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Apr 26, 2009

Soulful Sundays / Kero One Presents: Plug Label

Jon Lim Jazz Hip-hop, Kero One, Plug Label, Soulful Sundays Music, Soulful Sundays 0 Comment

Starting an entirely new weekly blog entry where, every Sunday, I highlight my favourite kind of hip hop albums: the jazzy kind! This week I’m showcasing Kero One Presents: Plug Label.

Kero One Presents: Plug Label

Fantastic album, here is the description of the album:

Featuring tracks from Aloe Blacc (Stonesthrow), Ohmega Watts (Ubiquity), Sound Providers (ABB), Kero One, and many more.

Kero One handpicks 16 songs and beats from the plug label vaults. 7 of the 14 are brand new and are featured here for the first time. None of these tracks have not been previously available on CD release.

I’ve been following Kero One ever since I heard him on a Choice37 album so this was very exciting for me to find. It’s a great album, and you should give it a listen. The stream is below!

Apr 24, 2009

Featured Album Fridays / Great Northern – Remind Me Where The Light Is (2009)

Jon Lim Featured Album Fridays, Great Northern, indie, Indie Pop, Music, Remind Me Where The Light Is Featured Album Fridays, Music 1 Comment

This week I am showcasing the 2009 album of Great Northern – Remind Me Where The Light Is.

Great Northern - Remind Me Where The Light Is

The album has a great poppy feeling to it, and fits perfectly on this wonderful Friday! Here is the description of Great Northern from their Last.FM:

“It’s like being intimate with total strangers.” That is how Rachel Stolte of Great Northern describes the feeling of performing live and creating a connecting with her audience. The sentiment could be duly applied to the band’s latest release, Remind Me Where the Light Is, on which Stolte and co-writer Solon Bixler pour so much of themselves into their highly personal lyrics and wistful melodies.

On their sophomore album, Bixler and Stolte are not afraid to delve into darkness. Taking that risk helped them find beauty in sadness, the uplifting elements in the devastating. “We took a lot more risks by entering uncomfortable territory that wasn’t touched on the last record,” Bixler says. “We dug deeper into the unpleasant, which helped us to find the beauty.”

Experiencing the negative to find the positive is something Bixler and Stolte are familiar with. “Both of us had been heading in unfulfilling directions creatively,” Bixler says of their situations prior to coming together. “When we started Great Northern, we finally felt like we were starting something that truly expressed what was in our hearts and minds.”

The stream is below, enjoy!

Apr 17, 2009

Featured Album Fridays / Maria Taylor – Lady Luck (2009)

Jon Lim Featured Album Fridays, folk, indie, LadyLuck, Maria Taylor, Music Featured Album Fridays, Music 0 Comment

This week on Featured Album Fridays, I’m showcasing Maria Taylor’s 2009 album – LadyLuck.

Maria Taylor - Lady Luck

Here is Maria Taylor’s description on her Last.FM:

Before you listen to her new album, Maria Taylor suggests you prepare yourself. Listen to it, she says “in a dark room, with a candle or two with headphones, maybe in the bath, but definitely horizontal.”

Though much of the deliciously diverse “LadyLuck” is inspired by the end of a relationship, it’s not dripping with sadness and grief, nor is it in-your-face empowering. Rather, Taylor strikes a stunning balance between melancholy (aching strings, hushed vocals) and uplifting (rolling rhythms, shimmering keys), highlighted by sharp lyrics that draw optimism out of sadness. This is not a woman down on her luck.

Great, relaxing album. Check it out, the stream is below. Enjoy!

Apr 11, 2009

Featured Album Fridays / Loney, Dear – Dear John (2009)

Jon Lim Dear John, Featured Album Fridays, folk, indie, Loney Dear, Music Featured Album Fridays, Music 0 Comment

This is a day late, but I’m posting it regardless! This week on Featured Album Fridays, I’m showcasing the 2009 album of Loney, Dear – Dear John.

Loney, Dear - Dear John

Here is the description of Loney, Dear from his Last.FM:

Multi-instrumentalist and home-recording phenom Emil Svanängen lives in Sweden and he makes records and plays shows under the somewhat inscrutable name of Loney, Dear. In either his tiny Stockholm studio apartment or the basement of his parents’ house, and with a dedication bordering upon manic, Emil discreetly builds Loney, dear songs using a modest home studio set-up. In this way he has recorded and then released himself on CD-R four albums in the last two or three years. He has managed to sell several thousand of these, pretty much on his own.

The music of Loney, dear has been aptly described as, “soulful indie folk with a powerful mini orchestra.” Layer upon layer, adding instrumentation and vocals, these songs seem to bloom like time-lapse photography, depicting glimpsed scenes of modern disaffection and timeless yearning. When performing live, Loney, dear becomes the band Emil conjures alone in his home studio, and mutates into a full, five-member band complete with guitar, sax, drums, organ and clarinet, shouts and claps. Loney, Noir is the most recently recorded Loney, dear album. It is at once effervescent and resigned, exhilarating and melancholy, joyous and confessional.

Have a listen, as usual, the stream is below! Enjoy.

Apr 3, 2009

Featured Album Fridays / Au Revoir Simone – Still Night, Still Light

Jon Lim Au Revoir Simone, Featured Album Fridays, folk, indie, Still Night Still Light Featured Album Fridays, Music 0 Comment

This week on Featured Album Fridays, I’m showcasing Au Revoir Simone’s 2009 album – Still Night, Still Light.

Au Revoir Simone - Still Night, Still Light

Here is the description of the band, from their Last.FM:

Au Revoir Simone is an indie pop band from Brooklyn, New York that formed in late 2003. The group consists of Erika Forster (vocals/keyboard), Annie Hart (vocals/keyboard), and Heather D’Angelo (vocals/drum machine/keyboard).

Forster and Hart became friends while traveling by train from Vermont to New York. The band name comes from a minor character in Tim Burton’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.

A mini-album ‘Verses of Comfort, Assurance, and Salvation’ was followed in early 2007 by ‘The Bird of Music’, on the Moshi Moshi label.

As usual, the stream is below. Enjoy!

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