Carte Blanche Music

Arthur Adam – O

oktober 29

Arthur Adam is a talented and respected Dutch singer-songwriter with a great, instantly recognizable voice. He is part of a multitude of bands and projects, where he follows his own inclination, playing music from the heart and never avoiding an experiment or two. Often, his music isn’t easy listening, but it isn’t meant to be. One of his bio’s started with the line: ‘Arthur Adam makes music because he has to’. His current bio states: ‘Arthur Adam makes music out of deep personal need/urge’. What’s not to praise about that?

Still, the music he puts out under his own name often does come very close to pop music. Pretty random examples are Happy Hangover, Dividing A Spider, Older and She’s A Mystery.

As one of his first supporters, I was happy to learn Arthur recorded a new EP, entitled Dances. It was a spontaneous affair. This is what he wrote me about it: “Last summer, I suddenly felt like recording a few songs, and that’s what I did: made the plan in July, rehearsed and recorded in August, mixed and mastered in September. What came out was a guitar pop EP with up-tempo pop/rock songs, influenced by Weezer, early Joe Jackson, Ben Folds, Joni Mitchell, Darryl-Ann and the rest of my record collection.”

That’s some bunch of references!

All six of the tracks on Dances were recorded on 21 en 22 August by long-time musical partner Tim van Doorn, who also played the bass and mixed and mastered the songs. Arthur Adam sung, played guitars, drums and keys. The EP is out now on Van Doorn’s and Adam’s own label BandBus Records.

My favourite EP track is simply titled O. A rock song full of energy and drive, a bit like Voicst’s Whatever You Want From Life. But the other five tracks are very much worth checking out as well. Pop music for grown-ups.

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

werner's weekly

Werner’s Weekly (week 44)

oktober 29

Who said rock is dead? Last week, Buffalo Tom, Johnny Marr, Nothing But Thieves, Sam Fender, The Struts and White Lies all came up with great tracks, that I gladly added to the Carte Blanche Music playlist. As you may know, it only contains the best new songs for you to discover (not only rock, by the way, but music, great music). Just follow that playlist and let me do the ‘dirty’ work. I love it!

As an example of what you’ll find there, below is my ‘best of the best’ selection: Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters. If you can spare 26 minutes, you can hear them all in full via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar. Otherwise, just click the links of the tracks of your liking to find out more (including the song itself, of course).

Isaac Gracie – Show Me Love (Wildcard this week)
Harts – Shake Ya Pants (Wildcard last week)
FIDLAR – Can’t You See
Jealous Of The Birds – Marrow
Leoniden – People
Noémie Wolfs – Let Me Down
Only Yours – Everlasting

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

blues | funk | indie | pop | rock

chart, ebbchart

European Border Breakers Chart 26 October 2018

oktober 26

I love it when a plan comes together… Earlier this month, I raved about Sophie & The Giants’s single Bulldog and this week, it enters the European Border Breakers Chart. At #31, they’re the highest debuting artists in the Top 100 (behind Sam Fender at #19, but he had multiple EBBChart hits before). Congratulations to singer Sophie Scott (who’s soaring voice lies somewhere between Florence Welch and Alice Merton), guitarist Toby Holmes, bass player Bailey Stapledon and drummer Chris Hill!

Bulldog by Sophie & The Giants (pictured) is one out of seven tracks that enter the Top 100 this week (on a total of 23 (re)entries). These are all seven of them:
#19: Sam Fender – That Sound
#31: Sophie & The Giants – Bulldog
#42: Broadstrokes – Underwater
#44: Jimothy Lacoste – Fashion
#86: Youngr – Monsters
#96: Pom Poko – My Blood
#99: Altin Gün – Seker Oglan

For the full Top 100, click the ‘EBBChart’ tab in the top menu of this blog (loading of the PDF may take a little while). More charts, like the Tips (ranking the tracks that are on their way to the Top 100), the Airplay Chart and the Streaming Chart, are available at www.europeanborderbreakerschart.eu, where you can also listen to all of the tracks and watch their videos, as well as share them via social media.

single track

Cesare Cremonini – Possibili Scenari

oktober 26

Around the turn of the century, Italy was under the spell of a hugely successful band: Lùnapop released only one album, …Squérez?, but sold one and a half million copies of it. In Italy alone! I still adore their debut single 50 Special. Alas, in 2002, frontman Cesare Cremonini officially announced the dissolution of the group. He has since pursued a successful solo career.

In 2017, Cremonini released his 6^th solo album Possibili Scenari, which proves his songs are still as catchy as ever. Italy never stopped loving him, rewarding his latest long player with the platinum status. Ahead of the singer’s ‘Cremonini Live 2018’ tour, he releases the title track off Possibili Scenari as his new single. A song that will grow on you!

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

pop | rock

single track

Leoniden – People

oktober 25

This week, German band Leoniden will share their second album, Again. Leading up to the long-player, brothers Lennart and Felix Eicke, Jakob Amr, Djamin Izadi and JP Neumann already released the singles Kids, River and Alone. New single People makes it four in a row.

Finger snapping, hand clapping, a killer chorus over a house piano, untameable energy… it’s all here in another poppy rock song you can dance to.

After Leoniden’s sophomore debut album, the band started their own record label, won the New Music Award in their home country, played a lot of gigs and toured with Franz Ferdinand. I’m curious where their new material will bring them!

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

indie | pop | rock

single track

Jealous Of The Birds – Marrow

oktober 25

Northern Ireland’s Naomi Hamilton, a.k.a. Jealous Of The Birds, appears to have been experiencing a period of inspiration and productivity in recent times, leading up to the release of her EP The Moths Of What I Want Will Eat Me In My Sleep, only last summer, now followed by the announcement of her forthcoming EP Wisdom Teeth, on 1 February 2019.

Marrow, built on a soothing guitar melody that accompanies Hamilton’s angelic vocals, is the first single off her new EP. A sweeping rock song that shows off her multi-dimensional talents.

Hamilton explains: “Marrow is my attempt to articulate what it’s like to be a human being navigating one’s inner and outer worlds. After I graduated university a year ago, I became much more resolute about chasing a life in music, art and travelling. To me, this song captures that sense of striving for authenticity in all its colours and forms, whether that’s in love, in one’s career, or in one’s spirituality. I think it also taps into this idea of the individual versus the collective, and the ways we assimilate what’s happening for us on a personal level with all the chaos and intensity of the world at large.”

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

indie | pop | rock

single track

Apre – Backstreet

oktober 24

Charlie Brown and Jules Konieczny are two songwriters, producers and multi-instrumentalists from London, who form alternative electro-pop Apre. They first met at the Chess Club, where they were allowed to use the back room to start making songs and rehearsing their creations live.

Hot on the heels of two EPs (The Movement Of Time and Drum Machines Killed Music) they released in only a few months’ time, they just shared their new single Backstreet. Apparently, the two aren’t thinking of slowing down any time soon.

Starting off with vocals over a simple piano melody, the listener is immediately drawn into the song. The smoothly flowing chorus, which is sung by Brown and Konieczny together, could have been part of a song by British band Jungle.

Apre’s breakthrough can’t be far away!

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

electronic | pop

single track, wildcard

Wildcard (week 43):
Isaac Gracie – Show Me Love

oktober 24

Isaac Gracie’s record label released six singles off his self-titled debut album (one of them being former Carte Blanche Music Wildcard Silhouettes Of You). Five out of those six were down-tempo tracks, effectively positioning the artist as a balladeer. James Bay, who signed to the same major company, got the same ‘treatment’. A shame, for both artists have more rock in them then those singles gave them credit for.

Hopefully, Isaac Gracie can set the record straight with his new material, and especially the tracks that are being put forward to promote these new tunes. His first new song makes me hopeful. Show Me Love is an up-tempo affair, with a structure out of the (streaming) book: after a short intro, it kicks off with the track’s title, and continues with verses and choruses that are equally catchy. After just over 3 minutes, it’s all over, making you long for more.

It’s early days, I know, but with more songs as strong as this one, the future looks bright for Isaac Gracie. For starters, Carte Blanche Music shows him love by choosing his new single as this week’s Wildcard. As a result, Show Me Love by Isaac Gracie is always only a mouse click away…

In the Wildcards 2018 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.

pop | rock

single track

Noémie Wolfs – Let Me Down

oktober 23

Three years after leaving Hooverphonic and two years after releasing her wonderful solo album Hunt You, one of Belgium’s most talented voices, Noémie Wolfs, is back with a new single. Let Me Down is new in every respect. Produced by Yong Yello, a young producer from Antwerp, it has a completely different sound than her previous material. Fans of Portishead or fellow-Belgian Selah Sue are sure to like this.

The singer says about this transition: “I had this idea to combine my kind of pop music with oldskool hip-hop drum loops. Yello was the ideal person to try and make this work, since he has a background as a beatmaker. (…) The violins you hear in the intro of the song are samples that we found on old and shady records from the forties and fifties. It was very cool to work in that ‘cut and paste’ kind of way.”

Lyrically, Let Me Down is the story of two opposites. She’s in it for the tease, he’s in it for the ride. Wolfs: “I like to write about strong women who take control, mainly because I’m just like that. I don’t see Let Me Down as an autobiographical story, but there are lots of elements in the story that I can relate to.”

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

pop

single track

Only Yours – Everlasting

oktober 23

Only Yours are a Toronto-based four-piece, that make electronic pop music, combining dreamy elements with high energy parts. Led by acclaimed songwriter Lowell Sostomi, the band released a few singles and an EP in 2016 and 2017. Now, they’re ready to unleash their debut album Overrun, which is set to come out in 2019. Put together with the help of a dream team, it was produced by Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, The White Stripes, Morrissey), engineered by Leon Taheny (Arcade Fire) and mastered by Emily Lazar (Beck, Haim, Coldplay, Brandon Flowers).

Following the album’s first single Doubts, Only Yours just shared their new single Everlasting. Sostomi: “Like gripping sand, the tighter your clasp, the faster it falls. When you intuitively feel something slipping away, you can’t help but cling tighter to it. I wanted to convey a desperate energy in Everlasting, a vibe that feels smooth and calm on the surface, but eventually festers and builds up into a chaos.”

The track features a sax performance by Destroyer’s Joseph Shabason, which helps to accentuate exactly that.

For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.

electronic | indie | pop

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Arthur Adam – O

Werner’s Weekly (week 44)

European Border Breakers Chart 26 October 2018

Cesare Cremonini – Possibili Scenari

Leoniden – People

Jealous Of The Birds – Marrow

Apre – Backstreet

Wildcard (week 43):
Isaac Gracie – Show Me Love

Noémie Wolfs – Let Me Down

Only Yours – Everlasting

Wildcard (week 46)

Werner’s Weekly (week 47)

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Wildcard (week 46)

Werner’s Weekly (week 47)

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