Browsing Tag melancholic
Nerina Pallot – Ta Chance
Ever since her debut album Dear Frustrated Superstar, from 2001, I’m a big admirer of Nerina Pallot’s. Her second album Fires, especially, is a favourite of mine. Singles like Everybody’s Gone To War and Learning To Breathe are still on high rotation on my imaginary radio station. In 2014, she released an EP every month. These tracks were collected on the album My Best Friends Are Imaginary: A Year Of EPs, which was released digitally only in September 2016.
Later this year, Nerina Pallot will put out her new album Stay Lucky. The title track was released as its first single. Alas, it went by largly unnoticed. But now that she releases a French version of that same song, all the pieces seem to fall into place. In the first place perhaps, because of her flawless French pronunciation (probably thanks to her father being half-French). It’s a timeless, classic song, worthy of your attention.
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.
School Of X – Words
Drummers who sing as well… Sometimes that turns out quite successful. Phil Collins, Dave Grohl, Don Henley, Sheila E., Ringo Starr, Karen Carpenter. Do you want me to continue? Well, I won’t, because I’ve got a brand new example to introduce to you…
Rasmus Littauer is a Danish drummer, who drummed for Mø, for instance. Now, he takes the front. School Of X is his solo project. Solo in the exact meaning of the word. He composes, records and produces everything on his own. What results is dreamy pop.
So far, School Of X released a few tracks, one of them being a Sadé cover. The first single to be released on a larger scale (via Spotify et al.), is Words. A song that slowly crawls under you skin. Don’t say I didn’t warn you… ?
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.
Wildcard (week 24):
Nana Adjoa – The Resolution
Meet Nana Adjoa (real last name: Effah-Bekoe). She’s a talented Dutch singer-songwriter, who used to play bass and guitar and provide backing vocals in a plethora of bands, like A Polaroid View, Sue The Night and most recently with Janne Schra. Now, she’s working on a solo career.
The last few years Adjoa has been working on the songs that are about to be released on her debut EP Down At The Root. The first track off it is the beautiful single The Resolution, which she wrote and produced herself.
The Resolution by Nana Adjoa is this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
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.
Valparaiso (feat. Phoebe Killdeer & Howe Gelb) – Rising Tides
Valparaiso is a Paris based collective, with Hervé and Thierry Mazurel – formerly of French cult act Jack The Ripper – as its core members. They named the project after the Chilean seaport Valparaiso, which has always been a beacon for travellers and sailors. The band symbolizes a harbour that welcomes artists who stay for a while, leave and may come back.
The guest singers on Valparaiso’s new single Rising Tides are Phoebe Killdeer and Howe Gelb. Killdeer is best known as singer with the band Nouvelle Vague. With her own band The Short Straws she recorded The Fade Out Line, which was reworked by The Avener and became an international hit as Fade Out Lines.
The original, instrumental version of Rising Tides was the theme of the film ‘2 Temps, 3 Mouvements’ in 2014. This new, vocal version was produced by John Parish, best known for his work with PJ Harvey. The song sounds like a murder ballad to me. Remember Where The Wild Roses Grow by Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue?
Rising Tides is the first music to be released of Valparaiso’s upcoming album Broken Homeland, to be released 22 September.
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.
Haerts – No Love For The Wild
Haerts (indeed written with ‘ae’ instead of ‘ea’) operates from New York, but its band members Nini Fabi (vocals) and Ben Gebert (keyboards, guitars) are originally from Germany. I played their debut single Wings, the follow-up Giving Up and their Jeff Buckley cover Everybody Here Wants You regularly in my Carte Blanche radio show and now, they’re back with another great track!
On No Love For The Wild the duo explores its more emotional side. The sophisticated instrumentation puts full emphasis on the beautifully sung lyrics.
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.
Mist feat. Alondra Bentley – Fade In Fade Out
As a new track for his most recent outtakes & rarities album Underwater – the last to be released under the Mist moniker – singer Rick Treffers re-recorded the beautiful track Fade In Fade Out. Originally from his 2002 debut album We Should Have Been Stars, the song now appears as a duet.
Co-vocalist Alondra Bentley, born in the UK but raised in Spain, adds an extra touch of delicacy to the already beautiful song. It’s plain and simple, just like the video.
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.
Avec – Waiting For
Avec is an Austrian singer-songwriter who can’t read music, but – as her biography states – writes her songs from the heart. It is her way to get over feelings and experiences. This results in songs that incorporate both dark melancholy and pure beauty. 9 June will see the international release of her debut album What If We Never Forget, that already received positive reviews in her home country.
This spring, Avec does a European tour. Meanwhile, album opener Waiting For has been released as a single. A fine introduction.
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.
Wildcard (week 19):
Fhin – Quand On Arrive En Ville
Fhin is a Parisian producer who immediately put himself on the map with his first EP A Crack In The Eyes, last year. During his live gigs, consisting of remixes, covers and original material, he usually plays Quand On Arrive En Ville. A song, written in 1978 by Michel Berger for the rock opera Starmania, that was partly inspired by David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. The track was originally performed by Daniel Balavoine, who played the role of Johnny Rockfort in Starmania and went on to become a French superstar.
Now, Fhin has released his rendition of Quand On Arrive En Ville, which vaguely sounds like an updated version of Michael Jackson’s Liberian Girl, as a single. I comes with a beautiful, animated video and precedes Fhin’s second EP, to be released in June.
This week, Quand On Arrive En Ville is the Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
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.
Kele Okereke – Yemaya
Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke, who so far released his solo material as Kele, just put out the first song under his full name. It’s the beautifully intimate, acoustic track Yemaya.
Okereke says about the song: “In the west African Yoruba religion, Yemaya is the mother goddess of the ocean, she is kinda the patron saint of pregnant women and fertility. According to myth, when her waters broke, it caused a great flood creating rivers and streams and the first mortal humans were created from her womb. When I knew we were having a baby she started to be appear in my thoughts and dreams a fair bit.”
The singer recently announced a seven date acoustic solo tour through Europe.
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.
Axel Flóvent – Quiet Eyes
Axel Flovent is a talented, 19-year-old singer-songwriter from a small fishing village in Iceland. He has been compared to artists like Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver and fellow countryman Ásgeir, and Axel has a bright future ahead of him. A future lit by northern lights, presumably.
He has been writing music for years, but he only broke through in 2015 with his EP Forest Fires, whose songs have already been streamed over 16 million times. Since this EP, he released two songs. Quiet Eyes is the third. A beautiful melancholic song that deserves to be heard by at least 16 million more people.
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.
