Tinseling Thursday V

Sorry for my lame blog behaviour last week. I was very busy with my own music and gigs so almost no time to post some nice music here on møpkemuziek. Finally I've found some spare time to present SX to you.

 I've already refered to this Belgian band when I made a post about Polica. SX is a bit in the same league, dreamy female voice interwoven with 80's synths (the famous Yamaha DX7), dark big beats and strong hooks. They surprised me back in 2011 with their first single "Black Video" ...completely out of the blue.
Let's take a look and have a listen to this song
Nice song isn't it? SX are Benjamin Desmet, Stefanie Callebaut and Jeroen Termote. They took their time to make a beautiful debut album called "Arche" which was released november 2012. Here is the song Graffiti, with a very strong chorus, I like Stefanies sharp and edgy voice! The video by the way was released last week...fresh fresh :) The first single release from the album Arche was Gold. Here's the live version And here's a soundcloud link to five songs of the Arche album, enjoy.

Tinseling Thursday IV

Today it's up to Belgian band "Absynthe Minded" to lighten up our Thursday

Absynthe Minded is a Belgian rock band, around frontman, vocalist and guitarist Bert Ostyn. Their tracks contain a weird mix of rock, thirties jazz, a touch of funky soul, Balkan beats and Merseyside pop. Absynthe Minded originally was a one-man band, being musician-singer-composer Bert Ostyn. He started off in 1999 with recording More Than This on 8-track in a 5 to 4 bedroom in Ghent (yes again Ghent, I'm sorry ;-), soon he found other musicians (Renaud Ghilbert, Sergej van Bouwel, Jan Duthoy and Jakob Nachtergaele) to enjoy his project. And after the succesful debut album "Acquired Taste" they developed themselves into a very productive and exploring band producing 4 more great albums. Here's the song "Envoi" inspired by poems from the famous Belgian writer Hugo Claus, this is from the samenamed album Absynthe Minded. More recent is the song Space from the latest album "As it ever was" They make very diverse music, sometimes Bert sounds like Kings of Leon singer Caleb Followill, sometimes they sounds like a 30's jazz orchestra and they wrote a beautiful soundtrack for the movie "Turquoze", the movie is a beautie too by the way, here's the eastern orientated song "Little Rascal" And this is their latest single "End Of The Line" Here's the soundcloud link to a set of nice songs, enjoy

Warm Wednesday XXI

Warm memories of Jason Molina (December 16, 1973 – March 16, 2013)

Tuesdays Got Talent XVII

Today we have London Electro Pop Trio Dems to surprise us.

Dems are David Gardener, Duncan Mann and Dan Moss. They produce dreamy lo-fi electronic masterpieces and 2013 will be their year! They promise us a new release every two months and their former work is so beautiful and warm it's a band to watch, at least I'll do. But first let's take a look and have a listen to "Desire" which has pricked up my ears! This song will be released the 24th of march and was a follow up for the song "Christabel". Triggered by this song I was looking for more work and was surprised that I've never heard of them before. So nice original songs, nice voices and melodies interweaving the electronic samples and drumloops/patterns. Here's for example the song "Inner O" Here are some songs via soundcloud This is "Bridesmaid" And "House" which is a beauty too You may have noticed my enthousiasm so before I put all their songs on møpkemuziek I end with the first of the every-two-month-release-songs "Christabel" enjoy! Okay then one for the road :) here's "Lioness" which was one of first songs by Dems back when it was just a solo project of Dan Moss By the way MØPKEMUZIEK is curious about your thoughts about the music we play so leave a comment if you like, you can do it even anonymous when you are affraid to offence me :)

Misty Monday XXI

Todays Misty Monday is for James Blake

James Blake is an English electronic music producer and singer-songwriter from London. His eponymous debut album was released in the United Kingdom on 7 February 2011 for which he was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2011. He covered the Feist song "Limit to your love" in his particularly way, slow piano, nice voice often reshaped with vocoders, electronic drums and lots of space in the mix. He is also known as "Harmonimix" particularly when releasing mixes. He has made a new album called "Overgrown" and on that album is a perfect Misty Mondaysong called "Retrograde". Let's take a look to the beautiful video and listen to this amazing song. I really like the synths climbing up to the right tone, it's the first single from his new album "Overgrown" due to release the 8th of april. And then there's his collaboration with Brian Eno for the song "Digital Lion" It's a worthy artist for our 100th post on møpkemuziek. Here are some grooveshark links to some older work like "The Wilhelm Scream"

And here's Lindisfarne II

And we end with the short and strange cut-up song "Why Don't You Call Me?" which made me think a little of "Antony and the Johnsons"

Tinseling Thursday III

Todays tinsels brought to you by "Toro Y Moi"

 Toro Y Moi is Chazwick Bradley Bundick, an American recording artist and producer. His music is often identified with the rise of the CHILLWAVE movement in 2010 and 2011 (Chillwave, sometimes also referred to as glo-fi, is a genre of music whose artists are often characterized by their heavy use of effects processing, synthesizers, looping, sampling, and heavily filtered vocals with simple melodic lines.") .  Let's take a look and have a listen to his latest song "So Many Details" the first single of his new album "Anything in Return" released 22 january '13
  I like that smooth summer feeling and the use of sytnhs / samples / rhythm patterns in combination with his light voice. Someone has been so friendly to put on the complete album on youtube so here's the link: He's a very productive guy because after releasing his full lenght album in january he's now released some tracks under a new side project called "Les Sins" here's "Grind" and "Prelim", enjoy!

Warm Wednesday XIX

Today it's up to Blaudzun to give us the warmth we need.
Blaudzun is the moniker of Dutch singer- songwriter Johannes Sigmond and Blaudzun is called after a Danish cyclist (Verner Blaudzun) back in the 1970's. In these regions Blaudzun is a becoming a term, and now I know that he's programmed for SXSW to conquer the rest of the world I thought let's introduce him for the ignorant. First let's take a look at the beauty "Flame on my Head" from the album "Heavy Flowers" released in januari 2012 and due to release any moment in the USA.
His live performances are a great party with brass ensembles, glockenspielplayers, violins and his own remarkable appearance on stage. Lets take a look at the song "Elephants" live at last years Dutch festival Lowlands.
Via soundcloud we can enjoy the first 5 tracks of the album heavy flowers. And here's one of my favorite songs "Midnight Room" from his 2010 album "Seadrift Soundmachine"have a nice warm wednesday!

Tuesdays got Talent XVI

Today we are in need of some uplifting music, due to the winter coming back this week when spring already has showed it's face last week. To ease that pain of cold harsh weather kicking us back and to bust the winter depression we call in the help from our Tuesdays Talent Jonas Alaska.

Jonas Aslaksen from Norway better know with his stagename Jonas Alaska had a break through in Norway with his debut album in 2011. The self-titled album sold to gold record (15 000), had 3 singles in the Norwegian radio charts simultaneously, and won the Norwegian Grammy (Spellemann) for best new act. Jonas is releasing his next album in Norway and Denmark very soon. The single "I Saw Your Kid" is released a month ago accompanied by this funny video
Often he is compared with Bob Dylan, but luckily he's more a music- than a lyricsman, don't understand me wrong and Bob Dylan wrote great songs but some of it's work annoys me because I don't listen to the lyrics but more to the music and then his repetivity is boring me. Last friday Jonas released a second video called "If Only As A Ghost" which is a little less light. Nice song but i'm in the wintermood again so here's some of his earlier work enjoy. Here's "In The Beackseat" Here's "Tonight" And here's the beautiful song "Oktober, we let you know when his EP is released.

Misty Monday XX

I really felt ashamed this morning, when i was looking for a great misty monday artist i thought, it has to be someone like Ólafur Arnalds.....dreamful quiet nicely arranged floating away music. Wait a minute, Ólafur hasn't been on Møpkemuziek before!

Ólafur Arnalds is a multi-instrumentalist and producer from Mosfellsbær, Iceland. Ólafur Arnalds mixes strings and piano with loops and edgy beats crossing-over from ambient/electronic to pop. He's just released his new album "For now I am winter" and the song "Only the Winds" is perfect as a starter. There will be shurely again a very nice video with this song because that seems to be his trademark. Let's take a look at "Old Skin" ft Arnor Dan Another jewel is Near Light

okay let's listen and look to some live footage, in this video he's playing for KEXP in KEX Hostel in Reykjavik during Iceland Airwaves. Recorded on November 1, 2012. I like the funny stories between the songs about the roads in Poland and the song he wrote for a bathtub :), enjoy. songs: Þú ert jörðin, Tomorrow's Song, Poland, Gleypa okkur, Near Light, Ljósið

Fiddles on Friday XIX

Today we have a winner, Oene van Geel just won the Boy Edgar Prize, a prestigious Dutch award for improvised- and jazz music
  Violist /composer Oene van Geel (1973) is a true adventurer in music. Influenced by jazz, Indian music, chamber music and free improvisation, he has applied his virtuoso improvising skills and his compositional talents to a wide range of musical activities. He has toured in Europe, India, Japan, the US and Canada. First let's take a look at Oene playing a solo piece at the opening of the Spoken Beat night You can hear several influences in his music, after his classical music education he went to study South-Indian music theory and as a child he was intrigued by his father playing Balkan music. He's playing in several projects and bands, like: Zapp 4 (stringquartet), in Estafest (jazz band), The Nordanians (A Shakti like power trio), multimedia project OOOO and Windstreken Here he's playing with "Windstreken" And then there's Zapp 4 and this is their version of the itchy Radiohead song "We Suck Young Blood" here's the original And here's the ZAPP 4 version, enjoy your weekend.

Thunder on Thursday XVII

Back with some thunder and today it's Middle Class Rut
Middle Class Rut, also known as MC Rut is an American rock duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Zack Lopez and vocalist/drummer Sean Stockham. They were formed in Sacramento, California in December 2006. After several EP's, in 2010 they released their first full-length LP, No Name No Color which was a killer, especially the song "Busy Being Born" made me smile from ear to ear.
I think their songs are very dynamic and energetic, sometimes they sound a bit like Jane's Addiction. Incredible that a duo can make such a full sound... they know how to do that just like our T.O.T. band "Indian Handcrafts" MC Rut released a new song yesterday and today we can hear it on møpkemuziek, so here's "Aunt Betty". They are playing at SXSW this year. Their album "No Name No Color" is in full lenght on soundcloud, enjoy!

Misty Monday XIX

Today it's the Belgium band "The Rhythm Junks" bringing us back on track again to start the week. The Rhythm Junks are: Steven Debruyn (bluesharp, guitar, vocals), Jasper Hautekiet (base, vocals) and Tony Gyselinck (drums) They were formed about ten years ago and 3 days ago they released their third album called: "Beaten Borders" On this album they stripped the music to a minimal ...less is more! I love the bluesharp and the mysteriousness in their songs and I think Steven Debruyn is the second best harpplayer from Belgium (Toots Thielemans is no.1) Let's listen to the song "Checking In". Oh yeah did I say this is again a band from Ghent!

Normally they work with a 4-headed brass ensemble but now they stripped it to a minimal, Drums / Base / Bluesharp and some synths/samples. Here they play the song "Never The Same" which i love, especially the switching between minor - major scale. I think some of their songs are perfect misty monday songs, "Burnin' Burnin' Burnin'" or "Maybe slowly". Via soundcloud you can listen to the entire album "Beaten Borders", enjoy