Day 109 - Between Border- Flowers in my pocket

I somehow have a weak spot for music that is linked to commercials. Last year Don Fardon's - I'm alive is still a song that turns up in different playlist I regularly play and the Brand (dutch beer) commercials that feature Paul Weller's Wildwood and Aaron's U-Turn are also songs that I love to play, especially in the autumn with a nice Belgium beer in my hand while sitting in the last few rays of sunlight of the year.

And last week, I discovered another commercial -song, that wandered around in my head for several days. It's from the new Bose commercial and I love it. It's from Between Border, a Manchester, UK based band. It just gives that summery, happy, cheerfull feel. A song that you want on your mp3 player while you run along the beach or drive towards your favorite holiday-destination with friends.

I am not going to say much about the musical qualities of these guys, or how brilliantly layered this song is, or how beautiful the voice of the lead-singer is, because it's typically not that kind of song that you would want to analyze again and again. It's just a song to listen to and enjoy..

  

Day 108: The Tallest Man On Earth - 1904

The Tallest Man On Earth clearly is a moniker and it's Kristian Matsson's. This Swedish singer-songwriter issues music on his own for more than ten years now. His name and recent album 'There's No Leaving Now'  caught my attention, again, by its describing keywords indie and folk. Now, indie nowadays is not very precise when indicating the sound of the music in question, other than implying it stands aparts from mainstream. Folk, here is targetting better, because Matsson's songs on There's No Leaving Now refer back to a lot of names from the past, such as Nick Drake and also Bob Dylan. For that reason, the music is not necessarily old fashioned , since Matsson, still a youngster, delivers his songs in a modern atmosphere. However, the album sounds perfectly lo-fi recorded and shows how purity can be effective. It is more relaxed than his previous albums and contains a variety in instrumentation that is interesting. The album opens beautifully with 'To Just Grow Away', with friendly chords played on electric piano and guitar and sucked me right in. But today's song is '1904', a nicely decorated and catchy up-tempo acoustic song, that does not lack on strength and might become very recognisable after a few listenings.

Day 107: Angus Stone - Bird on a Buffalo

We know today's artist mainly from his cooperation with his sister Julia and their hit "Big Yet Plane". They had quite some success with their album Down The Way (2010). Unfortunately they made the decission to part and go in different directions. Angus told Surfing World Magazine, “Recording with Julia is cool but we both have our hands on the wheel. This was an opportunity to grab the wheel and do some burn-outs.”

And so Angus Stone was back on his own again, after his first solo debut in 2009 with the album smoking Gun. Soon he will be back with a new album called "Broken Brights" which will be released in July. Today's song is the second single of that album called Bird on a buffalo. For me it provides again that Angus on his own is nothing less (and at least as good as) then when he was still together with Julia.  Pastermagazine writes about the song "While the two animals must collaborate to ensure mutual survival, the lyrics “we got together like the bird on the buffalo” describe a metaphor for a musing relationship between lovers."

What I like about it, the creativity of the lyrics, the relaxt mood of the song and the voice of Angus which makes this song complete, like there is nothing to worry about and so you just have to take the time to listen to this song.

Day 106: Hot Chip - Look At Where We Are

Hot Chip have recently brought out their fifth studio album and it is already acclaimed by amongst other pitchfork.com to be their most lively ones. Producing their music in the genres of indie electronica and pop, Hot Chip is considered to be leading, so worth listening I found. In Our Heads sounds rather diverse and contains smart electronica pop tunes as well as indie dance tracks. Obviously, the eighties decade in musical sense must have been influential and inspirational, when composing the tracks, is what member Joe Goddard has stated earlier too. Not surprisingly, here and there a name such as Nik Kershaw is musically referred to, next to, as co-writer Justin mentioned, tracks that resemble the most to minimal techno.

Picking a song is not easy, since no track represents the album as a whole. So here is my favorite, a nice slow jam, sung in a beautiful melody and a right counterpart to the uptempo tracks. Listen to Look At Where We Are with a decent set of headphones to not miss out on superb production and deep bass. I Like.

Day 105: Deus - Quatre Mains

Since 2 years I have a weak spot for music from our neighbours from the south. Somehow, their music always fascinates me. This is not any different with the sudden release of the new studio album of Belgium Rock Band Deus, "Following Sea". 

On June 1st they announced that they would release their 7th album, which was quite a surprise as their last album "Keep you close" is only of November last year. In an interview on 3voor12 leadsinger Tom Barman announces: "We have created numbers which we don't want to lose, numbers that we didn't want to keep in stock for 4 years, so we broke with our traditional way of working and choose to finish the songs quickly and release them. It's 2012 for fuck's sake. The idea of waiting for months with releasing them seemed so old fashioned" 

This album contains the traditional Deus sound, with the great voice of Barman, who shows again that he is a great singer and songwriter. He even surprises us with a first song in French (posted below). And although the consistency between the songs sounds sometimes loose, as some of them were written before the previous album and some of them during their tour, listening to the album a couple of times confirms again that Deus is one of the finest rock bands from Belgium. And with this cd they are ready for the festival season.

Day 104 - Goldfish ft Morning Parade - Washing over me

Hello, there. After a couple of weeks of being absent from 365 singles we're back with some new fresh music. I had to find myself some inspiration and had to make new musical discoveries before I was motivated to write about music again. At the moment I write this I realize that this is one of the reasons for visiting concerts, venues and festivals.. To keep being motitaved for this blog. So I went to London Calling Indie Pop/ Rock festival in Paradiso with co-author Peter, danced the day away at Techno Edit festival in Haarlem and last Thursday visited Swedish Miike Snow at the O2 Academy in London with my brother. So enough inspiration for at least a while.

I keep it short today. Just looking outside makes me feel crappy. It's rainy, windy and the temperature has dropped till around 9-10 degrees Celcius. I need some energyzing, sunny, feel-good music to warm me up and make me dance inside my room.

This South African group is not really new, although they have found a new form of making music by working together with another great band from the UK. I'm am talking about the cooperation between Goldfish and Morning parade with their song Washing over Me. I fell in love with it while I drove home yesterday evening, the sun setting and the radio full open. Have a great summer... ;-)