Browsing Tag electronic
Wildcard (week 51):
Grand Corps Malade – Pas Essentiel
Grand Corps Malade’s lyrics aren’t socially critical per se, but Fabien Marsaud (his real name) wears his heart on his sleeve. His April single Effets Secondaires (‘side effects’) for instance, was a COVID charity track. Applauding the real heroes of the Corona crisis, the healthcare workers, all proceeds were donated to two French hospitals.
The same crisis was the inspiration for GCM’s new single, but this time, he points the camera at the cultural sector. In his home country France, like in most of the rest of the world, theatres and venues are closed. Not only out of fear of being potential virus ‘super spreaders’, but also because the governments label them ‘not essential’. GCM opposes that view. In a French newspaper, he calls it cruel and unfair. “It made me want to speak up about all of those things that may seem non essential, but in the end make life worth living.” Elsewhere, he calls the song ‘an ode to freedom’.
GCM wrote the track only at the end of November, with Swiss DJ/producer Quentin Mosimann. It contains a repetitive chorus that sticks in your brain. But even more clever is the incorporation of the whistle from Break Machine’s 1984 hit Street Dance.
Two weeks ago, An Open Letter To Creatives by The Lottery Winners was the Carte Blanche Music Wildcard. Grand Corps Malade’s new single is an equally heart-felt track, but about the cultural sector. I couldn’t agree more with the message of this song. That’s why Pas Essentiel is this week’s Wildcard!
Recommended as well:
Grand Corps Malade – Effets Secondaires
In the Wildcards 2020 playlist you’ll find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Werner’s Weekly (week 51)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Holy Holy (feat. Queen P) – Port Rd (Wildcard this week)
- The Lottery Winners – An Open Letter To Creatives (Wildcard last week)
- NewDad – I Don’t Recognise You
- Ocean Grove – Dream
- Slowride – I Feel Like You
- Texas & Wu-Tang Clan – Hi
- The Hold Steady – Family Farm
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Gwen Stefani, Calogero, Taylor Swift, The The, and more.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Georgia – Running Up That Hill
Last January, Georgia’s one-woman concert at ESNS was one of my highlights of the showcase festival. She played most of the tracks of her second album Seeking Thrills, which had been released a week earlier. But one of the stand-out songs she played was not on the record: a cover of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.
That omission has now been corrected. Last week, the ‘Ultimate Thrills Edition’ of Georgia’s album came out. 27 extra tunes make it a whopping 40-track release. 26 of those are (previously released and unreleased) remixes of the many singles off the album. And then there is Running Up That Hill. Georgia’s career was an up-hill affair already, by this cover, that fits her like a glove, will push it even further.
On the track, Georgia says: “Closing my live sets with Running Up That Hill has been a pure joy, and it sparked the idea to record it. But, it didn’t start there. Kate Bush has been part of my life and a major influence on my work since I could sing a note. Her music was always played by both my mum and dad, and when I began to understand the way that sound and production worked, I embarked on my own intimate and personal journey with her music. For me, it was more than just a cover, it was emotional, and an experience I’ll always treasure.”
Recommended as well:
Never Let You Go
About Work The Dancefloor
Started Out
Feel It
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Aili x Transistorcake – Dansu
I mentioned De Nieuwe Lichting (‘the new class’) here before. That’s the yearly talent competition of Studio Brussel. Over the last weeks, the Belgian alternative pop radio station announced the participants in the 2021 edition. Aili Maruyama, who moved from Japan to Belgium at the age of 7, is one of them.
She made her debut single Dansu with producer Orson Wouters, better known as Transistorcake. It’s an astonishing, hypnotic track, which blends genres like electronica and left-field pop. The intro alone sounds like a slowed down mix of the metallic snaredrum in A Flock Of Seagull’s Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You) and the bassline in The Artilleryman And The Fighting Machine from Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds. Which says it all…
And that’s only the music. The lyrics attract your attention in their own way, because they’re sung in a mixture of Japanese and English.
Both funky and spacey, Dansu is a hymn to dancing the night away. As far as De Nieuwe Lichting is concerned, it’s a winner if you’d ask me.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Wildcard (week 50):
Holy Holy (feat. Queen P) – Port Rd
If you like high-energy tracks, you can’t miss this one. Port Rd is Aussie duo Holy Holy’s first new music since their 2019 album My Own Pool of Light. This new single is a collaboration with South Sudan-born Melbourne-based rapper Queen P (real name: Piath Mathiang). It combines woozy, smouldering verses and big anthemic choruses.
On top of that, the track features a choir of sorts, made up of vocals submitted by fans. And it doesn’t stop there, for the accompanying video contains over 300 snippets sent in by devotees, responding to the track’s themes of collective shift.
Inspired by a quote from author Arundhati Roy about the coronavirus pandemic, Port Rd focuses on the terrifying-yet-exciting nature of change and what awaits on the other side.
This week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard is for Holy Holy (feat. Queen P)!
Recommended as well:
Holy Holy – Faces
In the Wildcards 2020 playlist you’ll find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Werner’s Weekly (week 50)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- The Lottery Winners – An Open Letter To Creatives (Wildcard this week)
- Monowhales – BL/FF (Fake Friends) (Wildcard last week)
- Bugs – Old Youth Feeling
- Indochine x Christine & The Queens – 3Sex
- King Princess – Pain
- Raave Tapes – Habitual
- Super-Hi x Neeka – Following The Sun
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Blossoms, Deacon Blue, Yungblud (feat. Machine Gun Kelly), and more.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Werner’s Weekly (week 49)
This is Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters, containing the two most recent Carte Blanche Music Wildcards, and the best of the other new releases in alphabetical order:
- Monowhales – BL/FF (Fake Friends) (Wildcard this week)
- Joel Culpepper – WAR (Wildcard last week)
- A Is For Arrows – Every Now And Then
- Lola Scott – The Eviction Song
- Rinse feat. Hatchie – Back Into Your Arms
- Tanaya Harper – Emma
- The Cribs – Siren Sing-Along
Click the links for more info and listen to each of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player below.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist. Also added last week: Miley Cyrus, Tori Amos, Yungblud, and more.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Raave Tapes – Habitual
On their new single, Australian duo Raave Tapes push their experimental pop sound one step further. Habitual contains both massive pop hooks and bursts of glitched-out noise and crushing, distorted bass. They blow the dust off industrial, so to speak.
While recording the song, Lindsey O’Connell and Joab Eastley used Lady Gaga, Nelly Furtado, Charli XCX and Nine Inch Nails as references. Eastley recalls: “Throughout the recording process, we found moments where we asked ourselves ‘Can we get away with this? Are we allowed to do it?’ Then we remembered that the points are made-up and nothing actually matters. We stood by our game-plan of unapologetically committing to guilty pleasures. Live it up baby.”
Lyrically, the track holds some pleasant surprises as well. How about the line ‘I put the ‘bitch’ in ‘habitual’, you put the ‘dick’ in ‘predictable’? Classic, I’d say.
With its beautiful verses and crunchy choruses, Habitual is instantly addictive.
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
Indochine x Christine & The Queens – 3Sex
In 2021, it’ll be 40 years since Indochine formed in Paris. In the beginning, they were mainly successful with an emerging new wave audience. Ultimately however, they crossed over to the general public. So far, they sold over 13 million albums and singles, making them the best-selling French band.
One of their first songs to reach a large audience, in 1985, was the single 3ème Sexe (‘third sex’). It was a hymn to sexual tolerance. Still one of their most popular songs, it continues to be played at radio. Also, the band regularly play it live at concerts, often in new versions.
Strange enough, the song is missing from Indochine’s recent ‘best of’ Singles Collection (1981-2021). But in good news: the band reprised the song (now titled 3Sex) with Héloïse Letissier of Christine & The Queens. They couldn’t have found a better (and more fitting) artist to perform it with. Where the original version was sung in a pretty aggressive, activist way, this version sounds softer. This is not only helped by the addition of a female voice, but also by a more electronic musical approach.
Let’s hope this song will get humanity one step closer to understanding, for there is still much to gain as far as sexual tolerance is concerned…
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
King Princess – Pain
21-year-old Brooklyn-born Mikaela Straus is currently making a living as King Princess. Her career exploded in March 2018, when Harry Styles tweeted a lyric from her debut single 1950. ‘I love it when we play 1950′. Next February and March, if everything goes as planned, she’ll support him at the European leg of his world tour.
Meanwhile, King Princess is working on her sophomore album. Pain, co-produced by Mark Ronson, is the second single to be released ahead of it. A rollicking pop song, incorporating old-school sounds like a house piano. It teams an upbeat melody with devastating lyrics. ‘I feel it now / Pain’.
Speaking with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, she said about Pain: “I think what I love about it is it’s got that fucking piano. It’s the ultimate George Michael meets Erotica-era Madonna meets an incredible remix if you’re in a gay club that makes you uncomfortable and horny.”
For more great new music, follow the constantly updated Carte Blanche Music playlist.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart. CEO of Werner Bros. tekst | uitleg.
