We first heard this song at Hannah Peel’s storming live show in East London last year, and now it’s coming out with studio spit and polish. The whiskey-drinking Peel describes it as a song written to comfort a friend, and it certainly drapes you in smooth curtains of sound that take away all the pain.
Kari Berg is not just a singer, actress and model. The Swedish vocalist (Ashbury Heights, Chaos All Stars) is also an anti-bullying activist. As a project leader for Sweden’s “Rätten till sin identitet” (EN: “The Right to Their Identity”), Berg is highly visible in work with youth in subcultures who face oppression and violence for liking their own music and fashion. RTSI is similar to the UK’s Sophie Lancaster Foundation, a charity set up following the unprovoked murder of Lancaster and her partner in Lancashire.
To support RTSI’s work, Berg has collaborated with Yves Schelpe from the Belgian band, Psy’Aviah, to create this song and video. The title, “It’s Just Words,” refers to the gossip and slander that is used to marginalise people who simply wish to be themselves. The story in the video was inspired by “Promenaden” [EN: “The Promenade”] by Emelie Engwall, taken from the RTSI-published book, “Våra Berättelser” [EN: “Our Stories”].
“It’s Just Words” is a great groove for the weekend, but it’s got a serious message, too.
LINKS
Rätten till sin identitet
Kari Berg Web Site
Psy’Aviah Web Site
Sophie Lancaster Foundation
The annual pagan fertility festival, dressed in Christian disguise, has been and gone; but, for those who weren’t into taking part, there is this sleek, YMO-influenced track from Norway’s Pieces of Juno. “Valentine” is about being not being someone else’s Valentine or having to make someone else yours. The first track from Juno’s forthcoming EP, Frisson, nevertheless has the feel of a sine romance. Is that because of the cinematic qualities of the track or because of the deft interplay between the vocals and beats? Hard to say on first listen, but repeated plays make the heart grow fonder.
If Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen got together at David Lynch’s house, the result might be this cinematic, poetic, flowing and dark track from Mute’s latest signing, On Dead Waves. “Blackbird” is the first release from the band, which appears to be a collaboration between Maps and Polly Scattergood, also on the Mute roster, and it heralds deep things to come.
A frontal assault on your senses, “There Is No Authority But Yourself” shakes you from your PBR-fuelled complacency and kicks you out onto the dancefloor with old school EBM patterns. From her forceful, electro-Amazon vocals, we’d say that Joanna Rein’s not compromising, so you’ll need to let someone else feed your sourdough starter and get your heavy boots on. You’re not a trend-following, peer-pressure absorbing hipster – you’re the Authority. And there isn’t another one but you.
On paper, New Order‘s re-emergence on Mute is a marriage made in Heaven. The departure of Depeche Mode left Mute without a flagship act, and New Order’s path into the stratosphere had run on a zig-zig path that was essentially parallel to the Basildon trio’s own. They even used the same record plugger for many years. The link-up allows New Order to maintain an indie base while getting the label’s full attention, which can’t be good for smaller acts like Polly Scattergood but will give Manchester’s best export long-term presence.
Bassist Peter Hook has left to pursue a Joy Division/New Order tribute project of his own, but that works out well for fans: New Order (Official) don’t play much from the back catalogue, so Hook’s New Order (Provisional) – also called Peter Hook & The Light – fills an enormous gap. Although some fans can’t accept a New Order without him, the reality is that it is Bernard Sumner’s voice and songwriting that is at the core of the band now.
“Restless,” the first single from Music Complete (Mute), arguably comes across better in this Agoria remix than in the original version: Sumner’s voice is even more fragile and languid with the synthetic bass and orchestration behind him. This is promising, indeed.
The latest release from Finland’s Lau Nau is the album, Hem. Någonstans [EN: Home. Somewhere], which is also the soundtrack from a film of the same name. As with Lau Nau’s previous work, the boundary between modern classical music and experimental electronics is blurred in a haze of strings and chorus. The sounds make as much sense on a hot summer day, when the heat is bending the light, as on a frozen winter morning, when the sap cannot move in the trees, because they stroke your senses with the most sensitive of timbres.
Gary Gilmore murdered two men and was put before a Utah firing squad. His last words were a Christian blessing, but they are remembered in popular culture as “Let’s do this.” His corneas were donated for transplants, and this act inspired The Adverts’ classic punk hit, “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes.” TV Smith of The Adverts has now teamed up with Martin Bowes of Attrition for an updated re-telling of the tale.
John Foxx and his sometime-collaborator, Louis Gordon, made some formidable music together. The title track from 2006’s From Trash is notable for the emphatic, glam-stomp of the bass line and Foxx’s distinctive and heart-felt vocals. DJs, shame on you, if you don’t get this out once in a while.
For everyone with a Eurovision hangover, we’d recommend taking a listen to this fine Spanish electropop and forgetting you stayed up to watch the voting. Destino Plutòn [EN: Destination Pluto] have a foot firmly in the space disco camp, and there are enough sweeps and bounces in here to satisfy fans of SMPJ and Vision Talk alike. This track, “Césped Artificial” [EN: “Artificial Turf”], is remixed from their most recent release, which translates as “The Importance of Virtual Contact.”