Interview with Signe Tollefsen

I spoke to Signe Tollefsen earlier this year about her fantastic new record 'Hayes' and more. You can read it here at File Under New Music.

Interview Elbow

I had a small chat with Manchester greats Elbow last summer at Lowlands. Read it here at File Under New Music.

Interview Stairs To Nowhere

My article on Stairs To Nowhere is published at File Under New Music. Unfortunately, the band decided to call it quits two months after the interview took place.

Two new Incubate-interviews

I helped out 3VOOR12/Tilburg during their live report at Incubate. Between all the intoxicated piano playing and crazy shenanigans I somehow found the time to speak with two bands: Aura Noir and This Routine Is Hell.

Interview Erland & The Carnival

I spoke with Erland & The Carnival this year at the Lowlands festival. Read it here at File Under New Music.

Interview EMA

My File Under interview with EMA, about her brilliant album Past Life Martyred Saints, her former job as substitute teacher in Oakland among other things.

Interview dEUS

Interview with Mauro Pawlowski about the new dEUS record and more @ File Under.

Interview Kaiser Chiefs

Interview Kaiser Chiefs @ File Under.

Preview of Into The Great Wide Open 2011

My preview of Into The Great Wide Open 2011 for File Under.

Interview Peter Broderick

During his stay at the biofarm 't Schop (just outside of Tilburg) I spoke with American musician Peter Broderick. He participated in a special project called Glocal, which is fathered by Joost Heijthuijsen of Incubate. For ten days Broderick explored the rural environment and life on the farm, doing work and harvesting new creative ideas.

He spoke about these experiences and alot more. You can read it now at File Under New Music.

Interview Junior Eats Alone

Junior Eats Alone is an experimental rock outfit based in Leiden, which happens to be my birthplace. I spoke to them right after an instore gig. The article can be found here.

Interview with Crystal Fighters

I spoke to Crystal Fighters this year at the Walk The Line-festival in The Hague. You can read it here at File Under New Music.

BASS! How low can ya go!?

Allright. Thus far I have refrained myself from doing a serious blog entry. A part of me finds it a bit self indulgent to put these inner ramblings on display. I mean, how many shmucks are actually gonna read these mind numbingly interesting, yet blatantly opinionated rantings from a four eyed music geek like me? Anyways, as I digress further into a cesspool of verbal nonsense, I guess some of my findings deserve a place to be put on display. Even if it's for some dude googling for Futurama-quotes by typing the words 'mind numbingly interesting'.

If you're that dude, and happen to be a music geekoid like yours truly, perhaps you share my appreciation for good basslines in music. I myself play drums and piano, but when I listen to music, I tend to play some groovy-a$$ air-bassguitar along. Why you may ask...? I find this to be quite a headscratcher myself. When it comes to addicting music, an awesome bassline just seems to be a consistent factor.

A band like Primus, who I've had the pleasure of seeing a few weeks ago in Paradiso, is not the reference point I'm looking for. Les Claypools radical three piece rock outfit seems to attract virtuoso bass-enthusiasts -who listen to Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius for similair reasons- and casual 90's rock sentimentalists (such as myself) alike.

I'm talking about a band like Efterklang from Denmark. Their latest record 'Magic Chairs' is an amazing listen from start to finish. Bands with the philosophy of creating music that sounds better as a whole than the sum of it's parts tend to knock me on my behind...HARD! Every musician seems to chip in collectively into Efterklangs multi-layered soundscapes and subtle arrangements. It's prolly best on display during the 4AD-sessions they held at VEGA Copenhagen.

Woah! As I insert the video into this blog entry, IMMEDIATELY I get the image I want you to notice. You see Rasmus Stolberg bobbing his head while playing that quirky, bouncy bassline which simply reeks with awesomeness. It makes 'I Was Playing Drums' a really addicting track, and it sounds even better live than on the record.

Efterklang here is a really good example of a song in which the bass steals the limelight without it being all that sophisticated by itself ...yet it allows all the instrumentation around it to sound the way it's supposed to. Every drum break, every detail just makes sense because of it. The best analogy I can think of is that the bassplayer represents the head of a snake...it navigates and allows the rest of the song to move along fluently.

I shall exhibit few more examples of this phenomenon, off the top of my head. Macca's smooth bass playing in 'Dear Prudence' by The Beatles is another terrific, simplistic bassline that just makes you want to listen over and over.

Fleetwood Mac prolly have a shitload of songs I can think of...aha! 'The Chain' of course! Behold!

Got one more for ya! This one's more recent: Armistead Burwell Smith IV. He sounds like some evil charlatan from the British Commonwealth days, but in fact he plays bass for lo-fi indierockers Pinback. And he totally NAILS it on this track.

That's enough randomness from this musicologus geekus..for NOW. See ya!

Interview Lior

My interview with Australian singer-songwriter Lior for File Under.

Interview The Naked And Famous

Here my interview with The Naked And Famous' Dave Beadle and Aaron Short for File Under

Interview Low

Interview with Low's Alan Sparkhawk for File Under

Interview with Josh T. Pearson

My interview with Josh T. Pearson for File Under

Interview Aviv Geffen/Blackfield

Interview with Aviv Geffen for File Under

Interview Alela Diane

My interview with Alela Diane for File Under

Interview PAULUSMA

My interview with PAULUSMA for File Under

Finally!

I found a way to put this friggin' blogspace to good use! Behold! My square thought bubble will be the epicentre of all my articles for File Under New Music.

Welcome to my new blog!

Welcome citizens of earth and extraterrestials-anonymous...to my BLOG! For those who have lived under a rock (you know who you are) a blog isn't some horribly shapeless space abomination that feeds on your flesh and tissue and spits out your skeleton afterwards. A blog is where us human beings spend our time sharing random useless rants and raves across the world wide web.

The Square Thought Bubble is my epic virtual playground where the pointless and extreme ludicrous thoughts I come up with finally have a place to float around safely. Why...let's get started right NOW!