This and that...

Wanted to buy the new Cause & Effect EP Artificial Construct - Part One earlier today, but bandcamp wasn't exactly cooperative. Decided to post my frustrations about this at the band's Facebook page and a few hours later the band posted an update that the problem(s) had been fixed. So right away I headed over to bandcamp and bought the CD (including access to immediate download). What I didn't see before ordering was that the band had mailed and offered me a free download of the EP for my troubles! Not posting this to express any dissatisfaction about spending those $5.99 (as always I'm just glad to support independent music), but rather to state how incredibly cool I think the band is for actually getting back to me as well as showing their appreciation by offering a free download! Listening to the songs right now and only too happy to learn that they sound like vintage Cause & Effect!

The program for this summer's Start! Festival was published two weeks ago, but to be honest, I'm rather unimpressed. So I'm seriously considering not going this year...

Exactly a week ago Jonas posted a Geneva video, which made me start pondering what has happened to ex-Geneva frontman Andrew Montgomery's project st famous. Seems like it has now turned into a solo project, but new songs are in the making, which I believe is always a good sign? And not matter how you look at things and how things will develop; Mr. Montgomery still has one of the best voices in music.

Just found this new single by Trentemøller in the mailbox. Not sure what I expected (not a long to be truthful), but this is surprisingly enjoyable and pleasingly distant from the electronica universe I normally associate with Trentemøller.
+ Sycamore Feeling (Trentemøller Remix Edit)

chaotisch und charmant interviews Caspar of Champagne Riot and offers the track Ingrid Bergman as a free download. As previously mentioned it's Stefan of Northern Portrait, who does the singing and this is one track you simply "have" to download! UPDATE: Caspar just okayed that I post the track as well, so...
+ Ingrid Bergman

Blogging...

My first intention was to name this post Live blogging (here we go again), but since some of the stuff I’m going to post was written earlier today, I thought this could be considered foul play. So instead I opted to go with the more neutral, rather anonymous, yet relatively accurate headline Blogging. But that doesn’t change that I’ll be sitting here for the next couple of hours reading, writing, searching, posting, listening and (most likely) deleting. You should be familiar with the disclaimer regarding grammar and spelling by now, and of course a picture will be uploaded in a few minutes!

Still terribly need a shave - don't I?

My Twitter experiment continues and I now have 123 followers. I’m becoming less and less skeptical, as I’m regularly stumbling upon something interesting.

Don’t believe I can think of band with a more devoted fanbase than Depeche Mode. That’s cool, as loyalty is a good thing. But at the same time I cannot think of band with a more biased fanbase than said band, stubbornly refusing to notice any flaws. Wrong, the new single (video), is the most recent example of this narrow-mindedness. Not original in any way, which is admittedly is absolutely irrelevant as long as the melody is just a little bit catchy. But the chorus, which I believe must be when Dave Gahan groans "Wrong" through his nose, resembles something that could have been recorded in a pig farm, and luckily is forgotten as soon as the song is over. Except that groan of course which certainly will cause lots of nightmares! And still I see people referring to this, as a "classic sounding" Depeche Mode track? You must be joking or are you telling me that this is what you’ve been fans of for 20+ years? To make sure that I know what that classic sound is exactly, I did listen to the epic Violator earlier today, and nothing (absolutely nothing) on that album is even close to being this bad. Nitpickers might object and will start uttering that you cannot make this comparison as Violator belongs in a completely different time and era. Fine! Point taken. But then don’t give me that “classic sounding” bullshit. And no matter what you say; Wrong still sucks!

I’ll never be a fan of remixes. Tracks with endless beats and little diversity doing their best to destroy the original melody line have rarely appealed to me. But the Kissy Sell Out remix of Give It Up taken from the forthcoming album Red (out in Denmark June 8) by Datarock is rather catchy and would even make me start glancing at the dancefloor.
+ Give It Up (Kissy Sell Out Remix)

The Blueflowers are giving away a Watercolor Ghost Town album track over a Last.fm. At $11 this fine album has to be the bargain of the year.
+ I Wasn't Her

Chromewaves voices his discontent with the lack of information regarding the Clinging to a Scheme album, which, if everything works out as planned, will be the third full-length release by The Radio Dept. A release sometime this fall (I assume he means THIS fall) is his best guess.
+ The Worst Taste In Music

This episode of my favorite TV series Waking The Dead has just started. I've seen it once before, but since TV doesn't get much better than this; I'm seriously tempted to watch it for a second time. I recall the episode as no being "very nice", but then again none of the episodes really are. The dark sides of the human race can rarely be considered "very nice".

Last Wednesday I wrote how much I was looking forward to a release from st famous. A few days later it was announced that Keris Howard is no longer part of the project. Learn more.
+ Lazy Opera

Danish alternative/indie rock band Us With Millions has a new track We Are Sinking up and streaming at Myspace. That Band of Horses comparison is more valid than ever!

Live blogging...

Don’t think I’ve ever done anything quite like this before. But time to try something new I guess? The wife has gone to the cinema and the kiddos are sleeping, so for the next two hours I’ll try the fine art of live blogging. There'll be no specific agenda, but I do plan to spend some time listening to some of the stuff from the mailbox. And there will probably be lots of my usual babbling (nonsense if you like) stuff as well. I normally run my posts through several spell checks before posting, but there will be none of this tonight. So let’s see if anything interesting comes out of this?

Boy - do I need a shave and a haircut? A good thing that the picture is blurred.

Speaking of the mailbox. I currently have 161 mails (81 unread) in the inbox. Make that 155 mails and 78 unread ones. Things aren't exactly progressing as I hoped they would. Quite a leap - now standing at 110 and 48.

Do you Twitter? Why it has become so popular is beyond me, but everyone else seems to be doing it so…and I currently have a "whopping" 89 followers!

Fragile Me, Fragile You by Helena Arlock is a really cool and groovy track. But doesn't she sound a LOT like Nina Persson?
+ Fragile Me Fragile You

That was the first track the mailbox had to offer tonight. Always hoping that something mind-bobbling will pop up. Let's see...what's next?

@Merz. Thanks for the comment yesterday. You’ve been truly missed and it’s impossible to express how cool it is that you’re back!

Now here's a real infectious piece of electronic pop delivered by US duo UltraChorus and definitely one for my current favorites list (check the right column, if you don't know what I'm talking about). It has probably been posted by several other bloggers already, since the promo mail arrived two days ago.
+ Words Kept Talking

My favorite blog Chromewaves lists 6 acts to watch if you’re so lucky to be attending SXSW. And that, I promise, will be the first and last time mention of that particular festival in this post.

Kasper of Tetris = Therapy (and The Yellowing Leaves I featured in the blog yesterday) has just left me a message at Myspace promising that we'll hear something new from T = T this year.
+ The End of the Season

Equally interesting is a comment from UK duo st famous promising that they’ll release “something” this year. The duo is a highly interesting combo of Andrew Montgomery (ex-Geneva) and Keris Howard (Harper Lee and Brighter), so this is certainly something I’ll be impatiently looking out for.
+ Tired & Emotional

Still checking mails...time to get something to drink...

I've just received a mail featuring a track with the incredible title I Try To Despise The Ugly People (But The Beautiful Ones Keep Turning Me Down). It's the new single by Swedish multi-person band Napoleon and it will be out on Ruffa Lane Records on April 27. It's quite a pop charmer, but I'm not sure whether or not it will be OK posting for download. So for now streaming will have to do.

I hate when you have to enter you e-mail to get a free promo MP3. More and more common these day.

It's all uphill right now as WMP refuses to cooperate.

Death Valley Sleepers has published a new track Seaside at Myspace. Unfortunately it's not free to download and since the band remains unsigned, I have no idea if/when it will be possible getting your hands on this brilliant track. The outro is especially great.

That will be all for tonight. Maybe (no promises) I'll try this again some other time?

Shorties...

Lovely indie act st famous that I mentioned back in October has been signed to Norwegian label Reel Noise.
+ Lazy Opera
+ Tired and Emotional

February Song by Biker Boy is now available as a free download and will remain so for the first week of February. So for now the project "one year, twelve songs" carries on!

Kristian over at Frekvens interviews Yoav!

UK alternative/folk ("folktronica") artist Eugene Francis jnr will have his debut album The Golden Beatle out on April 28. First single Poor Me is an excellent track that fits that "folktronica" label rather well! Note to self - check out the rest of the album!
+ Poor Me

st famous...

Via Torr comes word on st famous; the new band of ex-Geneva front man Andrew Montgomery and Keris Howard of Harper Lee . Wonderful news as these are exactly the atmospheric and dreamy kind of songs I love to listen to on a tired and quiet Friday evening while sipping red wine (and the girls are sleeping). I loved Further (the Geneva debut) and if these recently recorded songs are any indication of what a future st famous album might sound like; I'm all set (though as Torr points out; this IS more electronic that Geneva). Information is sparse, but I believe that the band is unsigned, so only time will tell if the world will ever be able to listen to an album. The music is described by the band itself as "Cocteau Twins-meets-early New Order-meets-early OMD-meets the guy who used to sing in Geneva-meets him out of Harper Lee". Says it all; doesn't it?
+ Tired and Emotional
+ Lazy Opera