Part-time pornographer, canny canuck ACN delivers a great cover of a stone-cold (not just cos the band were Norwegian!) pop classic, shocker!
Newman offered his beautiful, strings infused restrained take on Take on Me for a Starbucks (ewww!) Valentine's Day compilation some moons back.
Newman apparently submitted two covers to Starbucks for their comp - the other being a cover of the mighty the Go-Betweens' uber-mighty "Love Goes On!" by the late great Grant McLennan. Sadly the cnuts at Starbucks only took the a-ha song!
I'd rather dance with you than talk with you, so why don't we just move into the other room ....
A real classic music video here.
A beautiful and simple (and funny and witty and charming and touching and wonderfully idiosyncratic!) piece from Norway's finest, the Kings of Convenience.
Yap, it's gotta be the vid for "I'd Rather Dance with You" from Bergen boys Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye.
A sublime, life-affirming piece of art - a very rare beast these days!
And Erlend puts in a fabulous, erm 'dancing' show here! There's something innately hilarious about seven-footers shaking their gangly selves about! The official name I believe is "John Cleese Syndrome!"
"I'd Rather Dance With You" was one of many highlights from the band's very fine sophomore collection 'Riot on an Empty Street'.
Oh, and it's a fantastic song too! Like most of KOC's stuff, a beautifully crafted jewel.
Another bijou of intelligent multi-layered pop with great lines like "even if I could hear what you said, I doubt my reply would be interesting for you to hear because I haven't read a single book all year and the only film I saw, I didn't like it at all." ..... Guess he went to see that ludicrous crock "Birdman"!
A song that sounds like something created when Morrisseymet Paul Simon met a pile of Prozac ... with stuff like; "the music's too loud and the noise from the crowd increases the chance of misinterpretation, so let your hips do the talking."
A song of the awkwardness of love, replete with lush strings, delicate piano tinkling and a sumptuous melody more addictive than crack cocaine off Kate Upton's bountiful bazookas.
A song that just makes you want to get those dancing shoes and grab that gal and hit the floor!
I'd rather dance than talk with you ... indeed!!
The sublime vid was directed by fellow Norwegian Geir Hørnes and shot by Johan-Fredrik Bødtker.
The piece begins in a ballet studio where the teacher evicts an awkward young Erlend out of the room due to his ... erm unconventional dancing (which looks a little like a baby giraffe having a spasm atack!)
Cut to years later where Erlend dances to a record and Eirik plays the piano. Ballet students then enter the room and practice their basic moves. Soon, however, they begin to be taught Erlend's very unconventional steps, particularly "the swing."
Yap, bizarrely, Erlend's somehow a dancing teacher now.
The video culminates in a big - bizarre - dance recital with Eirik accompanying the dancers on piano and Erlend watching anxiously backstage.
Some interesting stylised minimalist monochromatic art here.
Dreams is the fine debut album from the project formed by Kings of Convenience frontman Erlend Øye and pals aka The Whitest Boy Alive.
The album was a critical success, garnering excellent reviews from the likes of ....
BBC4/5 stars
musicOMH4/5 stars
The Guardian4/5 stars
Drowned In Sound8/10 stars
NME6/10 stars
Pitchfork Media7.1/10
Still one half of Kings of Convenience - and well known for his Royksopp links -Norway's Erlend Oye here continues to straddle the electronic/acoustic fence with no obvious signs of discomfort.
The Whitest Boy Alive collaboration, with Berlin DJ Marcin Oez, started off as a dance project but eventually mutated into emotive rock; a sort of beefier, less folky KoC.
The songwriting still oozes quality- even when Oez's basslines veer into Cure territory, they are wonderfully counterpointed by Oye's subtle vocal style.
Tracklisting
1.Burning 3:11
2.Above You 3:15
3.Inflation 3:50
4.Fireworks 3:12
5.Done With You 5:24
6.Don't Give Up 5:55
7.Figures 3:57
8.Borders 5:30
9.Golden Cage 4:02
10.All Ears 3:20
without giving anything away,
I can say it's by the sea
A simple sumptuous song of memory. Once beautiful things with their beauty now long lost. A love that once felt eternal, now long gone, with the garden overgrown and the paint coming off.
It's the sparse, beautiful, evocative, haunting "Gold in The Air Of Summer".
The song, of course, appeared on Kings of Convenience's mighty "Riot on an Empty Street" LP from some moons back.
There's a gorgeous fan video for the song here from Aaron Schnobrich .
So we stumble into the beautifully shot, athmospheric, pastoral vid for the spiralling, liltful But We Did - the first fjord-ay ... sorry, foray into the realm of Dybdahl's spanking new What’s Left Is Forever LP.
No, it's not exactly a barrel of laughs; but, well, they are Norwegian, for fuck sake!
The vid was created and directed by Arild Ostin Ommundsen, with whom Dybdahl collaborated with on the film ‘Eventyrland’ (which resulted in a recent Bafta nomination for Dybdahl for his soundtrack to the movie.)
The video stars well known actress, Ravishing Redhead Silje Salomonsen (that is her full name!), who also moonlights as a member of Dybdahl’s band.
Tommy tells us ...
The resultant video and stunning cinematography provides a wonderful introduction to the world of Thomas Dybdahl and brings on side a new legion of fans.
More dispatches from the world of Thomas Dybdahl at ...
Some interesting artwork adorn's Dybdahl’s rather good sixth LP What’s Left Is Forever.
The LP was officially released on September 16, 2013 via 1MicAdventure / Strange Cargo. The set features thirteen songs on the standard edition, extended by three additional tracks on the deluxe version.
The songs were recorded in Los Angeles and Norway together with a remarkable array of musicans: drummer Jay Bellerose [Bob Dylan, Primal Scream], keyboards by Jamie Muhoberac [Biffy Clyro, Rolling Stones, My Chemical Romance] and strings provided by Vince Mendosa [Joni Mitchell, Björk].
Oh ... and all of Dybdahl’s vocals were recorded lying on the floor! Well, these Scandos sure do drink heavily!
On What’s Left Is Forever, Tommy collaborated with Grammy-winning producer Larry Klein (who's worked with Joni Mitchell etc.) who sorta seems to like this one, saying ....
“I can’t remember ever being more excited about an album than I am about the release of this one… it made me a different person."
So there you have it. That long wait is over --- buy this thing and become a different person now!!
Tracklisting
01. This Love Is Here To Stay
02. Easy Tiger
03. Running On Fumes
04. Shine
05. Soulsister
06. Man On A Wire
07 I Never Knew That What I Didn’t Know Could Kill Me
08. Interlude
09. City Lights
10. So Long
11. The Sculptor
12. But We Did
13. This Next Wave Is A Big One
14. The Great Plains [Deluxe Version]
15. Love’s Enough [Deluxe Version]
16. Shine (feat. Stavanger Vocalensemble) [Deluxe Version]
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh
The John Lennon classic "Norwegian Wood" from 1965's "Rubber Soul", the momentous LP when the Beatles became a real band!
It's a very Dylan influenced song - as were many Beats tracks from this time and later.
Lennon acknowledged being strongly influenced by Dylan during this period, and the rather opaque lyrics of "Norwegian Wood" reflect this. Dylan responded with "4th Time Around", a song with a similar melody, subject matter and lyrical delivery. Rock journalists and even Lennon himself felt it to be a rather pointed parody of "Wood" (some even went as far as to think the song's closing line—"And I, I never took much/I never asked for your crutch/Now don't ask for mine"—was directed toward Lennon.)
Lennon later though told his biographer that he considered Dylan's effort to be more of a playful homage!
I once had a girl, Or should I say She once had me. She showed me her room, Isn't it good? Norwegian wood. She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere, So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair. I sat on a rug Biding my time, Drinking her wine. We talked until two, And then she said, It's time for bed. She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh, I told her I didn't, and crawled off to sleep in the bath. And when I awoke I was alone, This bird has flown, So I lit a fire, Isn't it good? Norwegian wood.
It goes perfectly with Swans' Public Castration Is A Good Idea !
Actually, we did really like the perfect pure pop of A-Ha!
A Norwegian in Egypt? A Norwegian must surely melt in the searing heat of Egypt! I hope he brought factor 999 sun-cream!
It's been 12 years since Harket's solo debut album Wild Seed, which shifted over 160,000 units in Norway alone. This one's his fourth solo LP.
Letter from Egypt contains 12 tracks including the hit single 'Movies' and the impending second single 'Darkspace'.
Morten Harket is the lead singer with Grammy winning Norwegian trio A-ha, and "Letter from Egypt" is apparently his 4th solo album (and the first of which I'm hearing).
More downbeat and acoustic (with ambient flourishes) than the music done by his band, the album has already topped the album charts in his native Norway.
Filled with sombre yet melodic songs with deep lyrics, I was really looking forward to this CD as I'm a fan of Morten's fluid choir boy vocals. While he doesn't repeat the vocal gymnastics he displayed on songs such as "Living a boy's adventure tale" or "The blue sky", he still manages to put his pipes to good use, showing off his falsetto on occasion.
Opening is the longing "Darkspace" (with him singing longingly "You're with me/you're with me"). The brooding "Send me an angel" has dark synths, while the sweeping "There are many ways to die", "With you with me" and "Movies" are delicate ballads.
Other standouts include the acoustic title track, the jangly Waltz-like "Shooting star" the lovely "Anyone", and the tender closing acoustic ballad "The one you are". My favourite track though is the piano sprinkled "A name is a name", a ballad simply beautiful beyond description.
A good album, highly recommended!
By Nse Ette
Letter from Egypt is an exquisite work of thoughtfulness and care brought to us by one of the most distinctive voices on the scene today.
Morten's first solo album was just over twelve years ago, with 1995's Wild Seed, but fate intervened in the years and a-ha regrouped in 1999, producing three albums in the years since.
Now, Morten has once again taken the proverbial drivers' seat and shown us his creativity, both as a lyricist and a musician in this solo work. Letter from Egypt seems to be direct follow-up to Wild Seed and after a few listens, one can deduce the spiritual and curious side of Morten as he pushes the proverbial envelope in crafting some beautiful ballads (Letter from Egypt, A Name is a Name, With You - With Me) as well as some decidedly rockable hits (Darkspace, Send Me an Angel, Movies) all along using his voice as an instrument, hitting the highs, finessing the lows and massaging every note inbetween.
As with a fine hand-crafted wine, this album has been well worth the wait.
By Jason B. Miko
Tracklisting
01 Darkspace 02 Send Me An Angel 03 We´ll Never Speak Again 04 There Are Many Ways To Die 05 With You With Me 06 Letter From Egypt 07 A Name Is A Name 08 Movies 09 Shooting Star 10 Anyone 11 Should The Rain Fall 12 The One You Are
We really need our daily dose of Joe ... but ain't got no dough! If you like our stuff, you can click above and get us one! Gracias amigos!!
We're Loving This Shit!
Hot Deals cabrones!!!
Search the Contagion
Welcome to STUPID & contagious !
Greetings Comrades! A very warm welcome to the Last Bastion of Taste (and / or Nonsense!)
Contributors here are adult and mature (after a fashion!). Therefore, by definition, the same adjectives apply to our content.
Any links here relate to pre-existent content freely available on the World Wide Freedom Web and thus content which is available to all internet users under Freedom of Information Act and other legislation. We do not upload any files to file hosts.
However, if there is some content here that somebody has a valid objection to, please send us an email and the content shall be removed.
Posts
