The Civil Wars

If you are into music consisting of such purity, beauty, and simplicity, you should check out The Civil Wars. The perfectly complementing duo, Joy Williams from California and John Paul White from Arkansas, travel on the road with the barest acoustic set up and without a backup band. Each song this duo writes together epitomizes the angelic essence of an intimate conversation.
The story of how The Civil Wars came about began when they met at a writing camp in 2008. Nearly twenty song writers were in a room and when Joy heard John singing, she was immediately able to catch on where his songs were heading, having never met before. This sparked an exciting musical relationship between the two.
One song in particular which seemed to stun listeners the moment it was heard on Grey’s Anatomy, is called “Poison & Wine”. The harmony’s and sentiment conveyed in this exquisite song are overwhelmingly complementary and led to over 2,000,000 hits on YouTube. I personally can not stop listening to the artists’ chemistry in this song.

Check out The Civil Wars signature song “Poison & Wine”

Click here to check out their Facebook page.

Friends – I’m His Girl

We’ve recently had a post about Brooklyn band Friends. We still love them, and so will you after seeing their new video for the song I’m His Girl.

As a big fan of 1980′s and 90′s music videos, this one takes me back to those exact years. And to make sure the band’s source of inspiration is shown, a tape with Neneh Cherry’s Raw Like Sushi can be seen in the very beginning.

Check it out!

Björk

The unique Icelandic singer Björk recently released her 8th full-length studio album Biophilia (presumably named after the biophilia theory that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems).

The album is interesting as it is partly recorded in a studio and partly recorded on an iPad. Björk herself has called it a project that combines new technology and apps with regular recording methods. The artwork looks inspired by outer space and lunar activity, and let’s face it – Björk had dibs on excessive expression way before Lady Gaga.

I don’t want to be the judge of whether the album good or not, but no matter what one’s feelings about Björk are, no one can question the fact that she is an amazing singer who knows how to play with her voice to the extreme.

Below is the video for Moon, which is co-written by Damian Taylor. So decide for yourselves!

Click here for Björk’s website, and here for her Facebook page.

RIP Steve Jobs

A belated RIP to Mr. Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple. The inventive well, let’s just say it, genius died, sadly, of pancreatic cancer on October 5th.

Mr Jobs had some interesting methods of business – methods that are still discussed all over the world. But more importantly, he had clear visions of the future and looks of his products and a philosophy that you should do exactly what you love – and nothing more or less.

Besides the fact that Jobs and his products gave the music business machines that work more or less flawlessly in recording and production – something this studio benefits from every day – he was also the father of iTunes. A program that revived music sales in a time where big labels were going down due to Napster, Kazaa and other illegal downloading services. Jobs’ vision gave the consumers the option of buying each song individually – and so they did. More than 10 billion times.

When iTunes hit the sale of 10 billion songs, it released a list of the most sold songs ever. The first place, you can see below (it may be a weird subject of a song in an obituary, but it is a tribute to his product, iTunes, nothing more).

Thanks for everything, Steve.

New Feist album

Here’s a little taste from Feist’s new album Metals. Her previous albums Let It Die and The Reminder are some of the most played albums on my iPod, and Feist really seems to be an artist that you either love or hate.

Decide for yourselves:

Also, read the Pitchfork interview with Feist here.

Sky Ferreira

The 19-year old singer/songwriter/model/actress/wonderchild Sky Ferreira came by the studio the other day to record some vocals, and that made me want to do a little post about her.

Ferreira, an LA native, got her big break when her MySpace videos and songwriting caught the eyes of Swedish music producers Bloodshy & Avant (Britney, Madonna, Kylie etc etc.), who decided to work with her. This gave her the opportunity to write songs for superstar Britney Spears and appear in Uffie’s video to Pop The Glock. Eventually, this and her pretty face also gave her the gig as a model for CK One.

However, Sky now seems to be working primarily with her own music, and released debut EP AS IF! a few months ago.

Click here to like Sky on Facebook, here for her Twitter and here for her official website.

Below is a video from 2010 about a girl (Sky) who’s obsessed with Michael Madsen.

Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame

Congratulations to The Cure on being nominated for Rock and Rock Hall Of Fame for the very first time!

Other first-time nominees this year are Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Eric B. & Rakim and Guns’n'Roses. Furthermore, Red Hot Chili Peppers are nominated yet again and so are the Beastie Boys.

You are eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, once it’s been 25 years since your first single came out.

The Cure’s first single was Killing an Arab (recorded in 1979 and released in 1980), whose lyrics were inspired by the novel L’Etranger by Albert Camus. You can see the video below.

Young Digerati

If you’re into unashamed synth pop, the newest addition to the Rocket family will definitely be in your liking.

The group Young Digerati is a San Francisco-based band of four (Frank Lipari, Jeff Thompson, Tim O’Neill & William Arvin) whose style is no less than modernized, 80′s style synth pop all the way – and they’re proud of it!

Their The Amanda EP is out on their bandcamp for free and is basically an old-fashioned single with their song The Dauphin (see below) in different remixes. I personally recommend the Ride the Universe-remix, which sends your mind back to 1970′s disco parties (and John Travolta’s SNF moves). If you’re into more hardcore electro, the Whorerhouse remix is a little more dirty.

See below for the original The Dauphin video, click here for their bandcamp and here for their Facebook page. Also, do not recommend this to your friends who don’t like synth pop, because they may kill you.

Enjoy!

High praise

So if you’ve read our previous post about it, you know that we agree with Rolling Stone Magazine when they say that Dancing in the Street is one of Mick Jagger’s best duets.

Personally, I’ll never ever stop watching that video.

The end of REM

A classic from the prime.