jimmie.hu

greatness by mo kolours, jim demuth and posy dixon.
check out the super fresh ep2: banana wine right over here. 

great stuff ahead folks: badbadnotgood, the young and super fresh jazz trio from canada just dropped their latest album BBNG2. its a digital release only, it comes with a beautiful photo booklet and artwork - and its completely free. its pretty new so i did not have the chance to listen to it extensively yet. but i can say already that this one is a good one! it features the actual trio of matthew a tavers on keys, chester hansen on bass and alexander sowinski on drums. the three of them got backed up by leland whitty on sax + luan phung on guitar. they considered it important to point out that no one involved in the production of their album was actually older than 21 years. it’s impressive, i admit, but i stopped wondering about young super-musicians years ago (this actually reminds me to share some great stuff by austin peralta with you guys soon. dope shit). what gets me way more is that fact that it was recorded in a 10 hours live recording session, including al electronics, synthies and what have you. that is seriously great stuff ad give the album a somewhat compact and intense feel. its a really refreshing mix of catchy, electronic sometime a bit poppy jazz sounds that will definitely enter my top list for this year straight away. bbng2 holds nine original compositions + 2 covers - and after BBNG, their debut from last year, that was including covers only (pretty good ones though) its great to hear some more originality this time.

so. no more writing and reading. click right here to get your share.

finally. i’ve been wanting to write about peter broderick since - well, since i started this blog actually. a many-sided, wonderful and inspiring musician, that i first came across his music about five years ago. i have been following his musical paths ever since.
when i started listening through his former music, i was captivated by the beautiful, delicate and well defined sound sculptures he evolves, making all his music quite recognizable and diverse and the same time. and broderick is prolific: he released various solo records, most of which evolving in minimalistic, instrumental, sometimes classical soundscapes. in addition that he loves playing with others: his collabs include stunning works with he type family (as you might have noticed, one of my very favorite labels, definitely worth checking out), with pianist nils frahms (besides other joint projects he co-produced his ‘the bells’ album about a year ago (erased tapes), a beautiful collaboration with machinefabriek (that you might know already) - and of course his year-long work with the amazing efterklang - one of my all time favourites. what i like most about him is probably how sensible he goes about with his music, his songs seem composed carefully, delicately and put together in a very selective, minimalistic manner. of course, his sound between ambient, soft folk and acoustic pop this reminds me of the like of bonnie prince billy and jose gonzales - however, broderick to me has something highly selective, almost a bit like you know it from ecm releases from up north. his music has silence and room to breathe - i like that.

well, as you can imagine after reading all this excitement, i am quite looking forward to his latest release - which is actually still yet to come. ‘http://www.itstartshear.com’ is to to be released on february 20. and yes, that is the actual name of the record, already hinting at the fact that broderick is making his statement to distribution, sharing and listening to music online. the domain will actually serve as a resource of line notes, lyrics and additional information on the music. quite an interesting apporach, especially for those who still actually care about the history, the making and the artist’s thought of an album. as for itstartshear this is actually quite interesting: broderick has been working on this one for about three years now as he claims on his website. in the meantime he has been releasing several records (instrumental, ambient, conceptional and some rather experimental artworks), and of course recording and touring with efterklang and others. a rather busy man, you might say. for his latest release he got back together with long-time fellow nils frahms, who this time got in a producer in his durton studio in berlin. even though i just had the preview stream version to listen to, i liked the sparse arrangement, and transparent natural sound. brodericks second vocal album (as he calls it himself) is simple, yet multilayered and -as always - beautiful: 10 personal tracks, carefully arranged, warm, and each one with a different and unique story to tell. asleep for example - just to pick one - samples numerous recitation of the lyrics by various people all over the word: peter published the lyrics on his myspace and flickr and asked everyone to send him his personal records of the words being recite. i won’t get into giving my personal statement on each song, just listen to them yourselves - i am happy to hear what you think.

you can find the full preview stream right here.

enjoy :)

well, i guess it’s a classic by now - and that’s not by chance. i just had to feature this brilliant video here… (i know, it’s been around some time. so, if you know it already, just watch it again :)
responsible for this stunning piece of art is of course woodkid, formally known as yoanne lemoine.

all-star lemoine, aged 28, is a well-known producer, photographer, illustrator, video artists - and musician. for his latest (and first!) release as woodkid he compiled a small and beautiful ep, featuring four original tracks, plus two remixes of iron, chipped in by mystery jets and “mysterious” gucci vump (you should check out their unusual and very interesting ep, by the way). the iron ep started off in good company: it was released on green united music (featuring the likes of hindi zahra, gonzales, dani sicilano, craig walker, dan the automator, and many more) and co-produced by julien delfaud and bejamin lebeau, who you might know from their band the shoes (lemoine also produced their latest video wastin’ time. again: definitely worth checking!). what get’s me most about the sound of woodkid - besides his very characteristic, warm and soulful voice, reminding me of the sounds of antony & the johnsons - is the carefully arranged sound, masterly blending electronic, symphonic, soulful, melancholic and acoustic elements. what might seem like a motley collection of quite differing songs at first, fits surprisingly well and makes up one diverse but coherent ep. great music, great engineering - and definitely an impressive debut. lemoine is currently finishing his first album to be released in 2011 still. great stuff ahead.

for his amazing video for iron he (of course) got in as the director, teamed up with mourad belkeddar and mathieu plainfosse, and featured uk model agyness deyn (yep, the owl-lady).

long story short: they killed it.

I carefully rearranged my senses
so they could have a conversation.
Taught them to switch places;
from each pore in my skin grew shimmering eye!s
And fingerprints filled the eye sockets.

- Blood Flight.

yep, its been a while - but let’s not get into that.
after piling and hoarding ideas, music, and all kinds of fascinating and wonderful stuff during the past months, i figured its time to finally get off the hiatus, get back to this blog and share my finds. it feels pretty good actually :)
and off we go.

you have just been listening to the captivating sounds of a very creative lady from norway. not quite nameless, singer, writer and poet jenny hval released her latest record on rune grammofon in february. she has been around before, though using an alias to release her former records as rockettothesky. although i like her former work, it is for this one to really intrigue me. viscera is a wonderful, warm and rather “carnal” compilation of diligently designed songs and sounds that are oscillating between atmospheric shimmer and rhythmic, lively emotions - elaborate and well-thought-out as well as explorative and improvised. supported by håvard volden (git) and kyrre laastad (d), hval eplores vocal and acoustic spheres (and actually more than once reminded me of sidsel endresen…) the motif that gleams every now and then deals with exploring and travelling - into and out of bodies, inside and outside of footings and musical structures. truly inspiring!

it does not come too surprising that she teamed up with an old stager for this kind of sound: helge stern produced and recorded the album and obviously (and luckily) left his footprint on there. you actually might know him as deathprod and (hopefully) know his stunning quartet supersilent (including the brilliant arve henriksen… but we will get to that later).

as for now, ill leave you with this fascinating video portrait. directed by ij biermann in spring 2011, it marks the beginning of a series of artist portraits, featuring their music, a personal place - and themselves. i cant help it but i find this incredibly unsettling and intense. an impressive piece of work - that certainly strikes the viewer.

woon, jamie. 27. london. musician.

and a good one!
after a tiny but beautiful little release in 2007 on live recordings featuring the likes of burial and stitch who contributed two rather groovy points of view to jamie’s bluesy and soulful acoustic tunes and a first signal of life with his really catchy 2009 collab solidify (together with subeena and om’mas keith) jamie woon now bounces back into public with a fresh and decent release on candent songs. it’s called night air and vinyl is shipping from tomorrow via bleep (oct 11th). for this one he again teamed up with the storied burial, who got into play as co-producer and (of course) chips in the groove. in addition to this really smooth, deep and a little melancholic piece they got another expert on the flip: ramadanman and his refix add the right amount of bass, beats and dubby sounds to mix things up for working the dancefloor. as i said, a wonderful musician so get to know him a little right here:

and try his new realease over here:)

oh and here’s a little bonus:
the subeena collab

and the ‘07 burial mix of this little traditional:

wow, that’s a lot of music. so try it, tell me if you like him and in any case - make sure you catch his debut in spring 2011.

i’ll keep you posted ;)