Last Night in france

Boy, let me tell you, if the description "Hip-hop house through pink italo shades" doesn't pique any kind of interest in you, this artwork will. I can honestly say that I was awestruck by these pretty fuckin masterful pieces of artwork they had on their Myspace. "DW" is the name of the swedish duo I'm raving about, DW is short for Deadwood, but in fear of being associated with the wrong things they feel that the name DW is more electro, possibly more german. In spite of the project being 6 years old they have yet to release their first EP. Though with the help of Chicago based indie label Glam Boy, things are finally put in motion with a small promo video posted on Vimeo promising it will drop this fall. 

Italo Disco they call it, and Italo Disco it is, the best kind, the cheesy kind, the kind that makes you glad to be alive. While they've made some great stuff on their own, their very best creation is probably the colab with french counterpart "Daroc" on the track, Hypnotic France.

Following are some great snippets of sound, DW originals and DW remixes alike.

Edit: I just came across this really cool online drum machine with the DW logo on it, check it out! Ronwinter Drums

Daroc Feat. DW - Hypnotic France

DW - Hijack

DW - You and me

Charlie - Spacer Woman (DW Remix)

Fake - Frogs In Spain (DW Remix)

Daroc Feat. DW - Hypnotic France (Pelifics Remix)

Daroc Feat. DW - Hypnotic France (Charlie Fanclub Remix)

While on the subject of Daroc, I'd like to talk about a track that's been haunting my dreams and terrorising me to the point of a breakdown. In a good way. By the time the song reaches it's literal climax, man, It just makes me happy. It was featured on the "Boxon Makes Me Happy" album released earlier this year, an album you should buy right away, unless you're a chicken-wuss! Chicken-wuss! That's right, I'm resorting to the insults of a seven year old, I'm also resorting to mocking my few readers, oh well, here's the track.

Daroc - A Bout De Souffle 

Crimefighting just got sexy

Anyone played Vice City? Yeah? And you figured maybe you'd watch some TV in your virtual luxury flat? Yeah? Then maybe you came across the in-game show called Angel and the Knight about the crimefighting couple living on a speedboat, named Chris Van Angel and Bonnie Knight... Yeah? Well, Chris works as a "hot dog" helicopter pilot and is a Vietnam veteran. Bonnie is a recovering alcoholic ninja who will sleep her way to the truth. Together they create a formiddable crimefighting team, whilst also battling their inner demons. They also ride a helicopter that can go underwater. If that's not the concept for a successful and longrunning TV-classic I don't know what is!

It so happens that someone thought it'd be a great idea to release a soundtrack with songs that had nothing to do with the show itself, but rather with the era and mentality of he show. It's the soundtrack the show would've had, had it been aired on real television. Now the only reason I'm aware of this thing is that "Murder One" is featured in a colab with "Girl is Toügh" on the track titled This is Love which is an allright disco-thumper but acctually one of my least favorite tracks on the album. Instead "Palm Highway Chase" takes the podium with his track titled Space Again. It's a great trip to the nightly colors and sounds of 80's downtown Miami, suckin it all in through the pores of your skin while watching the neon flash by from the seat of your car. Now I am aware I was not born in the 80's nor have I ever been to Miami, but all you gotta do is believe, Johnny boy! The album is available for free download right here.

Palm Highway Chase - Space Again

Nothing Will stop them

There seems to be no end of interesting swedish bands and musicians, yet they receive much too little acclaim here at home. The Sound of Arrows are now reaching out abroad to release their debut single in the UK and the US through "Neon Gold", accompanied by this video here. I've been watching it on a loop for the last four days and I absolutely love it. I just want to run out into the rain and in a fiery rawr proclaim my challenge to the world, in the face of great adversity. Because, as the song says, as long as we stay together nothing can stop us. 

"The Sound of Arrows" do everything themselves, they write and produce all their own music, handle the design work and even create their own music videos. That DIY mentality really is commendable, and - with that in mind - The Sound of Arrows really are a new breed of pop superstars, as the folks over at Neon Gold so nicely put it. 

The duo consisting of Oskar Gullstrand and Stefan Storm released their latest EP this last january, titled "M.A.G.I.C.", spearheaded by the track of the same name, a track with definite shades of Justice's "D.A.N.C.E.". A bunch of kids singing a chorus about how the world is full of magic never fails. Unless it sucks. Which this track clearly doesn't.

What follows is the wonderful promo video for their M.A.G.I.C.A.L. EP.

Greetings from Paris

This is my first post in this blog and I have to say that it is not without being a bit nervous that I am writing this... I mean no one writes better than the Neon Prince, and since I am an old fart I don't know anything about new music. 

To make my post seem cooler, I chose a headline saying I am in Paris, so even if the song I choose for this first post won't be a hit amongst the people in the Topographic Ocean, making clear that you are NOT in Sweden is a classic way of being cool. And I think it kind of works, most of the time.

To complete the cliché:

Bioxlat - Joe Le Taxi

Danger-ous Love Juice

What happens when one of my favorite electronical artists remix one of the greatest musical feats of all time? Some awesome fuckin shit is what happens! What follows is so full of pure 80's asskickery, so full of sheer musical prowess your head might just explode. The french wonderkid "Danger" remixes Love Juice by "SymbolOne"! And it is fan-fuckin-tabulous!

This remix isn't exactly new, but it's deffinately one of my favorite remixes of ANYTHING ever to surface out of ANYTHING. Seriously, if the aliens attack, all we need to do is play Danger's Love Juice remix and they'll stop their onslaught, because a civilization that can achieve such transcendence truly deserves to live out their time. If you've not caught onto it yet, yes I do like this song, immensly. 

SymbolOne - Love Juice (Remixed by Danger)

Danger is according to me one of the greatest in the electro-music genre today, and while the Love Juice remix might not have been enough to persuade you to that point, I'm hoping these two following tracks might. The first one is titled "07:46", from his latest Ep released this march, the second is off the same album, it's called "00:01", featuring "Vyle" on vocals, and it's essentially a remastering of their track, "00h00" which was one of my favorite tracks out of 2009 untill I heard  the new version. Dunno why Danger is so keen on naming his albums and tracks after dates and times of the day, I'm guessing these are his favorite hours of the day, or maybe they signify important days of his life. Well I dunno, but as the long as the music sounds good I'm all for it.

Danger - 07:46

Danger - 00:01 feat. Vyle

Justus

"Muxtape" got a makeover, instead of being the mixtape-mecka that it was it's been accommodated for artists only to upload their music and present themselves. It had become a great place to discover indie musicians struggling to get their creations out to the masses that thirst for the new thing. Right now Muxtape is strictly invite-based, as it evidently has once again gone into re-development to become a place where artists will be able to sell downloads and where labels may manage their bands in orderly fashion, thus getting them involved and evading legal issues. Anyone will also be able to perform remixes of music on the site. This all sounds like it'll be a great innovation, especially for indie musicians to make some money to fund their efforts.

 Though it's not what the creator of Muxtape, Justin Ouelette, first set out to do, which was to create a scene where anyone could come and share their favorite music with people, whether of their own creation or not. With it's launch in March last year, I bet Ouelette never would have expected Muxtape to grow at such an excellerated rate, but apparently alot of people love to create mixtapes, and I'm certainly one of them. By August Justin had become under siege from the RIAA over Copyrights issues. He had to take down the site, promising though that it would be back up agian soon. Though by late September he posted a blog stating that the site could no longer be running the way it had been, instead it was going into development to become what it is today. And now it's steadily growing into what will be one of the greater steps toward flunking the copyright laws and the evil music-labels that have been hampering artistical freedom for so long. Well... One can hope.

Max Justus

In one of my Muxtape listening sessions I stumbled upon a few gems that I'd like to direct your attention to. First of all there's "Max Justus" whom I first came across last winter, when he released remixes of eight of 808's & Heartbreaks tracks, an album I didn't enjoy all to much. But Justus managed to take Kanye's Cher-impressions and make it into something pretty good. I especially like the track, Bending Space and Time, off of his newly released album titled No Mercy which after a quick listen gets a good verdict from me. 8 from 808's and Heartbreaks is available for download completely free of any kind of expences, it may be found here, but most deffinately not here.

Max Justus - Bending Space and Time 

Max Justus - Simplicity

Next up is "Doctor Rosen Rosen" who has remixed Lilly Allen's newest album, "Its not me, it's you", and released the remix album titled, "It's not me, it's Doctor Rosen Rosen", as seen above. I'll have to admit I've never sat down and listened to any Lily Allen songs, but I'm sure that DR.R.R's interpretation is at least as good if not better than the original, given that the remixes are a bit different. The album is available for free download here. 

Lily Allen - Chinese (Remixed by Doctor Rosen Rosen)

Lily Allen - The Fear (Remixed by Doctor Rosen Rosen)

Others that were very interesting, but I was not able to find purchasable or downloadable or I just didn't feel like getting ahold of  at the moment include: "Maxo", "M.E.S.H.", "Omnichrome"and "Blood and Sunshine". 

Mille

As quoted from the "Starsmith" blog:

"This 

  Song

  Will

  Complete

  Your

  Life."

Mille - Crysteena

What he said. Period. Since I first heard it over at "Data Sapiens" about four months ago I've probably injured my ears irreparably from looping it over and over and over on the highest volume on my iPod. On top of everything else, "Mille" is acctually a resident of Stockholm, Sweden. I feel honestly proud to be swedish now.

Big lipped aligator moment

Well first off I guess I should apologise for the lack of posts in the last few weeks, but I just haven't really felt compelled to write something untill now. And well, I know it might seem odd posting about a game soundtrack, but hell, this is the most kickass track I've heard in a game yet, with too many bleeps and blops for me to possibly shy away from it. They only made these kind of tracks for those game systems from the late 80's and early 90's and I have to say, watching this video I had a real nostalgic trip. Reminiscing of those days before the internet and a time before the likes of Michael Bay had stained our young with his horrible movie-making, a time where the world seemed a great place, and I was just an innocent little boy playing Donkey Kong on my brothers Super Nintendo. Oh, how time flies by.

This is off the awesome movie/games reviewing site, "That Guy With The Glasses.com", put together by the awfully french "Benzaie" who's made a bunch of these videos honoring game soundtracks of old, you can check em out here. 

The game also looks pretty cool, you have to admit that in the gaming world shooting out hearts out of the chest rather than bullets out of guns is a pretty unusual concept. 

The composer of the music is a guy called Barry Leitch who's worked on over 240 games over the course of the last three decades. This guy has totally become my new obsesession, I wish he would be enlisted for the sequel to the space saga that is Mass Effect. I just know that he's the one to conduct the melodies to make you feel the deep silence of space.

Thank you Benzaie!

Appselektor

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.

Into Exile

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. 

Tim Exile - Family Galaxy

Tim Exile - Don't Think We're One

Hess faggets is more fairys

"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.

Hess Is More - Ssshhhh

Hess Is More - Yes Boss

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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.

Fagget Fairys - Feed The Horse

Fagget Fairys - Feed The Horse (Remixed by Gambit)

Fagget Fairys - Uzela

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Also throwing in the Crystal-Meth Induced video for 

"Feed The Horse"

Le Magnifique

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. 

Robert Le Magnifique - Ophélie#1 feat. Emanuelle Hiron

Robert Le Magnifique - Hamlet #1 feat. Nicolas Petitsoff

Robert Le Magnifique - Les Comédiens

Robert Le Magnifique - Ophélie#2

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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.

Robert Le Magnifique - K.A.M.

Robert Le Magnifique - Impasse D

Robert Le Magnifique - Pom Pom Ace

Robert Le Magnifique - Oh Yeah Baby

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