05 Dec 2010 — Henning Lahmann
When we first met, I used to make you laugh.
You raised the stakes, for a lover to stay.
You said I was the sun.
When we had our final fight, you said I ruined
the only meaningful thing you found in your life.
You meant I was the one
You said you never told anyone.
It's what you meant when you said I was the sun.
I didn't know what that meant then I was too young.
The Old One was recorded in October during full moon, it will appear on
Teaadora's forthcoming full length
Vierge à jamais // Virgin Forever, due sometime in early 2011.
This might well be the most intimate, spellbinding and heart-breaking song I've stumbled across this year. December music.
Teaadora - The Old One
Artwork by Stella Margari.
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05 Dec 2010 — Tonje Thilesen
We swedes can also play soft music, Fredrik Karlsson of the wonderful indie pop/folk quartet
Solander whispers, slowly followed up by the intro tunes to one of their most popular songs,
Berlin, making the otherwise chattery, beer-drinking audience at Revolver in Oslo finally stop talking for a bit and focus their ears on the music playing. Unfortunately this didn't last very long, and towards the end of the concert Fredrik kindly asked the audience to take a step towards the stage to see if anyone were listening at all. I had originally come with
Matias to see my darlings of the Norwegian post-rock band
Youth Pictures Of Florence Henderson, whom put out one of my favorite albums of early 2010, and was literally caught off guard for not having heard about these lovely swedes already — playing a live set that could make even the toughest guy shatter a tear or two.
They released their debut album
Since We Are Pigeons a couple of days before my birthday in October last year, filled to the brim with beautiful,
Noah And The Whale-like pop tunes, wonderfully accompanied by Fredrik's sweet vocals, cold and bluish as the winter time itself. The song below is dedicated to my favorite guy in Berlin, Henning, for so kindly letting me into the warmth of No Fear Of Pop some months back.
Support the band by buying their album
here, or download some of their tracks for free via
bandcamp. Expect a release date for their follow-up early next year at
A Tenderversion Recording.
Solander - Berlin
Solander - Narcissus
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05 Dec 2010 — Henning Lahmann
Completely stoked by the lo-fi vibes of Joshua Frank aka
Parallel Pyres' minimalistic synth manipulation and day-glo warmth of warped tape sounds. Both
Kicking the Coals and
Wo Yao Ni de Ai heavily hit psychedelia yet also show an incredible amount of new wave-infusion with Frank's monotone, almost mechanic voice over sparse drum patterns. Regarding the latter song, Frank says he has adapted "a Taiwanese film song of unrequited love into a blown-out, stripped down crooner anthem", and after reading those words I knew there wasn't even any need to actually listen to Parallel Pyres' tunes to be helplessly into them, and my intuition did not fail me: this is amazing stuff. Both tracks are part of Frank's sophomore effort
II, available for download
here and highly recommended.
Parallel Pyres - Kicking the Coals
Parallel Pyres - Wo Yao Ni de Ai (I Want Your Love)
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04 Dec 2010 — Henning Lahmann
Miss Copeland graciously sent over the latest
Hype Williams EP this week with a few mostly short cuts of the duo's latest twisted mind-games captured on audio tape.
Dior starts with a four minute mantra about the necessity to catch all Pokemon before Blunt and Copeland deliver one of their finest works to date with the EP's (untitled) second track, a terrific late night jam made up of slowly burning analogue synth lines over a simple drum pattern and gently seducing female vocals - this is almost like that thing back in the days with these slowed-down drum'n'base structures that we used to call, oh yes, trip hop. Anyway, almost all other tracks on the EP end painfully quick and might rather be described as mere sketches than actual songs. Only the closing tune, most probably named
Treated Her Badly, again exceeds the two and a half minute mark with another calm and more or less signature Hype Williams production, all screwed and chopped up and awesome.
Whether the
Dior EP is planned to be released on wax remains to be seen. Download the whole 13 miuntes
over here.
Hype Williams - Dior #2
Hype Williams - Treated Her Badly
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03 Dec 2010 — Henning Lahmann
Some nicely state of the art dancefloor hooks to get you through the first night of the weekend by Florida's
Dark Sea Of Awareness, heavy synth monsters that not only get your arse moving but also instantly take you back to the glory days of that blurry thing we used to call "idm". And god finally something you actually wanna dance to. Cop the whole piece of digital magic named, oh yes indeed,
Digital Magic over at our most adored friends of
fmly rcrds.
Dark Sea Of Awareness - Mountain Grime
Dark Sea Of Awareness - For Two
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03 Dec 2010 — Henning Lahmann
Our pal Samuel Yager aka
Birthdays kindly sent over his latest tune last night.
I'm Keeping Some of Mine for Me is a slowly meandering, distinctly lo-fi bedroom jam built on repetitive guitar patterns and heavily manipulated, multi-layered vocal tracks. The tune evokes a warm yet slightly melancholic, wintry feel, like sitting by the fireplace watching the white and frozen landscape outside. After gaining some tempo in the middle part, supported by some beautifully arranged percussion, the song quickly falls back into its original gentle and dreamy tone towards the short finale.
The captivating and absolutely marvelous seven minute gem will appear on a forthcoming cassette tape on
Triple U Tapes.
Make sure you also listen to the other brand new and brilliant Birthdays tune
Howolding Girls, premiered yesterday on
Altered Zones via
Get Off The Coast.
Birthdays - I'm Keeping Some of Mine for Me
Photograph "Bialystok" by
Florian Reischauer.
buy this print! 15x15cm | 30x30cm
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