As has become traditional, I watched the award show P3 Guld, last night with a few good friends. It continues to be one of the only award shows I find worth watching. It's quirky, very Danish, and is about music that is not Beyoncé. Finally, the show consists mainly of a string of good live perfomances and four awards. No fuss. Just the good bits.
The prize for Breakthrough of the Year went to blog-favourites Turboweekend, and I certainly won't complain about that... Though, I believe you can always argue on what level they actually had their breakthrough last year. With the remix of Trouble Is by Joker and Tiësto, they certainly raised some international eyebrows last year. Here's the one by Tiësto:
Talent of Year went to Agnel Obel. Hmmm. Not really my cup of tea, though I can certainly hear the talent, and I appreciate the novel sound. Somewhat too art'y for my taste, I guess. I'd probably have voted for Kellermensch for holding the rock flag high. Here's their Springsteen-like Army Ants:
The Hit of Year - as voted by the listeners - went to Volbeat for Fallen. I am not much for popularity contests, as I seldomly like what the majority likes; but fair enough, Volbeat is party-hardrock, and that's ok by me. The nominees were these 25 songs, including two hits by rising popstar Vinnie Who. After the performance below by Vinnie Who last night I'd have thought it fair that he won at least one award.
Very, very stylish funky pop. I also applaud that he also understands that live music is about giving the audience a show.
The main P3 Guld award went to Fallulah. Ok, I guess. Her performance last night was quite good.
Hmmm, well. Ok, catchy. Well, she can actually sing and it's infinitely more pleasant to listen to than standard American/English pop. But - I was really impressed by Vinnie Who, so I must say that he was my favourite here, as well.
...
And finally, tadaaah! My main prize was a great new (for me at least...?) song, performed live by another blog favourite Veto!
Showing posts with label Turboweekend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turboweekend. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Reevalution - Turboweekend
I recently put down Danish synth/electro-rockers Turboweekend as less than surprising, and lacking something. Silas Bjerregaard, the singer is clearly gifted; however the singles, I'd noticed on the radio, and zipped past on my Last.FM-profile, were quite good - but a bit too tidy, too constructed, too pretty for my taste. I may be simple creature, but in both electronic and rock-music I generally look for something unsettling, something unexpected and raw, an instrument, a passage, or a driving beat, that oozes energy. Incidentally, that is, I guess, as close as I can get to a personal definition of rock.
I wasn't particularly happy about putting Turboweekend down, though. They fit pretty much in the sweetspot of my current musical tendencies; and I found myself digging through their back catalogue over the next few days. I'm pleased that that musical journey led me to reevaluate my earlier verdict.
Listening through the material from their two albums, Night Shift (2007) and Ghost Of A Chance (2009), I found myself liking the lighter style and faster beats on their debut-album more. Listen, and take look at, the pleasingly naïve and refreshing Wash Out.
Given my preferences, this contrasts to the more somber tone of Ghost Of A Chance, exemplified here with the single After Hours.
Now, at this point I happened to watch a recording of the excellent show Backstage (on DR2 - by our nice friends, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation) with Turboweekend (and rappers UFO Yepha). The programme seeks to expose the best of current Danish live-music, by setting up a friendly "battle" between two Danish bands, also requiring them to create a novel act together. This had lead to many interesting, amusing, and also splendid moments of art. I'll try to get back to that later. For now, let me focus on Turboweekend. Simply put, live, they add that spark of energy and power, that I so missed in their recordings. Listen to, and in particular, take a look at their rendition of After Hours on the show.
Interestingly - speaking pure audio - the live-version is not radically different, actually. Mostly, the vocals are sung more powerfully and freely; but the energy that their stage-performance exudes makes a great difference for me. The intonation, and visual underlining of the line "From my window - I've got a clear view of the towers." simply drags me in and requires me to feel the beat and vocals much more strongly.
Their other single-performance on Backstage, of Holiday - also from Ghost Of A Chance, displays a similar amount of great energy, that just blasts through the screen. (It really helps also, that the Backstage-audience for this programme is really enthusiastic - something which is sadly not the case, every time.)
Splendid. Turboweekend is on my plus-list now. And incidentally - damn, I look forward to having more time to go see live-music again...
I wasn't particularly happy about putting Turboweekend down, though. They fit pretty much in the sweetspot of my current musical tendencies; and I found myself digging through their back catalogue over the next few days. I'm pleased that that musical journey led me to reevaluate my earlier verdict.
Listening through the material from their two albums, Night Shift (2007) and Ghost Of A Chance (2009), I found myself liking the lighter style and faster beats on their debut-album more. Listen, and take look at, the pleasingly naïve and refreshing Wash Out.
Given my preferences, this contrasts to the more somber tone of Ghost Of A Chance, exemplified here with the single After Hours.
Now, at this point I happened to watch a recording of the excellent show Backstage (on DR2 - by our nice friends, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation) with Turboweekend (and rappers UFO Yepha). The programme seeks to expose the best of current Danish live-music, by setting up a friendly "battle" between two Danish bands, also requiring them to create a novel act together. This had lead to many interesting, amusing, and also splendid moments of art. I'll try to get back to that later. For now, let me focus on Turboweekend. Simply put, live, they add that spark of energy and power, that I so missed in their recordings. Listen to, and in particular, take a look at their rendition of After Hours on the show.
Interestingly - speaking pure audio - the live-version is not radically different, actually. Mostly, the vocals are sung more powerfully and freely; but the energy that their stage-performance exudes makes a great difference for me. The intonation, and visual underlining of the line "From my window - I've got a clear view of the towers." simply drags me in and requires me to feel the beat and vocals much more strongly.
Their other single-performance on Backstage, of Holiday - also from Ghost Of A Chance, displays a similar amount of great energy, that just blasts through the screen. (It really helps also, that the Backstage-audience for this programme is really enthusiastic - something which is sadly not the case, every time.)
Splendid. Turboweekend is on my plus-list now. And incidentally - damn, I look forward to having more time to go see live-music again...
Monday, November 9, 2009
A spark, maybe?
I'm feeling myself drift more and more into listening to music which, I guess, can be classified as electronica (though as an aside, I must say, that mostly I view genre-classifications of art with disdain). Maybe it's simply that most musicians nowadays simply grew up with computers with decent audio-recording hardware, and started their careers on 'borrowed' audio-editing software rather than on a beat-up acoustic guitar.
As I've hinted in the last blogentry, I have a special interest in collaborations among artists - intended or not. I tend to go hunting for mashups, remixes, covers, duets, etc. In those clashes something new and unexpected sometimes emerges. In trying to bridge the gap between two or more artistic styles, a tension is built - at the most basic level just from not knowing whether the experiment is going to collapse in a puddle, or is going to hold together.
As (another) aside, I think it's the same kind of energy that I seek in live-performances. That spark of energy that emerges from artists that dare to interpret their own (or even better, others) creations live, rather than just reenacting the recordings line by line.
Returning to electronica and the previous paragraph, today I tripped over a fresh remix of Turboweekend's "Trouble Is". Turboweekend is a Danish band typically classified as synth-rock (... well ok, genres are nice for brief introductions - but really - just go listen to them for yourself, rather than believing a two-word-classification). Frankly, I've found their music a bit less than I hoped for. Being a great fan of fellow synth-rockers (pfhhht...) Veto, I simply think, that - apart from great vocals - the singles, I've heard from Turboweekend have lacked ... well, something to surprise me.
That said, right now, I'm trying to decide whether the following remix adds a spark of rawness to "Trouble Is". The remix is by a bloke called Joker (he is a bloke - he is very much from the Bristol scene - and he seems to take his name seriously (quote from The Guardian: "[...] and a third man, 20 years old, who leans in and gives his full name slowly and carefully to the dictaphone as 'Joker ... Joker' [...]".)).
Listen for yourself below:
Oh. And, I should also advertise, that you can listen to the original version of "Trouble Is" on Turboweekend's Myspace-page.
As I've hinted in the last blogentry, I have a special interest in collaborations among artists - intended or not. I tend to go hunting for mashups, remixes, covers, duets, etc. In those clashes something new and unexpected sometimes emerges. In trying to bridge the gap between two or more artistic styles, a tension is built - at the most basic level just from not knowing whether the experiment is going to collapse in a puddle, or is going to hold together.
As (another) aside, I think it's the same kind of energy that I seek in live-performances. That spark of energy that emerges from artists that dare to interpret their own (or even better, others) creations live, rather than just reenacting the recordings line by line.
Returning to electronica and the previous paragraph, today I tripped over a fresh remix of Turboweekend's "Trouble Is". Turboweekend is a Danish band typically classified as synth-rock (... well ok, genres are nice for brief introductions - but really - just go listen to them for yourself, rather than believing a two-word-classification). Frankly, I've found their music a bit less than I hoped for. Being a great fan of fellow synth-rockers (pfhhht...) Veto, I simply think, that - apart from great vocals - the singles, I've heard from Turboweekend have lacked ... well, something to surprise me.
That said, right now, I'm trying to decide whether the following remix adds a spark of rawness to "Trouble Is". The remix is by a bloke called Joker (he is a bloke - he is very much from the Bristol scene - and he seems to take his name seriously (quote from The Guardian: "[...] and a third man, 20 years old, who leans in and gives his full name slowly and carefully to the dictaphone as 'Joker ... Joker' [...]".)).
Listen for yourself below:
Oh. And, I should also advertise, that you can listen to the original version of "Trouble Is" on Turboweekend's Myspace-page.
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