CHARLI XCX: New, fresh and nostalgic

   / Goth-Pop, Dance-Pop, Electro-Pop, UK.          (Released in Danish, 2012 March 8th)

I went surfing on New-York music blogs and found a concert by female London singer: Charli XCX.

She sounds so fresh and different that she must be mentioned here.

The genre is described as Goth-Pop.

Charli XCX's real name is Charlotte Emma Aitchinson and she is just 19 years old. She is inspired by the synth-pop wave of the '80s, eg Talk Talk, Johnny Hates Jazz and The Cure.

(More below the video Nuclear Seasons)

She self-published her song. There is not much more to say about the girl yet, she is pretty undescribed. Learn more via the links at the bottom.

Edited:

Charli XCX has by now released three albums, are doing her own gigs with over 1,000 tickets sold per night and are touring with big names like Coldplay, Ellie Goulding and Kate Perry. Read more about her, see links below these videos, released later than article was first published.

Here a hit called Boom Clap

Below: the video Break The Rules

Finally: Famous (live, London)

M U S I C Click:

The video Superlove
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPWcX-16A9Y

Charli XCX on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charli_XCX

Charli XCX's website
http://charlixcxmusic.com/

LUKAS GRAHAM = New + Danish + Groovy + Funk + Soul

   / Soul, Funk, Denmark.          (Released in Danish, 2012 February 27th)

One of my musical friends (Ravi) has drawn my attention to this new Danish band, called Lukas Graham...

The band consists of:

Lukas Forchhammer - lead singer

Mark "Love Stick" Falgren - drums

Morten "Kirk" Ristorp - keyboards *

"Magnum" - bass

Lukas is of Danish / Irish origin (his father was a folk singer), and was a child actor in the movie Krummerne (he was the kid "Grunk") and also did voice work on cartoons. He grew up in the famous Danish social-experimental, originally hippie-based township of Copenhagen called Christiania.

(More after Ordinary Things, performed in German TV)

Lukas began writing and singing songs and recording demos in New York, and assembled a swinging band. In October 2011 they released their debut single Ordinary Things and it quickly became a big hit on Youtube and radio - it was (by listeners) selected for 2011's best Danish "Powerplay of the Week" on P3 ... and it led to a number of sold-out concerts.

They are now popular and have lots of bookings, and were playing at the P3-Gold awards 2012, at many festivals and more. 

More info below their hit video Drunk In The Morning

Gaffa (the best and biggest Scandinavian music magazine) says Lukas Graham will be big in 2012 - Lukas Graham is among the 12 Danish names for 2012 because "Lukas Graham is an excellent singer and songwriter and has a serious Danish soul music band of international class in 2012". They releaseded their debut album Lukas Graham in february 2012.

(Edited: * Lukas Graham's keyboardplayer is now Kasper Daugaard. The band has won several awards, their 1. album was the top-seller and most streamed on Spotify in Denmark in 2012. It has by now sold 4x platinum in DK. They toured Europe and did release the album in other countries, and it vent #1 on German iTunes. In 2013 they signed at contract with Warner Bros Records. In 2015 they released their second album Lukas Graham (Blue Album), by now selling 2x platinum in DK.)

M U S I C Click:

Lukas Graham on Facebook

http://da-dk.facebook.com/LukasGraham1

SKYLAR GREY: singer-songwriter in a new millenium

   / Dark-Pop, Hardcore-Ballads, USA          (Posted in Danish, 2012 February 15th)

As a consequence of my general curiosity I had to test MTV Push (mentioned in the previous post). It took 4 attempts and I found something very interesting!

Skylar Grey (her real name is Holly Brook Hafermann; the first album is released under the name Holly Brook) is an American singer-songwriter and record producer.

She has worked with Marilyn Manson, Rihanna, Eminem, P Diddy and Dr. Dre. She was nominated for a handful of Grammys 2012 in cooperation with others, but did not win.

More info below ...

She started her career as a child: she performed in a folk duo with her mother, and at age 15 she sneaked into bars to perform / play with jazz musicians in Wisconsin. At age 18 she moved to Los Angeles and made a demo. She was discovered by Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson, who helped her progress.

She changed her artist name to sound more original and less feminine - "it's more masculine. I'm not a very feminine person." she says.

She works with a lot of other artists and has been nominated for her good work.

She has released two albums - the third published 2015.

M U S I C Click:

Skylar Grey video "Invisible":

http://youtu.be/NVVrT_wNw_Y

Skylar Grey's website:

http://www.skylargreymusic.com/

MTV Push Denmark:

http://www.mtv.dk/shows/mtv-push/

FOSTER THE PEOPLE - super brilliant!!!

   / Indie-Pop, Indie-Rock, USA 

Here is a big new name: Foster The People. 

Foster the People origin from Los Angeles, they started in 2009 and consists of Mark Foster (vocals, keyboards, piano, synthesizers, guitar, programming, percussion) + Cubbie Fink (bass and backing vocals) + Mark Pontius (drums and extra percussion) + they have two extra musicians on stage, on tour.

Before further info, here's Call It What You Want, one of their many great tracks:

Mark Foster has had a long "non-career" and was, in spite of great talent and many songs written in many genres over many years, unable to find a group and a breakthrough. When he finally got together with someone and started a band, things went just as slow ... until it suddenly sped up. "Everyone is calling me and emailing me - what do I do? Who are the good guys, der er the bad guys?" Mark said, as he went from being a guy who could not get hold of anyone to a guy who suddenly gets hundreds of emails. "For so many years, it was slow, playing in front of pretty small crowds and trying to get your friends to show up ... And then all of a sudden, it kind of took off ..." 

Their cool debut album (Torches, 2011) made gold / platinum in the USA, Canada and Australia. The single below: Pumped Up Kicks (2010) went #1 more places around the world, it was nominated for a Grammy and won a Billboard Music Award.

Foster The People are nominated for 1 Brit Award in 2012 and 2 Grammy's in 2012 (where they will be playing with The Beach Boys and Maroon 5). They have been nominated for 2 MTV music awards 2011, 2 Q awards 2011 and at SharkOneAwards they won the New Artist of the Year-Award. They have recently been on MTV Push ("Do you need a new favorite band? Then MTV will help! Each month, we Push you the newest and hottest acts in the world and, of course, explains why they are so special."; O)

Foster The People did release 2 albums and 2 EP's, so far.

M U S I C Click: 

Foster the People website: 

http://www.fosterthepeople.com/us/home

MTV Push: 

http://www.mtv.co.uk/mtv-push

SKRILLEX - evil electro in a whole new league

   / Dubstep, Electro-House, USA.          (Released in Danish, 2012 January 23rd)

This is Skrillex. A brilliant electro-musician, who seems to be nerd / genius and a rising star.

Skrillex is Sonny John Moore, born in 1988 in Los Angeles, a former frontman of the post-hardcore band From First To Last. In 2007 he started his solo carreer. Skrillex has made 1 album, 14 EP's, some singles, remixes in amounts and been a guest artist on various people's tracks.

23rd of december 2012 he released a new music video, quite "noir" (especially when you look at the date it was released and the story in the video), watch closely ...

Skrillex informs that the music he started listening to was Aphex Twin, The Prodigy, Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson ... which tells us where he gets "it" from. He has made electro music since he was 14 years old!

In 2011 he was nominated for 5 Grammy's (including Best New Artist), the BBC's Sound of 2012 and MTV's best Electronic Dance Music. He has won a total of 6 Grammys by now.

Skrillex will be playing for the first time in Denmark 5th of may 2012. The concert at Store Vega was sold out in 24 hours and the gig was moved to Forum. Ah, would like to have been there :)

If you want an impression of Skrillex Live, you can search Youtube for the clips from one of his tours: listen to "Skrillex-The Mothership (Massive Mix)"there are 8 parts - he mixes "every genre of techno known to man!!!!" - It IS massive :-) (Link below)

M U S I C Click:

Skrillex - The Mothership (Massive Mix):

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Skrillex-The+Mothership+%28Massive+Mix%29

Skrillex website:

http://www.skrillex.com/

Skrillex at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skrillex

SPOTIFY - Apps

   / Streaming Music, Technology          (Posted in Danish, 2012 Januar 16th)

EDIT: There have been major changes in Spotify Apps, the following article is outdated, but check the musicvideo below. There will be a new article on this later ... link will be posted here: later

An apostate YouSee Play user confesses :)

I have for some months had the pleasure of comparing YouSee Play with Spotify. Spotify was an alright streaming solution, but Yousee Play did the same thing for free, if you were a YouSee costumer, so why bother, I thought ...

Then I discovered Spotify Apps and I was sold - since that I haven't been using Yousee Play, although it is of no cost to me. For those who don't know Spotify yet: it's a service that streams music, for free with commercials every 4 tracks or without commercials for dkr. 50,- per month ($ 7,19) or in higher bitrate and for mobile and so on for dkr. 100,- per month ($ 14,39). They have 17 million tracks right now (EDIT! Now more than 30 million tracks). You must have email or facebook account.

Now what's up with the Apps? ... people who don't know them ask (and the rest nods their heads) ... explanation follows below after this video with the band called Feed Me, which I did not know until I tried the app "We are hunted", where you discover new music in several ways.

The number of apps are growing...

Here's some interesting ones:

123 Toplists - Danish charts.

Radio - drag a song on the icon and you hear music based on the song's style and so on.

Billboard - Billboard charts from the USA.

fuse - today's short music news combined with relevant playlists.

Gaffa - Scandinavia's biggest music magazine, news, reviews, tracks, concerts and playlists.

Moodagent - drag a song at the icon, select your mood and whether the intensity should be increasing, decreasing or have another curve. Then you'll get a personal playlist.

Pitchfork - Reviews of albums, with playlists.

Rolling Stone - great music and lifestyle magazine. Lots of reviews, recommendations, and top-lists etc. From the past "many" decades til now.

Share my playlists - super area with all kinds of playlists from all sorts of people and places with every kind of music. Exciting.

Songkick - find concerts with your favouriet bands? Never again sold out!? Maybe not ...

Sound Drop - throw a playlist and invite friends into the listening room - across the country / world. Or go into a listening room - area is divided into genres.

Top10 - make your own top10 lists (maybe top10 songs on Copenhagen / winter / of an artist etc.) and listen to others.

TuneWiki - super app that finds and displays lyrics for the songs - if there is no lyrics yet, you can add your own.

We are hunted - as mentioned above, discover new music within areas and genres.

M U S I C Click:

Spotify:

https://www.spotify.com/

"4/4" - a new super program with Kasper Bjørke

   / House, Electronica, Disco, Radio          (Posted in Danish, 2012 January 7th)

Score (max. 5):      ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

I just heard the debut of the new music program from the excellent musicradio channel DR P6: the show "4/4" (Four Fourths) with Kasper Bjørke, Fridays at 19-21.

It was a SUPER cool experience ...

Below is a little about the show and the man, but first one of the many great tracks you heard him play ...

Storm Queen - It goes on

The program has according to P6 these qualities:

In 2012 P6 BEAT will be hosted by none other than Kasper Bjørke. Bjørke presents the cream of electronic music - mixed with classics and twists within Disco, Italo, New Wave, No Wave and Post Punk. With a look back and a look forward, always with a relaxed atmosphere ...

And Kasper Bjørke we know from the duo Filur, one of the country's best house / dance / electronica acts. (One of the groups one really would like to see / have seen! Check their hits on the web.) He is a Danish, internationally known musician / producer / remixer / DJ, and has worked with Trentemøller, Stina Nordenstam, Pernille Rosendahl and many more.

The show is filled with many truly delicious numbers presented and commented by Kasper Bjørke. He says the programs will include: mixed treats from the last 40 years of electronic music, new and old, odd songs and mini themes for record companies and producers that we should "keep an eye on." The first hour was Kasper's own favorite-producers publications from 2011 and the second hour a mix of interesting stuff.

Above: Supermax - Love Machine (a track from a later broadcast)

EDITED: The program 4/4 was broadcasted from January 2012 to December 2013. You can download / listen to 85 "4/4"-shows via podcast and on DR's website (link below).

M U S I C Click:

DR P6 Beat - 4/4, website, listen here:

http://www.dr.dk/p6beat/4-4

Kasper Bjørke's website:

http://www.kasperbjorke.com/

1000LAX - debut album

   / Punk, Sweden          (Released in Danish, 2011 December 19th)

It's just occurred to me that Swedish music has a punk dimension :) I guess they have had one for long, but I haven't heard Swedish punk before.

The Danish / Swedish punk band (who sings in Swedish) 1000LAX ("Thousand Salmons" in English) is an almost entirely new band. They live in Copenhagen, but plays in both countries. They are about to release their debut album (February 2012).

Below: their hit Jag pratar Svenska:

They did an opening act for a Japanese girl punk / pop band (Shonen Knife), they performed at Roskilde Festival and the Distortion Festival ...

Lead singer Jönsson writes:

My mother is Swedish, my father is Danish and I've always been a rebel. 1000LAX is my bloodletting, my confession, my indulgences, it's sex, lax (salmon) and rock'n'roll, it's Jesus against the devil, it's the children against the police. All this along with some of the most promising musicians, and now we release our album February 1st 2012, even on vinyl.

(Below: the song Snabbkaffe)

Other band members according to their website and Facebook page:

Bass: Karlsson

Guitar: Petter Rebelli

Drums: Ronny Maxe 

(But according to "Kulturanstalten" of the City of Copenhagen the musicians are: Martin Ullits Dahl on drums, Gustav Niepoort on guitar and Peter High on bass - the first names must be stage names.) 

M U S I C Click: 

1000LAX website: 

http://www.1000lax.com/

1000LAX on facebook: 

http://da-dk.facebook.com/tusenlax?sk=wall#!/tusenlax?sk=info

1000LAX 'tour diary: 

http://gaffa.dk/artikel/52612

JAZZMUTANT LEMUR - electronica super machine

   / Instruments, Technology          (Posted in Danish, 2011 December 12th)

In 2004 JazzMutant (a company) presented a brilliant multi-touch musical instrument for electronica and DJ'ing. They were pioneers and had to invent the first screen ever that was able to track "an unlimited number of fingers" touching the surface. The device has been a great success, due to both the very high flexibility and the robust hardware.

Below is a taste of one interface and its options

Jazz Mutant, the French company that manufacture Lemurs, has been using good hardware parts, their own graphics processor and with wired interface with the connected machines, so you unlike an iPad won't risk a WiFi-stop, in the middle of a concert. It was the first multi-touch machine for creative use.

Here is Kanye West performing Stronger at the Grammy Award Show 2008, along with Daft Punk, who were sampled into the original number with their Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - here they play on Lemurs, as  seen at 2:59 and onwards.

JazzMutant brilliantly made the user interface flexible and programmable, so you are able to shape and define your buttons and switches, displays and menus - it also features friction in faders and so on. And you can install interfaces uploaded by other users, and work on them. The Lemur also controls synthesizers, mixers, light and video installations. 

Here is another interface, where you see how Lemurs can be used as a sequencer ...

Some renowned electronica artists (and DJs and video artists) have used JazzMutant Lemur's for making music, including:

Björk 

Daft Punk 

Linkin Park 

Deadmau5 

Mode Selector 

Nine Inch Nails.

Below is Björk's Declare Independance (live from Paris)... the Reactable was filmed a lot 

(article on the Reactable: link in MUSICClick) and the Lemur was hardly filmed, it is seen briefly 

0:44.

EDIT: 

The Lemur was relesed in a version 2 (see more in links) and as an app for the iPad and other tablets. There is now good videos showing how to use it, see the links below. Many shows how it interacts with the popular application for music and DJ'ing: Ableton Live. Here is one of the videos showing how to use it and program your own interface.  There are more videos in the series, just do a search on youtube on "Lemur tutorial series" ... below the first video in a series about DJ'ing. 

Lemur V2 can be purchased for $ 1999, -

M U S I C Click:

JazzMutant's homepage:

http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_overview.php

Tutorials:

http://www.jazzmutant.com/workshop_tutorialslist.php

Lemur and iPad: 

https://youtu.be/ykgQrjZAgC0

Lemur V2: 

http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_v20.php

A DJ setup based on the Lemur: 

https://youtu.be/R1L-74MaL38

Article on the Reactable: 

http://musikkzag.blogspot.dk/2011/11/reactable-et-nyt-musikinstrument.html



DRAKE: Thank Me Later

   / Hip-Hop, RnB, Canada          (Posted in Danish, 2011 December 10th)

Here is Drake. A Canadian Hip-Hop / RnB artist (and actor) who has no self-esteem problems. Understood in the positive way - he usually does not need to be the toughest, most dangerous, smartest, strongest, smartest, best, ugliest or biggest man in town. It's super-cool to hear a stack of texts showing a cool dude, who have not mastered everything and can not kill us or shag anything with breasts :)

Below: the video Over - with aphorisms about life and sudden fame (unfortunately in the nice, censored version) ...

The lyrics on this album concerns troublesome relationships, Drakes parents' divorce, if he'll change negatively due to his speedy career and if "real" hip hop fans think he is a product. As he raps about his life:

While all my closest friends 'out partyin'

I'm just here makin 'the music that they party to.

Thank Me Later is Drake's debut album. It was released in June 2010 and was a much awaited album after he in 2009 released his third mixtape So Far Gone. And released the debut EP of the same name and became a "hot name". He received two Grammy nominations, 1 hit single Best I Ever Had (found on the album on streaming), and the major record companies in competition outdid each other to sign a contract. Universal Motown won - the company that has, among other things Jay-Z and Kayne West! The album reached first place on five of the world's major music charts.

Above: the video Best I Ever Had, that despite the funny story of a women's basketball is about something completely different, a special love affair with a woman. The text is very interesting and full of ambiguities ... see the "translation" of the text on Rap Genious, linked in MUSICClick.

In 2011, Drake released the album Take Care , a good and a little different album. Below: the video Take Care, featuring Rihanna. Again, his lyrics is worth noting, as he raps:

It's my birthday, I get high if I want to

Can't deny that I want you, but I lie if have too

The song is about a relationship, while having rhyme / references to the old hit (first published by Helen Shapiro, but later re-recorded by many other artists) where they sing:

It's My Party and I'll cry if I want to,

cry if I want to, cry if I want to

Drake is just more interesting than the average rapper's lyrics :-)

EDIT: Drake has released three studio albums, the fourth album was scheduled for release in 2015 and named Views From The 6 but instead he released a mixtape called If You're Reading This It's To Late, to be found on iTunes and Spotify. Still it is seen as his fourth album, there are several of the 17 tracks that says something with 6 and on the front of the "cover" the figure 6 is seen below the text.

M U S I C Click:

Rap Genious, Best I Ever Had:

http://genius.com/Drake-best-i-ever-had-lyrics

Drake on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_%28rapper%29

Drakes website:

http://www.drake-online.com/

MAROON 5 - Live, Falconer Salen

   / Concert, Pop-Rock, Neo-Soul, USA          (Posted in Danish, 2011 6th of December)

Main act: Maroon 5 (90 min.)

Opening act: Emily King (30 min.) 

Music (max 5): ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Venue (max 5): ♪ ♪ ♪

We went to see Maroon 5 in Falconer Salen (Copenhagen) December 2nd 2011. And we never regretted. It was an excellent concert. The band peformed great. The venue on the other hand, was not that good.

First, the main act:

It was Maroon 5 like on their best albums - all of them were swinging, especially the guitarist. They were really enthusiastic. The band was Adam Levine on vocal and also guitar once in a while, and he had brought one guitarist (James Valentine), one bass player, one drummer and two on tangents. 

The concert started with their big new hit Moves like Jagger (instead of saving it for the middle of the concert) and instantly the crowd got in the mood ... The first 30 minutes they delivered hit followed by hit, with no breaks. The crowd was singing and dancing. It was tracks like Harder to Breathe and Sunday Morning (live on video from the concert below).

... and hits like If I Never See Your Face Again and Makes Me Wonder and more funky tunes. The following 10 minutes they played smaller hits and quiet songs. Afterwards the rest of the concert was right up in pace, with songs that suddenly lapsed into Tina Turner's What's love got to do with it, or with guitar / vocal Battle, guitar solos and a metal rock intro on a single track (Wake Up Call, seen below, however, this clip was filmed without the intro). Quite entertaining for a pop band and although the audience was very spread in age, they all partied.

The opening act:
Was a singer / songwriter, Emily King on Guitar, and she was so incredibly boring that people weren't listening but chit-chatted, waiting for her to leave. She had a dude playing the guitar and electronics, he gave a small boost to the boring warm-up. We were, after she went, no hotter than before she came.

And now: the venue:
It was a canceled / postponed concert that should have been played at Vega, that unfortunately was moved to Falconer Salen. Vega has a nice concert venue, as opposed to Falconer Salen (despite Vega sometimes lack in service, they will close one of many queues to the wardrobe due to lack of hangers in one row and people must get back behind a new queue downstairs in the lobby and faintly hear the band you payed to watch, play the first 2½ songs, while the staff from the closed wardrobe disappeares, maybe goes upstairs watching the concert?!) Falconer Salen were in full control of the queues for both wardrobe and bar, but people can't see much - the scene is too low and the shorter people can not see the band. like they can at Vega. And the sound at Falconer Salen was bad ... when paying kr. 400,- it should be near perfect. The only upside is I probably would have no tickets if they were playing at Vega, since our tickets were bought just before they got sold out in this bigger venue.

Conclusion:
An awesome concert with a great band, which despite the venue and opening act delivered a Truly Great evening.



M U S I C Click:

Maroon 5 website:
http://www.maroon5.com/

Maroon 5 channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Maroon5?blend=1&ob=4#g/c/447CE9E513965C65