The Collaboration between the two german musicians, "Apparat" and "Modeselektor" culminated into what is probably one of this years greatest album releases. The selftitled album "Moderat", an obvious coupling of their two names had a number of great tracks on it, though the track "Seamonkey" is probably the most impressive, I've found that "Rusty Nails" is somewhat more easily listened to, and is probably my personal favorite. Now they've released the video for Rusty Nails as well, and I really, really like it.
When I came across "Tim Exile" over on "Keytars & Violins" a while back I had an almost revelatory experience. This guy released his third LP this year and it's by far his most mature stuff so far, while his first two LP's are in comparison alot more like a boy playing with a drum machine, "Listening Tree" is - I think - "lil' Timmy's" big break at this point, he's been getting some good press for it, and it's just so well deserved. This englishman in Berlin exile has been doing his thing for 10 years now, so he's pretty much a veteran of the art at 29. "Pro Agonist" and "Tim Exile's Nuiscance Gabbaret Lounge" were both released through "Planet MU", and they were very much so verbal of Planet MU's more ploy-ish sound. Now "Listening Tree" was a colab-release between "Planet MU" and "WARP", bringing in" WARP's" electrosmartness, if you will. Also new to "Listening Tree" is Tim Exile's vocal talents which - at times - kinda reminds me of the lead singer in "Depeche Mode", "David Gahan", at other times of "Syd Barret", leadsinger of "Pink Floyd".
Tim Exile
Now you can probably tell I'm pretty extatic about this guy, I mean just look at that awesome helmet he's wearing on the picture above! Look! Now!
Anyway, heres's a couple goodies from the one and only Timmy in Exile. I have to say Family Galaxy is one of the greatest tracks I've heard this year, and 2009 has been pretty good for me with new albums from "Phoenix", "Röyksopp", "Fink", "MSTRKRFT", debut albums from "Passion Pit", "La Roux", "Fagget Fairys", "Moderat", "Discovery" as well as the first EP's from "Marina and the Diamonds", "Yes Giantess", "Chiddy Bang", and a bunch of cool Mixtapes from the likes of "Theophilus London" and "Wale" and on top of that a shitload of remixes. And that's just off the top of my head, yes, 2009 has been good to me.
"Hess Is More" is a danish band concocted up of a six-man group, under direction of "Mikkel Hess". They also have a number of reaccuring live-only appearances, making them sometimes as many as 8 people on stage, making for a very entartaining night. They're turning up here in stockholm at the Jazz-club "Fasching" this September on the 7:th, and I for one am anxiously awaiting it. Here are a couple of tunes to send your mouth watering for the main course.
Now for some more Danish firepower, in the form of the "Fagget Fairys", consisting of "Ena" on vocals and "Carla Cammila" soundmixing, produced by the Grammy-award winning "Rasmus Bille Bahncke". The story of these two women is a real love story for the ages, meeting at a night club in Copenhagen about two years ago, Carla being the DJ that night, Ena fell in love at first sight, bringing to mind that old song by that highly forgettable (latina-ish?) woman "Chenelle", who thankfully never made anything else. But now, this post isn't about failing artists, quite the opposite. She wanted to impress Carla so much that she ended up stage diving from the DJ Booth onto a beer bottle ending up with 15 stitches and a busted knee. At the time Carla was already in a relationship, but their love nor their music could be denied.
Ena came to a refugee camp in Denmark when she was only one year old, her family fleeing their home-country in turmoil, Yugoslavia. Her muslim upbringing has somewhat put her aback, since being homosexual she has been shunned by her family. But her different vocal talents inspired by her noble herritage has also been a big factor in their success, leading to interresting Club-folk mashes. This year they came with their first full length album, titled "Feed The Horse" and they're touring all over europe.
Here's a couple of tunes, the first being their hit-single "Feed The Horse" as well as the remix by "Gambit", the second being "Uzela" off their EP released in 2008.
I think I've once again fallen into one of those unrequited love affairs, this time with this french guy called "Robert Le Magnifique". You may call his musical work a more modern and grimey version of "Serge Gainsbourg", throwing in bits of rap in the mix aswell. I especially love the work he did on the album titled "Hamlet" released back in 2003, in a collaboration with "Tepr" - another personal favorite of mine - and "My Dog Is Gay". In that album they mix Tepr's great synths with Robert's creative and imaginative world, all the while citing Shakespeare's Hamlet as a sort of rap in the background. And the french language itself just adds such a great layer of artistic ingenuity to it as well.
Rap is an even more essential part to his other works, which may be part of the reason I don't like it quite as much as "Hamlet", but to me it's hard for any album to achieve what "Hamlet" did. I now feel even more inclined to learn the french language just so that I may understand the lyrics in Robert's music, and sadly I was barely able to fetch any information on him at all since all I can find written about him is in french. Well, I guess that kind of just enhances the mystery around him, and that can be a good thing.
Robert Le Magnifique
These first songs are taken from "Hamlet". I especially like "Ophélie#1", I find Hiron's vocals to be extremely soothing, and moreover I really like the piano in there, just a simple few notes being played throughout the whole song, but they really get their point across, so to speak. The next track is "Hamlet#1", one of the tunes containing the rap strings I was talking about, featuring the vocals of "Nicolas Petitsoff". The third is titled "Les Comédiens", I especially like the short opening with the typical Baroque'esque music. Then there's "Ophélie#2", following up on the piano from #1, riding off into some really harsh beats by the 2.20 mark, no doubt symbolizing Ophelias descent into madness.
Next I'm throwing up a few selected works from some of his other albums. First off is "K.A.M." off of his 2004 release, "Kinky Attractive Muse", heating up a few nice beats, followed by some more piano. Next one is also off of "Kinky Attractive Muse", titled "Impasse D" and it follows the same structure as all the other tracks off KAM, with a slowly progressing, somewhat monotone beat. But I really like it. Next is "Pom Pom Ace" off of his selftitled 2002 release, showing off some of his talent on mixing Jazz. Last but not least, although shortest is the track "Oh Yeah Baby" off of the album with the same name released in 2008, with some really nice sampling from 50's songs.
If you are the owner of the songs posted on this site and you don't want them online please feel free to post a comment and we'll have them taken down as soon as possible.
