Browsing Tag orchestral
Lux Lyall – Mad With The Moon
London-based songwriter-poet Lux Lyall draws elements of old Hollywood noir charm and alt-pop. She only released her first single Teeth in July 2019. Less than a year later, on 24 April, she’ll put out her debut album VAMP. A collection full of emotion, drenched in dark and decadent theatrical tones. She calls the long-player ‘a document of my (relatively unstable) personal journey so far’. “Music anchors me”, she says. “It’s how I try to keep a grip on things and make sense of myself.”
Her beautiful new single Mad With The Moon is no different. It manages to combine delicate guitars, tasteful piano, stunning orchestral tones and sultry vocals, without going over the top. Lux explains: “I started writing Mad With The Moon after coming out of a terrible relationship. It began as a heart-breaky ballad, but over time it’s shifted from being about a break-up to being my way of refusing to apologise for my determination. It became progressively faster and angrier and ended up as a ‘fuck you’ song. If anyone I’m dating can’t keep up with me that’s on them.”
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.
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:
- Julie Zenatti – Tout Est Plus Pop (Wildcard this week)
- Sebu – The Secret Is Out [Lucas Vidal Arrangement] (Wildcard last week)
- Corine – Un Air De Fête À Tokyo [Japanese Version]
- Fitz & The Tantrums – I Just Wanna Shine
- North Parade – Keepthingscasual
- Peggy Sue – Validate Me
- Spacey Jane – Head Cold
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: Alanis Morissette, Polish Club, Regina Spektor, and many 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.
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:
- Sebu – The Secret Is Out [Lucas Vidal Arrangement] (Wildcard this week)
- Deacon Blue – City Of Love (Wildcard last week)
- Alma – Bad News Baby
- Circa Waves – Jacqueline
- Hazel English – Shaking
- Nasty Cherry – Brain Soup
- The Heavy – Last Man Standing
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: Corine, Fitz & The Tantrums, Videoclub, and many 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.
Wildcard (week 48):
Sebu – The Secret Is Out [Lucas Vidal Arrangement]
Armenian-American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer Sebu Simonian may not be a household name (yet). But I’m sure you know some of his music. As a commercial jingle writer, he co-wrote a demo for a cola ad. It was called Safe And Sound. When it got rejected, he formed the band Capital Cities and released the single independently. It became a worldwide hit, and the cola brand came back around to license the song for an ad after all.
Now, Sebu has his first solo single out: The Secret Is Out. A song with an equally impressive story. He says about it: “Engrossed by news about wars in the Middle East, I learned more about veterans struggling with PTSD. I decided to tackle the unconventional topic. (…) The animated music video depicts a female war veteran suffering from PTSD. She returns to the comfort of her home and the arms of her loved one, but can’t escape visions of war. It is directed by Italian animator Marco Pavone.”
The song itself features a prominent beat and fierce synth bursts, with beautiful strings on top, courtesy of Lucas Vidal. A great companion to the current autumn weather, The Secret Is Out by Sebu is this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can 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.
Jasper Erkens – Am I Scaring You, My Love?
Belgium-born, Holland-based Jasper Erkens graduated with distinction at BRIT School in London as a singer, producer and songwriter, following in the footsteps of Amy Winehouse, The Kooks, Katie Melua and many others.
That solid background can be heard on his new EP Innocent Desires. It’s a collection of four acoustic songs, Am I Scaring You, My Love? being my favourite. A beautifully orchestrated song, which Erkens wrote with Eg White, who worked with the likes of Alison Moyet, Natalie Imbruglia, James Morrison, Duffy, Adele and many many many more.
Fun fact (a.k.a. side step): Eg White started Brother Beyond with his brother David White in the late ‘80s, but left just prior to their chart successes. He then formed Eg & Alice with Alice Temple. Do yourself a favour and check their 1991 single Indian. Goosebumps!
But anyway, here is Jasper Erkens’ Am I Scaring You, My Love?
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.
morgxn & Nicholas Petricca – Blue
As a companion to his 2018 album vital, American singer-songwriter morgxn (pronounced as ‘morgan’) just put out the EP vital : blue. It contains five tracks, four of which are ‘stripped’ versions of tracks from vital, including home. The latter was a single at the end of 2016, and re-released last year as a collaboration with Walk The Moon. More precise: as a duet with WTM singer Nicholas Petricca. This version was a Wildcard here at Carte Blanche Music.
Apparently, the collaboration gave every satisfaction, for the opening track on the new EP, a brand-new song, is another duet between morgxn and Nicholas Petricca (this time under his own name). Blue is a beautifully arranged winter song.
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.
Mercury Rev feat. Norah Jones – Okolona River Bottom Band
Mercury Rev’s new album, out on 8 February, will be a reconstruction of Bobbie Gentry’s underappreciated 1968 cult classic The Delta Sweete. A star studded rendition, featuring contributions from Norah Jones, Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval, Lucinda Williams, Margo Price, Beth Orton, Susanne Sundfør from Norway, Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab fame, Dutch actress Carice van Houten, Rachel Goswell, Vashti Bunyan, Kaela Sinclair, Marissa Nadler and Phoebe Bridgers.
Louisiana Man, off the original album, is missing from the project. It will be replaced by a new version of probably Bobbie Gentry’s best-known song Ode To Billie Joe (a Billboard number 1, which was in fact from her same-titled debut album). Mercury Rev’s version features Lucinda Williams’s vocals. Tip: also check the version Sinéad O’Connor recorded in 1995 for the infamous Help! album.
The Delta Sweete’s opening track, a beautifully orchestrated version of Okolona River Bottom Band (feat. Norah Jones) is the set’s intriguing new single. Looking forward to the rest!
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.
Werner’s Weekly (week 48)
As musically diverse as Andy Burrows & Matt Haig, Harts, Metric, Sam Fender, Weezer, Within Temptation (feat. Jasper Steverlinck) and Youngr may seem, they all have one thing in common: all of them released new music last week, which I added to my Carte Blanche Music playlist. They are in very good company, for it’s not at all my intention to add all new releases to this collection. And tracks that are only so-so in my ears, don’t make the list either. After a very heavy selection procedure, I only added 20 new songs last week.
Only the very best of those additions can be found in my definitive round-up Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters. Check them below and/or via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar. Follow the links for more information.
- Starcrawler – Hollywood Ending (Wildcard this week)
- Jonas Brøg feat. Laura Mathilde – I Think Of You I Cry (Wildcard last week)
- Broods – Everything Goes (Wow)
- I Wear* Experiment – Almere
- Navarone – The Strong Survive
- The Lighthouse – Catch Fire
- Yonaka – Death By Love
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.
Werner’s Weekly (week 47)
Last week a great diversity of new music saw the light. There were very good releases in every thinkable genre. After applying heavy criteria, I added the likes of Chvrches, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Hozier, The Kooks, Rita Ora, and The Vaccines to my Carte Blanche Music playlist on Spotify, alongside a host of emerging artists you probably haven’t heard of before. And Jennifer Lopez as well. Listen to her new single Limitless without prejudice and you’ll hear it’s a really good song.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Below, you can find my ‘best of the best’ selection Werner’s Weekly, your compass to the music that matters. Via the links you can access my original recommendations and you can listen to all six of the tracks via the Werner’s Weekly player in the sidebar. Here you go:
- Jonas Brøg feat. Laura Mathilde – I Think Of You I Cry (Wildcard this week)
- Jade Bird – Love Has All Been Done Before (Wildcard last week)
- 1010 Benja SL – Ultimaybe
- Audio Adam – Emma Watson
- Hollydays – Minuit (La Baie Noire)
- Moscow Apartment – Orange
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.
Wildcard (week 46):
Jonas Brøg feat. Laura Mathilde – I Think Of You I Cry
Full disclosure: Danish-born, Holland-based Jonas Brøg is not only a very talented singer-songwriter, drummer and producer, he’s also a friend of mine. A guy that I knew as happy and light-hearted. Then, three years ago, he sunk into a depression. It was (and is) heart-breaking to see his sadness, especially since there appears to be no reason for it; he crafts great songs with an extreme ear for details, he has a wonderful wife, a beautiful child… and this damned depression…
Lucky for him, Jonas also has his music. He picked up drumming again, stopped (temporarily, I hope!) producing songs for others and started writing for himself, as a therapy. However delicate his own songs are, he decided to share them for the first time, taking us along on his journey back into the light. And with his character and attitude, I’m very confident he’ll get there!
Jonas is not the only talented musician in the Brøg family. On a holiday in Denmark, he was stunned when he heard his 15-year-old niece Laura Mathilde sing. He convinced her to sing on one of his songs and the result is breath-taking. As Jonas explains: “Although merely 15 years young at the time of recording this song, I’m convinced her soul is older than a few thousand years and I personally love the depth of her voice.”
This final version of I Think Of You I Cry may very well be its 50th incarnation. Jonas is a perfectionist and he tweaks his songs endlessly. In my ears, he reached perfection this time, with distorted synth notes, a dry drum sound, beautiful string arrangements, captivating vocals, and lyrics about a destructive, half-hearted, jealous and unhealthy kind of love. For you didn’t expect this to be an optimistic song, did you? 😉
If you like Hooverphonic (whom I adore), you should definitely listen to I Think Of You I Cry by Jonas Brøg feat. Laura Mathilde. It’s this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard, so it’s only one mouse click away for a whole week.
In the Wildcards 2018 playlist you can 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.
