jimmie.hu

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

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.

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 ;)

i suppose you know the dark. and if you can wrap it up into sounds and music, there is one guy who mastered this. the results are terrifying, gloomy and yet strangely beautiful sounds, amazingly louring and fascinating. the man who is in charge of all that goes by the name of erik k. skodvin. he is from oslo, norway and you might have come across him and his duo project deaf center. well, apart from that he is also running the absolutely stunning label miasmah. what started of as a netlabel in 2006 is now not only pressing vinyls and cds and working together with such beautiful artists as greg haines, elegi (soon more about them here), jasper tx and jacaszek - it is also a graphic design studio. (actually you should stop reading right now - check out their website and music - and come back here)

i am really impressed not only by the huge output of erik skodvin, but also (and even more) by the intense and speacial quality that seemingly all his works hold. just recently he produced a short little video in collaboration with suki chan, a british director. skodvin got in as the sound and music designer - the outcome is stunning:

as a matter of fact, mr. skodvin is rather prolific. thus, he is an active solo-musician himself. as svarte greiner he has released pretty unsettling and intense music, besides others on digitalis (2010) and his debut knive in 2006 on type (that you might have come across here before. you should check out the wonderful set he prepared for their typecast series. it’s the first one in 5 years and holds some notable rarities). his latest work flare, however, will be released on the berlin label sonic pieces (also absolutely worth a visit. wonderful artwork.) you can get it as soon as october 22nd, but you can have a first glimpse at what is going on right here, right now :)

well i suppose you know the dark. this is it.

i like jazz music. i like electronic music. i dont like either-ors.

having said that, let’s talk about some guys who might see this equally. first off is a wonderful four-men jazz group around sebastian studnitzky that calls itself portico quartet. they have been praised for their cool and uncomplicated yet unique and fascinating deep sound scapes. and i totally agree: their latest release islas (real world recordings) gets me literally every time i listen to it!

second is someone i have been talking about earlier before. he is calls himself sbtrkt, he is from london, and he does something that some people call ‘future garage’. he is well respected (and played) by guys like sinden, mary anne hobbs, and gilles peterson and he did some really awesome remixes for the likes of modeselektor, basement jaxx, gorillaz and (of course) jose james. until today i’m not yet sure what it is, but something about his sound is just unique - and it really gets me.

now what happened was quite lucky: sbtrkt revisitd and remixed a tune by portico quartet. what came out is a stunning little three-track-ep that does not loose the hypnotic sound of portico’s original and yet kind of gets the groove in there. my today’s repeat-all-album.

so check out portico’s original (by the way a beautiful video, shot by york tillyer).

and click play for sbtrkt’s point of view:)