Wednesday 12 February 2014

We've Moved


The blog has now moved to http://feetupeyesclosed.wordpress.com

It's been there since mid Jan 2014 - please check us out, follow and share if you love new music :) x

Monday 6 January 2014

Fire Breather

Ill today. Shivering, head aches. And back to the grind didn't help. I fell asleep in my car on my lunch break. I shuddered at the thought of sitting in meetings. You brought me to nowhere.  Fire breather, breathing fire trying to survive inside your heart.  Fear. Time.

Laurel is already making accomplished music and by the sound of this song has a big year ahead. Strong vocals on the behest of a monotonous simple beat just goes to highlight the talent. Simple songs. Strongest chords. Beautiful listen.


Sunday 5 January 2014

My Old Mantra

Too much going on lately. So many different aspects of life changing, colliding, collapsing, creating. Contemplating a rejig of everything I've tried last couple of years and going back to my old mantra - time supercedes anything you and I plan for. In the end, it doesn't matter what we want, things will transpire as the world had always planned for it.

Microcosm - on the first day of this two week break I downloaded an app which would allow me to become a DJ when I wallow in my personal space for an hour or so a day. Two weeks later, still havent used it.  Macrocosm - a decade ago, I dreamed of being a millionaire by the time I got to the age I'm at now. 10 years later, still skint.  As such, any such unions, rejoices, experiments and resolutions ultimately will play out as they want not as you want. Nihilistic much? Perhaps. A little. But the good news is that there are plenty more amazing highs, surprise poignancies, unexpected thrills awaiting to balance every planned let down, every measured disappointment and every calculated collapse.

I'm clearly going to carry on predicting my 'next superstar' of music so I will continue to defy my aforementioned mantra and still ply away at hope.

Anyhow, to move on from post-sartorial-life-commentating to fresh-out-the-pan music. This is a little playlist for all you beauties out there who have a mixed bag of emotion of starting the new year ahead of tomorrow. Some of you are back at work, uni, life etc, but for me its all go again from tomorrow. If you're anything like me, you'll be feeling one of the following five moods (maybe even all at the same time) See below your mood and then hit the appropriate play button on the playlist. Enjoy mother-lovers.

HOPE (Swim by Fickle Friends)- ...that the new year will bring a bit of joy. Maybe you have something planned big this year. Continue to hope that brown stuff doesn't hit the speedy motor blades all over your lovely clean manila walls. Fickle Friends of Brighton will give you a little bit of spring time bounce and have you popping all the way until at least Wednesday.

APATHY (Hole Why'd Wurld by FTSE feat Femme) - ...or not too bothered by the new year and all that new years resolution stuff? yeah, I feel ya. FTSE is back with this slick collab with Femme. An amazing voice with a chorus a bit similar to a Sting song but one that oozes the whole 'it doesn't matter what you all say, do or think, I'm gonna get what I want' - by this Femme means "I'll go the hole why'd wurld just to find ya'. Apart from the distracting mindless spellings, this song is a real keeper, a proper chill ting.

BRING IT ON (Michael Jackson by Mzwetwo) - ...lets do this thing. Gonna lose weight. Gonna grow better friendships. Gonna hit some real life goals. Gonna make shit happen. This is your song. Mzwetwo pronounced Mz-way-two has produced a tune that'll have you bouncing back and forth doing some weird ass things with your fingers near your nose, shaking a finger at the world and then bouncing away appreciatively. Thank you for the swag. Jokes aside, this is such a fresh sound, a bit different to what I normally post. But I mainly posted it because this guy is genius. His EP is beyond awesome - 'I'd Go Back On My Heart' is particularly brilliant. Phatness.

DREAM (Distant Horizons by Sizzle Bird feat Bea) - ... this is the year, this is the week, this is the day, this is the moment. I'm gonna rise up from my own duldrums and peak to glorious heights. I wanna reflect on this moment and to feel emancipated from the shackles life has placed on me. Close my eyes and envision where I wanna be. Sleep. Wake and then 'be' my vision.  Euphoric. Sizzle Bird, doing his thing, amazing. In fact, no, not amazing. Breathtaking.

DREAD (Alice by Mononoke) -... expecting more disarray, more disappointment, more bitterness, more futility, more failure, more loneliness, more let downs, more rows, more frustration, more problems. Less time, less money, less hope, less sun, less love, less hope. Alice. Just a pack of cards without the hearts. Can you call that love? Escape without being seen. Mononoke, exemplifies all the above and makes you wanna crawl to a loved one and hug them. Tight. Till you forget how you feel. Its a brilliant song. But we dont want you feeling this way for too long. So appreciate Mononoke and Alice, then remember my mantra - time supercedes everything that you and I plan for. Smile.





Thursday 28 November 2013

Nudes So Real

Its auto-playing. Just let it play a second. Stay with me.
Every now and then I feel we need to strip back. Layers off. Peeled skin. Exposed. Only then can we truly appreciate what is before us. So many twists and turns can make your stomach feel a bit funny. And thats pretty much been me for a little while. Rib tickling laughter, shallow cramps and lots of wooziness.
Ok press pause on the video below, you can restart it in a second. It added a little atmosphere I felt.

More interestingly, we have a brilliant event to look forward to in a months time at Shoreditch's Rich Mix being hosted by our friends at Restless Beings. Dec 20th, ReFused pits a line up of some pretty hot bands around at the moment.  And one of those bands, who's sound I have just fallen deep for is the delectable Baby Queens of Cardiff. Having already featured their brilliant song Red Light, a totally different vibe comes around for So Real.

Its like five songs genres and atmospheres all rolled up in one. The slow strums and that tinny beat that start the song off along with sultry vocals introduce us to stuff that just feels so real. At nine minutes, its an epic monster which picks up pace all the time. The morphing into a full hiphop song in the second verse just prepares you for more twists that the song brings. The chorus strips back all the sounds to a beautiful vocal which tells us an enchanting story of shit that just feels so real. 3.40 and the song wakes up to something magical - I can't even describe the sound apart from saying its such a mix of genres so much so that you are left singing along and then that bass at 5 minutes. Well its just something else. And then psycho crazy guitar riffs that take you to another plane, like a crazy 1970's themed party in the heady snow tops of winter 2013 which leaves you pining for those fresh vocals all over again. I wasn't sure about the last four minutes the first time I listened. But having listened a few times over, its actually my favourite part of the song now. These girls are gonna be huge. They are the sound of now.


And from the sounds of now, lets talk about the audio-visuals of now. Like a calming hypnotic culmination of everything that makes me wanna keep looking to that moment in a song when all you wanna do is to see where the song is going, Nudes get it bang on. If you ever read this Nudes, I desperately want you to play for us live. Please, I beg you. Like literally, I will beg you.  It messes with my eyes, it makes me wanna see beneath the blur. It messes with my ears, it makes me wanna hear what is being said. It messes with my head, making me wish to be able to produce music like this rather than write about it. The sound and the look of now. At least in my own trend-setting mind. I have a feeling you may agree though.

Monday 18 November 2013

Manou

Its been a while. Sorry. Life has been a little hectic. Anyway, the good news is there is so much new talent to share. The bad news, its gonna take me a little while to get it all out.

I'm gonna keep this one quite short. I remember sitting many moons ago in my sixth form 'study room' studying many artforms of music and in those haphazard days, lovely floaty lyrics with awesome production was all the hype. I miss those days. Manou takes me back there. And I find myself 'studying' again.

Droplets of notes played on a backdrop of r'n'b esque synths and what not and a combo of lyrics which are about some dude or dudette called Sadie make for a hugely impressive debut. I don't know why I came across this on SoundCloud and not on the radio. That good. And she's only 16. 2014 here she comes...


Wednesday 18 September 2013

Don't Go To Sleep

Ok so I woke up late for work. Like an hour late. So by the time I rolled in I was nearly two hours late. I slept in. But not because I followed my own advice about last night's blog, I didn't get to sleep till about 2am :/

Pretty shit really considering at some point in the next week or so I gotta ask for an extra two weeks holiday having just taken a three week holiday which ended last Monday. Need to win some favours with the boss-people.

Determined not to make the same mistake again, tonight's song conveniently called 'Don't Go To Sleep' is so good, you'll be humming to it long after you've finished listening to it. I actually found this song minutes after posting last night's blog.  Before I give you a proper run-down, I just wanna let you all know that I already know what I'm posting tomorrow, and it is lusciously sleepy with a mix of genres - exciting stuff. Anyhow, back to tonight's track.

I don't know much about Zach Nahome, but both his songs on his SoundCloud are pretty awesome. Don't go to sleep starts off with some pretty funky synths and the crazy vocals start.  Firstly a high pitched then a low pitched version of some addictive na-na-na-na-na's. Not in the annoying N-Dubz style, but those that run over again and again. 1.09 the beat drops, and an injection of energy which can best be described as midnight funk. This song is wickedly addictive. You'll be repeating again and again.  At 2.05 when the na-na-na-na-na's combine with the beat, you'll be hard pressed to not move some part of your body. Nobody's watching. Go ahead. Move. And then hit repeat. Liberating.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Sleep

I need sleep. I need it pretty soon. But when I close my eyes, I can't sleep. When I open my eyes, I want to sleep. I want to sleep as I type this.

If you need cheering up, sprucing up, energy enthralled music, tonight, you need to leave this page alone. If however, like me, you want sleep, I have a treat for you.

Come closer, yeah, come closer to the screen, lower your volume to the midway mark, click on either of the two tracks below, then slowly sit back, lean against something soft. And drift. But not for too long, because you have to hear the other song too. Actually, fuck it, just sleep. Listen to the other one tomorrow.

Because I want to sleep, I won't go into detail intro-ing the two tracks. Basically, follow the act, share the love. And yeah, go to sleep.

SizzleBird - makes loads of music, regularly, stunning producer. The song, Stepping Stones, what it lacks in vocals it makes up and then some with the beautiful violin. Listen and Sleep.

n u a g e s - know nothing about this artist, except to say everything on the SoundCloud is exceptional. The song, Faded features the immense Bijou of Iceland. No idea what the vocals are about, but this song feels like it has so many little stories within it. Waffle. Too much. Sleep. Goodnight. Love. xx