Things are a bit slow around here lately so that’s why I ‘m trying to deliver two topics at the same time. I’ve been uploading quite a lot of music that I recently gathered around but not everything is ready yet. As often I’ve been busy working but I’ve also been to a lot of concerts. Just right now, this evening, I saw a young band called Those Dancing Days at Trix here in Antwerp. A charming girlsgroup from Sweden where popmusic pours out the watertap it seems and ends up in baby milk. I don’t have another explanation for the amount of pure quality popmusic coming from Sweden.
What did they bring? In Dutch we have a term for this kind of naïve music: rammelpop. It could be translated into rattle, jingle or jangle pop because the rhythms and melodies wander off into many directions but in the end they land back on all fours like a cat. It’s anything but tight but that doesn’t madder. It all adds to the charm and the youthful spirit.
Their Hit, tasty isn’t it?
The day before that I saw M83 from France and the local band Yuko but the most fond memories are from a concert a while back by My Brightest Diamond and Clare & The Reasons at Le Botanique in Brussels. It was the second time that I saw My Brightest Diamond live but my first pleasant encounter with Claire & The Reasons. Those Reasons turned out to be the backing band or rather strings for the main act as well. They both came to promote a new album and I bought Claire’s album at the venue because I liked the show and I already have both albums by My Brightest Diamond.
Claire sang a coverversion of Somewhere Over The Rainbow with new lyrics which consisted of only one word: Obama. She said or believes that if you repeat something over and over again it becomes true. How lovely :) If you listen to the music and read this quote I think you get a rather accurate picture of what the concert was like: nice, warm, pleasant and beautiful. And so was My Brightest Diamond but luckily she’s not that soft or daft? :) A bit more balanced and focused. Although she stopped the set a couple of times for short intermezzo’s: some magic tricks involving a black top hat and a rabbit. All good fun and still a great voice and performer. Maybe it’s a pitty that she’s not yet a major artist over here that plays in bigger concert halls but on the other hand it’s much nicer to see her in a small venue real close.
My personnel introduction to Shara Worden more than a year ago.
The concert
Claire & The Reason's played a great cover of Tears For Fears Everybody Wants To Rule The World
lalala will follow
It’s that time of year again. Everything gets kind of gloomy and cold. Days get shorter and darker. The new yellow pages arrive and signal that old ones can hit the sack or that they can serve a better use drying autumn leaves as in the old schooldays. The first sneeze and cuff get a hold of me as my mind wanders off away from hot summer and disco dancing and into a more melancholic mode and musical setting. The stubru radio program 
Here’s just a short list of my favourite Telex tracks and related stuff. Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers both had their share in creating the Telex sound and they are responsible for more wonderful stuff outside the Telex format. For instance Z-Moor-Z. An incredible Moers vehicle produced by Telex. I’m really glad to be able to offer the Razormaid remix of Héros Dynamique and above all Raised by Snakes, by far one of the best Telex tracks. It’s not on any of the remix albums that they released. Razormaid was a magazine back in the days and a anonymous collective of DJ’s and remixers who produced dozens of outstanding independent remixes in the 80’s. Some of them got released on much sought after compilation albums.
