki Minaj - A$$
Cassie - Me and you
Nineties
The nineties will always be part of my musical DNA, and my love for the decade is still growing ever stronger. Scarce is a new discovery for me, in the 90s, female bass players were omnipresent and Scarce is no exception. I especially like the bridge towards the chorus in this track.
Slowdive was one of the biggest players in the shortlived shoegaze scene. The last minute of this track is hauntingly beautiful.
I never really got into the all-female Smack The Pony comedy show, but this parody of nineties girl pop band is spot on. They also do a real funny Natalie Imbruglia Torn spoof (no seperate link, but you can find it around the 4:00 mark here).
And closing off with one of the heaviest live show performances to see the light of day in the nineties, the almighty Hum absolutely destroying the studio.
Scarce - All Sideways
Slowdive - Catch the breeze
Napkin - Big roof
Hum - I'd like your hair long
The Greatest Switch
The Greatest Switch is a yearly top 100 of the best dance tracks, as voted by the listeners of Studio Brussel. Every year, I stumble across some classic tracks that I like, and I decided to list some for you guys. Even if you're not really a fan of dance music, you still owe to yourself to know the genre classics, right?
Jones & Stephenson - The First rebirth
Jeff Mills - The Bells
Vitalic - La rock 01
Proxy - Raven
Daft Punk - Rollin' and scratchin'
Laurent Garnier - Crispy bacon
S'Express - Theme from S'Express
New Beat
Correlated to both the 'Nineties' and 'The Greatest Switch' sections above, apart from the shoegaze scene, one of the nineties scene that keeps fascinating me is the New Beat scene from the late eighties/early nineties. Not only do I like the mid-tempo, dark music with the repetitive bass and loud snares, also the whole scene ranging from the smilies, the dress code and the dance moves never ceases to amaze me. Just to highlight one aspect: compared to the hypersexualised world of 2012 (well...just watch the Nicki Minaj ft. Cassie video above), the new beat dress code and dance moves seem oddly desexualised. Everybody's sweating his/her ass off in layers of clothes leaving only the head and hands uncovered (I'll dare you to find some hotpants or cleavage in any new beat video), and the dance moves are abstract and at best playful, but not sensual at all. Notwithstanding, the typical sideways two-step new beat dance move is pretty awesome.
Anyway, I decided to list some new beat classics (merely scratching the surface here). From the dark, slow Amnesia (with a contemporary Stephanie Clerckx or Fiona Mandos on vocals!) tracks to the more commercial Confettis, it's all good!
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