September '13 Music Box

1. Sleigh Bells - You don't get me twice



2. M.I.A. - Come walk with me



3. Holm. - Day 337 useless options.



4. Holm. - Day 355 it moves.



5. Holm. - Day 356 quit.



6. Anna Calvi - Sing to me



Pick of the month:

Anna Calvi - Suddenly

August '13 Video Box

1. MGMT - Your Life is a Lie



2. Maven Fiction - Wishbone Break Up



3. These New Puritans - Organ Eternal



4. Franco and the Dreadnought - Moving Mountains



5. Anna Calvi - Eliza



6. Haim - The Wire



7. Mutya Keisha Siobhan - Flatline



PickS! of the month:

8. Zola Jesus - Fall Back



9. Lady Gaga - Applause

August '13 Music Box

1. Anna Calvi - Eliza



2. Frankie Rose - Sorrow



3. Arctic Monkeys - Stop the world I wanna get off with you



4. Tree - Karma Police (Radiohead cover)



5. Shelf Nunny -  I was (Albert Softmann)





Pick of the month:

6. Kings of Leon - Wait For Me

July '13 Video Box

1. P!nk feat. Lily Allen - True Love



2. Austra - Painful Like



3. Capital Children's Choir - Untrust Us (Crystal Castles cover)



4. Franz Ferdinand - Love Illumination



Pick of the month:

5. Franz Ferdinand - Right Action

July '13 Music Box

1. Tree feat. Beat Culture & Lena Kuhn - Demons



2. Holm.- Day 278 I h8 sunrizes



3. Kali Ma feat. Lindsay Stiem - Listen



4. Willis Earl Beal - Too dry to cry



5. Mutya Keisha Siobhan - Flatline



Pick of the month:

Haim - The Wire

Rock the Beach

 

Queens of the Stone Age:

This is the closest I've gotten to the awesome female punk singer Brody Dalle.
(Josh Homme's wife).

 

Green Day:
Wasn't too keen on seeing them again, but as soon as to music started, it was yet another fun 2½ hours.

Gotta say though, that it isn't that great to have the exact same type of show as a few years ago, but thumbs up for playing a lot of songs on Dookie.



30 Seconds To Mars:
One of the worst gigs I've ever been to.
Jared talked way too much. After every single song.
"Can we play another song for you?"
Dude, you've only played two songs so far.

 



Droid Daughter - Mira

Here it is folks, my blog’s first ever exclusive preview. And geeh, I just realized that I don’t even know where the album name “Mira” comes from! I just started to get these feel-good memories of the time when my Spanish flat mates loved the Finnish name Mira, because it was easy for them to pronounce and means “look” in Spanish. They usually associated it with the word “ass”.

But the name is not the only thing, which makes me feel good. I’ve hailed Warminster- based producer Droid Daughter aka Connor Lepre as a true wonder kid of pure electronic music. And with his third full-length, it’s pretty evident that my words are not just words. Even if I say so myself.

Although I get these positive feelings while listening to Mira, Lepre himself sees a darker side to it.

Mira is an interesting thing because if you asked me what it's about right after I finished it in May, I'd have no real answer for you. Looking back, it's really funny for me. It's an album full of regret about how I was spending my life the 5 months prior to that, but in this weird way where I was trying to cover up my regret. Like when you're sad and don't want anyone to know, you just put up a wall of happy and often times it can be easy to see through. I think people will have no problem seeing through the happier sides of Mira. It's the "too good to be true" happy feeling, but that's just how I interpret it.

Lepre considers the album to be a step out of his comfort zone, which resulted in what I would like to say a huge ass prolific beat making.  Out of the 15 tracks the collaborations are definitely the highlights- they bring Lepre’s sick beats into a whole different level, when different types of talent complement each other.

The song “Purple Beat” features rapper/songwriter Reefa Ali, who seriously has some mad skills. Rarely, you hear such clever rhymes.  “I sent him the beat, he wrote to it, and I recorded it”, Lepre explains the simplicity on his collaboration with Ali.

Another collaboration was with fellow producer Kali Ma aka Cody Miller. On the album you can hear a remix on the song Afrodesia done by Miller, but I guess you can say that the true respect is paid by Lepre taking influences from him.

On songs like Mira and I'm So Amber, I really tried channeling my inner Kali Ma, I hope he doesn't mind. But I felt it would be appropriate for him to remix one of the songs because of the influence on the album. I gave him the stems for Afrodesia and came back to me a few days later with a mind melting, almost Nine Inch Nails-esque remix that I love. When I play Afrodesia live, I play the first 2/3 of his remix, and then into my version. He does a similar thing for a song I remixed for him.

Musically, the most mind-blowing gem of the album is You + Time. The reason for that is the most utterly astonishing voice of Lepre’s friend Kate Kushin. You can’t really understand what Kushin is singing about, but it’s like the case of "Milk and Cereal"- it’s not about the content, it’s about the way it’s done.  “I played with her breathe noises and kept about half the song and repeated it. It filled the song up a bit and I think it added a bit of style.”

Connor, this line is for you:

You + Time is the most stylistic thing you’ve done so far.

In general, one of my favorite moments is when the base drops. And without forgetting a bit of humor, this Droid Daughter track which is included in live sets made me go "Bitch, drop the base!" the first time I heard it.

I’ve said it a dozen times before that the most important thing for an album is to work as an entity. And as a person, who doesn’t concentrate too much on visual stuff, am very proud to say that it’s the first time for an album art work to be the icing on the cake. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen anything as amazing as Mira’s cover. The closer I look the more I drool.

Okey, I think we’re better off ending this with Lepre’s own words, before things get out of hand. But damn it feels great to give out recognition in a review for something which basically is mainly not about it. #TrySomethingNewEveryDay.

Artistically, I ended up creating these little worlds in my head that each song was from. Kristina Abuladze did an amazing job capturing how the album felt with the album art she made for me. I have synesthesia, which is a neurological condition where one sense, in this case hearing, will stimulate another sense, and often times for me it's sight. To me, songs have corresponding colors and textures. I don't necessarily "see" colors and textures when I listen to music, but I associate songs and sounds with color and texture. When I listen to the songs on the album, I find a strain of color(s) on Kristina's album art that I associate with that song so it's like the whole album is visualized for me on the album art which is a cool thing.

Mira is available for download on its release date, July 24^th 2013 via everywhere, just check his Facebook for more info. Thanks to Connor for granting my blog the rights for this exclusive preview.