One For The Weekend: 'Royal T' by Crookers feat Róisín Murphy

Once again the weekend's here and people's dancing feet are getting restless. So go out, go have fun! And if you're looking for catchy beats and infectious dance tunes, well, boy are you in for a treat! Here's "Royal T", a great tune from the 2010 debut album of the Italian electronic duo Crookers. Not only is it super awesome but it also features vocals from none other than the wonderful Róisín Murphy so what's not to love!





And if you've run out of flashy new moves, you can always look up the group routine choreographed to this song in So You Think You Can Dance for inspiration. I can guarantee, with moves like that you will stand out from the crowd. For better of for worse.

Anyway, have a great weekend!

Turkey leaves Eurovision Song Contest, starts new contest instead

Okay, not exactly 'indie' news or 'alternative' or anything but I think this is quite important nevertheless. That's right - Turkey has had enough of Eurovision. TRT, the Turkish national broadcaster, has deemed the Big 5 rule and the new changes in the voting system 'unfair' and thus has decided to leave the ESC completely. Originally withdrawing from the 2013 competition held in Malmö, it has now been announced that TRT will be hosting another song contest, titled Türkvision, as reported by SVT. The contest will be held in December, with two semifinals on 19th and 21st and then the final on 23rd. Sounding suspiciously familiar? How totally innovative and unheard of.

According to the Turkish newspaper Hüyrriet Daily News the contest brings together 20 countries and autonomic regions with Turkic populations. The Turkish Education Minister has denied that the new contest would in any way rival with Eurovision: "Turkvision does not need to be compared to Eurovision." (Well, what a great choice for the name of the contest, then.) "It will have its place in the Turkic world with its own brand value. Whether we participate or not in Eurovision, I hope that Turkvision will move forward in its own path, growing and expanding year-by-year."

I think it's fair to say that this is not just about the entertainment. Turkey has had several problems bubbling underneath the surface in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring and has moved significantly to a more conservative direction - something that has upset the liberal segments. The conservative government has enraged the public - well, a certain part of it, at least - which has led to conflicts between them, such as the Taksim Square protests that are still fresh in our memory. Is the country's abandonment of the Eurovision Song Contest and its replacement with a Turkic equivalent also part of this manifestation of Turkey's recent introversion? Do they want to thus reduce Western influences in the country that seeks to turn more towards their conservative traditionalism? I don't know. I'm just a music blogger. However, I don't think it's coincidental that the country, often regarded as a model for secular democracy in the Middle East, is now emphasising its connection with other Turkic areas at the expense of its connections to the West while simultaneously struggling with internal problems regarding Westernisation and liberalisation.

I don't know about you guys but I refuse to think that music - even the mass produced, disposable dance pop that accounts for most Eurovision entries - is 'just music' or 'entertainment'. It's more. That's why I'm writing this blog after all - I believe in music. And I doubt it's really about the voting either: Turkey has been disqualified from the finals only once during their entire Eurovision history while having finished eight times in the top ten during the 2000s, once even winning the whole thing. So yeah, it's hardly just about the music.

Review: 'White Light' by Groove Armada

Now that I've done Black Light, it's time to review its remade version White Light. The concept for this album might initially sound a bit fishy: it's basically the same songs than on their previous album, only a little bit reworked. Re-recorded with slightly altered arrangements. So... what gives? Why bother listening to an album full of rehashed ideas let alone buy it? Well. As I said - and with the exception of "1980" - all the tracks here are songs that already appeared on Black Light. That's true. Were they that radically rewritten? Not really. But most importantly: is it any better? Oh yeah.

Feeling like discovering new artists?

Of course you do. And now there's yet another way to do it! So, here's TuneGlue. It uses data collected by Last.fm and Amazon and hence the recommendations seem to be quite identical to those of Last.fm, but here the information is shown in a visual representation which is always fun and flashy. Let me demonstrate how it works.

First you enter one band or artist that you really like. Last.fm, whose database TuneGlue uses, recommends its users artists that are similar to the ones they listen to. Similarly, you can search for new artists in TuneGlue by using your favourite artists. Let's say I'd want to find music similar to The Cure.

Next, click the black orb representing the band. Four options appear: Expand, Releases, Lock Pos[ition] and Delete. Choose Expand. 

Now, the site shows you six search results that are most similar to the artist you're searching with, according to Last.fm at least. In case of The Cure, the recommendations are New Order, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Sisters of Mercy and The Glove, as you can see.

But that's six possibilities to start listening to, isn't that quite time-consuming? Why, yes it is. But you can easily narrow down the options. Let's say you're also familiar with the music of Siouxsie and the Banshees (one of the recommended artists), and you really like them as well. So, you can click their orb, choose Expand, and now you have one chart of similar artists to The Cure and another to the Banshees. However, as the picture shows, some artists might be connected with both bands - a bit like in The L Word - so in this situation you should probably try either Bauhaus or The Sisters of Mercy as they are recommended to the listeners of both The Cure and the Banshees.

You can expand your recommendation charts as much as you like, as seen from the picture below. They can quickly become rather messy thanks to multiple cross-references, but you can delete unnecessary recommendations simply by clicking them and then selecting Delete, so you can clean up the view by doing that. 

You can click the pictures to enlarge them.

So there you have it, in all its simplicity. Have fun discovering new stuff!

M.I.A. shares new album cover (tracklist also revealed)

M.I.A., who's had a bit of trouble with her record label, has released the (apparently) official album artwork of her forthcoming LP Matangi. I guess she uses social media as a way to get back at her label: first she threatened on Twitter to leak the much-postponed album herself, which finally got the album a release date. Now she revealed the album cover on her Tumblr site. Here's also another version of the album cover on the left while the right one could be a possible back cover. Meanwhile, the album itself is being released on November 5th.

Update: According to my inside sources (alright, Pitchfork) the tracklist for the album has also been (unofficially) revealed. Well, that's music industry for ya - leaks after leaks after leaks. Here it is anyway:

"Karmageddon"

"MATANGI"

"Only 1 U"

"Warriors"

"Come Walk With Me"

"aTENTion"

"Exodus"

"Bad Girls"

"Boom Skit"

"Double Bubble Trouble"

"Y.a.l.a"

"Bring The Noize"

"Lights"

"Know It Ain't Right"

"Sexodus"

So it's 15 tracks altogether. Some of them have already been released earlier in some form or another (most notably the singles "Bring The Noize" and "Come Walk With Me" and especially the massive 2012 banger "Bad Girls"). The rest are still one month and a half away.

Siouxsie Sunday: 'Juju' by Siouxsie and the Banshees

Siouxsie and the Banshees were arguably one of the most important bands to emerge from the British punk scene, and I dare to say that no other LP of theirs was quite as influential as their 1981 album Juju. After the electronic-influenced Kaleidoscope the group re-embraced a more guitar-driven and rock-oriented sound (then again, Kaleidoscope was written mostly without a permanent guitarist to begin with). However, at the same time the album represents a radically new direction for them - while The Scream and Join Hands had some very unorthodox guitar playing by John McKay, their new guitarist (and another John) John McGeoch wasn't exactly conventional either. Another new element in the mix was Budgie's unique way of drumming. And the outcome, well, it's spectacular. 

Four years of Bonkersness

Can you imagine - it's already over four years since Dizzee Rascal released his incredibly catchy hit single "Bonkers". Time sure flies. Subsequently the song made its way into his touring repertoire but no performance of it was quite as bonkers as the following one. It's taken from Dizzee's appearance on Jools Holland exactly four years ago. It has Dizzee going all yeehaw on a hillbillified (yes, it is a word - well, according to Urban Dictionary at least) version of the song. Hilariousness ensues. The backing vocalist, by the way, is Vula Malinga, most notable for her work with Basement Jaxx, just in case you're wondering (such as in "Oh My Gosh", the music video of which she also starred). Dizzee too has collaborated with Basement Jaxx in their 2003 single "Lucky Star". It's a small world, is it not.

New details of Madonna's #secretproject

If you've been reading any music magazines lately you've probably already heard of Madonna's mysterious #secretproject, which is a collaboration with the American photographer Steven Klein. After three ambiguous trailers it's been revealed that the project will be in fact a 17-minute short film. Thematically it appears to be about freedom and equality and, according to Rolling Stone, Madonna's objective is to "show by the example of secretprojectrevolution my creative commitment to inspire change in the world through artistic expression." Fair enough. It will be released as a free download on September 24th at 2 pm EST via file sharing site BitTorrent. Five days to go, then.

Here are the three enigmatic trailers released so far:

Review: 'Black Light' by Groove Armada

Next I would like to take you to the wonderful electronic landscapes of the music of Groove Armada. They are a British electro-house duo whose music you have heard before, believe it or not: they've scored international hits with singles such as "My Friend", "I See You Baby" and especially their chill-out classic "At The River". (Ah, listening to these songs takes my back to my mid-teens. Good times.) The album I'm reviewing is their latest studio album of strictly new songs (I'll get to this later) and was actually released already three years ago, in 2010. (Goodness, has it been so long already?) Black Light sees the duo adopting a more rock-oriented sound à la their Lovebox era, at least compared to its predecessor, 2007's Soundboy Rock (which was a brilliant pop album that I might have to review some time), and also features heavy '80s influences. So, basically, it's a mixture of pop, electronica, house and rock. Interested? Keep reading then, will you.

Remixin' : Grace Jones vs Funkstar DeLuxe - Pull Up To The Bumper

In general, I mainly cringe when I see people hyping up remixes since I always tend to prefer the original versions, especially as most remixes seem to be nothing but 7-minute remakes with a repetitive loop and a 'danceable' beat but every now and then there is a remix that succeeds in igniting my enthusiasm. Here's one of those: it's Funkstar DeLuxe's updated make over of "Pull Up To The Bumper", the raunchy 1981 hit song by Grace Jones, already an '80s club classic itself. And I kind of like it.





May it bring joy and delight to your beginning of the week. Here's also the original version if you feel like comparing: