Category: Music

Dedicated to the love of my life, music…

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Review: Natacha Atlas Acoustic Ensemle – The “real” Madonna was in Copenhagen

Natacha Atlas: Cover of the album Something DangerousYesterday I attended the Natacha Atlas concert at the “Store VEGA” venue in Copenhagen.

I first heard of Natacha Atlas less than 2 months ago, and since then I’ve been sort of obsessing on her, but I hadn’t really heard any of her music except on Last.fm, that was until yesterday.

The concert had been moved from the smaller Lille VEGA due to high demand, and you can understand why.

The concert was part of the “Images of the Middle East” event, and you can’t really think of anyone better than Natacha Atlas to represent the fusion of cultures, she’s labelled herself, according to Wikipedia, as a “human version of the Gaza strip”, due to her multi-cultural background, and the conflicts that has created in her mind.

This time Natacha Atlas was bringing a predominantly acoustic ensemble, drums, cello, violin, guitar, flute and Fender Rhodes.

Natacha was concentrating on Arabic songs, most of them examples of fusion of the music styles of the west and the east, something she pioneered, but it’s been going on for centuries, just think of the south of Spain.

The mixture of West and The Middle East is a perfect fit, since the classic tradition of both music cultures really aren’t that different, but the use of more complex rhythms and especially the use of the voice as an instrument is something that is lacking in traditional western music.

Well Natacha you gave me the chills, it’s not often I’ve experienced this feeling at a concert, but what great musicians with your voice being the most beautiful sounding instrument of them all. Several times you had improvised duets with the musicians, and it was just beautiful.

It hard to pick any highlights from the concert, because it was all good, and several times I drifted into trance like state, but the several minutes long drum solo, where the audience joined in was indeed a highlight, the interpretation of “Black is the colour of my true love” was impressive, and the song that was played twice (one of the encores – I didn’t get the title), was a tribute to one of the most popular Arabic singers ever, Abdel Halim Hafez.

Store VEGA is a great venue, but I think that this performance would have been even better at a smaller venue, but the contact with the audience was nevertheless quite exceptional.

Final note: Natacha you’re everything Madonna would like to be. The “real” Madonna, or dare I say Isis graced Copenhagen yesterday, and I truly loved it. This was one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever attended.

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Blogs Bookmarks Design Kim Blog (English) Music Technology

Microsoft’s Zune aims to be social butterfly | CNET News.com

Photos: Zune revealedMicrosoft’s Zune aims to be social butterfly | CNET News.com

CNET (and the rest of the web), is filled with details about Microsofts Zune soon to be released portable digital media player.

The information has been made available due to a FCC filing.

Some of the details are interesting. Here’s a quote from the CNET article.

Zune owners can act as their own DJ, sending streaming music content to up to four other devices, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission . With the device’s wireless networking abilities turned on, people can send and receive photos, as well as “promotional copies of songs, albums and playlists,” according to the filing, made public Thursday.

I think this is a killer feature, and it sounds exactly like some of the ideas I’ve had previously.

But will people actually use it? Bluetooth hasn’t emerged as a social technology, in my experience very few people actually enable Bluetooth except for use with wireless headsets.

I envision that I can surf the local wireless “radios”, listening in to what people in the near proximity is listening to, without their knowledge.

Unfortunately I think that Zune will come with major security features, making it impossible to surf the airwaves freely.

I hope that the specifications for this wireless technology will be open, so that it can find it’s way into other consumer products, I’d love to be able to hook my player up to a stereo without the need for cables.

I actually expected Apple to be first to market with something like this, but when they join in, I definitely expect that they will come up with a solution, that is easier to use than anything Microsoft can come up with. Something that is as simple to use as shared music in iTunes is what I want, actually that’s exactly what I want!

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Music

Review: On da grind – Masta Ace keeping it real in Copenhagen

Masta Ace Keeping It Real In CopenhagenOn Friday the 11th of august Masta Ace and friends visited the Amager Bio venue in Copenhagen, and so did I, mostly thanks to my local record pusher Musik Hjørnet in Taastrup.

The opening act was the Danish act DJ Static and MC Nat Ill, kicking it classic old-skool 1DJ and 1MC style. This is one great team, and they got the venue jumping. I think sometimes Static was showing off a little too much, and the 1+1 line-up is better suited for freestyling IMHO. Anyway, some of the best Danish Hip-Hop I’ve ever heard.

On to the main act. Masta Ace, first to take the stage was the DJ A.Vee, spinning the wheels of steel, no showing off here, just great music. Down went the lights and the first of Ace’s friends, Big Stricklean, took stage, and he’s one tight MC, preparing the wires for the Masta.

The set was mostly made up of tracks from the great 2004 album “A long hot summer”, and we were indeed introduced to a third MC, Wordsworth, and he’s a great rapper, he started by jumping off stage, later delivering a few tracks from his recent album, that sounds very interesting.

A lot of tribute was paid to the pioneers of hip-hop, first with a great “Juice Crew” trivia quiz, to my surprise I actually knew the answers…Later we were asked to drop the names of our favourite hip-hop acts, I was yelling Doom, and maybe Wordsworth heard me, because he suggested him. Ace mentioned “Gangstar” as his favourite act, not a bad choice. Generally this was a place for lovers of hip-hop, not much respect for the new hot shots that fill MTV these days, you got to gain and show respect the hard way.

Masta Ace Signed TicketThis was a great jam, and time flew. After finishing all four stayed for a long time, taking time to sign records, tickets (even mine see the picture, and I wasn’t pushing), shoes, caps etc. Truly keeping it real for the fans.

Masta Ace delivered the best Hip-Hop jam I’ve been too for ages, oh well, I haven’t exactly been to a lot lately, my top two jams are “De La Soul” and “Queen Latifah” in 1990, but this was pretty close.

Show your L’s for Love! Bringing an end to the bling bling era! B to the K to L to the Y to the N! I want more! WE MADE SOME NOISSSSEEEE!

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Music

Review: DO Y’ALL FELL GOOD? The Godfather of Soul: James Brown in Copenhagen

Mr. James Brown

  • The Godfather of Soul
  • The hardest working man in show business
  • the list goes on

visited the Amager Bio Venue in Copenhagen on the 30th on July 2006.

This was an event not to be missed, how often do you get to see such a legend live, and in a relatively small venue with somewhat of a club like atmosphere.

Mr. Brown brought with him an all star band, with extremely strong rhythm and horn sections, they were tight indeed, mastering jazz, soul and funk. And what great backup singers.

From a quite slow jazzy start where Mr. Brown was mostly acting as a big band leader, the show picked up the pace, and the godfather showed some of his moves, and when he occasionally let himself loose his voice showed remarkable strength.

Finally the venue was jumping, and the delivery of “Sexmachine” and finally “It’s a man’s world” were amazing. Suddenly the show was over, way, way too soon, and the church of soul that had temporarily been opened at Amager Bio, closed down, with no room for encores.

Thank you, and “Mr Brown, you know that we don’t start, till you make the count”, please start it again sometime. It felt REALLY REALLY good!

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Blogs Bookmarks Kim Blog (English) Music Technology

Last.fm relaunches with a depth charge

last.fm logoTools – Downloads – Last.fm

Yesterday last.fm was down for maintenance, only stating that we should get ready for “depth charge”.

BOOM! last.fm has relaunched, with lots of improvements and a cool new personal page called the “Dashboard”, but the most impressive new feature is the new rich client, I guees the Last.fm developers got feed up with JavaScript, so now we have a full featured client for our enjoyment.

Here’s a screen shot of the new client:
Last.fm client screenshot
The new client is a tremendous improvement over the previous client, now taking advantage of the community.

It’s getting more and more like iTunes, it will run on basically anything, is open source and uses it’s own streaming protocol making it independent of Apple and Microsoft. What’s not to like?

Last.fm is one of the coolest things on the planet, and I feel that they think exactly the same way I do.

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Blogs Kim Blog (English) Music

GUF music store in Copenhagen to relaunch

During this week I’ve been buying more music than all of last year, and I haven’t used the net at all.

It started last Friday at Pladehjørnet, continued Wednesday at the Fair in Vig, and ended yesterday, when I was in Lars Bjørnsstræde to check my favourite clothing store, Tracks

I noticed that the GUF music store looked very changed.

It turns out that it is going to re-launch with a new concept of low stock, music related artwork and collectibles and a display with classics mixed with new releases.

It’s a bold move, but I think that this is what is needed to counter the mass-consumerism of the music industry, we need speciality shops like this, it’s much akin to cartoon stores like Fantask!

The clerk asked me how many of the classics he had displayed that I owned, he was surprised to hear that the count was one, Speakerboxx by Outcast. Hmm…why don’t I have any Ray Charles? Now I have! His display clearly works.

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'i dag' (Danish) Blogs Music Technology

Macnyt.dk på visitkortet?

Så sidder man i bussen på vej til Odsherred, og har lige udført en voldsom gang evangelisme.

Hurtigbussen til Vestsjælland kører fra Høje-Taastrup, problemet for Københavnerne er at de ikke er klar over et par ting vedr. bussen:

  • Den er relativt dyr
  • Man kan ikke bruge HT klippekort
  • De tager ikke Dankort

3 minutter før den skulle køre, var der en mand der ikke have kontanter, og han kunne bestemt ikke nå at hente nogle.

Hvad gør man så, jo låner manden penge – det er faktisk pænt grænseoverskridende, men jeg har gjort det før, og dengang fik jeg dem tilbage. Bortset fra det så har jeg afskrevet dem, det vil IKKE skade mit humør hvis jeg IKKE får pengene tilbage, bare få mig til at filosofere over menneskets ondskab 😉

Bortset fra det er der ikke nogen bedre måde at få en “single serving friend” på, end at låne ham/hende penge, så vi faldt i snak.

Det viste sig at han var musikker, og lige havde bestilt en MacBook Pro, for nu skulle han til at lave musik. Men hvad med det med hjemmesider, hvorfor er der ikke et program der gør det nemt? Ah det skal jeg vise dig! Nå du har computeren med! Ja det har jeg næsten altid.

Så vi lavede næsten en Podcast. iWeb og GarageBand gør det nemt, men også lækkert.

Og så regner jeg med at vi ser manden på Macnyt.dk, for det gjorde jeg også lidt reklame for.

Hmm…Får jeg brug for at få trykt nogle Macnyt.dk visitkort?

Kim Bach
Macnyt.dk Evangelist

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Blogs Historier/Stories Kim Blog (English) Music

Summer and new music – hip-hop and you don’t stop

Once in a while you have to pay your local record store (Musik Hjørnet in Taastrup BIG UP!) a visit, I did that yesterday, and left with a small record collection.

Since it’s summer for real in Denmark, and I’ve been in the mood for Dancehall – well almost since the “R*A*W” event in august 2004, but especially since “Bikstok Røgsystem” spilled “Over stok og sten” – and I’ve been listening to Internet radio stations like Baby Ace Radio and Batanga Reggaeton, for the last couple of days I asked the clerk for some Hispanic Dancehall (aka. Reggaeton).

Well the clerk obviously knew something about the subject, so he found a small collection, but I noticed that he included a DefJamacian record, he clearly was a fan of hip-hop.

A lot of the Dancehall records on the market are far too mainstream for my taste, so we began discussing hip-hop in general, and I asked for some more experimental stuff, like MF Doom and Dangerdoom, and it turned out that Doom and Danger were among his favourites too!

A couple of hours later I left with this collection:

  • Track 72 – Rockin’ “Dansk når det er bedst”
  • Madlid – Shades Of Blue “Doesn’t really sound like anything else”
  • Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique “Legendary but I only have a 12” and I “missed it””
  • Various – DefJamaican “Dancehall and big hip/hop stars”
  • Madlid – Blunted In The Bomb Shelter Mix by Madlib
  • Various – Dancehall Nice Again 2004 “Well had to have some”
  • Masta Ace – A Long Hot Summer “And I ordered a ticket for the Jam in Copenhagen”
  • Queen Latifah – All Hail The Queen “YOU SAID IT. I LOVE YOU LATIFAH”

Thanks mate! My nano is maxing out!

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Blogs Bookmarks Kim Blog (English) Music

Review: Gnarls Barkley in Copenhagen June 21st 2006

Gnarls Barkley

Yesterday the popular band Gnarls Barkley visited the VEGA venue in Copenhagen.

I hadn’t really heard too much of the music, but I had of course heard the track “Crazy”, so I didn’t really know what to expect, beside the fact that DJ DangerMouse is involved with the project, and that should, by itself, be a recommendation, since he was involved with some of the most exciting releases of 2005, like the second Gorillaz album and the DangerDoom project.

The band looked like a 70ies funk-band wearing white suits, and the set-up included three backing singers, and a couple of violin and cello players, on top of that two keyboard players, and a traditional set-up with drums, bass and guitar. Interesting indeed.

And it became even stranger, when they announced themselves as another band because Gnarls Barkley couldn’t make it, and opened with a cover of “She blinded me with science”, I doubt that too many in the packed VEGA venue recognised that – the tone was set for something different.

The band was extremely tight, playing a tough kind of traditional 70ies inspired soul and funk sparkled with “strange sounds” and rock riffs.

The singer Cee-Lo has a great traditional soul singer voice, that goes perfect with the music.

The only down point to an otherwise great set, was that it was too short, approximately an hour, but that is understandable since the band has had such a short history.

High points were the live versions of “Gone Daddy Gone” and of course Crazy sent the venue jumping.

The set ended with a sound inferno, where the guitar player really let himself loose.

I left the venue with a big smile on my lip, this had been a great evening. “FUNK TOGET KØRTE”!

Highly recommended.

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Blogs Bookmarks Kim Blog (English) Music Technology

Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 easy steps! on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 easy steps! on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

This sent me LOL…Guess I was seduced by the Apple marketing hype as well, with my “ODE to the shuffle” from last week.

Now…I don’t think that I’d cry if Apple should decide to drop the shuffle, or even fit it with a screen. What I’d miss is the auto-fill feature and the 5 button user interface, which I love.