http://www.justbecause.ch/artists.htmlNewest Artists at Just Becausehttp://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363D3936.htmlSamual Galley2012-05-15T16:46:41 The first thing you notice is the voice. Haunting and sublimely other-worldly, it stops you in your tracks with the gentlest of touches, proving that sometimes the intoxicating simplicity of a single voice is all you need to make an impact. With Benjamin Francis Leftwich, that hypnotic, breathy voice is the reason for it all. It exposes his soul before anyone even hears the lyrics, letting the listener in to Benjamin’s most intimate world in a way no interview or video ever could. It is the essence of his being, laid bare without regret for us to share. Not just your average singer-songwriter then. Indeed, there’s nothing ordinary about this startling new talent, who is just 21 and has yet to release his first album but who sounds like he already has a lifetime of experiences, hopes and shattered dreams invested in each song. He has, in fact, been waiting for this moment for years. At the age of 10, Yorkshire born Benjamin first stared playing guitar, ditching his teacher after just a couple of lessons and teaching himself from the records that inspired him instead. Growing up on a diet of Rolling Stones and Nina Simone, Benjamin discovered Bob Dylan and Elliot Smith in his teens and never looked back. By 15, he was writing songs and playing with a band on the York music scene, before starting work as a solo artist at 18 and beginning to write what now makes up his forthcoming debut album ‘Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm’. “A lot of the songs on there I wrote when I was about 17 or 18,” Benjamin confirms. “I really wanted to get their sound right and I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to writing and recording. I’ve been working on them ever since really.” The breathtaking results were well worth waiting for. Inspired by the likes of Ryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen, Arcade Fire and Sigur Ros, Benjamin took his time creating a sound that is truly his, that reveals a little more of himself with every single breath and moment. It’s a sound that gives him the confidence to label himself simply, unpretentiously, as a singer-songwriter, untroubled by the confusingly negative connotations the term now seems associated with. “That’s what I am,” he shrugs. “I don’t think I’m folk, nor am I straight indie. I write songs and I play guitar and I think it’s varied on the album and it will be in the future. That’s what I feel like I’m making. The title singer-songwriter is appropriate. The term is usually applied to people like James Morrison and James Blunt, but really they play down-the-line pop. It’s people like Elliot Smith, Bob Dylan and John Lennon that can be considered true singer-songwriters.” Unsurprisingly then, it made sense that Benjamin would release his material under his own full name. No gimmicks, no clever pseudonyms. This is him. Pure and simple. “A couple of people seem to have an issue with it but it doesn’t bother me. There was one journalist who spent the whole interview expecting me to be an army major with a monocle because of my name. Obviously, I’m not.” Name obsessive’s aside, Benjamin has already been stunned by the reaction to the material he has released so far, which has truly taken him by surprise. After releasing his debut EP ‘A Million Miles Out’ at the end of 2010, he quickly found himself on the most prestigious playlists around as Radio 1DJs Zane Lowe and Fearne Cotton fell for Benjamin’s assuming charms. He was also added to XFM’s Evening Playlist, while Jo Whiley made Benjamin’s track ‘Atlas Hands’ one of her Tracks of 2010 and he was also asked to record a live session for Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary. Benjamin’s version of ‘Rebellion’ by Arcade Fire has since been downloaded over 100,000 times. On 6th March 2011 Benjamin’s stunning second EP, ‘Pictures’, was released. This led to a tour support slot with Noah [and] The Whale, while the lead track from the EP was made ‘Hottest Record In The World’ on Zane Lowe’s radio show and added to the Radio 1 ‘In New Music We Trust’ playlist. On July 4th, at long last, Benjamin’s debut album ‘Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm’ was released going top 20 in the UK album chart. It was preceded by his first single proper ‘Box of Stones’, which Radio 1 DJ Greg James chose as his ‘Record Of The Week’. Typically understated, it paired the fragile elegance of Benjamin’s stunning voice with simple, inviting guitar lines, heart-breakingly delicate melodies and lyrics strained with emotion and was play listed by Radio 1 “A couple of people have described some of my songs as love songs but there’s a level of ambiguity in them I think. I try not to ever focus on a central theme. I just bring together inspiration from around me and put it all into a song. Some songs are more direct, but there’s always that level of ambiguity.” That summer Ben played a total of 26 festivals in the UK including, Glastonbury, Reading [and] Leeds, Green Man, Bestival, Camp Bestival and many more. In October 2011 Ben embarked on a massive 28 date sold out UK tour, and in November announced he would be playing a handful of headline full band shows in February in the UK. This would include a date at the prestigious Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London. ‘Pictures’ was released on February 20th as a single, going onto the ‘B’ list at Radio 1 at prompting Fearne Cotton to invite Ben into the Radio 1 Live Lounge. He also performed a live session on BBC6 Music for Marc Riley and XFM for Mary-Anne Hobbs the same week. XFM added the single to their Daytime Playlist and Q Radio to their ‘A’ list. The video has achieved around 900k plays on youtube. Following on from this success he has just announced a gargantuan 30 date headline tour of the UK, the largest consecutive running tour announced in the UK in 2012. This tour will commence on October 1st 2012. There is at least one thing that seems certain . By the end of year, many, many more people will stumble upon a new singer-songwriter to believe in when they’re stopped in their tracks by Benjamin’s startlingly intimate voice. The unmistakeable sound of this year’s most intriguing new talent. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363D383E.htmlSamual Galley2012-05-14T11:50:45 Noa Moon, la jolie voix qui monte, qui monte. Quand elle vous dit "I'm on my way to paradise", vous pouvez la croire. Noa Moon continue son petit bonhomme de chemin. Sourire aux lpvres et guitare à l'épaule. La nouvelle étape de son jeune parcours porte un nom: "River", un EP 6 titres délicieusement folk-pop. "Paradise", le premier titre extrait de ce premier opus, est déjà dans l'air de ce printemps. "River" suit de près, avec ses harmonies vocales aériennes. Le ton est léger comme le sourire de Noa. Acidulé comme l'été qui nous attend. Quand on éteint les machines, les amplis et les sonos, il reste l'essentiel. Une voix, une guitare. Voilà comment Noa Moon a su toucher le public dès ses premières apparitions. Sur scène, elle est aujourd'hui entourée de Sébastien (à la basse) et de Fabio (à la batterie). On la retrouvera notamment aux Ardentes, au Ronquières Festival, aux Fêtes de Wallonie. Et Noa s'envolera au somment de la Citadelle de Namur pour la première partie de Laurent Voulzy. Rassurez-vous, Noa continue l'ascension vers son paradis: un premier album se prépare pour début 2013. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363D373A.htmlSamual Galley2012-05-07T15:11:52 It has been a whirlwind six months since the release of "Some Were Meant For Sea", for Tiny Ruins. Recent tours include; opening for the Fleet Foxes through New Zealand, with CW Stoneking in Scotland, Ireland and Wales and a headline tour throughout Australia. That was following a headline tour of New Zealand and multiple shows in Australia with Beach House, Ólöf Arnalds, Joanna Newsom,  Alasdair Roberts, [and] The Middle East. The fun doesn't stop there. Tiny Ruins is currently based out of London, where she is performing regular shows in London and a bunch of upcoming dates in the UK with close antipodean pals Jordan Ireland (singer middle east) and holly throsby. There's also more shows planned in May (supporting the Handsome Family), and shows in Singapore and Japan too. Some Were Meant For Sea, the debut album from Tiny Ruins was released in June 2011. Its songs, composed [and] performed by Hollie Fullbrook, following a year spent living in Italy and Spain. Both vocally [and] instrumentally, Some Were Meant For Sea exists in dappled warmness: Fullbrook’s striking timbre recalling a smooth Jolie Holland [and] conjuring a similar natural imagery born from earth [and] sea. Bound by their delicate nature, her songs lay within a space [and] time all their own: ‘Little Notes’ a lover’s airborne ode, the impressionistic, wanting ‘Priest With Balloons’ [and] the beguiling ‘Running Through The Night’. It is a mannered album, one whose traditional arrangements [and] classic key are gently commanding [and] reminiscent of folk’s greatest storytellers: Carole King, The Unthanks [and] Richard Thompson. She writes with humour and fantasy of cats in hallways, journeys taking flight on moonlight, priests who float into the sky on strings of balloons. Fullbrook was born one of three in Bristol, England, where she lived until she was ten years old.  Attending the Bristol Waldorf school, she would learn the cello from a young age before moving to New Zealand; her family settling in the Waitakere Ranges of West Auckland. At 11, her visiting Grandad encouraged her to pick up her Mother's big old acoustic guitar. She wrote songs from age 14 on. The album has been reviewed internationally. Mojo gave the album 4 stars recently. It has had feature reviews in Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne Age and Auckland Times. The album has been featured regularly on BBC 6 (Tom Ravenscroft etc) as well as XFM and BBC 1, 2. She recently performed live on the all the above stations on a recent visit to london. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363D3736.htmlSamual Galley2012-05-07T10:07:39 Perfume Genius is Mike Hadreas, a Seattle songwriter whose jarring 2010 debut album, Learning, was called “an album of rare, redemptive beauty…one of the most uniquely endearing and quietly forceful debut albums of recent years” by Drowned In Sound, and established him as one of the most singular songwriters today. The bulk of Learning sprung from a time of self-imposed isolation in his mother’s suburban home following a period of trauma and self-destruction. The album was actually mastered from second-generation MP3s, as Hadreas had lost the original recordings, and this distant, abraded sound reinforced its harrowing tales and haunting melodies. Though Learning’s voyeuristic window into Hadreas’s experiences resonated intensely with many people, his new album Put Your Back N 2 It is much more universal, addressing intimacy, power, family, secrecy, and hope not just through his impressionistic lyrics, but the music itself, which is as lush as Learning was stark. It’s a gorgeous soundtrack for anyone trying to keep it together in everyday life, and about moving forward. “I don’t want it to seem like I’ve been through more than other people,” Hadreas says. “Everyone has stuff. Staying healthy can be more depressing and confusing than being fucked up. But I want to make music that’s honest and hopeful.” The hypnotic songs on Put Your Back N 2 It are tender and moving, but they are also surreal and grand, recalling at times the universality of lullabies and hymns, faraway folk songs, the dramatic arc of a film score, and the almost spiritual quality suggests a kind of opiated gospel. He cites as a primary influence not one of the indie icons to which he’s sometimes compared (Cat Power, Bon Iver, Thom Yorke), but The Innocence Mission (“not their sound, but their timelessness”). http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363D3636.htmlSamual Galley2012-05-01T11:59:37 Nigel Wright, at ten years of age, returned to his birthplace– moving from the murky rivers and steamy marshland of the Georgia low county, to a cool, misty mountaintop in the Blueridge. The wavey milfoil aquatic plants in his mountain lake struck him as an inversion of the treetops filled with Spanish moss from the coast. Not crediting his observation – milfoil and moss, swaying in currents of water and air, both remote, both beautiful – Nigel felt there was nothing special in gathering the raw material of poetry. After all, having been born into a surround of professional artists, writers, and musicians, Nigel knew an aptitude for the arts alone could not give him a personal outline. Passing over his talent for painting, recoiling from the snap, snap, snap from the fingers of his piano teacher, Nigel still had to admit that he must create something, just so long as it was unique. When he finally, almost reluctantly, picked up his father’s guitar, it was with determination to avoid obvious progressions, standard tunings, and plain chords. If that ambition was too strenuous to start with, his first compositions did show the sixteen-year-old’s exploratory grasp of fresh, solid musical structures. The resulting album, MILLFOIL, Wright recorded at a home studio in 2010. His lyrics, delivered in a voice both resonant and pure, hover in abstraction with an uncanny power to evoke. Finding the distinct and honest in his own voice, Nigel makes his link. Butterfly Collectors discovered Nigel Wright’s work completely by surprise. The Berlin/Haldern label partnered with him for a remastered version of MILLFOIL, release planned for Feb./March 2012. The stylistic influences of the singer songwriter are evident in his single “Anna,” but Nigel’s work embodies a larger musical arc. “Clear Eyed Plans,” on the flip side, is his studied leap into bold contrasts and layered voicings. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363D353E.htmlSamual Galley2012-05-01T11:48:24 When you’re an independent artist you’re always having to work within a budget you can control. After all, there’s no record company picking up the bills – you’re paying for it all yourself. For Brighton, UK born and bred yet very much the adopted Australian son singer songwriter Mike Rosenberg, being independent has proven to be the best road he could have taken. There was a time, back in the early 2000s, when things looked very different. There was a five-piece band called Passenger and the big money label behind it and there was a critically acclaimed debut album, Wicked Man’s Rest, but when the members of that band chose to go their own separate ways in 2007, Rosenberg opted to stick with the Passenger moniker and trust in his music, his voice and his guitar to take him where it would. He took to the streets and discovered not only that the experience enormous fun, but it also proved empowering for the likeable musical troubadour. “The busking pays for everything really,” Mike admits. “It’s crazy. I’ve funded my last four records basically from busking, so it’s a godsend really. It’s an amazing thing to have stumbled upon because it is the dilemma for every musician – how do I put a hundred per cent of myself into my music, whilst keeping myself together? It’s not a new problem – it’s always been the case – but you find something like busking, which you can still do; while you’re making money you can play your songs and hopefully further your fan base – it’s ideal really. You don’t have to put forty hours of your time into flipping burgers or making coffee or whatever it is. I’ll always feel very, very lucky about that. “Honestly, the more I do it, the more I enjoy it. You know, it’s great that it’s getting bigger for me but busking actually turns into a real way of life. The structure of busking and just being on your own, enjoying the cities and travelling, I dunno, there’s such a lo-fi thing that goes along with it and such an honest and simple way of living for that period of time that I really, really miss actually when I’m not doing it, so I really look forward to getting back out on the street again.” Having obviously got a real taste for the busking and the travelling, he thought he’d check out sunnier climes, which is how, in October 2009, Mike first took himself over to Australia where he managed to support Lior and Sydneysiders Elana Stone and Brian Campeau, and then played One Movement, a major music industry-focus festival in Perth. Back in Sydney, he met a neighbour who just happened to be ARIA Award-winning singer songwriter Josh Pyke, and the initial idea that would become Flight Of The Crow formed in his mind. The album proved the perfect entre into the Australian music scene, not least because Flight Of The Crow saw him joined in the studio by the cream of Australian independent musical talent, including Lior, Kate Miller-Heidke, Boy & Bear and Katie Noonan. By the time Mike felt it was time to return to the UK to launch the album there, he was selling out 500-seater venues across Australia. Before he left however, it was time to record a new album. “It’s very different to Flight Of The Crow… actually all my records,” Mike explains. “Flight Of The Crow sounded like it was made in the 1960s, which was kind of what we were aiming for, but this one is a bigger production and a bit more modern sounding.” As always, there’s a certain element of the youthful Cat Stevens in the tenor of Mike’s voice that tells you the emotions that drive his songs aren’t very far beneath the surface. Recorded again in Sydney, for the new album, All The Little Lights, Mike was joined once again by a core Australian band that included Boy & Bear drummer Tim Hart, jazz bassist Cameron Undy, who also played on Flight Of The Crow, and keyboards player Stu Hunter, from Katie Noonan & The Captains. If there’s a theme to be drawn from the album it’s not just the usual stock-in-trade of the travelling troubadour – love – but the love of life itself. Meanwhile the Passenger fanbase has been building very nicely, and very much from the ground up, with the busking feeding into the club gigs – all very organic. “It’s such a funny and slow process, the way we do it. We haven’t got a label, we haven’t got the big muscle behind it – it really is meeting every fan personally and trying to convince them to sort of buy into it, which is quite a bizarre way of doing it. But I think what I’ve found is people have a real personal relationship to it because it’s not just something on the radio – I might be busking and we’ll have a chat or have a beer after a gig or whatever – I think that personal thing is so important in making people feel part of the project and then hopefully becoming fans ultimately.” Among the highlights of this past northern summer’s touring round the UK has been opening for one of UK pop music’s most influential figures, Jools Holland, as well as Ed Sheeran, who just had the #1 album in the UK, and Australian acts the John Butler Trio and Josh Pyke, with whom he co-headlined a UK tour. “It was great!” Mike admits, that ubiquitous smile on his face. “I did shows with the John Butler Trio over here and in Europe as well. It makes such a difference when you play to those kinds of crowds compared to the busking, which as I say is like playing to each person individually sometimes, it is amazing to then be on a bigger stage and reaching such a big audience in one go.” It’s been a remarkable journey for Rosenberg, a journey that has inspired some of the finest songwriting you’ll hear anywhere, whether on a street corner, a sweaty rock’n’roll room or a concert stage. Listening to him, whether on record or in performance, you can tell he’s having the time of his life, and it’s all there on his new album, All The Little Lights. And the most exciting this is you just know there’s plenty more to come. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363C3D3C.htmlSamual Galley2012-04-26T09:56:34 Tyler Ward has transformed his life and music in the last year from living in his parent's basement, to living in his parent's basement as an industry leader for the new wave of music. Currently, ranked as the 20th Most Popular Musician on YouTube with over 900,000+ subscribers, Tyler releases one new videos each week. Combining original music, covers, and showcasing featured artists, Tyler's passion is to connect with people through music; however, music wasn’t always his focus. Encouraged by his father at a young age to pursue athletics, Tyler spent his younger years working towards scoring touchdowns, and winning football games rather than chasing his musical dream. After completing high school, Tyler was accepted to the United States Air Force Academy where he started his collegiate football career. Tyler never adjusted to the military lifestyle, “I smiled too much,” he said. It was because of his excessive smiling and creative expression that Tyler found himself scrubbing toilets and cleaning floors on the weekends. Despite the intensive janitorial experience, Tyler decided to move on. He transferred to the University of Northern Colorado and once again played football. Several injuries later, he decided to leave the sport and follow his passion for writing music. Tyler’s realization of becoming a successful national artist arose when he first started playing with national acts such as The Fray, The Jonas Brothers, Gavin DeGraw, Augustana and Ryan Cabrera. “After that first big show with The Fray, I was sold on doing music for the rest of my life,” says Tyler. Playing shows for thousands of people fueled Tyler’s drive and creativity.  In February of 2010 Tyler decided to cover the massive hit "We Are The World" during the Winter 2010 Olympics. In the first week Tyler received 1.5 million views, and his career changed forever. Now with over 250,000,000 uploaded views, Tyler has broken into mainstream music, and the charts. Tyler was the first independent musician to be charted on Billboard's SOCIAL 50, and has maintained status for 40+ weeks. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, and Rihanna, Tyler has been ranked as high as #14 in the world and currently holds the #6 position on Billboard Uncharted (ranked over 50 weeks), and connects with over 525,000+ fans on his Facebook page.    In 2011 Tyler has also expanded his desire to work with other artists. With the inception of Tyler Ward Records and Tyler Ward Studios, Tyler is giving other artists a chance to be heard by hundreds of thousands of people every day all over the world. In 2012, Tyler will tour again in Europe and North America. What remains constant in Tyler's life is his desire to impact lives with his music. “I love playing and it’s by far the best job I’ve ever had.”  http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363C3B3A.htmlSamual Galley2012-04-17T12:18:47 CAROLINE CHEVIN convinces all types of audiences, whether it be as an opening act for Anastacia at the infamous Zurich Hallenstadion or as a solo act on TV or in musicals. Her second album "Back in the Days " is significantly influenced by her life experiences and her fantastic voice coupled with sensational music and lyrics make the album a work of art. CAROLINE CHEVIN's single last year "Whatever it Takes" was a success and she was voted by the viewers to perform on the national TV programme "The Greatest Swiss Hits". Thanks to the close and intensive collaboration with producer Ph!L!pp Schweidler (Seven), Caroline has developed a new sound, which holds the catchy beats of the late sixties and early seventies. The title track and radio hit "Back in the Days" has a definite "feel good" essence about it. The new album is catchy and thanks to the swinging beats, fine arrangements and the razor sharp horn sounds, it is modern and yet timeless. With such an incredible voice with a touch of soul, CAROLINE CHEVIN definitely deserves the musical feature of the wonderful horn section of The Dap-Kings (who incidentally were rediscovered by star DJ/producer/recording artist Mark Ronson and famous for their musical inclusion and somewhat unheralded contribution to Amy Winehouse's album Back to Black). Songwriter Sekou, who also is known for his collaboration with Joy Denalane and Max Herre (Freundeskreis), has also made a huge contribution to the album. "Back In The Days" reflects the great personality of the lively, entertaining and talented CAROLINE CHEVIN. Her ability to maintain an honest and authentic message in her songs along with her strong and energetic vocal talents, paves the way to a very successful 2010 and a well-deserved break-through on international territory. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363C3838.htmlSamual Galley2012-04-05T11:49:12 Turntablists bands are pretty rare on the planet, and those pushing the envelope so far you can count on one hand... Beyond scratch and technique, the band develops a strong musical and visual signature between fantasy and street culture. Their musical range is wide, from Hip-Hop and Jazz, to Drum'n'Bass, with some pinches of Rock, Dubstep, or whatever feels right to their taste. The set is eclectic but linked together by their unique sonic signature. The tracks are mainly composed and arranged by Dj Supa-Jay. They don't work with samples (except voices). All instruments were played by real musicians and recorded to give the dj's the sonic material to create their songs. Born in 2002, the band makes a name on the dj's championship circuit and then worked hard to develop a unique stage-rocking set to play on the regular concert circuit. Their show takes the audience through a trip in their twisted urban universe with the help of scenography, lights and video (animatics). “En petites coupures…”, their first record was released April 30th 2010. the band pick up six tracks out of the 20-something made in past 3 years to offer a coherent record, linked together by the horns section's work. This is by far one of the most successful attempts to gather turntable technique and musicality. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363C3536.htmlSamual Galley2012-03-21T16:10:02 poek Mathambo makes the Afro-futurists look old school. With the arrival of his second album, Father Creeper, he's one man building up an army to make his creative visions a reality, rewriting any artistic laws in his way.  Johannesburg's Spoek Mathambo (real name: Nthato Mokgata) first hotwired our world with a series of collaborative projects—Sweat X, Playdoe—that placed his smart, dirty vocals on top of electro-rap bangers that activated dance floors across the globe. Things went darker and deeper with his 2010 debut album, Mshini Wam (translation: 'bring me my machine'), a record which took Spoek's love affair with South African culture and his coined “township tech” as a starting point. As always, he pulled those influences in a direction all his own (think: a pitched-down wobble-house cover of Joy Division’s “She's Lost Control”). Mathambo topped things off with a grip of visually thrilling videos depicting a fresh-to-death urban gothic vibe, and months of touring across US, Europe, and South America. Father Creeper took shape during this touring. Mathambo got started doing hands-on audio production during long days on the road with Copenhagen-based musician CHLLNGR. They began with haunting lyrics about conflict diamonds, penned by Mathambo's wife Ana Rab (aka Gnucci Bananaa), fleshing out the verses into an epic, synth-driven post-dubstep heater. “Put Some Red on It” would become Father Creeper's first single. Inspired and confident, Mathambo put international collabo offers on pause as he regrouped to make his second album with a close cadre of family and friends. A distant uncle phoned—“Nthato, I hear you’re making music! I myself am an electronic music composer!”—within days they were in the lab, crafting beats. Mathambo's live band, Mshini Wam, honed new tracks while on tour. Back in Jo'Burg, Spoek called in childhood buddy, pianist Theo Tuge (their grandmothers kicked it back in the day) as musical co-director for the entire project. Tuge and Mathambo were choirboys when they were 12 years old—that's 2 years after Spoek started rapping, and 2 years after Apartheid was dismantled. One of the strongest additions to Spoek's camp is Nicolaas Van Reenen, a musician whose liquid guitar lines snake and ripple across the album. Between endless African reissues and African-inspired indie bands, African guitar styles are having a zeitgeist moment, and Father Creeper's guitar work, which ranges from summery highlife melodies to amped-up rock riffs, is a critical step forward. The album was polished off during late nights in Malmo with a top-notch French producer named Marvy Da Pimp. Mathambo and Marvy worked to massage the sonics with analog outboard gear for maximum thump. Even before you sink into the lyrics, Father Creeper glistens with pure sonic power. Each song arrangement is a statement in and of itself. Rock moments swerve electronic. The crisp, changing rhythms of Mathambo's live drummer go cyborg with drum machine beats. Soulfully sung choruses shift up into double-time rap choruses as video game bleeps splash through Mathambo's gutturals. And that's just on the opener, “Kites.” The big picture shows us a musician hitting his stride with enough confidence and vision to craft songs as robust and challenging and attractive as life in our electrified, apocalyptic 2012. On Father Creeper, Mathambo moves from being a smart and sexed-up rap prince to a bandleader juggernaut who uses every means available—rapping, singing, production, visuals—to articulate A) his intrinsic weirdness, B) the visceral tensions and irrepressible vitality of contemporary Johannesburg, from belly-hungry and culturally ravenous post-Apartheid teens to grizzled elders who have seen the serious heavy and C) an impressive commitment to making music magic. In other words, there is fucking and poetry, and it's hard to separate the scary moments from the sublimely beautiful ones. Language is everywhere here. His flows and topics are varied, different skills to tell different types of stories. On “Dog to Bone” Mathambo lullaby-chants: “tortured kids from yesterday sing we should also get paid / we should also get paid / we should also get paid,” and in that instant his worldview becomes clear. Lyrically, Father Creeper flips the concerns of mainstream rap by embracing a deep sensitivity for a traumatized society where the fucked-upedness is real, the optimism stubborn and the booty ripe. The more you listen to Mathambo's world, the more it makes sense. And that's the lasting power of Father Creeper. In 2011, South African author Lauren Beukes won Britain's most prestigious science-fiction prize for her novel Zoo City. Set in Johannesburg, Zoo City revolves around a sassy ex-junkie and her magic sloth caught up in a murder intrigue involving teen kwaito-pop stars. It is nuts. It is also very good. Of course, Spoek appears in the novel. Everything's starting to make sense. Is Africa the future? Maybe. Probably. Whatever the case, Africa is the now, and nobody is expressing that better than Spoek Mathambo. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3E3A.htmlSamual Galley2012-03-19T11:40:02 ‘Glowing Mouth’ is the breathtaking debut UK album from Brooklyn five piece Milagres (Portuguese for “miracles” pronounced mil-ahh-gris). From the opening bars of ‘Halfway’ it’s an album full of languorous splendour and easy grace, the ambitious musical scope matched by main man Kyle Wilson’s swooping, soaring vocals. First a little background. In 2009, having grown stale kicking around in the NYC music scene, Kyle took off to the coldest, most remote part of British Columbia to find some space, rock climb and recharge. However, while scaling one of the remotest peaks he fell, resulting in a serious back injury and months in hospital. Initially, the injury was bad enough that Kyle thought he might have to leave music behind entirely, but slowly he recuperated and during these long days of recovery, inspired by a new sense of vulnerability and renewed passion, he returned to his songwriting. Upon recovering he headed back to New York with a batch of songs and regrouped with Fraser McCulloch (bass, vocals, keys), Eric Schwortz (guitar, vocals, percussion), Chris Brazee (piano, keys) and Steven Leventhal (drums, percussion) and set to work on what would become the album Glowing Mouth. So you have first single, title track ‘Glowing Mouth’, a slow-burning epic made for star crossed lovers, gently pulsing like an electronic heart. Elsewhere ‘Here To Stay’s euphoric bucolics have more than a hint of shadow thrown across them, whilst songs ‘Fright Of Thee’ and ‘Moon On The Sea’s Gate’ possess a dark, hypnotic beauty of their own. In these songs Milagres deliver recurring images of empty beaches, shafts of light, isolated mountain ranges and memories of childhood. With Kyle Wilson’s vocals sitting comfortably in the lineage of great rock falsettos from Prince to Wild Beasts it’s a record remarkable for its confidence and poise, dynamics and drama. ‘Glowing Mouth’ will be released in January 2012 and Milagres will embark on their first UK tour in support. . http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3E38.htmlSamual Galley2012-03-13T14:04:22 A highly successful 2010 was spent touring her debut LP Me Oh My described by Word magazine “As cymbals clash and keyboards whirl, imagine P J Harvey’s rawness tangling with Super Furry Animals’ prog and a vocalist who forgoes folk soft asides for delicious black humor”. Cate then ended the year contemplating and conjuring up her sophomore release. Cate entered the studio with the nucleus of a record existing in her head, lyrical ideas swam in ether as did fully formed arrangements, but it wasn’t until she began recording that these disparate ideas were drawn together and her circus tent of a record rose from the gravel ground. Drawing on her experiences from that heady 12 months, Cate created a collection of pop nuggets that sounded like they'd fallen off the back of a broken carousel, imbued with the playfulness of Faust, Syd Barrett and the tropical melodies of Os Mutantes and stitched together with a foreboding silken lyrical thread. Existential word play abounds and fuzz fused guitar lines tear through like an angry bee in a CAN as Cate muses on matters of the heart and the magnetic pull of the ocean. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3D36.htmlSamual Galley2012-03-06T13:05:07 This is a beautiful story. Three vagabonds travel across the world with no direction home, record music whilst on the road, meet up in New York City, and form a band. Drawing a symbiotic balance from the soundtracks of West Africa, Turkey and beyond, Brainfeeder hip-hop, UK Bass and 60s psychedelic soul, Young Magic is an ethereal exploration into past and future. Appearing at Iceland’s Airwaves festival in October 2011, New York’s CMJ festival in the same month and touring as main support for Youth Lagoon nationally throughout America and Canada this November, Young Magic’s sound is spreading far and wide in the lead up too the release of their debut album Melt on Carpark Records February 14th 2012. Young Magic began with singer and songducer Isaac Emmanuel. In early 2010 he quit his world and left his hometown in Australia with all of his belongings packed into a suitcase. He wandered through northern Europe, across the UK, over to New York City then down to Mexico, recording with a microphone, his voice and whatever instruments he would find along the way. There were no plans, no accommodation and insurance: instead couch surfing with friends, always low on coin, always high on the thrill of it all. Whilst living in a small Mexican town called Tepoztlan, Isaac had been in touch with an old friend from Melbourne who was on his own world adventure, Michael Italia. A musician and photographer who was also traveling around the world with little more than a backpack, and some portable recording gear, and producing sounds to document the journey. He found himself drifting across Southern Europe and the UK, and eventually hitch-hiking across South America. Volunteering wherever he could in exchange for food and accommodation, he spent months on the road writing and recording material for what would later make up part of the Young Magic record. Back in New York, Indonesian born Melati Malay was making beautifully wistful songs, ghost spirits caressing perfectly still bodies. The Brooklyn based vocalist had met Isaac and Michael a few years earlier, and they immediately shared a common love of sounds with an eternal rhythm, big and delicate, sounds that help you drift up and off, sounds to make your heart and head melt in equal measure. In early 2011 the three landed back in NY and rented a space above an illegal 1920s cabaret venue in Brooklyn. For the first time, it was becoming a band. They started recording together, collaborating, pulling all the pieces together like a puzzle ~ a collection of sounds and common experiences from the last year. Releasing a pair of 7”s in 2011, the band’s debut full length album Melt is set for release on February 14th 2012 through Carpark Records. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3C3E.htmlSamual Galley2012-03-06T12:08:49 Avec le recul, on pourrait s’amuser que Don Rimini, aka Xavier Gasseman, ait explosé avec un morceau intitulé Let Me Back Up – plutôt ironique de la part d’un type qui a laissé enfoncée la touche fast-forward depuis 2007. Quatre Eps, des dates dans tous les sens, 5 continents traversés l’année dernière au long de 120 Dj sets qui ont filé le tournis à l’Australie, l’Amérique, le Japon et l’Europe sans même laisser une rose sur l’oreiller. Des sets intenses, hystériques, de la frénésie même. Une expérience. Jamais là où on l’attend (sa relecture musclée du Bust A Move de Young MC sur le mythique label Delicious Vinyl) mais toujours là où on l’espère (en train de coller le public au plafond à Sonar de Barcelone, au I Love Techno de Gent ou au Hard Fest de Los Angeles). Rimini a multiplié les remixes comme autant d’enfants plus que légitimes (Sinden [and] Rye Rye, Designer rugs, Steel Lord…) et lâché ses propres hymnes en pâture dans les clubs du monde entier (2 Many DJs, A-Trak, Diplo – tous les grands fauves s’en sont régalés). Avec un titre comme celui de son quatrième EP (Nlarge Your Parties), Don Rimini a le mérite d’annoncer la couleur : après avoir écartelé les dancefloors de la planète, l’homme a décidé de voir encore plus grand. D’élargir la fête jusqu’à ce que l’élastique cède et laisse une belle marque rouge aux platines. Du son XXL (All About), de l’onde classée X G.O.O.D.), du beat mutant pour X-Men (Riminology), de la cascade musicale eXtrème (Whatever)… L’efficacité s’est trouvée une nouvelle alliée - la musicalité – pour un résultat définitivement plus sexy, plus fun. « Un pote m’a dit récemment que si tous les mecs de la fidget avaient préféré jouer cette carte là au lieu de pousser les potards à fond, on aurait plus rigolé ces derniers temps – et, qui sait, vu sourire plus de filles. Ca m’a hyper touché », avoue Rimini, qui a griffonné toutes les idées de lyrics de ces nouveaux titres avant de produire le moindre son, enregistrant toutes les parties de voix en amont avec Silver Jonz : « Silver est un génie capable de faire toutes les voix possibles et inimaginables à la perfection». Nlarge Your Parties, c’est plus qu’une promesse : un disque qui vous fout les boules à facettes et danse jusqu’au bout de la nuit sans jamais se retourner. Normal : Don Rimini garde toujours un oeil sur le rétro, et le bon. Celui qui lorgne avec respect sur l’école de Chicago – DJ Rush, DJ Sneak, Paul Johnson – et le panthéon house – Armand Van Helden, Underground Resistance, Basement Jaxx, et tous ceux qui ont roulé sur les conventions de la dance music en 4/4. Le Don a rangé la turbine pour appeler la Ghetto House par son prénom et construire des morceaux (de bravoure, forcément) qui vous attrapent par la ceinture pour mieux vous secouer le cerveau (Riminology et son hommage au mythique batteur Bernard Purdie). Le genre de rouste qui donne envie de dire merci et de tendre l’autre fesse… http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3C3A.htmlSamual Galley2012-03-01T15:47:28 Diagrams may be an unfamiliar name, but the voice will be instantly recognisable: this is the new project of Sam Genders, former co-frontman and songwriter of experimental folkies Tunng. Diagrams bears all the invention and imagination of the band Genders founded with Mike Lindsay, who has led Tunng since Genders’s departure, but channels it in a different direction. This is crisp, minimalist pop music that fizzes with electronic effects, synth-bass, programmed beats and low-key funk grooves, bringing to mind the leftfield pop of Arthur Russell, Metronomy, Hot Chip, Steve Mason and Peter Gabriel. It’s a new, playfully eclectic side of Genders’s songwriting, but one that maintains the colourful and impressionistic lyrical imagery he’s famous for – Antelope talks of a girl with “Tiny ants under her skin, sending messages to her mind.” A solo project of sorts, Diagrams sees Genders working with a rolling cast of collaborators including Danyal Dhondy (string arrangements), Laura Hocking (vocals), Hannah Peel (backing vocals and trombone) and drummers Matt McKenzie and Tom Marsh. Live it expands to an all conquering nine-piece who made their debut to an ecstatically full tent at this year’s End Of The Road festival. It’s named Diagrams for the defining sound of clean, sharp production and programming Genders has cooked up with co-producer Mark Brydon. “I feel like this music is less lo-fi than the music I’ve made in the past,” says Genders. “It’s quite precise and angular in places, so Diagrams felt perfect.” That idea extends to Diagrams’s visual side too: graphic artist Chrissie Abbott has created Flatland-inspired imagery incorporating clean lines and polygons. Diagrams marks Streatham Hill-based Genders’s return to performance. After quitting Tunng, his professional focus fell on production and writing for artists such as former Gomez frontman Ben Ottewell and Brazilian chanteuse Cibelle. Personally, he’s been preoccupied with getting his life back on track. “I was in quite a dark place personally before and, to an extent, during Tunng and I needed to stop and take a break to work on myself a bit and find my self-confidence,” he says. “I cured myself by working in an inner city primary school for three years! I’ve come out of myself a lot and the music has come from that.” That period of reinvention has ingrained itself in Black Light. The riff-driven Ghost Lit is about, “How relationships can bring up all the ghosts from your past and reveal all your worst insecurities;” the reflective Night All Night is about, “Fighting off your demons and trusting that it's ok to be in a relationship.” Most tellingly, Appetite is inspired by Genders’s experience of getting his life back on track. “I read a lot of psychology and self help stuff and I've found it very helpful,” says Genders. “I think it's helped me to change from an insecure and unhappy person into someone who genuinely enjoys life. Nonetheless, I've always felt inclined to keep those books in a brown paper bag in a cupboard underneath the sink. Appetite is either a tongue in cheek parody of the self help mindset or it's my attempt to write a song that celebrates the sheer 'bloody hell what an amazing experience'-ness of life. I'm more inclined towards the latter view these days.” The title, Black Light, sums up Genders’s experience: “I like the idea that good and bad or dark and light aren't always so clear. Sometimes the most difficult experiences can lead to the best things in life. Life is full of good and bad, dark and light. That's just how it is.” http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3C38.htmlSamual Galley2012-02-29T14:45:44 After the split up of Orishas, 2 members decided to work together again. Ruzzo and Roldan were not satisfied with more than 10 years together on tour, more than 700 concerts, numerous Grammy nominations and 2 won Latin Grammys. They started to write new songs in their old Orishas way and would like to present these for the first time at Afro-Pfingsten Festival in Winterthur. This will be a memorable world premiere. They will not only present their new songs to their fans but also play all the hits they wrote with Orishas. More than 10 years have past since a completely unknown band started their own revolution. The music of Orishas, who formed at the end of the 90s in Paris, reflects the musically diverse wealth of Cuba. At the same time, the three cuban musicians Rodlan González, Hiram Riveri „Ruzzo“ and Yotuel Romero brought together a powerful hip-hop band, whose prefect mix of Cuban tradition and modern rap is as cutting-edge as ground-breaking. Their last album as a trio is „Cosita Buena“, which was their 4th studio album after “Antidiótico“. No band had ever succeeded in making such coherent, melodious and especially effective mix of Cuban rythms and hip-hop. They got a gold record for their first album in France and Switzerland. After more than 200 gigs around the world, Orishas went into the studio during the summer of 2001 to record the album „Emigrante“, which won the Latin Grammy. In February 2005 followed their third album „El Kilo“, which won the Spanish Premio de la Música as best hip-hop album and received a gold record in Switzerland, Portugal and Spain. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3B3E.htmlSamual Galley2012-02-28T10:36:44 Originally conceived as a guitar based project, NZCALINES has been transformed into a suave, synth-pop sensation that combines pop melodies with R [and] B beats and lush arrangements with multi layered harmonies. Produced by fellow LOAF/LO label-mate Charlie Alex March and mixed by Ash Workman (Simian Mobile Disco Club, Metronomy etc), together with main man Michael Lovett they’ve created one of the years most thrilling debut albums. From the opening bars it’s clear that there’s a unique and beautiful talent at work. Something about the clarity of the arrangements, the crisp harmonies and insidious melodies that sets it apart from other releases. Shimmering slices of dream pop the like of which have not been heard since Scritti Politti’s ‘Cupid [and] Psyche’ , follow one after another to create a future world rooted in timeless magic. It’s partly that timeless quality that makes the music feel so good (a lineage that stretches back to the Beach Boys, check the barbershop harmonies that make up ‘AM Travel Interlude’) and partly the exhilaration you feel as you zoom into the future taking in The Neptunes, Junior Boys, Timbaland and Bogdan Raczynski along the way. In the same way that the great Nazca Lines of Peru from which NZCA LINES take their name, can only be perceived from high above, so the music of NZCA LINES can only be taken in gradually, such is its scope and depth. Think of it as a musical teleportation system beaming sounds and vibrations from different eras into the present whilst at the same time projecting them into the future. There’s already been significant press attention with features in Dazed, The Guardian and NME and there’s now a fully focused live show which encompasses a drummer and bassist, leaving Michael free to emote in style. NZCA LINES tomorrow is yours. http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3B3C.htmlSamual Galley2012-02-27T17:20:33 While their songs are far-reaching and musically fantastical, Swimming’s roots are somewhat closer to home. The band is the brainchild of idiosyncratic lead-vocalist John Sampson, who has lived variously in Australia, England and Cocos Island before settling in Nottingham. The band consists of his brother Peter (aka The Petebox)– together with Joff Spittlehouse, Blake Pearson (who creates the band's artwork) and most recently Sam Potter of Late of the Pier. Swimming self-released their debut album The Fireflow Trade on their own Colourschool Records, an eclectic collection which saw them compared to over 50 other artists Autechre to Late of the Pier, Eno to Sonic Youth. It found a place in many 2009 ‘Best of’ lists, including The Fly, and paved the way for a European tour and attention from the US. After regrouping back in Nottinghamshire and working on new material, a new single, Sun In The Island, was released on EVR Records by New York’s influential East Village Radio, and received across-the-board support from Radio 1, NME, The Fly, Q and The Times. One of the station’s DJs, Tim ‘Love’ Lee, was so smitten by the band that he offered them an album deal on his own Tummy Touch Records for their second album, Ecstatics International. Ecstatics International spawned the single Neutron Wireless Crystal, an imaginative blend of swirling synths, psychedelic rock, drum machines and intense, melodic pop. The album itself was critically lauded by the likes of Q (“Hypnotic”), The Fly, The Guardian, Metro (“Anthemic”) and Artrocker (“Simply Majestic”), and was listed in Clash magazine’s Top 10 debuts of the year. Swimming songs are uniformly uplifting. They never wallow in the mire; rather, they are joyous, all-embracing affairs with the capacity to reach, and touch, thousands. “People tell me they meditate to our songs, that such and such a track helped them through difficult times,” says John. Despite couching his ideas in metaphors and esoteric language, the intention is not to be inaccessible or obscure, but to express their positive messages to as broad an audience as possible. As well as acclaim for their songwriting and a steadily swelling fanbase, Swimming are also attracting attention for their innovative approach to sound recording. As well as incorporating field recordings and found sounds into their songs, they’ve also collaborated with Dallas Simpson on a series of binaural recordings. The technique, which creates 3D stereo sound by using two microphones, allows the listener to hear ‘through the ears’ of Simpson as he moves around while the band performs. They recently played a headphone-only binaural show at Nottingham’s Broadway Cinema, and a short documentary on a series of their outdoor binaural recordings premiered at the Berlin International Directors Lounge in February. It was also the subject of a six page feature in the industry’s sound recording bible, Sound On Sound. Swimming are now touring Europe with The Megaphonic Thrift, and will shortly release a new double A-side single, All Things Made New / I Do (Come True). http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3A3C.htmlSamual Galley2012-02-27T15:35:26 If a year is a long time in politics, five years in music can be a career. The fact that 120 Days have taken half a decade to deliver the follow up to their debut album might have counted against them, especially in a world where things have never seemed more ephemeral, even more so since they flippantly admit that they spent as much time “lucid dreaming and partying” as they did “recording and touring”. But there’s no point making a record when you’re not ready, as any band forced to return to the studio prematurely will tell you. The old adage about having a lifetime to make your first record and only a few months to make the second is based upon truth, and 120 Days will testify to that, having entirely scrapped their original follow up. They had good reason: by the time they’d concluded the heavy touring that followed the late 2006 release of their self-titled debut, they were, quite simply, “sick of seeing each other’s faces”. Friends since they were teenagers – some of them since they used to kick a football around at the age of seven – in the Western Norwegian “nowhere town” of Kristiansund (not to be mistaken with the bigger Kristiansand), they were forced into even closer proximity when they moved to Oslo to kickstart their career and shared a Winnebago. To make matters worse, it was parked under an abandoned bridge in an area where all the city’s junkies had begun to congregate after the police had chased them from the capital’s main station. It’s no wonder, then, given the intensity of the band’s early years and the pressure they felt when they found success, that they deemed their first attempts to record a follow-up as failures. 120 Days have been playing together since 2001, initially using the name The Beautiful People, and their debut took them around the world, from America, where they signed with Vice Records, to Japan, where they played to crowds of 17,000 who all knew singer Ådne’s name (even if they pronounced it ‘Ooh, Da Nee’). It won them two Norwegian Grammys – they accepted these by playing a pre-recorded speech to the audience on a cassette player they held under the microphone – and was not only critically acclaimed but also commercially successful, especially in their homeland. But those subsequent five years have given them valuable, well-earned perspective, and their second attempt at a sophomore album proves that it’s worth taking a little time out. 120 Days II is darker, dirtier, fiercer and sharper than a debut full of, as Pitchfork loftily put it, “towering edifices”, one which the website also claimed possessed “the conviction that all this technology has the potential to amplify, not suppress, the transmission of human emotion, should humans be courageous enough to try”. To put it rather more simply, this new one is even better than the first. The roots of their new, advanced level of savagery are varied: time spent working with other artists, including Serena Maneesh, Bygdin and Masselys, have undoubtedly broadened their horizons, and their equally broadened tastes in music have no doubt done wonders for their writing. Alongside Kraftwerk, Joy Divison, Neu!, The Cure and Primal Scream – XTRMNTR-era, naturally – new influences have come into play: “the hard minimalist industrial sound of Detroit Techno, the transcendental drone jazz of (early) Alice Coltrane, and the over-the-top orchestral maximalism of Wagnerian opera,” they claim rather magnificently. “When we recorded our debut, we were very much into minimalism, and a ‘changing chords is for pussies’ dogma. In the first years after we released it, we went even further in that direction, so, in a way, you could say that the scrapped sessions were our minimalist peak, and after that we started playing around with song structure again. 120 Days 2.0 sometimes likes listening to the Carpenters. We would never admit that before!” In truth, any evidence of The Carpenters’ influence on 120 Days II is as hard to discern as were the traumas that lay behind the lives of that particular hit-making duo. But though the band are happy to admit that they’re a bit older – “Some of us even managed to have kids!” – they’re quick to add that, “we wouldn’t use the word ‘mature’. We're mostly well behaved, but sometimes our Viking blood takes us on a rampage ride. The four of us sometimes seem to be a bad influence on each other.” So if one assumes that this is as true inside the studio as it is outside, it’s worth considering some of the scrapes they’ve got themselves into over recent years. These have included stealing a forklift truck at Japan’s Summersonic Festival, where they attempted to pick up Avril Lavigne’s car, something which may have ended in failure but still didn’t prevent “two very drunk Norwegians with nothing but shoes, shorts, sunglasses and two beers each” reaching the nearby freeway. Singer Ådne was also nearly strangled in his dressing room by an irate American after he jokingly did the rounds kissing everyone backstage while wearing heavy makeup. “And that was in San Francisco!” they laugh. But, though this is a band that took their name from the Marquis De Sade’s 120 Days Of Sodom, there’s a serious side to the quartet too. Take Ådne, who’s developed a hobby making conversation with religious fanatics. “When two Jehovah's Witnesses came knocking on his door,” Kjetil confides, “he invited them in and talked until they left on their own initiative. They still come back. And every Friday, Ådne spends an hour or so reading and arguing with them. They're already halfway through the Old Testament. Ådne is still atheist, though. More than ever.” They’re just as thoughtful about the recording process as they are about the meaning of life. The dense textures of 120 Days II are ample proof of their careful approach, as are the complex, winding paths that each track takes and the fact that they’re letting the machines do far more of the talking, the vocal lines now significantly less abundant. Listen to the manner in which they let the fuse burn before the ten minute ‘Dahle Disco’ finally explodes, while ‘Sleepless Nights’ is a disorientating sliced eyeball of organic, psychedelic, electronic shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine filtered through a love of Vangelis. Or there’s the crunching, atonal arpeggios of ‘Lucid Dreams 3’, which roll over a middle ground somewhere between Underworld’s melodic narratives and the electro-industrial aggression of Skinny Puppy, maybe even Cabaret Voltaire. And there’s ‘SF’, evidence of their deep understanding of dynamics, and, judging from those woozy synths and the paranoia that rears its head at random moments throughout the track, possible proof that – following that strangling incident in the city after which the track is named – they may have experienced other ‘influences’ than the ones they traditionally exert on each another. Finally it ends with ‘Osaka’, a euphoric but filthy climax to a relentless journey, the perfect end, and yet also the perfect beginning - it will be the album’s first single. Like the entire collection, it’s far heavier on the synths than they used to be with their guitars. As they put it, “Right now, we don't know what's more rock'n'roll: rock or techno!” So, five years it may have taken to make, but they – or at least the years – weren’t wasted in any way. “This time we did almost all the recording, engineering, thinking and fighting in our own studio,” they point out. “It's great in the way that you're in complete control of the finished music, but it probably takes a little longer!” Fortunately, parts of the early rejected work in the end bore fruit. “Some of the musical ideas, melodies and beats survived,” they elaborate. “The skeleton of ‘Osaka’, the chord changes in ‘Sunkissed’ and the synth hook in ‘Lucid Dreams’ all had their birth in that first session. We took the best ideas with us, and scrapped the rest.” As it happens, their process is naturally intuitive and open. “We never start out knowing exactly what the final mix is going to sound like,” they explain. “Making music for us is an open-ended process of trial and error. It's like you start out in complete darkness, light a candle, and build from what you see. It's about creating from nothing, to try to make the music we want to hear. The only guideline is whether or not we like it. It’s never, ‘Is this what people want?’ For us, music is communication, and it doesn't help that someone has a pleasant voice if what they're saying is shit.” So here they are, at last: 120 Days, Norway’s finest, back once again, wiser, leaner, a little older for sure, but definitely no less wild. The perfect combination, if you think about it, and that’s definitely how they see it: “It’s been an adventure, but we're all glad we don't have to search for leftover syringe needles in the dark before going to bed anymore,” they conclude, looking back one last time. “We wouldn't have existed without the craziness. It's a part of our history now. We're sure there’ll be more, though…” http://www.justbecause.ch/artists_703E32363B3A36.htmlSamual Galley2012-02-27T15:02:32 Virtue This album isn't about Emmy The Great.   This album wasn't meant to be about Emmy The Great.   But this album is all about Emmy The Great. It began as a series of stories just after her engagement to an atheist; after he left for the church, she realised who the stories were about.   Euan Hinshelwood, the other man in Emmy’s life, and Emmy had started work again. First Love, their debut album, felt like a long time ago.  Emmy was due to be married, writing songs about characters being trapped in strange situations, and the need for the characters to make their way through it.  Together, they were thinking of ways to develop the sounds of the songs, to create heightened shapes and textures. Emmy started using symbols borrowed from fairy tales and mythology in her lyrics – people trapped in houses and towers, overgrowing hair and flowers. Then she added the icons that have replaced them in our modern consciousness – industrial buildings, mushroom clouds, West London’s Trellick Tower. This was Emmy’s personal collection of myths that she fitted to her music – a genre she refers to, to herself, as digital medieval. She knew that we all have archetypal stories working away in our subconscious; that we sometimes we don’t know the difference between being awake and being asleep; how our dreams are meant to teach us things, give us messages; how songs, those tricky creatures, also live in that space. She was experiencing vivid dreams that spoke to her about the strange isolation of engagement, and of the possibility of dark times to come.   Emmy noticed that women only make it through the woods in big myths – knotty, gnarled and foreboding –  if they keep their virtue. As a forthright, young woman, as scalpel-sharp as she is sweet, coldly clinical in her writing but still oddly comforting, she felt lost in the woods twice while writing the album, she says - first when she got engaged, and became the bride-to-be, when a culture’s worth of female roles came and swallowed her up. The maidens, the sirens, the witches, the sybils. The second time came when the stitches came apart. He left their flat one-day, and never came back. He had undergone a rapid conversion to Christianity, and left the country. Emmy stayed behind with the pieces, the cancellations, the confusions. She hid in the country at her parents’ house, got lost in books about saints, archetypes, and folk tales, trying to make the world work. She went weird, she says. But she didn’t want the album to be about her. It had to save her from what had happened, but be about everything. Virtue was made in London and Sussex. This time round, Euan and Emmy took the reins, rather than develop the songs with their full band in the studio. Euan came up with the guitar palette, strange, ambient, twisted and atmospheric, while Emmy wrote backing vocals for different voices – hysterical women, nuns and sirens, who she voiced herself. The ghosts of the Cocteau Twins and Suzanne Vega are here, as well as the stories of Margaret  Atwood and Angela Carter, and the writing of cultural theorists like Marina Warner. Emmy wanted a cast for this album, to lift up the world she was trying to conjure, and kept albums in mind that have similar ambitions – Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea; Janelle Monae’s The Archandroid. While making it, she listened to girly pop like The Bangles, tempered with religious choirs, folk from the South Pacific, while Euan became obsessed with post-punk and Bulgarian choirs. They even spent a night Googling Enya.  Gareth Jones – known for his work with These New Puritans, Depeche Mode and Grizzly Bear ­­– was their producer. He indulged their romanticism, but understood their wish to make the music sound precise, rather than precious. Emmy also knew she had to let go, and this was the time to do it – to confront things without fear, to throw her head high, say what she thought, things she couldn’t say to herself without music. It’s this record, she says, that’s made her feel like a person.   Dinosaur Sex introduces us to a world where power stations shiver weep and leak, where trees shed their leaves, and the future is told in them. Century Of Sleep reveals a woman alone in her house as rosemary grows, and she “shifts into greenery”, and the pipes are “running bone”. Iris appears, and wonders if sights could take her eyes; Cassandra daily sees something coming, gives warnings, but can’t run.  Creation imagines phantom limbs, characters wanting to be inked, Exit Night an accident coming, and the sound of sirens. North tells of missionaries who feel they have the map of humanity, without understanding some hearts beat to other rhythms. And Trellick Tower tells us Emmy’s story from its seeds to its blossom, praying for the pain to clear, as he waits on ascension.   This is a record, Emmy says, waiting for one person to get in touch - a person who will say, that happened to me too. Another person who doesn’t want to curl up, lost forever in the roots and the undergrowth, vanishing into mythic memory, into the mulch. Another person who wants to howl, endure, survive.   Virtue gives us songs for our battle sleeves. Emmy The Great wears theirs for all of us.