Gudrun von Laxenburg

Welcome back!

After a quite long break, some heavy life signals on this blog are to come. Popfest is the reason I'm going to introduce some remarkable artist from Austria to your gourmet ears. Popfest was a 4 days festival in Vienna (Austria) from the 25th till 28th of July. I had the pleasure to be there the first three days and I listened to some outstanding Austrian Bands and DJs. Probably you will wonder why I mention those bands, which could seem quite normal for the rest of the world, but just to give you a slight idea of what regular Austrian mainstream music is supposed to be:

 Yes, seriously that's what many many people here listen to ;) And now let's talk about serious electronic music:

Gudrun von Laxemburg

Holy mother, Jesus and Joseph! I didn't thought that this kind of music would exist Austria. I was very very very lucky, to enter the boiling hot "Brut" Club on July 27th, when those guys played as the last act that night. The club was crowded and there was no airconditioning at all on a very warm summer night. Just imagin to walk into a finish sauna and you'll know how it felt like at the main floor. After a couple of minutes I was soaking wet and sweating like everybody else in there. Sweat was dripping from the ceiling but nothing could stop this amazing gig. The people went bonkers!

Here are some of their songs:

I love how they use the keyboard to create this unique atmospheric electronic sound! And in generell their songs seem very danceable!
Their live performance was outstanding too. Nice costumes, superb lightshow combined with this tune couldn't be any better!
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Check their Hompage: www.gudrunvonlaxenburg.com
Also on Facebook: Gudrun von Laxenburg
Myspace: Gudrun von Laxenburg
and  Soundcloud: Gudrun von Laxenburg

Redlight

Here's another reason for my love for the UK electronic music scene. Hugh Pescod, also known as "Redlight" did a couple of songs which got repeated in my head for days and days. While his song "Lost In Your Love" hit place 3 in the UK Dance Charts his quite haunting melodies are mostly unknown in mainland Europe. "Lost In Your Love" was the first song I heard of him and that's exactly the style that I liked. The DJ, record producer, re-mixer and composer from Bristol, calls his music "cross cultural dance music" and it is truly fresh stuff, which could be easily more popular in the rest of Europe. His song's "Get Out Of My Head" and "Lost In Your Love" were both able to get into the UK Charts in 2012. I'm looking forward for his next productions.

 

REDLIGHT - GET OUT OF MY HEAD

 

REDLIGHT - LOST IN YOUR LOVE

And here is the brand new single, "Switch It Off"

 

REDLIGHT - SWITCH IT OFF

Another interesting youtube video about Redligh: an interview with Hugh Pescod!

 

For more Info click on one of those links: Fact Mag about his new single, Redlight@Facebook, Redlight@Wikipedia

O'Children

What a Band! I heared them 2011 for the first time. "Dead Disco Dancer" was posted in a news group, with the comment, that the singer (Tobias O'Kandi)  would sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Later on a friend of mine told me that it's basically nothing new and Joy Division did that typ of music long before them. I can't realy agree with that, because O'Children sounds definitly fresher to me, than Joy Division or anthying else that I heared before, but there are some similarities. "O'Children" is the name of a song by Nick Cave, which had obviously hugh influence on the same named bands name. 

After a long period, where I haven't been listening to Rock music that much, it was one of the first albums, that I was listening to from the first to the last song. So it's hard to name a favourite song, because they are all almost equaly good. To give you an image, here are two of the highlights:

 O'CHILDREN - DEAD DISCO DANCER

O'CHILDREN - RUINS

There is already a new album, which I haven't listened to yet, but I'll definitly do. I hope it's as good as the first one. 

For further info, check these websites: O'Children@Bandcamp, O'Children@Facebook, O'Children@Last.fm, New Album Apnea and more about Apnea here

C.L.A.B.H. 99 Degrees

This here is so unknown in Austria and so fresh that I couldn't find much info on the net. C.L.A.B.H. is an abreviaton which stands for "Cracked Logic And A Broken Heart". A state in life which only a few lucky or unlucky people have experienced.

Their song 99 Degrees, sounds great to me and definitely deserves a blog entry here!
At the moment it's #21 in the swedish top 40 dance charts.  

For whatever reason, I can't post a video link here, so find this amazing song here and enjoy!

Extrawelt

Extrawelt: Wayan Raabe, Arne Schaffhausen

As promised last time I'll present you something delicious which is not from the UK. So let's have a look at a particular remix by Extrawelt. Extrawelt consists of the producers Arne Schaffhausen and Wayan Raabe from Hamburg. They are also known as Spiralkinda, Midimiliz amongst others and the style of their music differes with their aliases.
While looking for some new music on the net, I came across a pod cast which contained a whole set by Extrawelt. The only words that can describe it, were darkness and minimalism, but on the other side also fascination and forward-driving. The opener on this pod cast was exactly what I described. It's a remix of the swedish minimal-house and minimal-techno project by Marcus Henriksson und Sebastian Mullaert, named Minilogue. While the original version was already very good, Extawelt added this certain atmosphere, which back then made this one of the most atmospheric songs that I've been listening to in the minimal genre, but probably you should decide what sounds "nicer" in your opinion.

 

 MINILOGUE - THE LEOPARD (ORIGINAL MIX)

 

 MINILOGUE - THE LEOPARD (EXTRAWELT REMIX)

 I have to admit, that I couldn't listen to minimal music 24/7, but this song is one of those that realy distinguishs from the mass.

 From their 2008 Album "Schöne Neue Extrawelt" I can recommend also Wolkenbruch and Dark Side Of My Room but actualy the whole album is highly recommendable. 

Beside of Extrawelt, there some few more artist in this genre, that counts to my favourites, so stay tuned for updates.
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Wanna know more? Check this links:
Wayan Raabe @ Discogs
Arne Schaffhausen @ Discogs
Extrawelt @ Myspace
Extrawelt @ Facebook

Rudimental

Ok, I promise I'll soon write some articles about non UK artists, but obviously I'm a huge fan of most kinds of electronic music from the UK.

Read about Rudimental here

One of the big dancefloor fillers during my stay in England was Rudimentals big summer hit "Feel the love".

 

RUDIMENTAL FEAT. JOHN NEWMAN - FEEL THE LOVE

Those four guys from London realy know how to make good music. "Feel the love" was No.1 in the UK and received alot of good reviews. According to a Wikipedia article the video is about people, who are learning to ride on horses which were meant to be slaughtered. The Video was shot in Philadelphia.

At around the mid of November last year, those remarkable guys released the next song, which probably wasn't as big as "Feel the love", but the recipe with some well working ingredients i.e. John Newman's voice, Drum'n'Bass and Dubstep samples, it worked out very well. 

 

RUDIMENTAL FEAT. JOHN NEWMAN & ALEX CLARE - NOT GIVING IN

"For any of y'all that don't know, this music video is set in Manila, Philippines and is based on the real-life story of 3-time world champion B-boy Mouse, and his rise to fame as a B-Boy on the rough streets of Manila. Running parallel to the story of Mouse’s rise is his brother’s fall onto the wrong path into gang-life" (iPeaky's comment on youtube).

And my personal admiration for Rudimental just continued after I heared their latest song, which is out on youtube and will be realeased 14th April.

 

RUDIMENTAL FEAT: ELLA EYRE - WAITING ALL NIGHT

Majestic

There is not much to say about music, that is able to touch your feeling, create your emotions and influence your mood. One of my great discoverys on youtube this, let's call it spring, was the youtube page of majestic casual. Is it a label, or just a channel? I don't know, but they've got loads of good music.

As they state on their youtube channel, Majestic casual is from Germany and they provide a large amount of garage, house, hip-hop and electronic music video uploads. From what I was listening to so far, I wouldn't categorize them as party or club music, rather some kind of lounge music, to chill and relax to. Well I shouldn't generalize, you'll find very different appealing electronic music. Below you'll find a couple of youtube links. Click, listen & enjoy!
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More about Majestic Casual: + MajesticCasual on Facebook  + MajesticCasual on Soundcloud + Majestic Casual on Mixcloud