Occasional Thoughts from a Bafta nominated Podcaster, Blogger, Writer and Commentator.
I’ve been following Italian Rock Noir band Belladonna for years now. They’ve stayed independent, turned down various record label contracts, and continued to push out some alluring albums. The latest release, ‘Shooting Dice With God’, has been officially released today. I’ve been listening to the final mix of the album since SXSW in March, and this is one album I’m more than happy to recommend.
Take smart musicians from across the disciplines, put ’em in a room with an audience, and see what happens? Shlomo’s charity album with contributions from Joe Stilgoe, Mitch Benn, Steve Lawson, Edinburgh Samba School and more. You have until the end of Octobr to download and buy it. Very much recommended.
Running up to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, a lot of fans rated Estonia’s entry from Getter Jaani. As with many songs in the history of the contest, the live performance struggled to match the confidence from the studio version. So I picked up Jaani’s debut album of the same name with the hesitation of someone who’s been caught out before by the sound engineer’s high quality post production skills. Unfortunately, my instincts were right.
Yes there’s a key change, yes they cover Abba, but there’s a lot to commend The Olsen Brother’s tribute to some of the great songs of Eurovision. There was something cuddly and ‘traditional’ to The Olsen Brothers, and that’s true now in the album, released during the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Denmark and then across Europe in the weeks after. It takes a bundle of memorable Eurovision songs (not always the winners) and mashes them up to such a degree that there’s more of The Olsen Brothers in these songs than the original artists. Which is what you need
Over on Boom Bang a Blog, the Eurovision Outpost on Trinity Mirror’s Merseyblogs, I’m continuing to look at the discography and music of Eurovision entrants before and after they’ve appeared on the world’s biggest television show. This week, it’s the most recognisable Eurovision act in many a year… Lordi monstered over the 2006 contest before they even won the Finnish National Final. From a country that had consistently sent folk songs and traditional music that never troubled the upper reaches of the scoring table, the latex mask, theatrical performance and unrestrained power chord charged energy that Lordi brought to the
My next article on Boom Bang A Blog has been posted. You may remember that I am looking at some of the albums of past entrants in the Eurovision Song Contest – this week is the turn of Iceland’s Yohanna. After a belter of a song in this year’s final (Is it True) this was one of the albums I was most looking forward to. I wasn’t disappointed. Yohanna is not a pop singer, she puts me more in mind of Americana – think Shania Twain or LeAnn Rimes – but this is a fantastic slice of music. It’s the
