Five on a Friday – Let’s Just Dance

See, I’m writing this blog post that’s going to be all sorts of witty and insightful


but I need more time.


Time I don’t have at the moment and especially not tonight.


Because tonight I’m going to see my friends, drink some beer and maybe


squeeze in a dance or two.


Priorities, you know.


aRTIST oF tHE yEAR – Yeah!!!

Chromeo – Tenderoni

La Roux – In for the Kill

Jamie Lidell – A Little Bit More

The Bee Gees – Stayin’ Alive


Listen on Grooveshark.

Five on a Friday – Il bel paese

As some of you know Italy has played an important role in my life. It all began with a contrary teenager who wasn’t going to study no stinkin’ French like everybody else in high school and ended with an unfinished master’s thesis 15 years later. In many ways I fell in love with il bel paese but as I got to know it better, I slowly became more and more disillusioned. In the end I had to move on to other things.

One thing I always felt ambiguous about was the music. Filled with bombastic romantic clichés it never really stuck with me and I rarely listen to Italian music except for a few artists. In fact only two of the artists on today’s list are artist I got to know when I lived in Italy. The others I’ve once again been introduced to by people who are more knowledgeable than me.

Enjoy.

Paolo Conte – Max

Petra Magone & Ferruccio Spinetti – Guarda che luna

Fabrizio de André – Crêuza de mä

Mike Patton – Il cielo in una stanza

Renato Carosone – Tu vuò fà l’americano

Listen on Grooveshark

Dreams

This is my ‘new’ piano.


I know where to find middle C.


That’s about it. I don’t know how to play the piano but I intend to learn.


Maybe not this year or even the next but some day.


In the meantime it’ll be here.


Reminding me of what’s important in life.

Five on a Friday – The Beginnings of a Music Geek

I’m beginning to think that my returning interest in music is developing into a full- fleshed obsession. Not only am I listening to music whenever I can but I’m also getting into all sorts of technology I never used to cared for. Suddenly I know words like bit rate and sampling frequency and I’m beginning to wonder what all the fuzz about vinyl records is about. I’m of course reading reviews on Pitchfork and listening to radio shows like Kosmo on DR P2. Oh, and did I mention the old piano I’m getting from a friend?

Yeah, when I get obsessed about something I really get obsessed. I’ve got the yarn and the books to prove it.

I’m still a novice, though. If it weren’t for my friends, online or in real life, I wouldn’t know a single artist on the list below. Thank you!

The Welcome Wagon – But For You Who Fear My Name

Sigur Rós – Góðan Daginn

CocoRosie – Trinity’s Crying

Mimicking Birds – Rivers, Veins and Roots

The National – Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks

Listen on Grooveshark.

Five on a Friday – Music for a Quiet Hour

It’s been one of those weeks. You know the kind where everything and everybody conspire against you to reduce life to an endless stream of work, headaches and tiredness. Rinse, wash and repeat.

Music has been an annoyance much of the time but here are five songs that that didn’t get skipped or turned off in the past week. First is an obscure Canadian musician from Toronto, Matthew Maaskant, who I’d never discovered had it not been for the Canadian gentleman. Vocals, a piano and a double-bass. So simple and so beautiful.

The second song is by an artist I’ve managed to discover all on my own. At the fitness center of all places. Rather a nice break from pumped up Carmina Burana and such, if I must say so. It’s Sufjan Stevens.

Another friend of mine has introduced me to the next two songs. Usually there’s an iPod connected to a loudspeaker playing at her house and last summer Jan Johansson happened to show up in the shuffle. He was a Swedish jazz pianist who died quite young in a car accident. The chosen song is from the album ‘Jazz på Svenska’ which is one of the best-selling jazz albums in Sweden of all times. All the songs are reinterpretations of Swedish folk music and share that special Scandinavian melancholy tone. You probably already know some of his music even if you didn’t know it.

The other song is from the Tango group Gotan Project. I only really listened to them yesterday by sheer coincidence and don’t yet know much about them. It’s tango but with an electronic element.

The last song is by Jaga Jazzist, a Norwegian experimental jazz group. And when I write experimental, I mean very experimental but not unlistenable. I got see them in concert recently and can’t recommend seeing them live enough.

Matthew Maaskant – Fall to Pieces
Sufjan Stevens – Holland
Jan Johansson – Visa från Utanmyra
Gotan project – Una Música Brutal
Jaga Jazzist – Going Down (Spillejobb Remix by Kim Hiorthøy)

Listen to the first song on Youtube and the rest on Grooveshark.

Five on a Friday – The Gifts of Friendship

I’ve mentioned the two gentlemen with the exquisite taste in music but I haven’t really talked about any of the music they’ve introduced me to. To make up for that today’s post is dedicated to five artists that I’d never even heard of a year ago but absolutely love now because of them. It was not easy to narrow the list down to only five, my original list was easily three times as long but here it is.

First choice is French artist Camille. She’s sometimes compared to Björk but is more accessible than Björk. So many things could be said about her but just listen to the way she uses her voice in ‘Ta Douleur’.

Next is the British folktronica group Tunng. I got to see them in concert last Sunday and had a great time. At a first listen they may seem like a very serious band but soon you’ll discover they can be very very funny. I got my first inkling listening to the song ‘Bullets’ but it was definitely confirmed at the concert when the lead singer put on a pair of sunglasses that looked like something straight out of Dame Edna’s wardrobe before doing some awesome guitar playing. Incidentally ‘Bullets’ was also the last song of the concert and afterward you kept hearing people humming or whistling it everywhere from the ladies’ room to the street.

My third choice is the Canadian singer-songwriter Jean Leloup. It’s hard for me to describe exactly what it is he does but his songs are the kind of songs that just engulfs you. At first it’s about singing a good melody but eventually the instruments take over the song and everything flows together into a musical climax.

The fourth group on my list is Efterklang, a Danish band that is so unlike anything else I’ve ever heard. I went to their recent concert in Copenhagen and it really is music you have to hear live. Sometimes it’s better to stick with listening to an artist’s recordings but Efterklang sounds best live.

The last choice is the English singer-songwriter Nick Drake. Incredibly beautiful but sad songs.

Camille – Ta Douleur

Tunng – Bullets

Jean Leloup – Paradis Perdu

Efterklang – Full Moon

Nick Drake – Cello Song

Listen on Grooveshark

Five on a Friday – An Irrational Dislike of Electronic Music

Let me tell you a little story. A long long time ago when the internet didn’t exist and DOS commands were how you made your PC do things, I was teenager. (I know this must come as a surprise to some of you but yes, I am that old.) If I wanted to listen to music I could either turn on the radio or buy a cassette tape, a vinyl record or one of those cool new things called CD’s but they were really really expensive.

I didn’t have any money so I listened to the radio.

Now, if you turned on the radio in the beginning of the 90s in Europe, you couldn’t avoid Eurodance. Remember 2 Unlimited? ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no there’s no limit’? Together with a few select other songs it convinced me I just didn’t like electronic music.

And so it was I stopped actually listening to the music.

I wasn’t even interested in trying.

But you know what? I’ve recently discovered I do like electronic music. And, I even like it better the more minimalistic and abstract it gets. So here you go. 5 songs I would never have listened to a year ago.

Four Tet – Plastic people

Pantha du Prince – Lay in a Shimmer

Autechre – Eggshell

Masayoshi Fujita (El fog) – Silent Soaring

Bjørn Svin – Browen

Listen on Grooveshark.

Five on a Friday – Going to the Beach

See, I used to care about music.  A lot. But then I got sucked into a vortex of working full time and at same time trying to finish my master’s thesis, all the while I was dealing with health problems because I forgot to eat my vitamins. Music became secondary and my life was very bleak and gloomy for a while.

Luckily I happen to know two remarkable people who have a much bigger passion for music than I do and who in each their way helped me. The first is Aric who has the amazing quality of being able to make everyone around him excited about whatever project he’s involved with. He did this little music podcast called Rough Sundays last year and as usual got everyone excited about everything from Edith Piaf to Otis Redding. The second is Alex who’s in Denmark to study acoustics. I sent him a few MySpace links,  he sent a few back and soon we were buying concert tickets together. Between the two of them they’ve introduced me to more amazing artists than I can count but more importantly their enthusiasm has inspired me to become passionate about music again and begin exploring the world of music on my own.

Seeing Alex’s blog post about his ‘musikklub’ gave me the idea to use my own blog for creating an itinerary of these explorations, not only for my own personal pleasure but also to share it with others. So far the ambitious plan is to post 5 songs every Friday that share a common theme and explain why I’ve chosen those particular songs or artists within that theme.

For this very first edition I’ve chosen five songs where the artists work with beautiful vocal harmonies. It all began with the indie band Grizzly Bear that I first learned about a year ago. It was easy to hear the influence from The Beach Boys and suddenly I realized that apart from some of the very famous songs like Sloop John B or God Only Knows I’d never really listened to their Pet Sounds album properly. And once I’d done that, I began to hear their influence in other songs too which it why I’ve chosen Owen Pallett and the Fleet Foxes for the next two songs. The last song might be more of a stretch, you don’t hear the influence as directly as in the other songs, but I do think they’ve been indirectly influenced by the Fleet Foxes.

Here’s the list:

Grizzly Bear -  Two Weeks

The Beach Boys – You Still Believe in Me

Owen Pallett – Lewis Takes Action

Fleet Foxes – Ragged Wood

The Rumour Said Fire – The Balcony

Listen to the songs on Grooveshark.

Gryderet mod forkølelse

Forkølelse, vig bort!

4 fed hvidløg
2 løg
1 gulerod
1 halv knoldselleri
2 koteletter kød af en eller anden slags
1 dobbelt dåse tomatpure
1 dåse flåede tomater
1 tomatdåse fyldt med vand
1 dåse med cocktailpølser (15 stk.)
2 laurbærblade
2 kviste salvie
4-5 kviste timian
salt & peber
smør & olivenolie

Grøntsagerne hakkes, sellerien skæres i tern. Smelt noget smør sammen med olivenolie i en stor gryde og svits grøntsagerne. Løgene skal være klare. Tilsæt kødet skåret i tern og brun det grundigt. Tilsæt resten af ingredienserne og lad det simre i halvanden times tid. Spis med ris eller kartoffelmos.
Hvis man er vegetar, foreslår jeg, at man bruger hvide bønner i stedet for kød.

Mañana

‘Tomorrow, I’ll definitely do it tomorrow’, has been said more than once around here the last couple of months and the bad excuses have been multiplying like rabbits but now the sun is finally shining, the camera batteries are charged and the boyfriend is not using the computer. Unfortunately the one project that has actually been finished this winter didn’t photograph very well but I’ll show the pictures anyway hoping that they at least give you an idea of how it is.

It’s the ‘Sandfarvet trøje med bærestykke’ from Hendes Verden which I finished just after Christmas. In the original pattern it’s supposed to be quite short so I added about 10 cm to the body but didn’t think to add any waist shaping. In hindsight that was a mistake and something I would definitely do another time. Other than that I’ve pretty much followed the pattern as written. The sleeves were supposed to be worked in the round but I didn’t have the right size dpns so I just worked them back and forth and sewed them together. No problem at all when you love doing mattress stitch. The body was knit back and forth in one piece since that was how the pattern was written but I could just as well have knit it in the round and then cut it open. The original yarn is a mix of cotton and acrylics so it wouldn’t have been suited for steeking but the 100% wool yarn I used would have been perfect.