Recently, there has been starting a big buzz about La Roux, that English synth pop duo with that red haired singer and the dude squeezing the most early 80s sounds heard since 1982 out of his machines. Even though I don’t believe that the hype will last longer than this year’s summer, I must admit that they probably did this year’s chorus melody with their song Bulletproof.
Anyway, here is another example, apparently not signed to a major record company (yet), but within the same genre, and as well capable of sweet old-fashioned synth pop melodies: Watching Spaceships.
Troels Abrahamsen, whose tremendous album WHT I have praised elsewhere on this site, has recently submitted the vocal track of the song End Scene from that album for free download and encouraged people to remix him. The article in his blog is here.
This is not only very kind and generous, especially when considering the fact that he has released that track under a Creative Commons license, but also a great opportunity, because the song itself is a great tune. You can listen to the original version here. I found myself thinking over Troels’ sound and style quite a couple of times when making my own music, and here is my chance to contribute with a new angle to his work. That is amazing!
So, I did a remix. Sort of. It’s probably rather what you’d call bastard pop. I had this idea last night – right before I fell asleep, and tried it earlier this evening, and it seemed to work quite well. I took one of my own songs (Untitled 6, which I wrote in March/April 2008, being inspired by Portishead’s concert in KB Hallen), and put it together with Troels’ vocals. And this is what it turned out to be. If you like it, you are welcome to download the song and take it with you on your mp3 player and share it with your friends.
Oh dear, I knew that this would happen rather sooner than later… But I have to tell you about these: I recently purchased the fantastic MPD32 (http://www.akaipro.com/mpd32) “Performance Pad Controller”, which I am really happy with, even though I haven’t yet explored it very much.
But now, there is something brand new from Akai that seems highly recommendable already before anyone has seen those devices in real life: The LPD8 “Laptop Pad Controller” (http://www.akaipro.com/lpd8) and the LPK25 “Laptop Performance Keyboard” (http://www.akaipro.com/lpk25). Of course, this is only relevant for all those mobile musicians out there, but since I am only having very little space in my bedroom home studio, I would certainly also like to see them there. And both the keyboard and the pads look much more convincing than Korg’s recent approach to ultra-mobile musical controller devices (http://www.korgnano.com/). What do you think?
I’m aware that anything sponsored by companies in this way may look suspicious, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t care personally, at least not in this case, because of my own experiences with the topic (I’m suffering from tinnitus since around 1989.) And I’d rather have hearing aid producing companies sponsoring such initiatives than increasing the number of hearing problems amongst the “iPod generation” causing a lot of additional expenses in the health care systems of our home countries. Which might become relevant even for the US in the foreseeable future…
So, this is still my favourite album of 2009. Troels Abrahamsen’s WHT. Listen to it and download it at Bandcamp, or buy the nicely designed vinyl and get a download voucher for free. This guy and his band Veto is definitely one of my very favourites in Danish not-so-much-underground-anymore-but-rather-mainstream electro rock. His solo work is hosted on his Myspace site or on his personal blog. It’s all slightly weird, and he definitely has that very, very distinct preferred groove in almost all of his songs. But his voice is really outstanding, and I just like the atmosphere he creates in all his work.
So, vrpr.org is online again. After some months without a proper home for all my thoughts and activities, I will continue with this site. I plan to share any news about my band Everpure, any other music I might be involved in, and a lot of other stuff that I might find interesting enough to tell you about. Feel free to comment, share and spread the word!