Welshly Arms are not from Wales. Nope. This four-piece, named after a sketch in Saturday Night Live, are from Cleveland, Ohio. They blend genres like blues, gospel, rhythm & blues and rock and mention Jimi Hendrix, The Temptations, Otis Redding and Howlin’ Wolf as their influences.
For those who find it hard to imagine how that sounds, just take Hozier in mind. If you like his music, you should definitely check out Welshly Arms. I bet you’ll like it!
I have enthused about Public Service Broadcasting before and my fondness hasn’t waned in those two months. On the contrary. This week, out of the blue, they present the first single of a new album. The follow-up to the massively successful The Race For Space (2015) and subsequent remix and live albums (both 2016).
This new track is called Progress and it is, indeed, a step ahead (although calling it ‘a giant leap for mankind’ would be a bit of an exaggeration). But it does introduce a new element, since this is the first PSB song that features a guest vocal, courtesy of Tracyanne Campbell, the singer of Scottish indie pop band Camera Obscura.
Hopefully, this added element – which makes Progress more of a traditional ‘song’ than their previous output – will translate into more airplay than Public Service Broadcasting received so far, making this their biggest hit to date and a wonderful set-up for their third album.
After playing in bands like Neighbour Neighbour and Yellow Grass, Bram Wesdorp now has a new project: Avi On Fire. I saw them live at the Noorderslag festival in January and instantly fell in love with their short and snappy, Foster The People-like pop songs.
Only one thing is wrong about Avi On Fire: their business model. I mean, these eight people on stage make great music and have great fun, but after sharing the money there won’t be much left for any of them.
Two out of those eight are the brass section by the way, which features prominently on their lovely new tune. Avi On Fire for the Win!
After a week full of great releases (by Fickle Friends, Blackfield, Maxïmo Park and others), that you can find in my container playlist Carte Blanche Music, it’s time to draw up the balance-sheet: what were the best new tracks of the past week? I chose the songs below (in alphabetical order), that you can listen to via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar. Click the links to read what I wrote about them earlier.
The Dutch capital of Amsterdam has been the subject of songs by Jacques Brel, Coldplay, Imagine Dragons and many others, Spring Offensive made a song about the Dutch town of (of all places) Hengelo and The Beautiful South sung about the Dutch city of Rotterdam.
That latter feat is now repeated by German singer Patrick Richardt. Rotterdam is the second single off his just released second album Soll Die Zeit Doch Vergehen.
Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting, the epic second single from her 1985 album Hounds Of Love, has been sampled and covered before. Most notable is Something Good by Utah Saints, which sampled the song’s line “I just know that something good is going to happen”.
American production duo Just Us take it one step further. Last year, they released a bootleg remix, called Everytime It Rains. It featured Kate’s original vocals as well as musical samples from Cloudbusting. Alas, these have disappeared from the final version, presumably because of copyright issues.
Effectively, what’s left is a cover version that sounds largely like an updated version of the original. But I think it’s been updated very sophisticatedly.
Jens Lekman is a man of quality, rather than quantity. Last month he released only his fourth album since his debut in 2004. The album Life Will See You Now is colourful and poppy. It features a song sung by Tracey Thorn (of Everything But The Girl fame) and two with American born Swedish singer LouLou Mamotte. One of those two is current single Evening Prayer, with a rather absurd text that you should really check for yourself.
Today, I present you with my favourite album track: Wedding In Finistère. Its Caribbean vibe and horn section are lovely, and the chorus is so full of words, that I’m curious how (if at all) Lekman could breathe while singing it. Even only listening to it will leave you breathless…
This week, the fastest moving chart for emerging European artists counts no less than 16 entries. Five of them are first-timers, including this week’s highest entry at #49: the disco stomper King Kong by Bristol production duo Icarus. At the other end of the spectrum, at #100, the wonderful Rat Boy (pictured) makes another entry with Lovers Law, the follow-up to singles like Fake ID, Move and Get Over It, all worth checking as well.
Elsewhere, Zak Abel re-enters the chart with the great Everybody Needs Love at #91, taking its chart time to an impressive 26 weeks, while his current single Unstable debuts at #95.
Much more information is to be found by clicking the ‘EBBChart’ tab at the top of this blog (loading of the PDF may take a little while). For more charts (like the Bubbling Under, which ranks the tracks that are on their way to the Top 100), please visit www.europeanborderbreakerschart.eu.
Quentin Mosimann is a Swiss DJ/producer. At the age of 20, he won the French TV reality show Star Academy and currently he is coach in The Voice Belgique himself.
He is ranked in DJ Mag’s Top 100 of best DJ’s for the fourth consecutive year, makes remixes for other artists and also releases his own songs. His most recent single is a great one. Never Let You Go features vocals by British singer Joe Cleere.
Nano Omar (or simply Nano, as an artist) is a Swedish singer-songwriter. His youth was somewhat troubled, ending in jail twice, but the future looks a whole lot brighter.
He released his debut single Lion in the spring of 2015, but he really came to prominence while performing in Melodifestivalen 2017, the Swedish national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. On 11 March he’ll compete with 11 other contestants to represent Sweden in Kiev.
Even if Nano doesn’t win the final, he still produced a great song. After starting off like a Rag ‘N’ Bone Man or John Newman kind of track, it evolves into a combination of pop and drum & bass that could’ve been produced by Sigma or DJ Fresh. I love it!
