Featured, Finnish music, Headline, News

Heartjet – Under The Spell & Egotrippi – Uusi aamu

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heartjetspell

Time to get back to the basics of this website/blog and post a couple of great Finnish pop songs. Heartjet are working hard on their debut full-length and just released a second single from the forthcoming album called Under The Spell / Picture. I’m a long time fan of this power pop duo and really like these new songs as well. Under The Spell is available at Bandcamp.

Heartjet at Facebook

egotrippivuosi

Egotrippi doesn’t really need an introduction. They are one of the finest pop bands in the country and unlike 99% of the bands covered on this blog, they are also somewhat famous. That’s the only reason why I haven’t written that much about them over these 13 years I’ve been writing this blog. They don’t really need my help and there’s nothing that I can add that hasn’t already been said. Nevertheless, they have new single out there called Uusi aamu and I think it’s absolutely wonderful. Their new album Vuosi nolla drops into our hearts on the 20th of March. Here’s the music video for the lead single Uusi aamu.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ej0UdmSPnc]

Egotrippi Website

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Featured, News

Couch by Couchwest 2015 March 15-21

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couch

One of the musical highlights of the year, Couch By Couchwest festival kicks off on the 15th March. CXCW staff is already working their socks off and have started taking your submissions. The deadline for those submissions is 12:00pm Noon Eastern/9:00am Pacific time March 21th, but I’m sure they appreciate it, if you send them in advance. It would give the unlucky and overworked CXCW intern at least some free time during the festivities that he/she could spend on preparing tacos and carving haikus to his/her desk.

CXCW is open to everyone and that’s the beauty of it. You don’t need to be world famous to participate. Sure some big names like Neko Case and Rosanne Cash have participated which has been awesome, but some unknown father-daughter duo singing their heart out can be just as important at CXCW. All genres are accepted, but no Wagon Wheel covers (unless your D.Rucker) or something very offensive like Nickelback covers. Some Finnish folks have also appeared on the stage. Robin Pahlman, Jerry Lindqvist and Marty The Random Guy have all played on the festival. I hope the audience will see a couple of Finnish entries at CXCW 2015 as well.

Here are quick guidelines from their website:

“Musicians: Please upload your unique to CXCW 2015 video (i.e. for the CXCW festival) to YouTube or Vimeo and send the link to us via the below form or to cxcwest at gmail.com (think of this video as your performance for the Couch by Couchwest audience).

Videos do not have to be recorded on a couch, but they should be recorded essentially anywhere but a stage (we strongly encourage creativity).

Submitted videos should be unique (i.e. for the CXCW audience). Please do not send us promos, EPK’s, live concert footage, music videos, slideshows, etc…”

And here’s Marty The Random Guy singing The 1800 at CXCW 2014

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f16at4S_ypE]

Couch by Couch West Website

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Featured, International music, News

Caleb Caudle indiegogo project & Aaron Lee Tasjan

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caleb

That one above was one of the best albums released last year and definitely showed that Caleb Caudle is a first-class songwriter. Caleb is currently in the process of making a follow-up called Carolina Ghost and has set an indiegogo project to help covering the costs of making this future classic. Watch Caleb Caudle singing Tuscaloosa below and if you like that as much as I do, consider participating his indiegogo campaign for Carolina Ghost.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIPwjWckTf4]

And of course I have to take this opportunity to recommend that wonderful album Paint Another Layer On My Heart. This is Trade All The Lights from that beautiful record.

Caleb Caudle Website

aaronlee

Aaron Lee Tasjan also had an indiegogo project a while back. I didn’t participate and I’m already regretting that wholeheartedly. I certainly would have loved to hear his full-length debut in advance, but now I just have to wait until it hits the shops. I’ve been aware of his existence for quite some time, but didn’t fully start paying attention until now. During the past few weeks I’ve been listening to Aaron a lot. I’ve listened his Daytrotter session several times, watched a lot of youtube videos and listened to this song called Living Proof countless amount of times (this soundcloud clip + various live videos). Such a damn good songwriter. Here’s that Living Proof + another favourite Judy Was A Punk Jesus Freak from Live and Breathing’s excellent video vaults.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBHNLv0QoN4]

Aaron Lee Tasjan Website

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Featured, International music, News

The Fox (Freschard, Stanley Brinks, The Burning Hell)

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thefox

I’ve spent a big part of the past year listening to Freschard, Stanley Brinks & The Burning Hell (Mathias Kom, Ariel Sharratt) and I have become seriously addicted to their music. They also have a collaboration project called The Fox and they released their The Fox debut in January. If being brutally honest, The Fox doesn’t reach the same level of earthshaking brilliance as their individual efforts (only a few things actually do). Nevertheless, it’s still a lovely little album and it’s a whole lot of fun to listen to it. This one is This Beer from the self-titled The Fox album.

And here’s a song that I love from each of these magnificent songwriters and performers.

The Burning Hell – Nostalgia from their 2011 release Flux Capacitor.

Parking Lots from Stanley Brinks and The Wave Pictures album Gin (2014)

And finally the almighty Freschard and her song Not Ready from her 2011 classic Shh..

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