Info :
Weird World is proud to announce the signing of Finnish artist Jaakko Eino Kalevi.
Already something of a cult figure in Helsinki, where he lives and works part-time as a tram driver, Jaakko’s (pronounced “Yah-koh”) debut release for the label is an alluring introduction to a charismatic artist whose softly psychedelic pop blends funk and folk in an intriguing and highly satisfying manner. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist who is happiest behind the drums, Jaakko plays, sings and produces all his own material. Having released a steady stream of diverse music on local labels for several years, Jaakko has long been considered one of Finland’s most promising young artists and with his signing to Weird World becomes the first ever Nordic artist to work with Domino or its subsidiaries in the label’s 20-year history.
As a taster for his album due next spring, Dreamzone’s four songs take their cues from influences as broad-ranging as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry (for his “singularity and drive”, explains Jaakko), the “softness and adultness” of singer-songwriter Chris Rea, Finnish composer Jimi Tenor and the hyper-vivid fantasy worlds of the more contemporary Ariel Pink and Connan Mockasin. The result is a hugely enticing window into Jaakko’s world – a colourful, magical place where everything happens in its own time and nature and technology get along harmoniously. The EP’s lead track, ‘No End’, a duet with Helsinki vocalist Suad Khalifa, is an opiated love song tethered to a dubby groove, its cantering rhythm splashed with sax and an unforgettable keyboard solo. Well named, ‘No End’ is one of those tracks that could happily coast on forever.
Equally special, not to say idiosyncratic, ‘Memories’ is a blissed-out psych-funk cut inspired by, Jaakko recalls, an old episode of Ren & Stimpy. “But the song is basically about my bad memory,” he says. The heady swirl of ‘Uu uu uu’ first came to Jaakko in a dream as a child. “For some reason I remember it: the feeling that it’s so bright that I can’t open my eyes. Perhaps it’s about seeing reality as it really is.” Of this impressive quartet, ‘When You Walk Through Them All’ is the one that always turns heads. In Jaakko’s Dreamzone, this becomes a far-out soft-rock number primed for drivetime through endless pine forests. “I think good songs work like an inkblot picture where everybody sees something different,” says Jaakko. “I personally like to have my own meanings and don’t really like when the ‘message’ or idea is too in your face.”
Born and raised in the central Finnish lakeland city of Jyväskylä, Jaakko’s musical journey began in the mid-’90s when, aged 11 or 12, he discovered the progressive metal of US rockers Dream Theater, whose riffs he and a pal would play on guitar. Hip-hop came next and Jaakko learned to make beats using Fruity Loops and a sampler. There followed passionate investigations into reggae, disco, techno and whatever else his friends or the internet happened to introduce to him. “The music scene in my hometown Jyväskylä has been very important for me,” he says. “I’m still involved in music with some of the people I grew up with.”
Jaakko headed south to Helsinki in 2006 for a change of scenery. He applied for various jobs and took up an offer from Helsinki City Transport to drive trams. “It’s very meditative and usually I just let my mind flow,” he says of the work. “I haven’t been doing it that much lately, but I get many ideas for songs when I’m driving, especially early in the morning.”
Between tram-driving and a deep appreciation of dub and reggae, Jaakko has developed a philosophical approach to life. “Reggae has taught me the importance and power of misunderstanding,” he says, “and Werner Herzog’s idea of ‘ecstatic truth’ has been really inspiring for me.”
Info :
The music recorded by Ernest Greene as Washed Out has been nothing if not dreamy, but for his second full-length, he’s taken the idea of letting your mind wander to another state a huge leap further. On Paracosm, due out Aug. 12 on Weird World, the Georgia-based musician explores the album’s namesake phenomenon, where people create detailed imaginary worlds. The concept has been used to describe fantasy lands like Tolkien’s Middle Earth and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, and it’s at the heart of the 2004 documentary In The Realms Of The Unreal about outsider artist Henry Darger.
The idea of escaping is all over Paracosm’s lyrics, and it’s also the main thrust behind the music, which finds Greene distancing himself from the modes and methods that informed Washed Out’s previous recordings. No, he hasn’t thrown away his computer or synths, but Greene made a conscious decision to expand his sonic palette, which resulted in the employment of more than 50 different instruments, the most significant of which turned out to be old keyboards like the Mellotron, Chamberlin, Novatron, and Optigan. Designed during the middle of last century and made up of prerecorded sounds with individual notes sampled for each key of the chromatic scale (the flute sound in The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” is a well-known example of the Mellotron in action), these relics allowed Greene to use his sampling expertise while also offering the flexibility to explore new creative avenues.
“I’ve grown as a songwriter to the point where I want to have more involved arrangements, and that’s really hard to do with sampling,” says Greene. “These machines were kind of a happy medium: The sounds have a very worn, distressed quality about them, much like an old sample. But they also offer much more flexibility because they’re playable. Pretty much all the keyboard sounds, and strings and harps and vibraphones—all of that comes from these old machines.”
Following two years on the road in support of the critically acclaimed Within And Without—which itself followed the lauded Life Of Leisure EP, led by the otherworldly magic of “Feel It All Around,” which can still be heard during Portlandia’s opening credits—he and his wife, Blair (who plays in the Washed Out live band), decided to relocate from the big-city hubbub of Atlanta to a house on the outskirts of Athens. Working daily for nearly six months, it was easy for Greene to begin shutting out the real world in favor of an alternate universe of his own making, with the rural setting acting as a prime catalyst.
“Subconsciously that’s a big inspiration for some of the sounds,” says Greene, who completed about two-thirds of the record in Athens before finishing up in Atlanta with Ben H. Allen (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Gnarls Barkley), who also worked on Within And Without. “While the last record was very minimal, very monochromatic in a way, I knew from the beginning I wanted this record to be optimistic, very much a daytime-sounding album. I think the last record felt more nocturnal in some ways. This one I just imagined being outside, surrounded by a beautiful, natural environment.”
Listeners will be immediately struck by Paracosm’s seamless melding of organic and synthetic sounds, which are related to Washed Out’s past but also find Greene redefining his trademark dreaminess. (The songs themselves are also seamless, connected in such a way that they tell a linear sonic story.) The live drums, bass, and guitar recorded at Allen’s Maze Studios help take the new material to another level—specifically a place where, despite the vintage instruments and Greene’s throwback tendencies, everything feels like it was made right here and now. It also has a more human quality to it than most people are probably used to hearing on an electronic album. Take, for instance, the sunny, laid-back groove of the appropriately titled “Great Escape” (“All I need is the simple life / make believe the world has vanished around us”) and first single “It All Feels Right,” which is as wonderfully hypnotic as anything in Washed Out’s discography yet uses an almost tropical feel to get there.
“‘It All Feels Right’ was one of the first songs that I started for Paracosm,” says Greene. “It’s my favorite song on the album because it’s the closest to the vision I had when I started. Paracosm is the first work I’ve done where I knew from the beginning what I wanted it to sound like.”
Elsewhere, amidst the sound of kids playing and birds chirping, Paracosm offers plenty of opportunities to sing along, including with the beautifully bent “Don’t Give Up,” the jangle-squiggle jam “All I Know” (which sounds like Smiths-era Johnny Marr collaborating with Passion Pit), and the romantic-pop tune “Falling Back.” Regardless of where you turn, the album is packed with beautiful moments, the most moving of which can be heard while Greene gets his shoegaze on during the Cocteau Twins-esque “Weightless” and album closer “All Over Now.”
With its gorgeous execution and uplifting attitude, Paracosm is primed to be this year’s summer record that gets you through the winter. And it promises to do what its name suggests: Take listeners to another, better, world.
Info (English):
The first sound on Immunity is that of a key turning, unlocking the door into Jon Hopkins’ East London studio. It’s followed by the noise of the door slamming, then footsteps, and then finally the crisp, clipping rhythms and pulsating bass of ‘We Disappear’ emerge, signposting the most club-friendly music Hopkins’ has made to date. So begins a confident, dramatic record defined by this acute sense of physicality and place; a bold statement after the quiet, intimate Diamond Mine, his Mercury-nominated 2011 collaboration with King Creosote.
Until now, Jon Hopkins has been an elusive character, known to most as an expert producer, Ivor Novello-nominated composer of film scores, remixer and long term collaborator of Brian Eno and Coldplay. Yet as Hopkins freely admits, the fact that his solo albums to date (Opalescent, 2001; Contact Note, 2004; Insides, 2009) have been rather overshadowed by his work with others has meant that he’s been able to quietly develop his own identity, style and sound. Some of the ideas for Immunity have been in his mind for a long time, but there’s never been a rush to get them out there. It’s part of his mission to make music that feels as natural and unforced as possible.
Yet from the moment you hear that key turn in the lock, Immunity announces itself as a powerful, multi-faceted beast, packed with the most aggressively dancefloor-focussed music Hopkins has ever made. Initial indications suggest his first foray into riffs and grooves is paying off. See first single from the album, ‘Open Eye Signal’, where a high pressure hiss gives way to burbling, insistent rhythm – a chrome express train accelerating through a sunlit landscape. The track got its first outing courtesy of Apparat at a DJ set in Japan on New Year’s Eve – an email from the German musician informing Hopkins that the room had erupted made for a great late Christmas present. Or ‘Breathe This Air’ with its graceful build and huge contrasts in mood via uppity rhythms, mournful piano notes, and stirring choral drones. And then there’s ‘Collider’, the album’s peak and the track that Hopkins says is the best he’s ever written. A ten minute techno monster, ‘Collider’ is underpinned by a constant, pounding bass pulse and a sinister texture that could be a harshly taken breath inside a gas mask. The towering central riff makes for a mournful, dystopian aesthetic, cinematic like black rain over neon. Yet the bleak euphoria that suggests a knees-up at the end of the world is only half the story – the compelling 4/4 rhythm and hint of a human vocal give this a massive twist halfway through.
Hopkins deliberately structured Immunity with this colossal banger in the middle. The whole album, therefore, works as an idealised soundtrack to a massive night out, peaking with a huge, lost-in-the-moment climax that feels like more than mere hedonism, warm endorphins swilling around the mind. This desire to create dancefloor-focussed music that was a step up from the slower tempo ambience of his previous solo albums was largely inspired by months spent in clubs and at festivals touring Insides. This gradual absorption of anything from the futuristic oddness found at LA’s Low End Theory club night (at which he has made several live appearances) to sterner European techno seeped out in the studio, shaping his mission to find new melodic routes through what were for him uncharted rhythmic territories.
What makes Immunity so intriguing, however, is the methods Hopkins used to do this. A curse of contemporary clubbing is the audible strain of laptop-DJd and computer-made MP3s through powerful PA systems. Hopkins, on the other hand, went out of his way to make music that sounded like physically built things with layer upon layer of depth, a long way from the cold CGI artifice of much entirely computer-derived electronica.
This desire to use physical, real-world sounds (anything from tapping a piano and drumming on the desk to a two quid tambourine and salt and pepper shakers) as the basis for many of Immunity’s rhythms also comes from Hopkins’ frustration with the ubiquity of certain synthetic drum machine samples in much contemporary dance music. In the corner of his studio sits the piano that he has had since he was eight-years-old, and the instrument features throughout the more nostalgic second half of Immunity… but not always as you’d expect – Hopkins also uses it to explore new methods of sound generation. On ‘Form By Firelight’, for example, the pedals provide the beat, and the strings are struck for chiming tones.
Hopkins’ intent throughout was to be open to the world around him finding its way into the music, wherever he was. These happy moments of unintended creation included the reverse alarm of a lorry outside his Bow studio hitting a certain note during a recording session, serendipitously leading the chord sequence down a different path. The whistle and pop of fireworks emanating from the nearby Olympic Stadium were captured and slowed down, to sound like the echoes of a distant battle. Life and grit came from actively boosting things that aren’t supposed to be there, such as the rattle of window frame at every kick drum hit. This method of looking inside the music for interesting details to pull out and tricking the brain with technically incorrect recording methods might have most studio engineers tutting, but here helped to create a mangled reality. In Hopkins’ studio everything can be melodic, and nothing is wasted.
With this sense of place, Immunity is also a sketch of real experiences and memories absorbed by Hopkins over his thirty-three years. These he now tries to reflect and respond to in his music. This might be the quest to recapture the sound of a perfect chord made by water running through pipes in a New York hotel room, or the light reflecting off the surface of the Thames at certain times of the year, the random patterns of nature. This not only makes the album deeply personal to Hopkins, but is key to one of his main inspirations in recording it – the desire to slow down or alter the brainwaves to help us reach different states of mind, whether via hypnosis, music, or drugs.
Self-hypnosis is a longstanding personal fascination that Hopkins wanted to bring into his music, yet it was only on Immunity that he felt he had the technical ability to actually try and make it happen. The quality control that decided whether or not tracks were finished was to come into the studio in the morning, and if the track started sending him off into another world, it was done. Similarly, when it seemed that Immunity might be ready for mastering, Hopkins tested it by lying on the studio floor, hitting play, and seeing where his mind ended up. With a stated aim to see if this music might have a similar effect on those who encounter it, Immunity feels like the accompaniment to a journey of creativity, a trip inside Hopkins’ mind.
That keys-in-the-lock recording that begins the album might usher the listener into the studio to be present at the moment of the music’s creation, but it has a counterpoint in the thrilling album closer, and the song that gives the album its name. ‘Immunity’ is built around rhythms that creak and mutter like the workings of an old watermill joined by a simple, elegiac piano part and indecipherable vocals by King Creosote, as if to paint an inverse to the techno tumult that dominates the album’s first half. The very natural-sounding rattle and dying piano notes at the record’s end show just how far we and Hopkins have come on one of the most human electronic albums you’ll hear this year.
Info (German):
Schon die ersten Töne von Jon Hopkins neuem Album IMMUNITY katapultie-ren uns in andere Sphären und genau so wollte es der 33-Jährige Jon(athan) Hopkins: In eine andere Welt soll der Hörer von IMMUNITY möglichst schnell abtauchen, im besten Fall in die des Produzenten selbst. Der Sound ist es, der IMMUNITY als das clubtauglichste Album kennzeichnet, das Hopkins bis dato aufgenommen hat. Ein fettes Statement nach dem Mercury-Prize-nominierten “Diamond Mine”, einer Kollaboration mit King Creosote, die doch so ganz anders war.
Jon Hopkins ist nur wenigen ein geläufiger Name, denn er arbeitet sowohl als Komponist für Soundtracks, wie den Ivor Novello-nominierten Score von Mons-ters, wie auch als Produzent, etwa für Coldplay und Brian Eno, eher im Hinter-grund und Hopkins gesteht ein, dass seine Arbeit mit anderen Künstlern seine Soloalben (Opalescent, 2001; Contact Note, 2004; Insides, 2009) bislang deut-lich überschattet haben. Dies gab ihm jedoch die Möglichkeit, seine eigene Identität, seinen Sound und seinen Stil ganz allmählich zu entwickeln. So schwirren einige der Ideen für IMMUNITY schon seit Jahren in Hopkins Kopf herum. Jetzt endlich nutzt er die Gelegenheit, sie mit uns zu teilen.
Vom ersten Moment, in dem die Bässe leise aus den Boxen blubbern, es aus allen Ecken britzelt, glucks, zirpt, blingt, schlurft, schleift und atmet, entwickelt sich IMMUNITY zu einem starken und vielschichtigen Album, vollgepackt mit den besten Sounds, die Hopkins je produziert hat. Vor allem “Open Eye Sig-nal” ist ein Track, der Hopkins den Ritterschlag verleiht : Kurz nach dem Jah-reswechsel erhielt er eine Mail von Sascha Ring alias Apparat, der ihm berich-tete, dass die Gäste einer japanischen Silvesterfeier nahezu ausgerastet sei-en, als er den Song kurz nach Mitternacht spielte. Aber auch nach “Open Eye Signal” verliert das Album nicht an Intensität, energetisch geht es immer weiter bergauf, bis zu einem imaginären Gipfel. “Collider” gibt sich monton, scheppernd und drängend. Ein düsterer Track mit beklemmender und doch euphorisierender Wirkung. Ein phantastischer Kontrast zum darauf folgenden “Abandon Window”, das den Beginn eines ruhigeren, wieder an Score erin-nernden, Teil des Albums markiert.
Was IMMUNITY so faszinierend macht ist die Methode, die Hopkins beim Pro-duzieren verwendet. Schicht für Schicht baut er die Sounds auf und mischt sie mit Geräuschen aus dem Alltag. Herausgekommen ist ein Sound, der echter und rauher klingt, als alles was sonst aus den Boxen eines Nachtclubs dröh-nen könnte. Das Feuerwerk im nahen Olympiastadion wurde ebenso Teil des Albums wie ein am Studio vorbeifahrender LKW, plätscherndes Wasser in ei-nem New Yorker Hotelzimmer oder Lichtreflektionen auf der Wasseroberflä-che der Themse in London. Die Kombination aus komponierten Arrangements und dem was um ihn herum geschieht, ist einzigartig. Für Hopkins ist alles Me-lodie, nichts ist überflüssig. Das macht das Album nicht nur sehr intim und per-sönlich, es ist auch der Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Aufnahmen: Hopkins wollte seinen Bewusstseinszustand statt durch Hypnose oder Drogen mit Musik verändern. Mit Selbsthypnose hatte er bereits seine Erfahrungen gemacht, der Trip sollte auf IMMUNITY aus dem Geiste der Musik wiederholen. Jeden Morgen, wenn Hopkins ins Studio kam, hörte er sich die Tracks an und wenn die Sounds ihn in eine andere Welt beförderten, war es gut. Ganze Tage ver-brachte er auf dem Fußboden des Studios und reiste durch die Tracks, bevor sie final gemastert wurden. Man kann das leicht zu Hause nachmachen und bemerkt sehr schnell, von was die Rede ist.
Einen krönenden Abschluss eines nichts weniger als bewusstseinserweitern-dem Album ist übrigens der Track “Immunity”, der dem Album zu recht seinen Namen gab. Den Track hat Hopkins mit einem elegischen Piano und zärtlichs-tem Gesang von King Creosote um das Klappern und Knarren einer knorrigen Wassermühle arrangiert. Techno kann auch traurig sein, vor allem dort, wo dieses wundervolle Album seine letzten perlenden, knarrenden, gluckernden, schluchzenden, flirrenden Töne aushaucht. Großes Kino Mr. Hopkins. Wir ver-beugen uns tief!
Info (English):
Olympia is an album of transformation. Though it has only been two years since Austra’s 2010 debut Feel It Break, it presents a quantum evolution in the Toronto-based band’s sound, structure and style.
After three years of non-stop international touring with the likes of the XX, Grimes and the Gossip, when it came time to record Olympia, Austra had evolved into a complex collaborative effort between its six members. “Previously, I would flesh out songs before I brought them to the band, but this time I left them bare and let the others fill them in” explains Katie Stelmanis, the principal songwriter/vocalist.
Olympia is also the first confessional record for Stelmanis as evidenced by the heartfelt lyrics of piano driven lead single “Home” (stream now). “Home” expresses the anxieties of waiting up all night for a lover to return. “I was mad and upset and the song just wrote itself,” says the singer. The album touches on a range of sentiments that stem from a relationship ending, a relationship beginning, and friends’ struggles with addiction and motivation. Despite the sometimes dark lyrics written in collaboration with band member Sari Lightman, Olympia is bubbly and buoyant— fundamentally a dance record, which Stelmanis says was the band’s aim all along. “We are really into dense harmonies and big beautiful melodies, but I also love techno and dance music. I wanted to bring those elements together.”
Though Olympia is filled with electronic and synthetic sounds that reference everything from Trax Record classic cuts to Yazoo’s Upstairs At Eric’s, it’s free of programming and loops. Everything was played live by the band in the studio and all of the percussion including a wild set up of marimbas and congas was performed by drummer Maya Postepski. “Maya played a huge role in the production of the album,” says Stelmanis, who has been playing with the drummer for eight years since their previous band, Galaxy. “There is a major percussive element running through every song,” Stelmanis laughs, “this is the album where we discovered rhythm.”
The album was produced by Austra with additional production by Mike Haliechuk, vocal production by Damian Taylor (Bjork, the Killers), engineered by Bill Skibbe and Leon Taheny and mixed by Tom Elmhirst (Adele, Erasure, Hot Chip).
Austra is Katie Stelmanis (lead vocals), Maya Postepski (drums), Dorian Wolf (bass), Ryan Wonsiak (keys), Sari & Romy Lightman (backing vocals).
Info (German):
Mit dem Debütalbum Feel It Break landeten Austra 2010 einen Überraschungshit, der sich eher von hinten durch die Brust ins Auge, denn mit einem Knall ins Bewußtsein der Nation gegraben hat. Kaum einer, der diesen Ohrwurm nicht schon irgendwo gehört und nicht mehr losgeworden war: “Don´t wanna lose you, don´t wanna lose….” Der Spiegel schrieb sehr treffend: “Dieses Lied kennt kein entkommen. Es ist bekloppt, nervtötend und großartig. Wer es einmal im Kopf hat, bekommt es tagelang nicht mehr heraus.”
Nun legen Austra mit Olympia am 14.Juni ihr zweites Album vor. Olympia ist ein Album der Transformation: obwohl seit dem Debütalbum “Feel It Break” erst drei Jahre vergangen sind, hat sich der Sound der in Toronto ansässigen Band in Struktur und Stil extrem weiterentwickelt.
Nach drei Jahren ununterbrochenem Touren um den ganzen Globus mit Bands wie The XX, Grimes und Gossip haben sich die drei ursprünglichen Bandmitglieder zusammen mit den drei Begleitern zu einer perfekt funktionierenden sechsköpfigen Einheit entwickelt. “Previously, I would flesh out songs before I brought them to the band, but this time I left them bare and let the others fill them in” erklärt die treibende Kraft, Sängerin Katie Stelmanis.
Olympia ist außerdem ein Album, auf dem sich Katie Stelmanis als Songwriterin erstmalig emotional entblößt. So handelt etwa die pianolastige Single “Home”von der Angst, die ganze Nacht darauf zu warten, dass die Geliebte zurückkehrt. “I was mad and upset and the song just wrote itself,” sagt Stelmanis. Das Album berührt neben schmerzhaft vertrauten Themen, wie dem Ende einer Beziehung, auch gute Seiten wie Freundschaft oder Verknalltsein. Auch wenn die Lyrics, die Stelmanis zusammen mit Background-Sängerin Sari Lightman schrieb, häufig düster sind, so ist das Album dennoch ein sprudelndes Dance-Album: “We are really into dense harmonies and big beautiful melodies, but I also love techno and dance music. I wanted to bring those elements together.”
Obwohl Olympia vor elektronischen Synthiesounds geradezu übersprudelt, hat die Band dennoch alles live im Studio eingespielt, unter anderem mit Maya Postepski an Marimbas und Congas: “Maya played a huge role in the production of the album,” so Stelmanis, die schon seit acht Jahren mit der Schlagzeugerin Postepski zusammenarbeitet, unter anderem in ihrer vorherigen Band Galaxy. “There is a major percussive element running through every song,” erzählt Stelmanis lachend, “this is the album where we discovered rhythm.”
Die Produzentenarbeit übernahm die Band selbst mit Hilfe von Mike Haliechuk, Damian Taylor (Björk, The Killers), Bill Skibbe, Leon Taheny und Tom Elmhirst (Adele, Erasure, Hot Chip).
Austra sind Katie Stelmanis (Gesang), Maya Postepski (Schlagzeug), Dorian Wolf (Bass), Ryan Wonsiak (Keyboard), Sari & Romy Lightman (Backgroundgesang).
Live Dates:
13th March – SXSW @ Vice Land, Austin (USA)
14th March – SXSW @ Hype Hotel, Austin (USA)
15th March – SXSW @ The Mohawk, Austin (USA)
16th March – SXSW @ Elysium, Austin (USA)
16th March – SXSW @ Old Emo’s, Austin (USA)
02nd June – Forbidden Fruit Dublin (Ireland)
06th June – Plaza, Zürich (Switzerland)
07th June – Südpol, Luzerne (Switzerland)
08th June – L’Amalgame, Yverdon-les Bains (Switzerland)
10th June – Bitterzoet, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
12th June – Le Nouveau Casino, Paris (France)
14th June – Lido, Berlin (Germany) >> Tix@Koka36
17th June – Hoxton Bar & Grill, London (Great Britain)
20th June – Music Hall of Williamsburg, New York City (USA)
23rd June – Troubadour, Los Angeles (USA)
26th June – The Independent, San Francisco (USA)
